Mnemonic Notations: A Decade of Art Practice within a Digital Environment

Leonardo

Mnemonic Notations: A Decade of Art Practice within a Digital EnvironmentAuthor(s): Phillip GeorgeSource: Leonardo, Vol. 35, No. 2 (2002), pp. 121-127Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1577189 .

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ARTIST'S ARTICLE

Mnemonic Notations: A Decade

of Art Practice within a Digital

Environment

Phillip George

Mnemonic. 1. aiding or meant to aid one's memory. 2. of or relating to memory or mnemonics. 3. something, such as a verse, to assist memory.< Gk mnemonikos, < mnemon mindful, < mnasthal to remember

Mnemonics. 1. the art or practice of improving or of aiding the memory. 2. a system of rules to aid the memory.

Notation. 1. a representation of something by a system of marks, signs, symbols, figures, characters, or abbreviated expressions [1].

The year 1990 marked my entry into the world of digital media in my art practice; that same year also marked a revision of my artistic routine. Studio space became less of an imperative when I was using a computer to construct imagery, and consequently post-studio practice became a possibility. The computer hard drive became my site for storing diverse and disparate icono-

graphic elements that melded into a "final" or "complete" image. The imaging interface became the toolset I used to combine stored imagery. Digital media was a methodology by which I could finally produce work that I could visualize but found dif- ficult to manufacture. It became easier to express complex issues and develop continuity within my thought processes.

Prior to utilizing digital media methodology, I had employed cross-media activities that extended and developed areas within color-photocopier technology, photography and painting. My move into digital media not only consolidated an in- novative production process but also was to have a major theoretical effect upon the imagery in my work.

Essentially, I have used the Mnemonic Notations series to digitally, diaristically inscribe current ideas, thoughts and notions as they come to mind. With this work I have attempted to place an idea in varying configurations within time and space-this space being integral to the work itself. At the commencement of Mnemonic Notations, I questioned the idea of the "final" or

"complete" image (can an image ever really be complete?). The fluid manner in which digital media operates meant infi- nite possibilities and potential within the evolution of imagery. The Mnemonic Notations body of work attests to the possibility of using digital media's ability to endlessly create hybrid visual mutations existing as digital paintings/prints, as an interactive CD-ROM and as a live interactive musical performance.

The introduction of the computer imaging system (CIS) [2] into my practice meant that my canvas (a visual space) was al-

Phillip George (artist, educator), College of Fine Art, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, P.O. Box 259, Paddington 2021 NSW, Australia. E-mail: <p.george@ unsw.edu.au>.

ways "wet"; I saw the canvas/graphic file as a continuum. The CIS facili- tated developing the work within a continuum that I perpetually ed- ited and modified. The computer acted as a fluid diary, denotating the time at which the work was done. Instead of writing a diary, I inscribed images onto the com-

puter hard drive. These images acted as a visual notational manu-

script. Often the resulting image looked quite cluttered, which could

ABSTRACT

The author's work Mnemonic Notations represents the evolution of one computer graphic file, first generated in 1990. The author has modified the file for over a decade in response to exposure to many ideas and influences. The Mnemonic Notations file has been output and visually represented as paintings and prints. Mnemonic Notations files were also used as the basis of the Mnemonic Notations CD-ROMs and interactive installations, as well as digital photographic works dealing with fictional documentations.

be interpreted as a metaphor for the "typical" mental process. Mind is hyperactive. Mind wanders. Mental wandering is the "natural state" of all conscious people. Therefore, capturing an image onto the hard drive was analogous to gathering a

wandering thought into storage for later use. Within the work that was to follow, I found reinterpretation of stored imagery to be important. In fact, reinterpreting, reassessing, re-

contextualizing, re-positioning and navigating the interface of imagery that is "history" became a pivotal aspect of my later work.

