Exhibits,

Peter Blamey The Infra

Opening: Wednesday 15 March, 6-8pm Dates: 15 March – 8 April 2017

‘The Infra’ explores facets of our everyday electrical infrastructures through artefacts and residues both large and small. Viewed as if from a position just slightly into the future than the present day, this material has been approached not with the precision or scientific rigour characteristic of archaeology, but through the more fanciful and interpretive techniques of its cousin – antiquarianism. As much concerned with aesthetics as it was with a sense of history, antiquarianism seemed more an attempt to revivify the past in the present through strategies that recontextualised objects and their attendant meanings–as exemplified through ‘inaccurate’ but indexical processes such as rubbing–by emphasising the significance of impression over function. In doing so antiquarianism yielded a history of imagination, of a fascination with history, as much as it did historical data per se. ‘The Infra’ explores a comparatively recent history, that of so-called ‘e-waste’, examining technological artefacts considered to have reached the end of their usefulness (and, in each case, subsequently illegally dumped). As such, these works attempt to reinstate the sense of fascination that accompanies many processes of excavation and recovery, and are simply one of many possibilities arrived at during what is an ongoing process of salvage and reappraisal.

Peter Blamey is a Sydney-based artist. His work investigates the relationships between people, technologies and their environments, often by exploring their related energies and residues. His practice is typically grass roots and frequently involves establishing interactions between disparate everyday technologies in order to produce performances, artworks and installations that question accepted notions of connectivity, variability and usefulness.

In 2014 Peter took part in the Instrument Builders Project, a collaboration between Australian and Indonesian artists, in Yogyakarta, Indonesia and also at the NGV in Melbourne. His work has been exhibited at Artspace, SNO, Serial Space, ICAN, Hardware, West Space, Merry Crisis, CACSA, and iCAN (Indonesia). Peter has also performed extensively over the last sixteen years, including festivals such as Avantwhatever, What is Music, Electrofringe, Liquid Architecture, the NOWnow, Cementa_13 & 15, and ISEA, along with countless other shows.

Photography below by Christo Crocker.