8 min DVD
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Once upon a time, travel through a landscape was a practice and metaphor that served to constitute the self. Dorothea Mackellar in her poem “My Country”, manipulates the nexus between identity and nature as befitting any romantic nineteen year old citizen of the late 1800’s. |
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Representations of nature within virtual environments in the 2000’s ,i.e., computer games are equally subject to similar mediations of colonization, identity, dis/placement and gender. |
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In many regards both comprise assemblages of ideas and representations brought to bear by the historical frameworks of their time, with a shared hereditary lineage. |
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My Country proposes to engage virtual landscape as a metaphorical space in which ideas about nature, masculinity, subject object relations, colonization, identity and sexuality are played out. |
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Mark Cypher received a Master of Visual Arts in Sculpture, in 1995, from Sydney University, Australia, and is currently a Senior Lecturer and Program Chair for Multimedia at Murdoch University - Western Australia. Mark also began his PHD in 2004 researching Actor Network Theory in relation to interactive artworks. Cypher has participated in several international exhibitions, including “404” II International Festival of Electronic Arts, Rosario, Argentina, and “Biophilia” at the Perth International Arts Festival, Curtin University, Western Australia. Cypher has also exhibited work in various museums and galleries across Australia, including , the Western Australian Art Gallery, Sunshine Coast Gallery, Melbourne Contemporary art show and the Casula Powerhouse, Sydney. Cypher’s work is also held in several state and national collections such as the Art Gallery of Western Australia, ArtBank-Sydney, Casula Powerhouse-Sydney, Curtin University of Technology and University of Western Australia.