Media Studies continues Western Australian artist Bennett Miller’s ongoing thematic interests in human behaviour and in particular the many complicated relationships that exist between humans and the natural world.
This exhibition is a series of new video works and small sculptures, many of which remix or repurpose an existing aspect of popular culture. One example is an edit of the reality television show Survivor that is chopped down to feature only the moments in which an animal appears on the screen. Similarly, in a series of small kinetic sculptures we see existing media machines rewired to perform repetitive, often redundant tasks. In varying ways and contexts the video and sculptural works are linked thematically by a parody of the ways humans have altered and reinterpreted the environment that surrounds them.
Local audiences may be familiar with Miller’s work through his five-year presentation of a fake Amish community, Barnraiser which was presented by Lismore Regional Gallery at Splendour in the Grass.
View an 8 minute clip from the exhibition online https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GWo0G_yOJ-I
