Dissolution - Venice
Lawrence Wallen
Video-installation, Australia 1997
2 video projectors, numerous mirror strips, plexi-glass
I fell unconscious into a canal in venice, I awoke in a dark space without sound and rose to the surface.
Dissolution occupies a spatio-temporal zone at the intersection of two histories.
The unconscious body submerges into the waters of venice, the physical body dissolves into the physical environment only to awake and reaffirm differentiation. In this scheme the intersection lies at the point where the individual and Venice as urban space become undifferentiated, a point that I can only theorise.
Awakening suspended underwater, a process of regaining differentiation occurred and as I rose to the surface the intersection was, as such, passed.
Using that moment of regaining differentiation as an access point to reconstruct the public memories or fictions of an urban history in coalescence with a spatial autobiography, Dissolution gives physical form to the subjective memory of spatial experience and investigates how the past is remembered and fictionalised.
Since 1987, Australian born media artist and architect Lawrence Wallen has worked with multi channel media (video, film, animation, interactive) and new music in physical space (installation/performance) developing both academic and practical specialisation in the relationships between new music, media and architectural space. His work has been published and exhibited internationally.