Philip Samartzis.
Strange Weather
University of the Sunshine Coast Art Gallery
Artist Statement
‘The Magnetic Quiet Zone’ is an immersive, 35-minute audio-visual installation exploring the frozen sounds and stagnant silences, the strange atmospherics and dynamic forces operating at the margins of our planet.
Drawing on the Antarctic research of sound artist Philip Samartzis, visual artist Martin Walch, and writer/composer Sean Williams, ‘The Magnetic Quiet Zone’ uses field recordings, digital imaging and animation, and ambient music to render complex behaviours, vast spaces, material encounters and wild weather that express the uncanniness of the ice continent. The animated video comprising images captured at 150-second intervals over the 2017/18 austral summer provides a record of light and
shadow, mutable weather, and the rhythm of human activity that distorts the fabric of space and time, culminating in the sensation of an everlasting day.
The ways people live and work in remote places such as Antarctica progressively resemble the broader contemporary experience, in which strict protocols and hyper-vigilance mitigate risk. The unpredictable nature of life in extremis that necessitates constant adaptation is in many ways how we live on the rest of the planet where our assumptions are regularly tested. The resilient communities who occupy these distant and fragile places provide models of resistance that can help deepen understanding of the impact of environmental dissonance. Artists and writers play an increasingly vital role in observing and recording the tension between climate, landscape, technology, and human action, to demonstrate the interconnectedness of things.
About the artists
Philip Samartzis is a sound artist, scholar, and researcher with a specific interest in the social and environmental conditions informing remote wilderness regions and their communities. His art practice is based on deep fieldwork where he deploys complex sound recording technology to capture natural, anthropogenic, and geophysical forces. He is particularly interested in concepts of perception, immersion, and embodiment to provide audiences with sophisticated encounters of space and place.
Sean Williams is a #1 New York Times-bestselling, multi-award-winning author and composer. The multi-artform dance work Bárbaros, which he co-conceived and for which he provided narrative design and original music, debuted as part of the Adelaide Festival Centre’s 50th anniversary program and will tour internationally this year. He is Discipline Lead of Creative Writing at Flinders University on Kaurna Country, South Australia.
Martin Walch is a Tasmanian artist who lives and works in Hobart. He works across a range of media including photography, video, sound, computer programming and data visualisation. Walch has been exhibited in national and international venues including Photographica Australis Asia Tour; Naarden Photo Festival Nederlands; ARCO Madrid; the 2002 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art; the Embassy of Australia, Washington DC, USA; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei.
Credits: Philip Samartzis, Sean Williams and Martin Walch
URL: https://www.rmit.edu.au/contact/staff-contacts/academic-staff/s/samartzis-philip