Alex Gawronski

Joy Saunders "Where it All Began"from May 8, 1996
First Draft. 116-118 Chalmers St Surry Hills

Joy Saunders' work at First Draft delved into the exploratory world of abstract computer animation. The gallery's back room, contained and industrial, was colonized, transformed and rendered through the biomorphism of much of the imagery. Two screens angled slightly toward one another created a sense of confinement, almost trap-like, upon which fulgurating shapes emerged, metamorphosed, shrank, swelled and spread like filmic stains embracing both space and audience. What was most captivating about the work was precisely the manner in which the subtle organicism of the images practically dissolved the harsh literalness of First Draft's industrial interior.

Sydney based artist Joy Saunders was originally trained as an animator. Her experience in this field has transposed itself by way of the graphic quality of certain of her images and the speed at which many of their evident transformations take place. To say, though, that the work is of a purely abstract nature is to belittle numerous semi-perceived nuances and references to organic and in particular, cellular phenomena. It is through these references that the imagery appears to generate itself, in the manner of an actual biological event, unfolding in 'real time' before our very eyes. Blobs, whorls, nebulae and a mass of intertwined indeterminates create a subtle and ambiguous environment in which the body is constantly called into question. Sometimes this body emerges almost whole, traditionally re-presented, yet more often than not, what we are presented with is a microcosm of microscopic effects greatly enlarged, an internal exploration of those substances which fuel the external flame. Energy and Matter. Light and Darkness. Motion and Inertia. Movement and Death.

In fact the ambience generated by the work is very much one of tension and unease, of corruption, of a disease by which we cannot help but be captivated. Once again notions of the Internal and the External collide as the overall interiority of the work suggests alternative possibilities: Other sites, Other placements, structures ethereal or otherwise to be affected. Screens might become canopies, shelters, refactories; an architecture of light. Saunders has expressed an interest in constructing large tent-like cathedrals to somehow house the ephemera of her images. In these instances the permeability of the screen becomes a cellular membrane and a wall; a barrier. Visual phenomena are seen to be the product of the totality of the body's sensory apparati and not merely the result of the mechanics of the retina. Much of the imagery itself appears retinal. a thousand eyes that 'see' us in the light of illuminated inspection. We become subjects of the works' intentions, and a screen to be acted upon.

The apparent passivity of the work, its meditative quality, provided an ideal backdrop to the performance staged by Tess de Quincy on opening night. De Quincy's subtle writhings sought out correspondences with Saunders' visual material. The somewhat jerky movements of digital technology were enhanced by the performers' silent articulations. The origins of the technology, the 'magic lantern' of verisimillitude, the origins of film, were referenced via an extensive use of shadows: The body as the shadow of technology, as the trace of a once present, remembered body dismembered by light and movement.

Saunders' use of curved, highly polished mirrors to bend and further distort her images implicitly calls the viewer into question, caught momentarily, as if in a shop window, by a sliver of reflectivity. Suddenly captured, we are arrested and 'imagined' before that crucial moment of self consciousness, that split second in which we see ourselves seeing. From there we are channeled, forced again to consider the microscopic, the invisible, the hidden screen of our own corporeality. We are embodied but floating, as images pass over us like ghosts, caught between tactility and pure visuality.

Yet this visuality is interrupted; pervaded by eerie sounds courtesy of a three minute audio-loop designed by Deborah Petrovich. Petrovich teamed with Saunders as the latter had already half completed her own 'score'. This disjuncture in timing seems only to have fuelled the work. The collaboration is successful to the extent that both visual and sound components cannot be extricated from one another. Thus the unity and symbiosis of the work as a whole provide a sensory envelope in which one 'becomes' and a fluid context in which to lose onesself. Like Saunders' visuals the sounds dully throb and pound in a vaguely threatening manner. A myriad of accoustically derived clusters punctuate a backing track, on which can be discerned sounds reminiscent of muffled heart beats, a membrane upon which further microscopic events forever occur.

Saunders' use of technology at First Draft displayed a refreshing directness and quality of experimentation which extends the possibilities for such work in a variety of alternative directions. Either on its own or in conjunction with sound and performance Saunders' work embraces technology to provide an experience as stimulating as it is hypnotic. It is unique in that it references the materiality of the body and of the medium itself and their interdependences. Through doing so it renders technology palpable as means of emotionally refiguring space.