CURRENTS
Katie Paine and Samuel Murnane
tcb Art Inc
17th August - 15th September
Currents is a collaborative video installation by Katie Paine and Samuel Murnane. The project considers the poetic potential of the politics, technologies and history of submarine fibre optic internet cables. Currents imagines our global network of submarine communications cables as the metaphorical body of a gargantuan kraken, whose monstrous tentacles span the earth. This work stems from a piece of fiction written by Paine for Art + Australia’s Issue, The Mirror, written to accompany Stanton Cornish-Ward’s video I know a Person When I talk to It. The project was also developed from Murnane’s topographic research; specifically, Lidar scans of the Blairgowrie peninsular on Boon Wurrung/Bunurong country. Currents is informed by Paine’s narrative video practice and research into the serpentine trajectories of ideas and information across time, and by Murnane’s practice as an artist and architect, investigating the intersection of temporal and spatial elements within urban and scientific infrastructure.
This exhibition is part of an ongoing research project into fibre optic internet cables that Paine is undertaking across 2023-2026 alongside fellow artists such as Samuel Murnane and Oliver Hull.
All install images courtesy: Aaron Rees