Tessa Rex’s second solo show No Matter is an expanded black and white analogue photography exploration of space. Every day humans stand up, commute, lift tonnes of concrete into the sky. It’s sometimes difficult to understand that these daily events are theoretically governed by the same forces that push and pull galaxies.
With recent studies proving that gravity waves exist along with superclusters of black holes, the greatest discovery is that ‘dark energy’ is 70% of the universe. And we know nothing about it. Except that it’s pushing everything apart.
The departure point of No Matter is S23 Galaxies, an installation of a perspex cube with painted Super8 film projected through it. This is Foucault’s heterotopia – ‘a place without a place, that exists by itself, that is closed in on itself and at the same time is given over to the infinity of the sea’ - simultaneously a contained and infinite space. The inverted tone and clustered nature of S23 Galaxies reference recent deep space images of black holes. Alongside this is Production Material of S23 Galaxies, the toothbrush-ink-sprayed backdrop of the painted Super8.
In the larger part of the gallery, the photographs. Images are commonplace and extraterrestrial. A series of hand-processed 120mm black and white analogue film captured across NSW, pushed and pulled in ISO, paired with 35mm LomoKino. Echoing through all this is an intergalactic audio soundscape: a mash-up of creative commons sounds from the NASA Sound Archives. Includes Leonid asteroid shower, Sputnik, simulated gravity waves and rockets.
Tessa Rex is from Sydney, Australia and is a documentary artist working across photography, radio and video who is influenced by social justice, architecture, industry and lo-fi formats. In 2014-15 Rex was a collaborative fellow at UnionDocs Centre for Documentary Art in Brooklyn, NY, where she co-directed two short documentaries, ‘Night Bus’ and ‘The Williamsburg Houses’. Her first solo show - photography and video installation Under the Pump - was held at The Corner Cooperative in 2014 and she has exhibited work in Sydney, Istanbul, Berlin and New York. Rex is currently in production on her first feature documentary and is happiest in the darkroom.
With recent studies proving that gravity waves exist along with superclusters of black holes, the greatest discovery is that ‘dark energy’ is 70% of the universe. And we know nothing about it. Except that it’s pushing everything apart.
The departure point of No Matter is S23 Galaxies, an installation of a perspex cube with painted Super8 film projected through it. This is Foucault’s heterotopia – ‘a place without a place, that exists by itself, that is closed in on itself and at the same time is given over to the infinity of the sea’ - simultaneously a contained and infinite space. The inverted tone and clustered nature of S23 Galaxies reference recent deep space images of black holes. Alongside this is Production Material of S23 Galaxies, the toothbrush-ink-sprayed backdrop of the painted Super8.
In the larger part of the gallery, the photographs. Images are commonplace and extraterrestrial. A series of hand-processed 120mm black and white analogue film captured across NSW, pushed and pulled in ISO, paired with 35mm LomoKino. Echoing through all this is an intergalactic audio soundscape: a mash-up of creative commons sounds from the NASA Sound Archives. Includes Leonid asteroid shower, Sputnik, simulated gravity waves and rockets.
Tessa Rex is from Sydney, Australia and is a documentary artist working across photography, radio and video who is influenced by social justice, architecture, industry and lo-fi formats. In 2014-15 Rex was a collaborative fellow at UnionDocs Centre for Documentary Art in Brooklyn, NY, where she co-directed two short documentaries, ‘Night Bus’ and ‘The Williamsburg Houses’. Her first solo show - photography and video installation Under the Pump - was held at The Corner Cooperative in 2014 and she has exhibited work in Sydney, Istanbul, Berlin and New York. Rex is currently in production on her first feature documentary and is happiest in the darkroom.
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