tandem projects
tandem projects is the collaborative practice between Adelaide-based artists Nicole Clift and Inneke Taal. Through tandem projects we ruminate on our twin interests in site, movement, time, space and language through the lens of public space and collaboration itself. This joint venture is our way of not only combining our multidisciplinary individual practices, spanning video, sculpture, textile, sound and installation outcomes but also to extend our research into new fields, bringing other creators into projects. For us, the process of collaboration is always an active element and in many ways our work is a conversation.
Three Acts | Moving image commission, Adelaide Festival Centre, 2022
Site specific moving image work made to be screened on the Adelaide Festival Centre Outdoor Screens.
Three Acts by tandem projects (Nicole Clift and Inneke Taal) is a performance in the act of making. With references to theatre, architecture, cinema and art, the simple paper forms become full of potential. Their scale can be read as handheld, or infinite based upon their relationship to the body and the camera. They are at once clumsy and grand. Most importantly, perhaps, they are human forms; an extension of play, thought, and reflection. In considering the site of Adelaide Festival Centre, tandem projects wanted to break the fourth wall, or in this case, the screen to gesture towards the humble beginnings of any major production. The evolution of these paper possibilities appear as momentary realities; a building, a sculpture, a curtain, a gesture, an action, a change of scene.
Three Acts, 2022, moving image, 4:58mins, at Adelaide Festival Centre Outdoor Moving Image Screens.
Everything moves in straight lines over the curved landscape of spacetime | Artwork commission, 2021
A two-channel moving image work installed in the staircase of a historic post office building for curated group exhibition Ádelaide X (curated by Suzanne Close).
tandem projects is the collaborative practice of Taal and Clift that combines their twin interests. Their work often consists of a language of doubling. It is not surprising then that together they would choose to install their latest moving image work in the liminal space of the stairwell. It is after all a double-sided threshold between the gallery, and artist studios (between sites of production and display), amid the physical extremities of high and low, up and down. Their moving image work is projected onto double-sided support depicting a rolling surface of marbles. The title is a direct reference to Brian Cox, “...everything moves in straight lines over the curved landscape of spacetime”, suggesting that perspective is relative depending on where and when you are situated. - excerpt from catalogue essay by Suzanne Close
https://www.postofficeprojects.com.au/gallery/pop-adlx-2021-09
Tilted gazing | Site-specific moving image work, 2020
'…
we look at them or don't from within
the milky gauze
of our tilted gazing
but they don't look back and we
cannot hurt them' [1]
This project was initially inspired by the discovery of the most distant object ever visited by spacecraft, named Arrokoth (meaning ‘sky’ in now extinct Powhatan language) which provides compelling evidence that collisions between objects in space can be gentle and occur ‘at just a brisk human’s walking pace’.[2] This relativity between massive, unfathomably old and distant space objects and our own everyday movements sparked our interest in treating the FELTspace site as a satellite or centre to orbit/pivot from. Through shooting slow panning video of the building and its reflections, we aim to highlight the tactility of the site, of which many viewers will have physically visited, to play with tandem notions of familiarity/unfamiliarity and bodily knowledge/ visual information. This project has been executed knowing the footage will be played on the FELTdark window space at night, and we enjoy the notion of the building reflecting itself during these times of self-isolation.
[1] The project’s title is an excerpt from Adrienne Rich’s poem ‘Hubble Photographs: After Sappho’ (2005).
[2] Hannah Devlin, Science Correspondent, The Guardian, 14 February 2020, ‘'Not just a space potato': Nasa unveils 'astonishing' details of most distant object ever visited.’, sited on 14.2.2020 online at https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/feb/13/not-just-a-space-potato-nasa-unveils-astonishing-details-of-most-distant-object-ever-visited-arrokoth
This activity is proudly supported by the Adelaide Central School of Art Graduate Support Program and Arts South Australia COVID-19 Innovating Practice Grant.
The artists would like to thank Picture Hire Australia, Chase and Rosina Possingham.
Photos courtesy Rosina Possingham.
In Praise of Shadows | Artist in Residence | 2021
In Praise of Shadows was a self-directed residency which took place at FELTspace ARI. We were interested in the ‘gallery at rest’ and how our exhibition could reflect the unseen gallery/building. We visited the gallery after dark to document its spaces and test the perceptual limits of our recording devices - DSLR and 35mm film cameras. The outcome was a revolving exhibition that changed weekly, and a closing event where we took over the whole gallery (among front exhibition artist Anne Stevens’ sculptures) and projected a video in large format on the walls and brought our documentation into the front space. This residency was partly inspired by the book of the same title, In Praise of Shadows which discusses Japanese architecture and its particular fondness for candle light.
Images 3-7 courtesy Brianna Speight.
foldback | artwork commission, 2019
Curated into group exhibition The Scene is the Seen, held at Holy Rollers | 2019 | Curated by Rayleen Forester and Ray Harris
Foldback is mainly a sound work - it is the recorded conversation between Clift and Taal about the making of the work for this show. The audio was played through an ipad, with headphones, and the ipad was housed in a custom built frame and plinth. The audio was accompanied by an image of two balloons floating in the empty exhibition space - a chance occurance happened upon by the artists while recording their conversation.
Images 2-4 courtesy Sam Roberts.
https://citymag.indaily.com.au/whats-on/the-scene-is-the-seen/