The memory/storage function of the computer allowed me to work on numerous images simultaneously. The canvas/ graphic file could be reworked and painted over any number of times as fragments were combined into the work. These vi-

Fig. 1. Tim, mixed media on paper on canvas, 2300 x 1650 mm, 1990. (Also exists as an Iris print, 1000 x 650 mm.) (? Phillip George) One of the images incorporated into the Mnemonic Notations CD-ROM, Tim is the starting point of the Mnemonic Notations series. As "Tim" accumulated both piercings and ' . i .. tattoos, he viewed this process as memorial ii making. The tattoos were inscribed onto his : ; 'A. body as living memori- i als to deceased friends. Ti.i

LEONARDO, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 121-127, 2002 121

I

? 2002 ISAST



Fig. 2. Headlands, mixed media on canvas, 1800 x 1300 mm, 1991. (? Phillip George) This image also exists as an 800 x 1000 mm Iris print and is one of those incorporated into the Mnemonic Notations CD-ROM. Once an image reaches a stage considered final, it is pushed beyond the completion stage into a new beginning.

sual fragments could literally be added to any number of canvases simultaneously and thus I could address issues of visual and theoretical complexity and continuity within artistic practice. Conceptions of the image multiple and veracity of the original ideas could be tangentially worked and reworked simultaneously. The hyperactive was inscribed and

mapped similar to a landscape of memory and consciousness. Each work is seen as

part of a continuum, something one could animate for a later playback. The following eight subtitled sections can be seen as windows on or frames of observations made at various points throughout the evolution of the Mnemonic Notations series.

TIM I started the Mnemonic Notations series with a photograph of a figure that was to become an "archetypal" icon: the almost unadorned figure of "Tim" (Fig. 1). We see him from behind, with head shaven and a row of piercings in his right ear. On his back has been placed mnemonic information in the form of colored tattoo- like patterns. This image has since become a literal structure. Tim in 1990 had no actual tattooing; all the marks at that point were computer generated. However, over the following years, Tim accumulated numerous piercings and tattoos, which he

viewed as a process of memorial making/marking. The body tattoos were inscribed as verifiable, living memorials to his deceased friends. I decided to use this notion of inscription to represent my own

memory of where I was and what I was

thinking at certain times and places. In Tim, the body can be viewed as the

site of the immediate present and represents the housing of the physical body and its memory.

HEADLANDS

Headlands (1991) (Fig. 2) marks a shift from a view of the body as an icon to one in which the body takes on the form of a

map with cartographic references. At this point, I should note that artists within the "Landwork" movement, which reached prominence in the mid- to late-1970s, had an important influence on my work. Of central interest are the geomantic notions carried within their work [3]. I was espe- cially influenced at this time by Walter de Maria's extraordinary Lightning Field (New Mexico, 1974-1977), Christo's Sur- rounded Island Project (Miami, 1983), Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty (Utah, 1970), Richard Fletcher's Sod Maze (New- port, Rhode Island, 1974) and the work of Richard Long, performance artist and sculptor, performs his work by walking, saying, "A walk is on the ground, passing by, moving through life. A sculpture is still a stopping place" [4].

The concept of the "stopping place" bears a direct relationship to my working methodology of outputting images at various stages of development. The work can be seen to live/exist on the hard drive, and its development is "stopped"-but not for- gotten-when the file is printed. In the Tranzlution series, I was to revisit the work of these Landwork artists; the Tranzlution series is seen to have been influenced by artists using earth-based work. Within the Tranzlution series, I incorporated images that make reference to notions of the liv-

ing earth evident in many aboriginal and traditional belief systems, hence the original title Landpulse (part of the Headlands series) (Fig. 3)-by which I claim that the land possesses a pulse and is alive. The liv-

ing earth notion is expressed in the Hindu

poem The Mahabharata: "A child sits at the base of the only tree remaining in creation and invites the sole person left alive to enter his body... and his body is a hun- dred years long" [5]. Headlands, Landpulse, Icon (Fig. 4) and Maze (Fig. 5) all incor-

porate ideas of the body as landscape, derived from the Mahabharata.

ICON 6 When different cultures come into contact through migration, their signifiers, symbols and totems rarely remain un-

changed. The symbols of one group usu-

ally enrich, modify or supplant those of the other and the resulting changes in artistic expression generate hybrid forms. Icon 6 (1992) develops another area of re- search that interests me, which is the amalgamation of cross-cultural iconogra- phy. The image becomes a cross-cultural icon, exposed to various interpretations.

