14:00 min
2 channel DVD loop
Stereo sound
Exhibited as part of the Next Wave Festival 2006 Empire Games, in the Container Village

Altered State: Big Green, Big Blue is a two-channel video that reveals a series of orchestrated performances that were filmed in private residences in Hobart. The video shows three people (all appear to be African), performing song and dance in different, private, domestic spaces. In each performance the subject waits with neutral expression – occasionally shifting position, then sings or dances directly in front of the camera. The performers act out their song and dance, surrounded by suburban, 1960’s Australian architecture or decorated interiors.

Altered State: Big Green, Big Blue reveals three separate but related situations of contemporary displacement. Each of the subjects in Altered State: Big Green, Big Blue has performed publicly in Hobart; for them such performances are usually used within the context of celebration or public ritual. For this video their actions are re-contextualised and introverted, each person sings or dances alone at home.

The video acts as an intimate ‘witness’ that subtly connects the lives of three people who now live in Hobart. Each person communicates very specific yet interrelated stories of displacement and migration through their performances; they areconnected in a way that uses individual experience to speak of a collective condition.