Message Archive

 Connecting Flight explores how global transportation systems expand the possibilities of human worlds yet shrink the habitable worlds of nonhuman species.  

Through laser cut punch cards, thread, and light, this work creates a complex map indicating how airports and global networks can disrupt and displace natural habitats, migration routes and communication patterns in ecological systems.

The punch cards are printed with a three-letter airport code and laser cut with the names of Australian native species recorded at the site of the new Western Sydney airport. Lengths of coloured thread link the airports which have direct flights between them. The resulting mass of thread represents the extent at which we are connected, but in doing so the accumulated lines actively diminish the cut-out text of the species’ names. This two-fold meaning is encompassed in the lighting of the work: while the entanglement of thread indicates the scale and possibility of air travel, this connectivity crosses out the names of the species that are illuminated in its shadow. 

Commissioned for FLIGHT, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Sydney Festival, 2023.

The Other North is an exhibition by Australian artist Anna Madeleine that explores the relationship between everyday activities and cosmic cycles of time and space. It is the result of a three-month Asialink Arts residency with Common Room Networks Foundation, Bandung, Indonesia, and was exhibited at Orbital Dago, Bandung, 2017.

Influenced by conversations at Bosscha Observatory, the works draw connections between astronomical phenomena, navigation, and the natural environment. Through installation, shadow play, animation, drawings and objects, The Other North investigates how scientific enquiry infiltrates into cultural practices such as traditional Wayang stories, ancient farming knowledge, and the conceptualisation of time. The exhibition situates these ideas in a contemporary landscape shaped by continuous flows of traffic and information, to consider the relevance and reinvention of both old and new interpretations of the connections between people, nature, and cultural expression.

 A Dispatch from the Future artwork generated for an Assembly for the Future event in 2023.

This Alphabet of Alternative Intelligences is an e-book with each letter generated (or mis-generated) by AI, with an AR overlay replacing artificial with another valuable form of intelligence. It was made through my role as an Artist/Moderator leading speculative futures discussion around education, intergenerational knowledge, and recognising multiple forms of intelligence alongside AI.

The Assembly for the Future series is produced by The Things We Did Next.

Second Nature / Wasteland consists of augmented and virtual reality counterparts that imagine a world where natural objects emit digital signals. Cut pine trees emanate potential Wi-Fi networks, glitchy Bluetooth connections hover over the leaves of potted plants, autumn leaves search for lost mobile data, and we become tethered to rocks like we do a personal hotspot. Experienced through a mobile phone application, these augmented objects suggest that our reliance on digital technologies is becoming as ingrained as our connection to the natural world – an idea both unsettling and meditative. The accompanying VR scene, Wasteland, presents this scenario as a virtual world. By directly referencing the augmented objects, it blurs the line between what is real and what is a simulation. In both components, two-dimensional hand-drawn animations are encountered in three-dimensional space to further complicate the relationship between virtual and lived experience alongside an assimilation of nature and technology.

These works were exhibited inEmotions Invented by the Internet by Anna Madeleine and Jessica Herrington, a collaborative exhibition of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) artworks exploring emotional states instigated by new technologies. The feeling of helplessly watching a slow download; the feeling of trying to make two devices find each other through Bluetooth; or the feeling of finding that perfect GIF – these emotions range from the tranquil to exhilarating, funny to frustrating. Through 360 degree animations and dream-like digital relics, the exhibition presented a simulation and a remedy for future mental states, in a meditative response to living with new technology.

A series of 360° virtual reality videos and a projection installation made through a Vice Chancellor's Creative Artist Fellowship Scheme collaborative project with Krisztina Valter-Kocsi and Alexandra Webb at the ANU Medical School.

Animations produced during a residency as a visiting artist/scholar at the Division of Animation and Digital Arts, School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California.

Solo exhibition as part of Absolutely Famished, a program of exhibitions and events curated by Renee Beale exploring food security and climate change.

Residency with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Free Radical Chemistry & Biotechnology, University of Melbourne, with resulting touring exhibition to Griffin Gallery, London; MCLEMOI Gallery, Sydney; and RiAus Gallery, Adelaide, 2013 - 2014.

Works made during a residency exploring X-ray crystallography, facilitated by Dr. Renee Beale at the School of Chemistry, University of Melbourne, 2014-2015.