As the view of the terrain in Icon 6 becomes clearer, the figure totem is digitally scratched away to reveal the underlying surface (Fig. 4). This point in the work denotes the start of the destruction and reconstruction process inherent in the series. Once an image reaches a stage that I consider final, I push it further, beyond the completion stage into a new beginning. Unlike traditional painting practice, in which certain important portions are

kept or worked around, all areas and "pre- cious" sections are eventually parted with, as in Icon 6. A new overlaid structure is a Hindu diagram depicting the drum of Shiva that is seen as an instrument of creation, relating to the first sound of creation. This symbol, representing creation, is now embedded into the newer image, along with navigational indicators: up, down, left, right. The symbol is seen to re- verberate around the form, which begins to pulsate and progressively dissipate, as does the form of the imagery. The evolution into Landpulse hints at the interwo- venness of things and actions, the continuity and interaction of cause and effect, as well as spiritual and traditional

progress, which weaves its way like a thread through the fabric of history and individual lives.

MAZE The next five images in the progression are grouped together under the title Maze 1 to 5 (1993-1994) (Fig. 5). A maze is overlaid onto the images, obscuring the

previous structures, intended to be seen as "one" system structure placed onto and into a previous one, which will even-

tually supplant the older imagery. In 1994, I began to use images of mapping systems, old and new, in my work. I in- cluded images of the earth, moon and sun in an attempt to reveal a notion of the fluidity of time through the ever-

changing and evolving nature of the

metamorphosed works. In line with this

perception, I have looked at the marker

122 George, Mnemonic Notations



Fig. 4. Icon 6, mixed media on canvas, 1800 x 1300 mm, 1992. (Also exists as an 800 x 1000mm Iris print.) (? Phillip George) One of the images incorporated into the Mnemonic Notations CD-ROM. The symbols of one culture usually enrich, modify or supplant those of the other.

Fig. 3. Landpulse, mixed media on canvas, 2300 X 1650 mm, 1991-1992. (Also exists as an 800 x 1000 mm Iris print.) (? Phillip George) One of the images incorporated into the Mnemonic Notations CD-ROM.

points that help to denote where we are in time. The use of the maze in Maze 1 to 5 worked as a metaphor for time and time's theoretically cyclic or non-linear nature. Up to this point in the series I was

working in a linear fashion. I would out-

put the file, paint onto it and complete it before moving back to the computer to develop the next image, and so on. With each version, I would make addi- tions, and the works would become more

complex as they were filled with the debris of memory and thought left over from the previous versions of the file. In Maze (Fig. 5), however, the body has become part of the landscape and, in addition, an older point in time becomes part of the newer point in time. The image is filled with the past, present and future. We see at once what has already hap- pened and what is about to occur.

MNEMONICON 4 The series changed format in 1995, as I moved from the portrait format to an

elongated (panoramic-landscape) format. Works within the series attest to mnemonic overload in that they literally overflow sideways as if to somehow re- lieve the burden of information. In this

grouping, many aspects occur simulta-

neously in individual work. As this work developed, the imagery of

'Tim" became dissipated and was replaced by a mass of imagery and icons; I titled these pieces Mnemonicon (meaning a

memory icon). I replaced linear production with a non-linear approach, in which I worked on up to 16 separate images si-

multaneously. Icons were layered over each other, saturating the canvas, in a process emulating mind, in which ideas/

Fig. 5. Maze, mixed media on canvas, 1800 x 1300 mm, 1993; mixed media on canvas 1200 x 1500 mm. (Also exists as an 800 x 1000 mm Iris print.) (? Phillip George) One of the images incorporated into the Mnemonic Notations CD-ROM.

thoughts/memories constantly surface, sometimes only partially, at other times in more detail. As the mind darts around the works, we feel on first sighting that there is simply too much detail to take in. There- fore, the work requires time for the viewer to slowly assimilate the image's complexity. Hyperactivity is seen to be the normal state of mind-mind can only come to rest

George, Mnemonic Notations 123



with extensive practice. Encapsulated into the Mnemonicon 4 imagery (Color Plate B No. 2) are attempts to represent notions of time and of memory of the future, ideas that revolve around everything happen- ing at the same time-past, present and future. Mnemonicon 4was an attempt at depicting past, present and future on one surface. Many scientists, including Paul Davies and Fred Hoyle, have noted that radio waves spreading outwards from a point source define an arrow of time, due to the distance from their origin, moving from the past into the future. The field equations that govern electromagnetic ra- diation work just as well the other way around; they describe mathematically valid waves that converge back to a point, reversing the direction of time from future to past. Past-to-future waves are called "retarded," since they arrive after they have been sent, whereas future-to-past waves are called "advanced," since they arrive before they are sent. Physicists consider advanced waves only a theoretical possibility at this time. Consciousness, however, has the ability to project back- wards in time through memory and for- wards in time through prediction.

