The Moment of Disappearance by Kate McMillan
Beverley Shroot
Kate McMillan’s immersive installation will highlight the dark side
to a modern Australia that is haunted by violence and death.
The unlikely protagonist in Kate McMillan’s new film work, The Moment of Disappearance, is a large octopus called Sylvia. Set on a remote island, amidst a clash of striking, unexpected scenes, Sylvia’s supporting actor finds her, falls in love with her and destroys her. Although not necessarily in that order. The artist suggests that Sylvia represents a dark memory, perhaps a dream or tentacled nightmare from which the supporting actor cannot escape.
McMillan’s artistic practice focuses on highlighting the parts of history that have not made it into Australia’s modern narrative: stories of banishment and dispossession; incarceration and imprisonment; ghosts and whispers; violence and death. Previous works such as Lost and Islands of Incarceration have commented directly on colonial atrocities such as the 1841 Wonnerup Massacre in which countless Aboriginal men and women were murdered in the name of ‘settlement’.
Having confessed to recently watching a lot of surrealist film and film noir, McMillan acknowledges that this new work is not as narrativised as previous pieces. It is subtler and does not require a knowledge of Australian history. Yet it continues to explore the idea of islands as paradoxes, simultaneously paradises and prisons, heavens and hells.
This work is part of Buruwan (Island), the new program from Performance Space, presented at Carriageworks. The season features interdisciplinary works that tackle forgotten moments in history, explore the gothic, and highlight the politics of the distinctive Australian landscape. Performance Space is not a company to shy away from commenting on sensitive issues and it seems to find the gloomy Bay 19 at Carriageworks one of the most appropriate spaces to present its works. Bay 19 is an ominous, slightly musty space that sits behind a heavy door away from the light airiness of Carriagework’s public foyer. Stepping inside is as though you are stepping into another world, one that will be unavoidably dark and uncomfortable.
The Moment of Disappearance is an immersive installation consisting of five projections of the film accompanied by a haunting soundtrack. It is a powerful theatrical experience. Inside the space, a fine, almost transparent wool veil hangs from floor to ceiling and surrounds a low wooden stage. The curtain acts as a shroud beyond which the films are projected onto large screens. There is no specific action to follow. Each performance begins with the lowering of lights but the content of the film is a mix of images that clash and flow and are left open to interpretation. Many of the images are of popular holiday destinations with pristine beaches and glistening waters, advertised as places to rest and relax. Yet, they were also places of imprisonment, futile despair and horrific suffering imposed by colonial rule. It is unsettling to imagine what suffering from human hands must have taken place amongst such natural beauty.
Composer and long time collaborator, Cat Hope provides an eerie, ethereal soundtrack performed by The London Improvisers Orchestra that adds to the sense of the idyllic clashing with the horrific. And whilst the curtain offers a sense of space and a feeling of detachment from the films, it is the soundtrack that draws you in, asking you to pause, reflect and look for meaning in the landscapes set before you. The artist hopes that ‘viewers feel intense emotion, a sense of beauty but disconcerted and a sense of discomfort from all the things we do and then forget, from all the histories we ignore, from the knowledge that the past always follows us’. The Moment of Disappearance provides a reminder that, whilst things cannot always be seen and heard, they leave indelible traces in the landscape. Worth bearing in mind with immigration currently such a hot topic. Once again, it would seem that Australia’s solution to unwanted peoples in their lands is to lock them away on islands.
With so much to consider from this work, the question remaining is what happened to Sylvia after her performance. At the end of filming, McMillan confesses that she and her film crew took Sylvia to a local restaurant, had her cooked and then ate her. McMillan admits she was tough to eat.
The Moment of Disappearance runs in Bay 19, Carriageworks
6 - 29 November 2014.
Kate McMillan, The Moment of Disappearance, 2014, Image Still 4/ Image courtesy of the artist
