Matter & Matrix (Wallum Heathland)

Matter and Matrix (Wallum Heathland) plays on physical/virtual and digital/analogue dichotomies by re-imagining the translocated natural landscape of Wallum Heathland with physical objects, data, and technology. The work’s new techno-physical landscape mirrors the relocation process of Wallum Heathland’s swampy marshes for the development of the Sunshine Coast University. In a physical cut and paste on the landscape, this translocation saw each individual plant GPS tracked and replanted within an accuracy of up to 10mm of its original collected ecosystem.  Recorded onsite at the new location of the wetlands, the pristine aquamarine and blue waterscapes of Matter and Matrix (Wallum Heathland) allude to the complex falsehoods and regenerative philosophies involved in the translocation of this land segment.

Matter and Matrix (Wallum Heathland) facilitates interactions between flat screen monitors and mirrors—building a new refracted landscape akin to the glitches and pixel collage landscapes of virtual maps like Google Earth. The footage dislocates into its coloured forms while reflecting, building, and collaging its natural qualities. The matrix of mirrors placed in a grid between the televisions at different scales copy, reflect, and ricochet the imagery around the installation. ‘Matter and Matrix’ draws from a quote by scientist Albert Szent-Györgyi on the qualities and embodiments of water:

‘Water is life's matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water. Life could leave the ocean when it learned to grow a skin, a bag in which to take the water with it. We are still living in water, having water now inside’1

The natural crystalline forms of water flow and retract in a digital yet mirrored analogue landscape—driven by its own chance logic—water flows towards and away from itself in uncanny movements. This new virtual yet physical landscape mirrors the high-tech translocations and GPS gridding of a natural environment—both as a physical transportation of an ecosystem like Wallum Heathland or via the perpetual satellite mapping of land. This new illogical yet sublime water landscape underscores how our brains are wired to comprehend and navigate the innate simulated qualities of virtual maps.

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1. Szent-Györgyi, Albert. "Biology and Pathology of Water." Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 14, no. 2 (1971): 23s9-249.