Art is the cry of distress uttered by those who experience at first hand the fate of mankind. Holtzman / Schoenberg: Digital Mantras,1994

There Goes the Neighborhood, 2000.

Arcade buttons, taxidermy model, modifed computer keyboard, computer, monitor, custom built software, video and sound.

Exhibited in the show; hybrid<life>forms: Australian New Media Art, Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam 2001.

There goes the neighborhood mixes computer games and urban spaces with a dead kangaroo. Sydney/Australia continuously attempts to erase its past through promise of the future. Whether its clearing land for cows or housing estates, or the demolition of historic buildings for more and more apartment blocks, roads, uranium etc, ecology and ancient history simply do not matter if short-term profit or global economy are involved.

This work was specifically indudced by the pre-Olympic warzone period in which major gentrification took place. Men and machines, odorous grit, fake fronts, faceless expressions, the perversity of pleasure and the commodification of leisure. ‘Contemporary culture is apocalypse culture, media bombardment (brainwashing), depletion of natural resources, polllution, over-population etc.

The work is an attempt to gain power over these life draining forces, a defence against the “too-muchness” of the world, a tool in the important undertaking of making (non) sense of the world. Its encoded messages flicker ceaselessly along communication channels. Among monstrous machines or designated nature zones.

Messages are scanned within built surveillance mechanisms revealing hidden agendas, that Aussie feeling of criminality. An attempt to reclaim public space, a sense of the carnival, a connection to the wondrous land and its strange animals. To restore a sense of equilibrium to a society sickened by the vertiginous whirl of TV culture.’