The 2008 Anne & Gordon Samstag
International Visual Arts Scholarships
Artist: TRACY CORNISH
dissolve 2005
still from digital video loop
View the video
© the artist
emission glitches 2006
still from digital video loop
View the video
© the artist
Intertwingularity 2006
installation at Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide
View the video
© the artist
The internet, the ultimate self-organising system, is both subject and transmitter for Tracy Cornish who began exploring the connections between art and science when the limited nature of available theory on process-driven photography became obvious during research toward her PhD. Quantum physics, specifically in areas of complex systems and network theory, and the non-linear connections between many systems, became her tool in uncovering the data codes and patterns which are now the platform for her art.
She sees the evolution of photography as an allegory for the evolution of information culture. In [photo:fugue], DVD sequences transmit photographs as pure information, rather than as objects, with a soundtrack also created by digital translation of image scans into frequency. Cornish suggests her work process is half planned and half self organising, a feature of any complex system where the process may dictate the outcome.
Emission glitches is a moving field on a grid of colour, with blurry sections which randomly form, coalesce, resolve, and then dissolve once again into part of the grid. It is a physical representation of computer glitches, giving “form and function to programming errors – presenting them as artefacts”1. It is also meditative, colourful, arresting.
Pixellated information is also the subject of dissolve, which was
made via the transfer of static photographs into coloured fields. While the
imagery is information-based it reads, as do many abstracted images, like
landscape of sorts. Its circular image dissolves and resolves into areas of
light and dark expressed through colour change.
Fittingly, and in accordance with her belief in self-organising systems, Cornish
has presented her PhD on a wikiwebsite, allowing users access to comment, edit,
and interact with her ideas, but also giving the audience tools and methodology
to critique her new way of working with photography. While her work is displayed
in conventional galleries, Cornish also credits her You Tube and flickr sites as
a major source of exhibiting opportunities and feedback.
1Tracy Cornish, Samstag Application, 2007
Louise Martin-Chew
from her Samstag essay;
Alternative Realities
| Born 1973, Adelaide, South Australia |
||
| 2006 | Doctor of Philosophy, University of South Australia, Adelaide | |
| 2001 | Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours), University of South Australia, Adelaide | |
| 1999 | Advanced Diploma Applied & Visual Art, North Adelaide School of Art, Adelaide | |
| Awards | 2008 | Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship |
| 2007 | Australia Council, new work grant ABN AMRO Emerging Artist Award, finalist Arts SA, project development grant Janet Holmes a Court, artist grant |
|
| 2006 | Arts SA, project development grant Helpmann Academy, project grant |
|
| 2005 | World Year of Physics Art Prize, finalist | |
| 2003 | Helpmann Academy, project grant | |
| 2002 | Australian Postgraduate Award University of South Australia Alumni Award Hill-Smith/Malaysia Airlines Travel Award |
|
| 2000 | University of South Australia Chancellor’s Award for Academic Achievement | |
| 1999 | University of South Australia Chancellor’s Award for Academic
Achievement North Adelaide School of Art Most Outstanding Visual Art Graduate |
|
| Individual Exhibitions | 2007 | develop, thirtyseven degrees, Sydney |
| 2006 | Intertwingularity, Experimental
Art Foundation, Adelaide [photo:fugue], SASA Gallery, University of South Australia, Adelaide |
|
| Selected Group Exhibitions | 2007 | Moving Translations, SALA Moving Image Project, Light Square Gallery, Adelaide Centre for the Arts, Adelaide |
| 2006 | Festival Attitude, Magaza Cultural Centre, Bitola, Macedonia | |
| 2005 | Festival Attitude, Magaza Cultural Centre, Bitola, Macedonia Photonova, Nexus, Adelaide Concord, SASA Gallery, University of South Australia, Adelaide |
|
| 2004 | Skylounge, National Museum of Australia, Canberra | |
| 2003 | Lume, Adelaide Central Gallery, Adelaide Peepshow, Brown Sugar Gallery @ Sugar , Adelaide |
|
| 2002 | Memento Flori, Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney Flux, Contemporary Art Centre of SA, Adelaide Money Shot, Adelaide Fringe Festival, Hindley St, Adelaide |
|
| 2001 | Camera Obscured, Adelaide Central Gallery, Adelaide |