TANGENT @ 23 Tangent @ 23 was the title of an exhibition I staged in 1997. As the name sug- gests, Tangent @ 23 was a body of work that diverted from the main body of Mnemonic Notations (see Figs 6 and 7). Tangent @ 23 was a reaction against the

complexity of the previous works. In 1997, the format of my work began to

change again. Rectilinear image composi- tion morphed into a series of mutated sea- horses, marked by visual abundance. What has been termed "information overload" is in reality nothing more than the experience of everyday life. In the MnemonicNo- tationswork I attempted to capture in visual form the overlapping, shadowy traces of

memory itself, and it is here that the works started to gain complexity.

In the Tangent @ 23 exhibition, I sin- gled out fragments of imagery from the Mnemonic Notations image pools (bil- labongs [6]) left behind in the manufacture of older works. The Tangent @ 23 grouping represented an attempt to focus on one thought. The title of the exhibition underpins the view of my practice as a continuum. A tangent diverges suddenly from a line of thought; thus, I saw the complete exhibition as a branching-off or divergence from the main concerns of my practice.

Fig. 6. Tangent cx, ink paint on Irish linen, 90 x 80 cm, 1997. (? Phillip George) An image from the Tangent @ 23 exhibition, Tangent @x is also one of the images incorporated into the Mnemonic Notations CD-ROM.

THE MNEMONIC NOTATIONS CD-ROM The Mnemonic Notations CD-ROM com- bines my painting/digital images with non-linear paradigms. The work has at various points been exhibited at different stages of completion. The CD-ROM was a collaboration with Ralph Wayment, which began when the CD-ROM format was new to the art world. In Australia, various artists used CD-ROMs to produce interactive works during the early- to mid-1990s, including Brad Miller's Digi- tal Rhizome (1994), Linda Dement's Ty- phoid Mary (1993) and Cyberfleshgirlmonster (1995), and Bill Seaman's The Exquisite Mechanism of Shivers (1992). In 1996, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, Australia, hosted an exhibition, "Burn-

ing the Interface," which marked a pe- riod of great activity nationally within the area of interactive CDs. Many artists were embracing technology and using it to create new interfaces and ways of interaction.

The Mnemonic Notations CD-ROM, at the time of this writing, is in its sixth edi- tion. A recent addition to the CD-ROM is music composed by Colin Offord. Of- ford creates sounds inspired by cultural connections to Australia and its sur- rounding environs. He makes music with instruments he has invented; for exam- ple, his Great Island Mouthbow is said to sound like a didgeridoo, a cello and en- vironmental sounds. The instrument is strung with five piano strings over a curved bridge, which is connected to two carbon fibre discs set in wooden cups. Connected to this is a central pipe, which goes into the player's mouth. The Bow can be variously plucked, bowed, strummed, drummed and played per- cussively. Sounds are channeled into Colin's mouth, which he uses to select harmonics and play with sound and color.

The music moves from the guitar to a didgeridoo, with traditional sounds as well as blowing and breathing. The image




1990 Mnemonic Notations 1993

"Tranzlution" 1998 - 2001

Fig. 7. At top left is the 1990 start of the Mnemonic Notations works, proceeding in a linear fashion until 1993. The year 1992 marked the first development of the Mnemonic Notations CD-ROM, in parallel with the image files. In 1995 a group of Mnemonic Notations painting exhibitions were held and the images were also fed across to the continuing CD-ROM work. In 1997 the Tangent @ 23 exhibition profiled the more simple images; these images in turn fed into the ongoing CD-ROM. Influences within the Tangent @ 2 works led to the development of the Trazlution exhibitions (1998-2001). (? Phillip George)

worked out, the pattern changes and the work has to be reassessed. Maybe this is like the fish in the net slipping out of view or out of reach, never quite accessible.

