The Constriction series is a work in four manifestations
Constriction Part 1 (1982), 3/4” U-matic, colour, 14 mins.
Videotape performance
Funded by the Bay Area Video Coalition
Collection: The Art Gallery of New South Wales; The Art Gallery of Queensland; Video Scan Gallery, Tokyo.
Screenings:
80 Langton Street, San Francisco, USA, 12 February, 1982.
The Sydney Biennale, Sydney, Australia. 7 April – 23 May, 1982.
A.U.S.T.R.A.L.I.A. at ZONA, Australian Artists In Florence, Italy.1 4, 6 July.
Continuum 83, Australian Artists in Japan, Tokyo, Japan, 22 August – 3 September, 1983 : Video Scan Gallery, Tokyo, Japan.
D'un autre continent: l'Australie le rêve et le réel, ARC/Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. 4 October – 4 December, 1983.
ANZART, Australian – New Zealand Exchange, Hobart, Australia. – Videos from Artspace to Anzart, May 1983.
Constriction Part 2 (1982)
Installation with video display.
“This installation consisted of 2 pre-recorded color video tapes with different sound tracks; a live video camera mounted on the ceiling, three monitors buried under nine tons of sand, 12 white mice in a perspex box and three Revolving Desert Simulators.
While one tape depicted the feeding of six white mice to a large boa-constrictor in a specially designed environment, another monitor displayed the threat of nuclear technology on this kind of ecology. Meanwhile a live video camera fed the spectator images of his/her own reaction to the whole installation through a maze of crawling mice.”2
Photos: Janet Delany
Funded by the International Cultureel Centrum, Antwerp, Belgium.
Produced while Artist in Residence, International Cultureel Centrum, Antwerp, Belgium. 18-30 June
Constriction Part 3 (1982)
Sound component using Revolving Desert Simulators only.
“It is composed of a set of rotating discs with nails, magnets, sand, microphones and motors and scored to various percussive rhythms. At P.S.1 the R.D.S. was amplified on one stereo track while the other carried the sounds of 200 crickets trapped in a perspex box.”3
Presented at: Sound Corridor, P.S.1., Queens, New York, USA. Group show of sound art.30 April – 30 May
Constriction Part 4 (1982)
Performance installation with video surveillance and Revolving Desert Simulator.
Photos: Bonita Ely
Funded by the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council
Act III Australian Performance Festival, Canberra, Australia [and Italy]. 8 – 9 October
Sponsorship: JVC Australia – Canberra Security Division.
References:
1Commentary: Judith Blackall, “Exhibition Critiques, Italy, A.U.S.T.R.A.L.I.A. at ZONA”, Art Network, Spring, 1983, 44.
2Jill Scott, description of Constriction Part 2, installation at ICC, Antwerp, in Jill Scott, Constriction: An investigation in 4 parts. Apparently self-published document.
3Ibid.
