Portal_
Online
- Friday 07 July - Sunday 16 July
Event Description
Portal_ is a series of digital public artworks hosted on the popular mapping service, Google Maps. Four new works in this series have been created for Unchartered Territory, building on the existing six portals live on Google Maps for the digital wanderer to find.
Images taken by the artist have been carefully collaged to present an immersive, asynchronous depiction of place. The work is influenced by anthropologist William Stanner who used the word Everywhen to describe the networked and non-linear concept of time within some First Nations communities.
Everywhen as a framework reminds us to recognise pluralities within any landscape, specifically approaching a place without a narrow, linear mindset. Noticing small, incremental changes is difficult. But when amassed together, these portals show us how rapidly change can occur in the everyday places we know and love.
It is no secret that public space has been historically poorly planned. So what lessons can we learn from our built environment when creating our bustling digital cities? Google as a mapping software is built on colonialist Western concepts of cartography and land ownership. Furthermore, individual mapping algorithms for recommendations are built upon unreliable and biased datasets.
Displaying these works on Google maps street view increases accessibility and ease of viewing the 3D digital work, as well as presenting a coherent analogy of digital public art, and yet, comes at the cost of supporting the colonialist system.
“I acknowledge that these works are created on, and are images of Ngunnawal, Ngunnawal and Ngambri country. I pay my respects to elders past present and emerging, and thank them for their ongoing contribution of knowledge and care to this place.”
Artist Bio:
Kate Matthews holds a Bachelor of Visual Art, and a Bachelor of Arts from the Australian National University. Her photographic works stem from pluralities within public space and her practice frequently involves a collaborative model of engagement with public audiences and spaces. Recently her work has transformed from an analogue photographic practice to a digital space working with Virtual Reality and Google Maps based artworks exploring connections between place and time.
Portal_ is a Digital Artwork displayed online.
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