Looking Up Country

2016

 

Collaborators: The Batchelor Institute for Indigenous Tertiary Education (BIITE): Amanda McMillan & Brigida Stewart; Desarts: Philip Watkins; Cain Gilmour, Paul Nichola, Nikolaus Völzow, Bernd Lintermann, Jeffrey Shaw, Lisa Stefanoff

Artists: Lillian Inkamala, Janie Bulla, Moya Lee, Adrian Robertson, Ginger Conway, Adrian Robertson, Linda Kukula Mcdonald, Nancy Napanangka Gibson, Maude Morris, Billy Tjampitjinpa Kenda, Hazel Roy, Kathy Inkamala, Alison Norman, Wendy Hart, Alma Nungarrayi Granites, Debbie Brown, Beverly Edimintja, Florrie Cooper, Valerie Napurrurla Morris, Gayle Napangardi Gibson, Joy Brown, Lavinia Richardskaren Rogers, Nyinku Kulitja & Martha Protty, Nyinku, Christobelle Protty, Philip Mccormack, Beverly Edimintja, Cathy Peckham, Caroline Bohning, Marie Abbott, Karen Rogers, Hubert Pareroultja, Kevin Namatjira, Lenie Namatjira, Peter Taylor, Gloria Pannka, Hubert Pareroultja, Mervyn Rubuntja, Peter Taylor, Gloria Pannka, Therese Ryder, Reinold Inkamala, Ivy Pareroultja

 ‘Lie Down Look Up!’ is an experimental digital artwork designed for Australia’s highest resolution hemispherical projection system, DomeLab. Specifically created for fulldome, this artwork immerses visitors in an unpredictable ever-changing canopy of Aboriginal desert art — at a scale never seen.

Looking Up Country includes 47 circular ‘fisheye’ paintings for installation in the dome. ‘Lie Down Look Up!’ invites its viewers to experience a new way of seeing, providing a fully immersive and inhabitable space of engagement. In a continuous visual metamorphosis of landscape, the circular paintings are projected on the 6m diametre dome, driven by real-time pattern recognition software. The algorithm generates transitions designed to ensure visitors travel from one world to another in a never-repeating journey of discovery. The extraordinary juxtapositions of artistic endeavour converges well known traditions such as the watercolours of the Hermannsberg School with contemporary and emerging artistic practice. This ‘democratic’ application brings together renowned and emerging artists to create a never-ending, renewable cycle of life.

Visitors are immersed in an evocative surround-sound audio-scape designed by Cain Gilmour of Charles Darwin University and supported by luxurious desert-inspired screen-printed ‘swags’. ‘Looking Up Country!’ is designed to tour to major galleries as well as desert locations. It’s a new form of collaborative art-making that expands the canvas into an architectonic space and beyond our horizon.