my contribution
I developed the original imagery for Inter-State - the visual system that anchors the installation's immersive environment. My work translated the work's conceptual concerns - the periodic table as a map of matter, elemental interconnection, states of transformation - into a visual language specific to this piece. That imagery travelled with the work across four international presentations on three continents.
about the work
Inter-State is an interactive installation that draws on the periodic table as both subject and visual system - a mapping of matter, energy, and elemental states that resonates with the ecological and political concerns the work brings together. Participants engage with the installation through touch and movement, activating visual and sonic elements drawn from my elemental imagery.
The work uses the periodic table not as scientific diagram but as poetic structure - a grid of fundamental relationships, transformations, and states of being that speaks simultaneously to chemistry, ecology, and politics. My imagery for the work operates at this intersection: elemental, systematic, alive.
From its premiere at UTS Gallery Sydney, Inter-State toured to The Mesh festival in South Africa, ISEA 2018 in Durban, and Spectra Festival in Adelaide.
credits
visual artist
Stuart Lawson
artistic direction
Keith Armstrong (Transmute Collective / Embodied Media)
developed at
Queensland University of Technology
exhibition history
2018
Spectra Festival, Adelaide
South Australian premiere
2018
ISEA 2018, Durban, South Africa
International Symposium on Electronic Art
2017
The Mesh, South Africa
Vrystaat Kunstefees / Free State Arts Festival
2016
UTS Gallery, University of Technology Sydney
World premiere · Over Many Horizons exhibition
related documents
Over Many Horizons - UTS Gallery
Catalogue for the world premiere of Inter-State at UTS Gallery Sydney as part of the group exhibition Over Many Horizons.
The Mesh festival catalogue
Catalogue for Inter-State's international tour to The Mesh festival, South Africa.
Spectra 2018 exhibition catalogue
Catalogue for the Spectra Festival Adelaide 2018, featuring Inter-State.