People working the installation tend ei- ther to come in and click the mouse

quickly many, many times and leave (this is a very common approach to any installation using time-based media, and thus is a big problem with such media) or to sit with the piece, giving it time and

allowing themselves to learn the work.

Ideally, the user learns that there is no

point in sliding the mousejerkily around from one end of the screen to the other, clicking crazily. To appreciate the work the user needs to relax, watching the

changes and movements on the screen and listening to the soundtrack. As one

begins to do this, the work opens up, let-

ting the user in, although never opening to the point that the user can fully see its

operation. I like to think that at this point something happens that is not transmit- ted by word or text but by a combination of image, sound and time. Time is seen to shift, a transition occurs, or, to put it another way, time, in fact, remains where it is. This idea of passing may be called time, for since one only sees it as passing, one cannot comprehend that it mayjust stay where it is, that we are the ones that are passing.

The physical installation of this work is

important. It has been installed into dark- ened spaces with a black Plexiglas table at one end of the space behind which the user stands and looks down the space at the large scale projected imagery on the

opposing wall. The viewer stands quietly moving the mouse on the slippery black

Plexiglas surface. The projected image can be seen mirrored on the floor. The work is not to be viewed on a small com-

puter monitor (in public) but instead the

experience should be that of being en-

veloped.

moves pixel by pixel, reminding us of

grains of sand, as a fish appears upside down. Icons constantly reappear, allow-

ing viewers to place them around the screen, composing transient paintings of their own. After some time, various im-

ages disappear, to be replaced by others.

Working with Ralph Wayment, I de-

signed the Mnemonic Notations interface with the central theme of memory in mind. To gain a more complete under-

standing of the navigational workings of the CD, the user needs to appreciate the

philosophy of the series. Layers appear and vanish. The user observes an image clearly for a few seconds before it van-

ishes under layers of debris. At other

points a series of phantom images appears and disappears. Control of the cur- sor is taken from the user, who can only watch the movement.

The user is never totally clear whether he or she is in control of the work, in that it is not obvious how the interaction ac-

tually affects what is seen or experienced. There are no obvious buttons, no intro- ductions, marked-out rules or how-tos. When the user moves to another screen he or she can only click in what seems like a random spot. Sometimes this seems to work; at other times nothing happens. As soon as the user presumes to have it

TRANZLUTION

The word "tranzlution" is a neologism that I derived from transition, transparent, transmission, transcendent, transient, transformation, translucent and translation and has been the title of several of my national and international exhibitions.

Tranzlution marks an evolution of the Mnemonic Notations works, from personal memory to collective memory and his-

tory. Tranzlution explores alternative views of representation and the authen-

ticity of the document in the digital age.


I



The images developed for the Tranzlu- tion series exist as laser-printed photographic prints that on first inspection appear to be "actual" photographic documents.

In The Twins, images of Greek icons from Mount Athos are seen on the rocky coasts and cliffs of Sydney. The coastline

images evoke the concept of the mind's double take. The icons on the rocks can seem to have washed up in the distant past or perhaps to be there forjust a tran- sitory moment. The icon of Saint Niko- las Stridasis miraculously appears on a

large rocky outcropping. The story behind Saint Nikolas Stridasis reads that pi- rates looted the icon from Mount Athos, only to lose it at sea (see Fig. 8, The Twins). Years later, it reappeared mirac-

ulously in a fisherman's net in 1537, with an oyster ("strithi" in Greek, hence St. Nikolas Stridasis [7]) stuck on the surface of the icon. When the oyster was pulled away from the icon, a great quan- tity of blood flowed from the apparent wound. This miracle showed that the icon was alive and could be called upon to perform miraculous acts.

The icon is onlyjust discernible on the rock, leading us to question the reality of what we might have seen, or in fact whether we have seen it at all. Questions of the reality/veracity of the photographic image surface. This occurs on both a "real-life" level-is it really there?-and on a metaphorical level-

why has it appeared in these images? We are posed the question of the history of this place, of both the distant and not-so- distant past of the coastline.

