compression cradle
Lucy McRae is a visionary artist from Australia that has periodically had films in ASVOFF. Compression Cradle is a futuristic approach to preparing the self for a future that assumes a lack of human touch and the machine affectionately squeezes the body with a sequence of aerated volumes that hold you tight. As McRae envisions it the mechanical touch may be an antidote for today’s ‘forever connectedness’, a behaviour that’s triggered a lonely disconnection with ourselves.

Antidote

Dans l’Odyssée, Pénélope tisse parce qu’elle sait que l’accès au mythos (discours des hommes), lui est d’emblée fermé. Sa toile constitue alors un langage essentiellement féminin, qui sonde le rapport au temps et surtout à la mémoire, sans cesse menacée. Mais quelle toile pourrait «tisser» une Pénélope contemporaine à l’ère numérique? Quel désir, quelle obsession, quelle histoire pourrait-elle raconter ? C’est bien à elle que ce premier film brodé est dédié, ainsi qu’au fantasme d’Ulysse : Une femme espère le retour d’un homme qu’elle n’a pas revu depuis de longues années. Elle cherche son visage parmi d’autres, l’imagine, essaye de le reconstituer à travers la trame de sa toile et celle de sa mémoire.

女权艺术家 摄影作品
the antidote

Brigitte Niedermair is an artist who expresses herself through photography. At the same time, she is a photographer who ventures deep into the disciplinary challenges of art. This cross-fertilisation between two worlds, an osmosis that she performs with great determination, has become the characteristic feature of all her work. The poetic content of her art has always found ideal form through her great mastery of the medium of photography. But never more so has the compositional balance and iconic component of her work been executed in such a lean and essential manner. They almost dissolve before the eye of the viewer, allowing the work to appear in its most subtle and immaterial dimension. Extending far beyond the subjects they portray, the photographs we see directly communicate Niedermair’s thoughts, feelings and personal inner journey. The concepts emerge with great power and immediacy, making space for themselves within the substance of photography. The abstraction creates figures which are authentic portraits.