Ben Cauchi, Heath Franco, Clare Milledge, Jamie North, Hayley Forward and Jessica Olivieri with Parachutes for Ladies, Sean Rafferty, Rachel Scott, Garry Trinh. Stills Gallery 29 June to 30 July 2011
Bad Angle describes the lines of vision of people sitting at certain positions in the audience, which enable a magician’s secret to be exposed. Magician’s Dictionary
These artists have been chosen as their work relates to the idea of photography as a moment for the suspension of belief. Some of the works explore ideas borne alongside the alchemical beginnings of photography – the seemingly miraculous ability of the camera to capture reality, and create theatre, using time and light. Photo media is a science. A mechanical process that tries to represent the world as we see it. However, it is the failure of the method, which has secured its place in history and in our hearts: the variables of process and of time introduce mistakes, aberrations, tricks and allusions to worlds or forces beyond the frame.
Many of the artists utilise the camera as a device to reflect and document elements of performance, of the artist, or scenarios constructed by them. We are regularly reminded of our position as spectators, and we are implicated by seeing what they show us. These unruly scenes destabilise a sense of fact and reality, they are playful and dark, funny and strange. The videos and photographs in this exhibition are about the process of looking, of capturing, of believing, of transforming. They borrow from historic processes, from pagan rituals, from the suburban uncanny, from cinematic conventions – each drawing our lines of sight back to the magic of the medium.
clare lewis 