WARNING This page includes images that some viewers may find disturbing. All works were performed by highly trained professionals under strictly controlled conditions in accordance with AS2299. Mature Audiences are recommended.
O D Y S S E Y LIVE ART | PNUEMATIC ACTION | HYPERBARICS
Exposition
Walking with Water | Retrospective solo exhibition | The Western Australian Maritime Museum | Victoria Quay | 2005
"Walking with Water gave some legitimacy to both the philosophical and practical manifestation of the ‘sub’ human body and Aquabatics (noun) and (verb). Odyssey on the other hand, was a cathartic return to the drawing board!" Pell 2005.
The exhibition Walking with Water was examined by Assoc. Prof. Shannon Bell, Stelarc and Dr. Mark Minchinton as one part of a PhD submission to Edith Cowan University. Some 100 guests at the Opening night were also given a preview of a live experimental gesture by the artist who performed a medative piece whilst wearing a prototype pnuematic apparatus. The artist commenced the gesture in the Submarine slip way of Victoria Quay during a wild thunderstorm with crews relaying her journey to an audience inside the museum.
Conditions of the Performance:
The Odyssey design included a full functioning bio-shaped oxygen re-breather (ex-Interdepend) attached to an inverted helmet (ex-Hydrophilia). The lime carbonate scrubber was in the shape of a heart. The dual bellows were in the shape of human lungs. The one-way inhalation and exhalation ports were fashioned with ribbed silicone tubing to reference the trachea. These ports joined the neck dam of a soft, inflatable hyperbaric hood filled with saline solution and the artists head. The technological integrity and psycho-physiological function of closed-circuit respiration was to be tested live while making the parting gesture of walking from the water’s edge of the Indian Ocean and into the museum where the artist would remove the apparatus before an audience, and in connection with post performance documentation of three years work.
The image of the ‘sub’ human biotech fission of the re-breather/hood was monstrous. It was designed to place the body in-between as a life form of ubiquitous status. Once the prototype breathing apparatus had been designed and constructed, the critical edge of the performance act, action or activism, was cogent on publicly road testing the interface, and submerging the oral nasal cavities, to test the bodyresponse. By my own design, I failed. By my own design, I failed to lie, to trick and perform magic. By my own design, I failed to legitimise the monstrous, dangerous connections (Jones) insofar as a working, able, legitimate whole ‘body’ may have done. By my own design, I remained under observation, in a no-longer critical, but stable condition. By my own design, the closed-loop life support system was compromised...
Print Media: Marshall, J., (2005) The Art of Life Support, Real Time & On Screen Vol 68, Aug/ Sep 2005, pp. 48 Britton, S., (2005) uncollectable artist? New Work ‘Aquabatics’ Sarah Jane Pell, Artlink Australia, Vol 25 No 3, pp 58 -59.
Ed. (2005) Walking with Water, Intersector WA Public Sector Magazine, Vol 11, No. 6, 1 July 2005 pp 26.
English, A. (2005) Artnotes WA: Sarah Jane Pell, Art Monthly Australia, No. 180 June 2005 p 51.
This exhibition was supported by the Western Australian Maritime Museum, the School of Contemporary Arts, Edith Cowan University, and Broomstick Productions. Strategic support was offered by ARTRAGE, Artsource, ::ROOM40:: Taylor Marine, Perth Diving Academy and Commercial Pacific Divers.
Web Links: TBA
052-1 | Odyssey | 2005
Western Australian Maritime Museum | Victoria Quay | 2005
Performed & devised by Sarah Jane Pell | Live Video Matthew Jenkins
052-2 | Odyssey | 2005
Western Australian Maritime Museum | Victoria Quay | 2005
Performed & devised by Sarah Jane Pell | Standby Diver Key Grubb | Live Video Matthew Jenkins.
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