This exhibition, held at gaffa gallery, Sydney in March 2025, was primarily a response to my street busking where I perform as ‘The Scientist’ with my Evolver machine (link to video) which looks like it might be measuring something. The machine ‘records’ its environment and interaction in untuneable drawings which I then interpret in my studio into what I call Machine.Assisted.Drawings (M.A.D) which are the main works exhibited in this show.
Horse.. a version of myself.. as The Scientist.. I was busy doing other things so he stood in for me.. trying to reach the edge of measurement with this maladaptive device that refused to stay in the lines..
Horse. Myself as a Horse. Measuring to the edge of measurement. The Horse suggesting the unknowability of ourselves as we measure the world. I talk to the bird.. I want to be able to reach things that are not me / things that I am not… like how there are different systems. Can they know each other. Art and Science. Science and religion. Me and You – built with different axioms / assumptions but co-existing.
A wall in the exhibition. A suite of drawings. The large one. Bird in flight. Machine drawn – my intervention attempting to tune the untuneable. In the process the Machine Knew Me and predicted birds in flight – the moment. beauty emerges from chaos. The other drawings are a form of machine envy where.. I – with my own hand – envious of the machines unpredictability.. tried to draw like it. Some of the process – you can see here (link to video).
This series also inspired by the machine drawings.. became a series about the absurdness of trying to describe chaos carefully; the middle drawing alludes to the machine.. but is about the loss of control that happens in drawings even when you think you have control and have not intentionally dysregulated it.. and the third drawing… the drawings settles into what it is.. there is an acceptance that this is what it was meant to be – never a settled thing.
These works (above and below) were all made in response to street measurements. Where I performed on the street with the Evolver Machine. I take the measurements that the machine articulates.. and work into them – in my studio. Measurement.Assisted.Drawings. They sit in this world of hubris.. where we believe that our world presents itself to us for measurement – as something that can be known – demystified.. and not just known.. but that it somehow is like this. The world then becomes The Measurement. A stand-in for what it rather might be.
A video of stills to show the works and the wonderful support of friends and beautiful Australian Art Community.
Introductory speech from inspiring artist and friend, also a scientist turned artist: Beric Henderson.
my! opening remarks.
Following the introductions at the opening.. a performance was held. A musical performance. A four-piece band called The Arythmias. Myself (Sid!); a mechanical horse (who operates an erratic drumstick); Faz (aka Farryl Roth); a piano. Here is a link to the performance.
