Invisible energies, virtual realities unleashed

David Haines and Joyce Hinterding Geology 2015. Installation view, Energies: Haines & Hinterding, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, 2015. Commissioned by the MCA, supported by Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, New Zealand. Image courtesy of the artist and Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney. © the artist.
Photo: Christopher Snee.

Invisible energies, virtual realities unleashed at Christchurch Art Gallery

Christchurch Art Gallery is bringing the first major survey exhibition by Australian artists David Haines and Joyce Hinterding to New Zealand, on show exclusively in Christchurch from tomorrow (Saturday) to 5 March 2017.

Curated by the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia’s Anna Davis, Energies: Haines & Hinterding spans experimental, digital, electronic and traditional media, bringing together interactive cinema, installation, virtual reality, sound, video, sculpture, aroma, photography and drawing.

Haines’ and Hinterding’s latest work, Geology, was inspired by the 2011 Canterbury earthquakes, and uses computer-game technology and a motion-detection system to create an interactive, cinematic simulation of the natural and supernatural world. Projected eight metres wide in high (4K) resolution, it has several different levels to explore, each one taking the viewer deeper underground to discover hidden and mysterious terrains.

“Haines and Hinterding are captivated by the unseen energies that surround us,” says Gallery director Jenny Harper.

“At the centre of their fifteen-year collaboration is an engagement with the invisible. Very low frequency radio waves, television signals, satellite transmissions, solar winds, aroma molecules and psychic forces all manifest within their work, which aims to summon these hidden realms and bring them to our senses in an artistic dialogue with science.”

Other works featured in the exhibition include Telepathy, a bright yellow echoless chamber that allows visitors to experience a space without sound, EarthStar, which investigates “the sun’s elemental and mythic qualities” and includes a high-definition video projection of the sun and two ozone fragrances, and Purple Rain, a video projection that responds to electromagnetic energy from digital television signals in the atmosphere.

Energies: Haines & Hinterding is on display at Christchurch Art Gallery from 26 November 2016 to 5 March 2017. Entry is free.

A programme of free events is associated with this exhibition, including a special opening event at the Gallery tonight (Friday, 7:30pm), and a floor-talk by the artists tomorrow (Saturday, 2:30pm). For more information, please see the Gallery's website:christchurchartgallery.org.nz/events

ENDS

About David Haines

David Haines has been a practicing artist for over 20 years. In that time he has exhibited extensively within Australia and internationally. He was born in London in 1966 and lives and works in the Blue Mountains, Australia. His work covers a wide range of approaches and techniques, including video, sound, sculpture, photography and painting. Since 2004, he has been working with aroma and has developed an extensive library of aroma molecules. Haines has been represented in the Adelaide Biennale of Australian Art, 2004 Sydney Biennale, 2002 Tarrawarra Biennale 2012 and The Kuandu Biennale 2014.

He has exhibited his work in many major contemporary and experimental art spaces around the world, including Tate Liverpool, The Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney), Artspace Sydney, Artspace Auckland, Institute of Modern Art (Brisbane), The Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia, Scott Donovan Gallery Sydney, and Breenspace Sydney.

About Joyce Hinterding

Joyce Hinterding’s work explores physical and virtual dynamics. Her practice is based on investigations into energetic forces, through custom-built field recording and monitoring technologies. These explorations into acoustic and electromagnetic phenomena have produced large sculptural antenna works, experimental drawings, video and sound-producing installations and experimental audio works for performance. She often collaborates with artist David Haines to produce large-scale, immersive video and sound works that explore the tension between the fictive and the phenomenal. Joyce currently lives in the Blue Mountains, Australia, and lectures at Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney University.

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