Negative Space is a four-part epic that takes form as a series of multi-channel video installations and related works, that explore the violence of boundary making practices and potential agency enacted through a subjugated position. Each video work is a non-linear allegorical narrative built around a physical system: VOID, BODY, LAND and WATER. Through a process of conjuring and deconstructing science fiction tropes, the videos manifest at the intersection of politics and fantasy. Negative Space raises questions about the allocation of resources, environmental fragility, marginalized bodies, and their relationship to place. Set in a speculative present, the premise of the Negative Space tetralogy is to envision a new materialist cosmology wherein hierarchical relations permute.
Within Negative Space there is a conceptual proposal, to perceive and act from an inverted position. As a formal term in art, ‘negative space’ denotes the matter between and around the subject(s). The subject is the focus of our attention, a definable or known entity. Negative space however is a compositional gap used to accentuate the primacy of the subject. What is compelling about negative space is that it is undefined and an open set of possibilities. The possibility of becoming is an ever shifting and vital position, and thereby is a form of agency that emerges from a ‘subordinate’ position.
All works in the Negative Space cycle feature soundtracks by artist Geo Wyeth.
NEGATIVE SPACE (a work in four parts)
No. 0: VOID
A Smeary Spot, 2015
No. 00: THE BODY
Living Room, 2017
No. 000: LAND
Leave No Trace, 2019
Also see Leave No Trace, an experimental sound project recorded on vinyl completed in 2016
No. 0000: WATER
What is Perverse is Liquid, 2023