Antipodean Nocturne | Extinction
‘Antipodean Nocturne Extinction’ is a meditative moving image work which, through a dramatic sfumato effect, responds to our relationship with the Australian landscape. Filmed from a rainforest eyrie overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the video and audio were recorded on a hot, humid and stormy summer night… thunder, lightning, the love calls of cicadas… elemental forces at play as the planet warms… a potent display of nature.
‘Antipodean Nocturne Extinction’ interrogates the relationship between man and nature and the story of our human endeavour to transform the Australian landscape through a European aesthetic. Over the duration of the work, text is gradually introduced to a cataclysmic storm. Lightning flashes reveal the impact and consequences of our intervention, a list of Australian animals extinct since European arrival in 1788, creatures forever gone from this landscape.