Little Bay (Fig. 9) documents my jour- ney of discovery in walking the site of Christo's Wrapped Little Bay (1970), which had come and gone before I was old

enough to appreciate what had taken

place. The only reference/evidence I had existed in black-and-white photo- graphs in art periodicals and textbooks.

Fig. 8. The Twins, Medium C-Type laser print, 145 X 110 cm, 1999. (? Phillip George) From the Tranzlution exhibitions.

My Little Bay series of CType laser prints was an attempt to provide a multi-layered view points of a site; a historical, a geographical and contemporary arts view.

The historical aspect addressed history as illusion, as leaving no visible evidence of those who died at Little Bay in the plagues of the nineteenth century [8]. It is a place with a history, both distant and more recent. These histories involve the last 200 years of colonization. The first is a story not uncommon in Australia: a ne-

glect of humanity that is almost impossi- ble to believe and hence perhaps easier to ignore. At Little Bay Beach, there is a cave where Kooris [9] were sent to die from smallpox, a disease brought to Aus- tralia by European settlers. The indigenous Koori people had no immunity to the disease, as is common in such colo- nizations [10]. They were sent to these caves to die, instilling this site with an

eerie atmosphere, often felt by visitors even before this history is revealed to them. This neglected history has led Nikos Papastergiadis, in his 1999 essay on "the secret little bay," to ask, "When will Australia document a History that is non- fiction?" [11] The manipulated landscape makes a sidelong reference to our

manipulated histories. Manipulated im-

ages for our manipulated past. Regarding the geological aspect, the

bay is largely composed of Sydney sandstone, parts of which are such pure silica that if it were not for iron stains within the rock, it would be virtually clear [12]. For me, this evokes the notion of a transparent landscape and the idea of the pure transparent grains of sandstone that have information metaphorically mapped at the pixel level: the red, green and blue

grains of sedimentary structure. The ge- ology of the place is reconstructed. Other

Fig. 9. Little BaV, Medium C-Type laser print, 1100 X 4000 mm, 1998. (? Phillip George) From the Tranzlution exhibitions.




notions surfaced-Australia is a majority coastal society; the great majority of its inhabitants live on the edge of a vast, hot and largely empty space. As the Sydney Basin was laid down, over a million years of sediment fed into the basin from a river system, with its headwaters in the moun- tains of Antarctica [13].

As for the contemporary art aspects of the work, Sydney is and has been a site of social and economic sedimentation. The walking of the site, for me, brought up many issues: one was that of photographic evidence as historic documentation. The tongue-in-cheek question arose, 'What's Christo trying to hide?" What was under those million square feet of cloth? If photographic documentation was all that re- mained of the event, I would re-work the event and re-document the space! After all, what is left but the photographic (Christo has only left photographic documents of his presents). So I decided to start with the photographic process and end with it. No need to physically build the work; I would work in a virtual manner. My photographic documentation of Little Bay has been worked at the sedimentary level. The inscriptions into the landscape have been placed at the level of the film's grain structure; embedded into the image is microscopic information. The photographic documentation has been manipulated at such a fine detail that the end result appears to be photographic, challenging the notion of visual data as evidence. This work marked a return to the previously mentioned Landwork style.

It is as if by wrapping the coast Christo was covering or hiding the site's past. In this act of wrapping he has bundled it up and made it his own. These pasts pushed another history through the coastline. In- stead of covering, I have pulled back the surface to show other possible histories/stories, residing just beneath, un- covering the cultures that have left traces and marks on the land. Flung upon the beach, wave after wave, tide upon tide, visitors found a foothold, collected themselves, left a marking and were blended within the grains into the coastline. Icons and artifacts were left embedded into the rock. The work presents virtual iconog- raphy from Greece, architectural sculpture from Southeast Asia and Asia Minor, remnants of drapery from Christo and residues from Mnemonic Notations, cele- brating the wave-like progress that has built this virtual world. I document time

as sedimentation and the sedimentation of time.

