lisa roet
Hugo Michell Gallery invites you to the opening of Lisa Roet’s ‘Moment In Time’ and Emmaline Zanelli’s ‘Looks Like A Fish, Tastes Like A Lizard’.
For over two decades Lisa Roet has won acclaim in Australia and internationally for her powerful investigations into the complex interface between humans and our simian relatives.
Bathing Snow Monkeys (Japanese Macaque) have been cited in recent scientific journals for exhibiting learned evolutionary behaviour. Bathing for these monkeys only began after observing humans in man made pools at a resort in the 1960s. Roet’s sculptures depict a glowing surface, achieved though a complex heating process, mimicking the effect that the hot springs have on the colour of the monkeys faces. For Roet, these works represent a fleeting moment in time, where a touch and a movement communicates the shared human condition.
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Emmaline Zanelli’s ‘Looks Like A Fish, Tastes Like A Lizard’ examines the research of prehistoric life performed by a domestic paleontology enthusiast. The artist uses collected stories of scientific experiments conducted in the paleontology lab and animation studio as inspiration for scenes of backyard research: a polystyrene microscope ready for printed live blood cells; an Ichthyosaur built of papier-mâché National Geographic images swimming above the piano; a character using a stock photo elephant to imagine the gait of a sauropod; plasticine bones in a vinyl creek bed waiting for scanning to become animated. These are latent experiments independent of any employer or institution. Processes used in professional environments to imagine and decipher life before humans are referenced and used throughout the work, melded with home-invented methods. ‘Looks Like a Fish, Tastes Like a Lizard’ depicts the effects that images have on our collective perception of nature, and the – at times ridiculous – human endeavour to understand and recreate it.
Please join us on Thursday May 3 to celebrate these two incredible exhibitions.
Lisa Roet’s Golden Monkey has been installed in Bejing on The Opposite House. This large inflatable monkey measures an impressive 45 ft high and is manufactured out of gold thread. The installation is designed to inspire thought about our connections with primates exploring similarities, acceptance and peace.
Roet has collaborated with Inflatable Design and Felipe Reynolds and the project was supported by the City of Melbourne Arts Grants Program, The Australian Embassy, Creative Victoria, Asia Link and Australia-China Council.
Check out the press coverage here: Wallpaper | The Opposite House | Asia Link
“It’s a strangely confronting video which will attract people as they walk into the entrance,” Roet says.””
Lisa Roet’s Heart Beat is an immersive installation exhibited at the Australian Experimental Art Foundation. The work is on display until April 2nd. To read Jane Llewellyn’s article in the Adelaide Review click here!
Lisa Roet ‘s Heart Beat is now exhibiting at the Australian Experimental Art Foundation, until 2 April.
Berlin-based Rachel Vance writes in the catalogue: “Her large-scale, theatrical projection Heart Beat (2014-16) confronts audiences with an enlarged three-dimensional projection of a human heart. The mesmerising accompanying soundtrack—a collaboration with musician Charlie Owen—echoes the pulsating beat of the heart, drawing gallery visitors into the depths of a simulated corporeal cavity.
Heart Beat is an example of Roet’s fascination with ideas of isolation and comparison. The animated heart, created with cutting-edge Musion technology—a three-dimensional holographic technology—is in fact a simulation of a hybrid heart. Animated by science animator Drew Berry, the image itself, derived from echocardiogram and MRI footage of the artist’s own heart, is imperceptibly amalgamated with imagery from a gorilla’s heart. Part animal, part human. The gorilla footage was sourced from a research team studying heart health as part of the International Primate Heart Project at Cardiff University in Wales. Such comparative exploration relates directly to Roet’s previous examination of the ‘humanzee’; a hypothetical interspecies human-chimpanzee hybrid.”
Heart Beat is accompanied by a second installation, We Are Animal, part of the result of the artist’s ongoing collaboration with leading Chinese artist Shen Shaomin.
Read more from Vance on Roet and view the catalogue here.
This project has been supported by The International Primate Heart Project based at Cardiff Metropolitan University, Arts Victoria, Melbourne Heart Care and the Adelaide Festival of Arts.
Lisa Roet’s Heart Beat will exhibit at the Australian Experimental Art Foundation from 26 February to 2 April.
Lisa Roet is renowned for her exploration of the complex ape-human intersection.
In Heart Beat, presented by the AEAF in partnership with Adelaide Festival of Arts, a giant hybrid gorilla/human heart pulsates to a blood-rushing soundscape, in a realm of science fiction where contemporary spirituality and ethical dilemmas collide.
With a hint of freak show ‘smoke and mirrors’, this groundbreaking and immersive 4D video installation uses the mutations of Roet’s own body to examine how cutting-edge scientific technology affects ‘humanness’.
Produced in collaboration with musician Charlie Owen (Beasts of Bourbon / Divinyls) and scientific animator Drew Berry (Walter and Eliza Institute).
This project has been supported by The International Primate Heart Project based at Cardiff Metropolitan University, Arts Victoria, Melbourne Heart Care and the Adelaide Festival of Arts.
For opening dates and times, click here.