Steve Carr Echo Elli Walsh
Forging alliances between materiality, magic, performance and cinema is what Christchurch artist Steve Carr does best. Playing with the mechanisms behind moving images and photographs, Carr creates controlled experiments that push the possibilities of film beyond the confines of linear narratives. His story arcs are hinged on moments of transformation – from the ethereal yet chunderous explosion of an apple and the mesmeric bursting of paint-filled balloons to the subtle flinching of carnation petals as they imperceptibly change colour. Carr denies his audience instant gratification by using time-lapse techniques and high definition to capture the minutiae of metamorphosis. ‘I’m captivated by material transformation’ says the artist, ‘how that connects to art’s ability to play with tension and our perception of time.’ Slowing spectacles down to microscopic movements in line with the longue durée, he often expands the single moment into an elongated, deeply immersive space that is at once spellbinding and frustrating. The patient viewer is rewarded with perceptual pleasure as the highly-charged dénouement strikes – a watermelon explodes into carnal chunks under the pressure of hundreds of individually placed rubber bands, or a balloon finally bursts after a threatening needle has been ceaselessly taunting its rubbery flesh. There is a sense of indulgence as time is served in excess, a poignant paradox when contextualised in our slim and fleeting fast-paced lives. For a moment, we’re given permission to pause and wallow in the luxury of the timeless. Unlike previous works that build anticipation through duration before reaching a climax, Carr’s Echo (2018) presents a poetic suite of repeated tensions with no fixed conclusion. It comprises a single channel film of manipulated found footage taken from a technical manual for synchronised swimming, revealing what happens below the water’s surface. Presenting
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symmetrical configurations of an anonymised swimmer duplicated, flipped and mirrored, the work takes the notion of synchronicity to a new level. Carr comments, ‘This work continues my ongoing interest in surrealism and the magic of cinema. It investigates many areas that I have explored over the years, including abstracted portraiture and the presentation of individual skill, choreography and performance.’ In subterranean scenes devoid of gravity, spatiality and perspective, the subverted swimmer appears ethereal – her skin glowing with the reflective shimmer of the water. Wildly expressive arms engineer movements as if conducting an orchestra or burrowing into the atmosphere, destabilising our sense of reality. The mirrored pool surface is like a viscous portal between two worlds; the figure fluttering effortlessly between revelation and concealment. Accompanying these mesmeric visuals are sounds from the deepest part of the ocean, developed with scientist Dr Bob Dziak, who led the acoustic recordings on Challenger Deep Mission in the Mariana Trench. Scientists often describe the depth of the Mariana Trench by referencing Mt Everest being flipped. ‘I like this connection’, says Carr, ‘especially considering the interventions I’ve made to the image, and because the act of viewing synchronised swimming live can only be viewed from above the surface.’ Echo builds on a style of filmmaking related to working with sourced material, where the transformation is made to the original through the manipulation of the image or by distorting time. The variety of perceptual techniques to which Carr subjects these manufactured moments brings to the fore the artifice of moving images, resisting the kind of detached spectatorship induced by the deluge of visual output endemic to our era. The film represents the electric link between optics and subjective perception or, in Carr’s own words, ‘how simple interventions can make something disorientating, heavy and seductive. My hope is that the work will be physical, enchanting yet disarming.’ STATION 7 April to 5 May, 2018 Melbourne
Echo, 2018, HD mp4, duration 11min 53 sec, looped Courtesy the artist and STATION, Melbourne
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