Fluctuate

2017 -

Photographs, photobook, video, sound and collected objects.

The world is in an increasing state of hyper-anxiety caused by powerful and seemingly intangible political and natural forces. This has caused many levels of alienation. In response, it has become increasingly popular for people to attempt to migrate or vanish and, in some cases, fabricate new identities in order to negotiate extreme personal and political circumstances and forge new lives. This anxiety is often fueled by political, technological or economic concerns, that can be both real or imagined. As a result, this has increasingly led to large numbers of people attempting to live outside of this paradigm and instead choosing to live ‘off-the-grid’. This is a project about confused men - undoubtedly, myself included. Two approaches have been utilised:

>1. Rather than documenting vagabond or alternative lifestyles, this work employs sur/sousveillance methodologies to un-write the growing number of guidebooks and web content on the art of disappearing. The project employs tactics, used by both the vanished and the investigators, to establish a dossier on the mechanics of ‘social evaporation’ via photography, video, sound, collected artifacts, text and commissioned production in both Japan and Australia. The first iteration of the project focused on Hiroshi and myself in exhibition format (documentation below).

>2. The second approach exploits limitations through time and technology. I choose a lens device (plastic cameras readily purchasable at Office Works for example) and a time period (such as a pilgramige to Yasujiro Ozu’s grave) to spend with a particualr protagonist whom I am close to. The work embraces the chaos of that time and rather than forethink, plan or choreograph it is more about editing down from the visual deluge that is left behind.