Andrew Styan – The Bell Buoy
Press Release
Humanity’s impact on the climate is profound and yet the collective will to act is absent. The explanation for this paradox may lie in an inability to distinguish the physical reality of the world we inhabit from the version of it mediated through technology and the media.
Andrew Styan’s The Bell Buoy, a kinetic multimedia installation, explores this idea.
A mechanically rotating piece of coal is filmed and projected live in the gallery space creating a surreal vision of an asteroid looming ever closer. While the approaching asteroid of disaster- movie fiction becomes a metaphor for the imminent climate catastrophe, its source in physical reality - the spinning fragment of fossil fuel - draws a parallel with our hyperreal world. The lone, silent buoy watches over the scene, but is an impotent warning of the danger. As Kipling’s poem ‘The Bell Buoy’ heralds, “By the gates of doom I sing, On the horns of death I ride.”
Styan’s The Bell Buoy was recently awarded the Dr Harold Schenberg Prize 2015 in PICA’s annual Hatched: National Graduate Show. The Hatched exhibition tracks the changing trends and developments in emerging contemporary art. It has become a vital compass in identifying a new generation of emerging artists, fresh out of art school and eager to embark on their careers. The judges remarked ‘Andrew Styan’s work displayed a power in its simplicity and a sense of autobiography and a deep knowledge about a place, but without sentimentality. The three main elements of his video, light, sound and sculpture installation collectively envelop the viewer, creating a “device of wonder”.
Andrew Styan retired from a 30 year career as a metallurgist in the steel industry in 2008 to take up a part time role in climate change research and to pursue a passion for landscape photography. These two interests merged when he realized that a generation had passed with little progress in addressing climate change.
His broader practice lies in the exploration of humanity’s inability to deal with this complex global issue with particular interests in the Australian context and the coal exports of his hometown of Newcastle. While his practice has its origins in photography, he is drawing upon his technological and experimental background to develop a multidisciplinary approach involving installation, interactivity, video, kinetic sculpture and generative art.