ROSS MANNING

Starkwhite is pleased to present Field Emissions by Brisbane-based artist Ross Manning, from 26 November to 22 December 2012. The artist will launch the exhibition with a sonic performance on Sunday 25 November (time to be announced).

In Field Emissions, Manning utilises lo-fi domestic technologies to stage an installation of performative, kinetic light sculptures. Suspended from the ceiling, rotating structures of coloured fluorescent tubes driven by household rotary cooling fans project washes of colour throughout the gallery. As the tubes move in relationship to each other, the viewer experiences the physicality of coloured light beams mixing to form different colours that inhabit and engage the gallery space. In an adjacent room he projects white light through dichroic filters and cut glass, animating the space with dancing beams of light refracted into the colours of the rainbow.

The exhibition is a continuation of an ongoing project exploring the aesthetic potential of the additive colour model, specifically the RGB (red, green, blue) model, which is at the centre of digital image reproduction and employed in all camera, screen and projection based technologies as well as film-based colour photography. But Manning's assemblages of everyday objects also direct us to the relationship between technology and contemporary life, which is increasingly lived in virtual space.

“Manning's work threatens to lift the veil from the fetishised consumer electronics on which we are dependent, subtly repositioning the technologies that operate as the unseen 'given' in our daily lives,” says Brisbane-based writer Danni Zuvela. “In place of the corporate software-hardware standards that now so normative so as to be effectively coercive, we are presented with a quiet unworking - an alternative emotion of objects. What is highlighted throughput Manning's work is the ongoing, unresolved question about the dynamics of power between technology and contemporary life.”

Ross Manning lives and works in Brisbane where he also performs with Sky Needle, a conceptual rock band performing primitive hypnotic music played on built instruments. Recent exhibitions and performances include: Volume One: MCA Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2012); NEW12, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2012); Tarrawarra Biennial 2012: Sonic Spheres, Melbourne; Spectra (solo), Milani Gallery, Brisbane (2012); The Melbourne Jazz Festival (2011); New Psychedelia, University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane (2011); 3 songs (solo) Long Gallery, for MONA FONA, Tasmania (2010); Double Refraction, Lismore Regional Gallery, NSW (2010); Come Hither Noise, Freemantle Arts Centre (2009); Primavera09, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2009); Sunshine and Zincaloom (solo), Ptarmigan Space, Finland (2009); The New Truth to Materials, Boxcopy Gallery, Brisbane (2009); Batteries Not Included, Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney (2008); and The New Fresh Cut, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2008). He won Australia's Churchie National Emerging Art Prize in 2011, judged by MONA curator Nicole Durling, and he was a finalist in the 2012 National New Media Award and exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane.