Leisa Shelton
Mapping Australian Media Art
A participatory project that honours and archives the history of media art in Australia.
An Experimenta New Work Commission (2014)
2014–16
Performance, desk, chairs, archive cards, rubber stamps, stainless steel archive boxes, custom built plinth 90 x 236 x 38cm archive box installation
About
In Mapping Australian Media Art, Leisa Shelton has responded to a perceived lack of knowledge about the history of media art in Australia. In this participatory project, Shelton will sit at a table in the gallery inviting individuals to join her in a conversation about significant encounters they have had with media art in Australia – to name the artists that have made an impression on them and marked us as a culture.
Notes from each conversation will be documented on an individual archive card, stamped and signed, and placed in a handcrafted archive box. Individual cards will never be displayed and will only ever be accessed by the artist. This process will be repeated at each venue as Experimenta Recharge tours Australia during 2015–16, building a serendipitous history of media art across Australia.
While Mapping Australian Media Art honours the handmade and the individual, it shifts significance beyond the tangible material produced, marking conversations, collective remembering and the sharing of information as vital, conceptually rich outcomes.
Presented as part of: Experimenta Recharge: 6th International Biennial of Media Art, which toured Australia in 2014–2016.
The Artist
Leisa Shelton
Leisa Shelton is a performance artist, maker and curator whose practice foregrounds collaboration and advocacy for new Australian transdisciplinary work.