RIMA

A work by SQUIDSILO

As you tap your message from the other side, I think this is the closest we will ever be, between us a wall a trillion skins thick.*

RIMA is a work that attempts to draw attention to the fine line between security and fragility in relation to personal freedom and a current political climate.  The 23-hour durational performance occupies an installation space where visitors are invited to witness what it might mean to exist in a world shrunk to 2 x 3 metres. Within this diminished and sensorily reduced world, Vulcan inhabits the bare space generating strategies to fill in time. Her movements are augmented by sound samples live mixed by Ashley Scott and a continual roll of projected text. The short ongoing text missives give voice to Vulcan’s silence and are triggered by sensors within the space. The words, authored by Vulcan, blur a current situation unfolding with a parallel narrative set somewhere in the future. The text is informed partly by the reality of political prisoners and those detained in solitary confinement. The text is relayed to twitter and the performance is live-streamed adding to the dimension of surveillance.

* RIMA © Julie Vulcan

Performer, text and installation design: Julie Vulcan

Sound design, composer, computer programmer, digital media: Ashley Scott

“RIMA, with gentle and eerie grace, emerges from an inquiry from several years of dedicated practice, research and experimentation. Its fruits are rich in complexity, intellect and insight and the minds and bodies of Vulcan and Scott, having relentlessly pursued this dark and uncertain space of the human psyche, hold up a rare mirror into a realm of our suffering and a humanity that we have somehow passively accepted.

This work will leave you unsettled in the best way possible.”

Nithya Iyer – A consciousness confined  TAGG Aug 3 2016

“RIMA is asking its viewers to hone their gaze, focus their attention. It is, as Vulcan writes “a cry for vigilance” … in an age where constant updates and data streams can lead to overwhelming apathy.”

Elyssia Bugg – Imagination and incarceration Realtime #134

A 16-page A5 artist booklet expanding the research and ideas in RIMA accompanied the 2016 presentation at Arts House. Includes essays, images and contributions from the artists, Dr Theron Schmidt, Professor Anna Gibbs and Charandev Singh.

You can download the pdf e-booklet version HERE

2016 Arts House, Melbourne

2015 The Lock-Up, Newcastle Australia; The End(s) of Electronic Literature, Lydgalleriet Bergen, Norway & UNSW Art & Design, Sydney Australia