We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art stands and recognise the creative contribution First Australians make to the art and culture of this country.
Sandra Selig / Australia b.1972 / Rivers recording the universe (Tokyo) (still) 2009 / DV transferred to DVD, seven-channel video installation projected on customised polypropylene screens, 16:9, stereo, channel 1: monochrome, 7:37 minutes; channel 2: monochrome, 7:03 minutes; channel 3: colour, 6:32 minutes; channel 4: colour, 7:39 minutes; channel 5: colour, 7:29 minutes; channel 6: colour, 6:54 minutes; channel 7: monochrome, 6:37 minutes; looped / The James C. Sourris AM Collection. Gift of James C. Sourris through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2010. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Sandra Selig
Sandra SeligRivers recording the universe (Tokyo) 2009
Not Currently on Display
This work, like others by Sandra Selig, explores evocative moments of perception or what might be thought of as the ‘poetics’ of science. The work uses the most elemental and subtle means: images of lights reflected on urban waterways, complemented by a faint soundtrack of trickling water.
Although Selig has fixed the camera’s focus on the surface of dark, night-time water, the perception of near and far is warped. She notes that as ‘spatial distances become uncertain, you become aware of your own eyes trying to locate where the light is in relation to your body, yet because it won’t stay still and keeps dematerialising, it’s always just out of grasp.’
Selig’s work often speaks to ideas about fragility and vulnerability, whether of the human sphere, the biosphere, or the universe at large.
Sandra Selig was born in the north-west Sydney suburb of Seven Hills in 1972. She completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts with First Class Honours in 1995 and a Master of Arts in 1999, both at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. In 1996 she received the Queensland Art Gallery’s Melville Haysom Memorial Scholarship and in 2001 was awarded an Arts Queensland Monthly Grant for an installation at 200 Gertrude Street, Melbourne. From 1996-2002 she lectured part-time in Visual Arts at the Queensland University of Technology.
Selig’s practice has included sound works, small scale wall pieces, works on paper and installation, and these varied formats are often combined or interrelated. Earlier installation works sometimes contained sound elements, while more recent examples, although ‘silent’, evoke infinitesimal sound waves and subtle vibrations produced by movements in the air.