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Australia Council Government funding will allow a Queensland University of Technology (QUT) researcher to create seasonal media artwork exploring animal migration patterns and the "extinction of human experience" called Night Rage/Night Fall.

Senior Research Fellow Dr Keith Armstrong has just received a highly competitive $30,000 grant from Australia Council for the Arts' Inter-Arts Office Arts in October to launch the new media project.

These series of works are concerned with the nocturnal, with threats to night biodiversity and the myths and stories that have shaped our understandings of the night.

The project will particularly focus on the mammalian order Chiroptera (Bats), typically one of the most misunderstood, ecologically vital species, said director Keith Armstrong.

This grant builds on a previously funded project called the Bat Human Project (2011-12) and the Remnant Emergency Artlab (2010-12).

"The premise we start with is that much of the biological world is now under enormous pressure from the weight of humanities activities and demands," Dr Armstrong said.

"Innumerable animal, mineral and flora are threatened from the force of our current ecological draw - like electrical power supplies, with too many users the draw can be overwhelming and at that point we are plunged into darkness," he said.

"Left unchecked this increasing pressure and the extinction spasm it is causing will ultimately transport us into what scientist EO Wilson calls an era of biological impoverishment - 'Eremozoic era' or more poignantly 'the Age of Loneliness'."

The senior research fellow has devised the project with sound artist Lawrence English, a recent QUT PhD applicant. The project will be in partnership with the 2013 International Symposium on Electronic Art in Sydney, the Queensland Museum, KickArts Cairns and a range of non-government advocacy organisations.

"By recognising this potential future dilemma, our broadest aim is to generate communities of concern through propelling new understandings of living systems beyond immediate view, as a tactic for transforming public imaginaries," Dr Armstrong said.

Dr Armstrong also recently received $64,000 funding this year for Long Time No See?, a project with QUTs Director of Interaction and Visual Design Gavin Sade that will generate both a hybrid online and installation artwork whereby the public generates a vision for Australia's long-term future. One key outcome will be at QUTs new digital presentation facility, The Cube.

Keith was also recently a recipient of the prestigious 2012 ANAT Synapse Art-Science Residency Program which entails him spending 16 weeks "embedded" within Australia's largest private conservation organisation, the Australian Wildlife Conservancy.

He has just returned from working with their scientific ecology team at their 1.6million acre property Kalamurina in the Simpson Desert. By working with the team intensively and building trust he was then able to undertake cultural surveys with the scientists to test their thinking on the cultural implications of their cutting edge research and practices.

"It was a chance to think laterally about the biodiversity crisis and ways in which we might all think of engaging public perception and culture," he said.

His ongoing research focuses on how scientific and philosophical ecologies can both influence and direct the design and conception of networked, interactive media artworks.

The actively practising freelance new media artist will show his major interactive work Finitude and share his experiences in November during a keynote address at Beijing's third Art and Science International Exhibition and Symposium.

Organisation

QUT Creative Industries

Info

Keith Armstrong

Email

k.armstrong@qut.edu.au

URL

QUT Creative Industries