JULIA DAVIS


Consilience: As the World Turns

2013/2014, 7 min 00 sec

 

JULIA DAVIS’s celestial time-lapse performance work Consilience: As The World Turns explores the effect of time on understandings of our sense of self and place. As a figure in landscape study, this work furthers DAVIS’ investigation of the landscape as a cultural space – one informed by and informing regional identities and expressions. Like John A. Douglas, DAVIS juxtaposes her own human form with the vastness of a dramatic and ancient landscape; documenting a nightlong performance on an inland salt lake.  The work explores subjectivity and references desire, vulnerability, anxiety and poise. This version of the work is edited from a longer looped edition where the vastness of the night sky slowly rotates in accord with the revolution of the earth and the performer.
Her work explores the effect of time on understandings of the body in relation to landscape and how this underpins our sense of self and place. Active sites such as deserts, volcanos, coastal precincts and salt lakes provide ways to think about the idea that landscape is cultural space - a space informed by and informing culture. The project involved working with an astro-photographer and documents a nightlong performance on an inland salt lake.

 

www.juliadavis.com.au