Abstract
Nocturne: The Unsettling Beauty of the Night is an exegesis to accompany the exhibition Limen, a photographic-based research project undertaken in the suburbs of Darwin at night. This research has been made at a time of civic transition for Darwin, of high population growth and an ever-expanding building industry. My images for this project capture mundane suburban areas that most often go unnoticed. Overlooked and uninteresting by day, by night these spaces are transformed into nocturnal theatrical stages where viewers can write their own narrative.Like many artists who have used nocturnes as a theme in their work, I am interested in the shift in reality that accompanies nightfall - a time when human senses are heightened to create an otherworld. In the course of my research, I found that nocturnes mostly bring into play dramatic lighting and open narratives. My theatrical nocturnes are saturated with the artificial light of street lighting that in turn, distorts the space into a hyper-real scene. Drama is created in my images by the lack of physical human presence. This absence invokes a memory and/or a trace of people who are invisible and forgotten. Fantasy is further heightened by the absence of architectural thresholds. This research project is an aesthetic response to local architecture and the hidden social dramas of the suburbs, at night.
| Date of Award | Sept 2010 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Supervisor | Andrea Ash (Supervisor) & Sylvia Kleinert (Supervisor) |