Beautiful Cities
INSTALLATION · 2012 · ARTSPACE CONTEMPORARY ART CENTRE, SYDNEY
A major video and multi-media installation that sets the record straight about the touristic vision: looking at the least attractive parts of five of the lost venerated “beautiful” cities.
This was a large installation at Artspace Contemporary Art Centre, Sydney, covering two galleries. For this work, I travelled to five of the most beautiful cities — Sydney, Bruges, Kyoto, Paris, San Francisco — but instead of recording their most picturesque spots, I concentrated on the least pretty and hospitable. This consisted of a five-channel video installation. The sound from these works, largely street roar, was then pressed onto vinyl. The vinyl records had a decorative inner plate that was a 1960s-style collage of the best known features of each city. These played continuously, the stylus wearing down as the show progressed. I commissioned a graffiti artist, Mystery, to do the two-wall graffito in the second gallery.
