It’s 1994. There’s a woman in a business suit on the case of this cassette. She’s speaking directly to you. She knows you’ve got potential.
Developed during a residency at Arteles Creative Center (Finland), Shadow Work is an in-progress audio piece about success inspired by 1990s self-help tapes.
It will be released later in 2023. You can listen to a short preview using the embedded player right here on this page. Yes, you can. I believe in you.
Read more about my time at Arteles here (pp 26-27): Arteles project catalogue
project director, 3D artist, Unity project developer
New Metro (2021) was a projection commissioned for the Gertrude Street Projection Festival 2021 and re-exhibited at Collingwood Yards for the West Space Closing Party 2021.
We never reach the end of New Metro’s escalator: it stretches on forever, and we’re left waiting for a future that will never arrive. The endlessly-generated descent incrementally and procedurally evolves over the course of the evening, referencing the visual vernacular of Melbourne’s City Loop and shifting through a palette of utopian modernist design tropes.
Riffing on unrealised subway projects from Melbourne’s past, New Metro reflects on unobtainable futures, alternative realities and disappointed plans. It imagines a future where failed space-age aspirations have manifested as a subterranean metro system, buried in the collective unconscious of the urban environment, connected to the surface but completely inaccessible. Stepping onto the escalators takes you nowhere--the ‘future that could have been’ is always just out of reach.
Parametric design support: Matthew Kneale
Image 1 by Eric Jong for West Space Closing Party 2021
Commissioned by the Gertrude Street Projection Festival 2021
project director, writer, composer, performer, animator, sound designer
Astrojet (2014) was an after-dark performance that commemorated Melbourne's forgotten Astrojet Space and Science Centre. Part bus tour, part audio guide, Astrojet took you on an eerily familiar expedition to a resurrected Space Centre and illuminated its ill-fated history. Paying homage to 70s sci-fi and defeated Space Age optimism, Astrojet memorialised failure and invited us to consider our own monumental disappointments. Part of Field Theory's Site is Set series and Blindside Gallery's Meet the Public Festival.
Technical production and projections: Ian Corcoran
Production management and dramaturgy: Molly Whelan, Anna Schoo, Lara Thoms and Field Theory
All photographs by Bryony Jackson.
Filmed by Lz Dunn.
This project was supported by Field Theory, Blindside, and by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
animator, writer, voiceover
Trappist-1 (2017) was a paired audio guide and projection that invited audiences to travel through space to the recently-identified Trappist-1 system. Launching from Radio Bar and featuring an original musical soundtrack by composer Geo William, Trappist-1 guided listeners along an imaginary 40-lightyear journey to a new home on earthlike planets, while imagery drawn from classic sci-fi animation playfully speculated about our future life in space. Part of the Gertrude Street Projection Festival.
You can listen to the audio guide on the GSPF website here.
Composition and sound production by Geo William (Stuart Cullen).
Projection tech management by Ian Corcoran and Lloyd Marsden.
Kindly facilitated by Radio Bar.
project director, writer, composer, performer, sound designer
Goodbye, CSIRAC (2012) was a retro sci-fi audio tour that led visitors into the guts of the Melbourne Museum to uncover the true story of CSIRAC, Australia's first computer. But watch out! The tour also summoned the mysterious Ghost of Computers Past... Original audio illuminated the extraordinary story of CSIRAC, and ghostly live performances interrupted and intermingled with the sound, reminding us that every computer has a memory. A love letter to 1960s computing and sci-fi, Goodbye, CSIRAC commemorated the things - and people - we forget when technologies become obsolete.
You can listen to an excerpt of the audio tour here.
Narrator performed by Ellen Steele
Dramaturgy by Willoh S. Weiland and Bernard Caleo
Lighting and stage management by Govin Ruben and Rubix Cube
Audio production by Robert Stewart
Costume production by Matthew Kneale
All images by Sonia Mangiapane.
This project was supported by Next Wave, Melbourne Museum, the City of Melbourne through the Arts Grants Program, and the APHIDS Mentoring and Residency Program. It was also assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
illustrator
Tremor (2017) is a single-page comic commissioned as an 'essay' to accompany Ashley Dyer's dance work Tremor (Arts House). It sits parallel to the dance work, expanding its themes and story-world without literally representing events from the performance. It was produced in both a landscape format for foyer display and a long, scrolling format for screen.
project director, writer, composer, sound designer, animator, installation designer
Future-Proof (2015) was a site-responsive audio-visual installation at the Melbourne Polytechnic, Prahran, commissioned as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival 2015 keynote project Uncommon Places II: Instructions from the Fringe. Featuring "affirmations", contemplative music and an early VHS aesthetic, Future-Proof drew on the language of the 1970s-1980s "human potential" movement in response to a large slogan on a nearby window.
This project was supported by the Melbourne Fringe Festival, CIty of Stonnington, and Melbourne Polytechnic.
project director, composer, animator
Space Ice Cream (2014) was a short video selected and beamed into space as part of APHIDS' Forever Now project, a twenty-first century response to the Voyager gold records. Through the lonely faux-glamour of late-night TV shopping, Space Ice Cream paid loving tribute to the disappointments and detritus that accompany technological advancement.
Space Ice Cream can be viewed on the Forever Now website here.
illustrator, co-writer
Tick Tock (2015) is a comic set in Melbourne, Australia, where Parliament train station hosts the only inter-temporal lounge destination officially sanctioned by the time-travel regulatory body.