The Tranzlution exhibitions seek a parallel yet divergent view of the world. Just as Cubism attempted to show multiple viewpoints of an object, Tranzlution attempts to look at the world with multiple methodologies, multiple interfaces and multiple interpretations. The world of Tranzlution can be observed with the eyes of a photographer, an ethnographer, an archaeologist, a historian, an art historian, a practical physicist, a theoretical physicist, a geologist, a science-fiction writer, a beachcomber, etc. The interfaces of vision and the multiple methodologies of mapping the world are what I investigate here.

CONCLUSION

The work profiled here was produced in Australia. The continent has had a great geographical and cultural influence on my work. There is possibly no other country where this body of work could have evolved. Australia is an island that looks out at the world with the perspective of a diverse population derived primarily from immigration, with a dominant white European culture despite its loca- tion within South Asia. Australia is also a country with a population that is at- tempting to negotiate reconciliation with its indigenous inhabitants and, as a con- sequence, collective memories and multiple histories are of pivotal importance.

Utilizing digital media has heightened my appreciation of multiple systems of varying complexity and their respective representation. Digital processes have begun to facilitate the renewed interaction of the arts and sciences. As in the geogra- phy of a coastline, it is at the boundaries where one energy system bumps into another or one paradigm interacts with another that interesting things can happen. It is the coexistence of accumulated multiple visions and their interactions that lend structure and meaning to my work. The process of de-construction generally seems to have led to an oversimplifica- tion of representation. However, the al- liance of divergent practices could be a way forward. The trick appears to be in the game of balance.

References and Notes

1. The New Collins PreciseEnglish Dictionary, Australian Ed. (Melbourne: Collins, 1982).

2. I have used several computer systems, the first of which was an IBM 286 with a Vista board.

3. Geomancy may be defined as the science of put- ting human habitats and activities into harmony with the visible and invisible world around us. It was at one time universal, and vestiges of it remain in the landscape, architecture, ritual and folklore of almost all countries in the world. See Nigel Pennick, The An- cient Science of Geomancy (London: Thames and Hud- son, 1979).

4.John Beardsley, Earthworks and Beyond (New York: Abbeville Press, 1984).

5. The Mahabharata is the story of the war for the throne between the virtuous Pandavas and their wicked cousins, the Kauravas. It is probably the longest of all the world's epics, with 100,000 two-line stanzas. According to C.V. Narasimhan, only 4000 lines relate to the main story, the rest containing ad- ditional myths and teachings with many side roads and detours. The original Prakrit ballad was later elaborated into a larger Sanskrit work consisting of a number of shlokas. According to legend, its author was the sage Vyasa. Modern scholars believe that the great war of Mahabharata was actually fought, and that the most reasonable assumption is to date it at about 1000 B.C.

The text referenced is transcribed from Peter Brook's 1985 stage play of The Mahabharata, adapted into a three-part, 9-hour script byJean-Claude Carrire.

The Mahabharata, directed by Peter Brook (1989), 3 videocassettes (328 min.) MEDIA 1273.

6. A billabong is a branch of a river forming a chan- nel or a pool.

7. Agioritis Monnk, A Guide to Mount Athos (Mount Athos, 1971).

8. Nikos Papastergiadis, The Secret Little Bay, A Coast Chronicle: A History of Prince Henry Hospital (Sydney, 1981).

9. Koori is a term for urban Aboriginal people.

10. P. McKenzie and A. Stephen, La Perouse: An Urban Aboriginal Community (Sydney: NSWUP, 1987).

11. N. Papastergiadis, "The Secret Little Bay," Photofile Photomedia Journal (October 1999).

12. T. Flannery, "Heart of Stone," Sydney Morning Herald (4 December 1999).

13. Flannery [12].

Manuscript received 2 October 2000.

Phillip George is a Sydney-based artist with an extensive record of national and international exhibitions, 21 solo exhibitions and over 60 group exhibitions including repre- sentations in New York, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Kyoto, Auckland, Athens, Siberia, Venice, Paris, London, Beijing and Frank- furt. He has also had representation in the 2001, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995, and 1992 SIGGRAPH Art Shows. His work has been exhibited from the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, to the Mu- seum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. His work represented Australia at the 2001 ARCO Contemporary Art Fair in Madrid. Phillip George holds a Diploma in Art from the Na- tional Art School and a MFA from the Uni- versity of New South Wales.




Mnemonic Notations: A Decade of Art Practice within a Digital Environment

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