As we enter the halfway mark of the 2020s, Contact Zone may give viewers cause to consider the effects of the increasing ubiquitousness of digital screens. It’s situated in the two galleries and the vitrine of Metro Arts in Meanjin/Brisbane’s West Village, a refurbished ice creamery built in the 1920s. The solo exhibition by Victoria Wareham offers the unsuspecting visitor a transformative experience.
Upon entering Gallery One, viewers are greeted by a rather inconspicuous glass cube. Its contents may initially be unclear. Is the suspended translucent mass animal, vegetable or mineral? Poor Crystal (2024), despite being a digital engraving, appears organic – and, arguably, in flux.
Inspecting this curious structure requires circumnavigation, and around 300 degrees of the view through it is unsettling. For starters, LED lights perturbingly cast a soft hue reminiscent of ultraviolent. This is disturbed by a vertex of white daylight spilling from the entrance. Beside it, the budging Videodomes (2024) catches the eye. Beyond plastic, there is a viscosity to its surfaces. Are the videos attempting to escape the confines of their televisions or grasp at passersby?  Â
A majority of the remaining objects in this gallery, and the adjoining vitrine, are components of the installation OLED for Real (2023-24). Eight channels of video play on digital screens, half of which are near-immaculately embedded into freestanding sheets of clear acrylic. Among the most intriguing runs a static video exhibiting a white crack, as though its screen were broken. These are complemented with ‘ultra-high gloss’ aluminium prints. The subjects are crystals the artist has chemically fashioned from fragments of LED screens. A narrative unfolds across multiple dimensions, the most significant of which is the fourth: time.
An artwork without a material presence, Screen Speech (2024) reverberates from another corner of this gallery-cum-incubator. Wareham has engaged ‘text-to-speech’ technology to create a looped sequence of ‘proto-speak’. That her new entities are attempting to say ‘hello’ – literally – is implied.
The sentiment of screens gaining sentience is conveyed with conviction. Accordingly, the artworks could be considered portraits. While short of a self-portrait, by virtue of intent, a likeness of the artist appears in Gallery Two. Television Communication (2019) includes a video of a ‘mystical’ communicator. In some shots, she menacingly reaches towards the camera. Her headdress hangs on the opposite wall. From VHS video tapes to VGA cords, it was made from materials rendered detritus by technological development.
Although not entirely necessary, the inclusion of this earlier artwork does serve to demonstrate the development of Wareham’s practice. An ongoing commitment to communicating concerns of being consumed by screen-based technology can be observed. It also carries a candour, which lightens the reading of the exhibition. As per contemporary gallery conventions, visitors must refrain from touching, however, the suggested desire of these tactile objects to make physical contact with us makes for compelling viewing.
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Upon leaving, visitors may experience a heightened awareness of digital screens in the urban vista.
Contact Zone will be on display until 25 January 2025 at Metro Arts in Brisbane.
