AWFULLY WONDERFUL: SCIENCE FICTION IN CONTEMPORARY ART
CURATED BY BEC DEAN AND LIZZIE MULLER
Bec Dean, Performance Space’s Associate Director and the exhibition’s Co-curator
Lizzie Muller is guest curator
AWFULLY WONDERFUL AUDIO GUIDE
Track 1 - Introduction and Adam NortonTrack 2 - Haines/Hinterding
Track 3 - Simon Yates (Futura)
Track 4 - Hayden Fowler
Track 5 - David Lawrey and Jaki Middleton
Track 6 - Sam Smith and Ms&Mr
Track 7 - Eugene Carchesio
Track 8 - Simon Yates (Shrinking Ray Gun)
Track 9 - Ian Haig and Phillip Brophy
Track 10 - Deborah Kelly and Conclusion
Awfully Wonderful: Science Fiction in Contemporary Art explores a spectrum of seductive, terrifying and fantastic potential futures. The exhibition presents new and existing work by twelve Australian artists including time machines, hand made robots, meteorological instruments, interplanetary communication devices, a mars gravity simulator, wearable technologies and apocalyptic visions.
Science fiction is a potent cultural expression of the impact of science and technology on society. In visual art, as in film and literature, artists use the mode of science fiction to open up imaginary worlds and alternative spaces where different social, political and personal possibilities can be explored. In these imaginary worlds, real scientific discoveries, tools and technologies are combined with speculative and fantastical future possibilities.
Awfully Wonderful draws from the curatorial inheritance of the Wonder Chamber, an encyclopedic collection of types of objects whose categorical boundaries were yet to be defined. It brings together the work of artists working across photomedia, installation, performance, sound, video, design and painting. It explores how these different expressions, objects and ephemera can also function as experimental and philosophical conduits through which truth and fiction mingle, creating powerful new ways of understanding our present and preparing for our future.
Awfully Wonderful features a diverse program in the ClubHouse, including Philip Brophy’s film Northern Void and a screening of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis introduced by archivist and historian Michael Organ. There are opportunities for discussion and discourse with artist and curator tours of the exhibition, a RealTime forum and a Speculative Futures Symposium.
ARTIST STATEMENTS
Philip Brophy
Eugene Carchesio
Haines/Hinterding
Deborah Kelly
Jo Law
David Lawrey & Jaki Middleton
Ms&Mr
Hayden Fowler
Ian Haig
Adam Norton
Sam Smith
Simon Yates
Guest co-curator Lizzie Muller is Senior Lecturer in the School of Design at the University of Technology, Sydney. She specialises in audience participation and interdisciplinary collaboration in contemporary art.
Artists: Philip Brophy, Eugene Carchesio, Haines/Hinterding, Deborah Kelly, Jo Law, David Lawrey & Jaki Middleton, Ms&Mr, Hayden Fowler, Ian Haig, Adam Norton, Sam Smith and Simon Yates.
This work is licenced under a Creative Commons 