Most time-travellers just stop by for a drink or two. The unlucky ones (like Misty, Max and Elric) get trapped and have to pour the beer.
Eddie Edmends and Zoe collaborated on the story, then Zoe drew the pictures. This is probably just the first in a series.
More info and images at ticktockbar.tumblr.com
project director, animator, audio producer, installation designer
Graven Images (2015) was an audio-visual installation created as part of Metanoia Theatre's live work 10Cs. Asked to respond to the biblical commandment "Thou shalt not create any graven images", the work cheekily drew connections to sci-fi pop-culture images of aliens, UFOs, and government cover-ups. With a 1990s CRT computer monitor trapped in an endless loop of failed and blocked "image enhancement" processes, audiences were invited to consider who controls image production and access in the information age.
This project was supported by Metanoia Theatre.
illustrator
Sarah’s Story (2017-18) was a series of 30 illustrations devised and executed in collaboration with Sarah Qumbri. For one of her projects while participating in the Sarah Myer Young Leaders Program, Sarah wanted to share her complex refugee story through illustrations.
The series was exhibited at the Immigration Museum in 2018 and collected for education programs.
Project leader: Sarah Qumbri
Mentor: Junior Melo
Facilitator: Tatiana Mauri
Miscellaneous drawings, comics and zines. Click any image to zoom.
project director, performer, designer
Photo Op Family (2012) was a Photo-Op remix performed over four hours at the Dark Horse Experiment, Melbourne. Dressed in their mother's cast-off clothes, Zoe and her real-life brothers Andrew and Alexander posed for a glamorous family portrait... over and over and over again. Gallery visitors became photographers, choosing and directing each of the siblings' poses, sometimes in great detail.
project director, music producer, performer, animator, installation designer
Eliza Donnithorne Doesn't Cry (2012) was a karaoke installation at Sydney's historic Camperdown Cemetery as part of Performance Space's Nighttime Twilight event. With the help of a microphone, some sappy video footage and a muzak version of The Cure's Love Song, visitors could serenade the grave of Eliza Emily Donnithorne. The artwork invited participants to consider the unfair urban myths surrounding Donnithorne, broader judgements surrounding women and emotion, and the Goths who have traditionally attended this grave.
This project was supported by Performance Space.
sound designer, performer, costume maker
HIGH VIS DANDY (2010) was a durational performance installation spanning five working days of the 2010 Next Wave Festival. Set up on the 'Paris' end of Collins Street, Melbourne, the installation resembled a construction site featuring a ute, heavy-duty traffic barriers, variable message sign, and rubbish skip. But upon closer inspection, the site was populated by 'haute-couture tradies', wearing exquisitely fashionable high-vis workwear and 'constructing' garments on an industrial sewing machine.
Inspired by the artists' own experiences in a culture where bullying and stigmatisation actively discourage men from learning sewing skills (or even taking an interest in fashion), HIGH VIS DANDY urged us to reconsider our assumptions about what it means to 'be a man'.
Matthew Kneale: Project director, performer
Daniel Koerner: Director, performer
Jess Daly: Costume designer, performer
Photo by Sara Savage.
This project was supported by Next Wave and the City of Melbourne through their Arts Grants Program.
composer, performer, animator
Handy Checklist for Being at Federation Square (2015) was a short video produced in collaboration with Pete Humble (NSW) during the Over the Rainbow residency at the Yarra Gallery, and screened on the big screen at Federation Square. Based on the strict rules and regulations that surround making art in public space, the video playfully provided members of the public with a series of strange instructions for "correct" use of the Federation Square site.
writer, performer, composer, sound designer
Hello, CSIRAC (2013) saw the return of the Ghost of Computers past to Melbourne Museum, this time during the museum's Smart Bar evening event. Despite the presence of an official from the EPA Bureau of Metahuman Investigation (Bernard Caleo), the Ghost disrupted proceedings throughout the evening, causing strange messages to play over PA systems, haunting guest lecturers, and reminding visitors once again that every computer has a memory...
This project was supported by Museum Victoria.
project director, performer, illustrator
Food for the Future (2010) was a small-scale participatory installation exploring our visions of the future that never became reality. Visiting ambassadors from the Future that Didn't Happen (Zoe Meagher and Matthew Kneale) created a base in Head Quarters, Westgarth (now Pollen Studio). Visitors were invited to help them chart their universe by answering the question "when you were a child, what technology did you think would exist by 2010?" In between taking bites of dehydrated space nutrition and entering data on their advanced equipment, the ambassadors added visitors' answers to a large-scale illustration of the Future that Didn't Happen.
project director, performer, set painter
Photo-Op (2010) was a playful interactive installation and performance taking place over two weeks in the streets and shopfronts of Erskineville as part of the 2010 Tiny Stadiums Festival. Melbourne-based artist Zoe Meagher posed for a glamorous photo, over and over and over again, with Erskineville as the backdrop (literally). The results built up over the fortnight, culminating in a live portrait session where you became the photographer.
Playing with ideas of self-consciousness, visual culture and capturing ephemera, Photo-Op invited us to consider the perpetual pursuit of the perfect self-image, and our constant attempts to flawlessly copy images and ideals we have seen somewhere else.
Photo by Matthew Kneale.
This project was supported by Quarterbred and PACT Centre for Emerging Artists.
