EXPERIMENTS IN PROXIMITY

By Benjamen Judd

If you are in Sydney this month, head down to inner-city gallery, Breenspace, and catch the incredibly fascinating video installation Experiments in Proximity by Sydney artist, John Tonkin.

In Experiments in Proximity, John Tonkin presents two responsive video works that continue his ongoing research into perception and cognition; exploring ideas of interiority and presence. Experiments in Proximity, relates to the underlying interactivity that is controlling these works but also, perhaps more importantly, to the idea of proximity as a concept for thinking about how we perceive and exist in the world.

During the video, the viewer is located within a kind of first-person temporal play made up from different moments of lived experience. The sensor-driven interactive video systems respond to the viewer’s proximity to the screen, forming a dynamic coupling between the motion of the user’s body and the resulting real-time manipulation of video and sound.

Experiments in Proximity is on show now at Breenspace and will run until July 6.

Breenspace is located at Lvl 3, 17-19 Alberta Street.

For more information on the gallery and their other artists, head to their website.