35 Summers

Abstract

Background SynCity was initiated by the dLux media arts organization on the occasion of their zs" Anniversary. I was approached as a practitioner, curator and founding member of the organisation to create and curate an event based on the recurrent theme of sampling that ran through Australian experimental film, video and digital media since the 1980s. Contribution The works in this exhibition established a common theme in contemporary Australian art that crossed discipline boundaries, painting. video, film, sound art and decadal trends to establish sampling as a dominant paradigm. "35 Summers" was presented as a founding work that initiated practices that came to be know as post modern appropriation in experimental art film, Significance The significance of this work is that it establishes a discourse around sampling that is not confined to any particular era and shows the practice to be ongoing. "35 Summers" acts significantly in an evolution ofexperimental work that has grown through ideas of quotation and appropriation into a contemporary taxonomy of mashup, bootlegging and machinima.