Xenoangel. Juried Artist
As Above, So Below
QUT Art Museum
Artist Statement
Soft Waters is a story of water and time.
A water goddess bathes at her temple on a lake in the mouth of an ancient volcano. 30,000 years ago, as the volcano went dormant, she came down with the rainwater. She exists here forever between droplets of time.
As the volcano contemplates extinction, a majestic shipwreck fondly recollects past conversations with cormorants, childish non-human animals ask questions about their ancestry, and an ancient forest speaks across eras about the benefits of a slow existence. Led by a precocious priestess, a mesmerised group of humans form a cult and dance in the honour of the goddess. Several millennia later, their descendants are still dancing, intoxicated, in the afterparty of an eco-rave, unknowingly competing to become the next priestess of the lake.
The water goddess watches patiently over all of them. Up high, on the tallest crest of the volcano, satellites search distant planets for alien gods and bodies of water.
Soft Waters is an experimental video game presented as a triptych with each screen synchronised to a different moment in time. Using a game controller, the viewer plays the role of the shapeshifting water goddess to explore the mythology of the lake.
The piece is influenced by the Hydrofeminism of Astrida Neimanis which reminds us that we are all bodies of water on a watery planet. She writes, “As watery, we experience ourselves less as isolated entities and more as oceanic eddies: I am a singular dynamic whirl dissolving in a complex, fluid circulation.” Soft Waters is an exploration of non-linear time and place through the circulation of watery bodies. Here, water is a time machine that connects all moments in one fluid continuum.
About the artists
Marija Avramovic and Sam Twidale have been working together as the artist duo Xenoangel since 2017.
Marija has a masters degree in painting from Belgrade (Serbia, 2013), and a second masters in fine art from Beaux-Arts de Paris (France, 2017). Sam has a music degree from the University of Liverpool (UK, 2010), a degree in art and technology from Paris 8 university (France, 2018) and is a self-taught programmer.
Our practice is based in world-building and our work crosses disciplines and mediums ranging from painting and physical installation to writing, music and real-time animation/simulations using video-game engines. Our projects usually include multiple elements of these differing mediums coming together in an installation or exhibition.
Our works have been presented at the Belgrade Biennale and in venues such as the Barbican Center (London), CCCB (Barcelona), the World Museum (Liverpool), Centro Cultural FIESP (São Paulo), Museum Ulm (Ulm), U10 Art Space (Belgrade), FACT (Liverpool), Grande Halle de la Villette and Palais des Beaux Arts (Paris).
We live and work in Paris, France.
Andrew PM Hunt is a composer and performer based in Liverpool, UK. Working mostly under the name Dialect, his work is influenced by ideas around circular time, spirituality and ecology and embraces a collage-like approach to sound, assembling rich electro-acoustic textures alongside evocative environmental ephemera, resulting in compositions that are both fragmented and deeply personal. His most recent album Under~Between was released in 2021 by RVNG Intl.
Credits: Written and produced by Xenoangel. Sound by Andrew PM Hunt. Production baby: Ada River.