John A Douglas
Screen Test (Australiana) - A Suicidal Synthesis
00:03:55; 00:04:17 2006
In these new works Douglas juxtapositions two rural suicides from the films Walkabout and Wake in Fright both made in 1971 . These video performances are a reflective synthesis between the two characters; one trying to get out of Sydney and committing a sacrificial suicide after setting fire to the family car the other attempting to take his own life after a binge on alcohol, two up and roo shooting, unable to escape the peril of the outback and any hope of getting back to Sydney. The work embodies a ravaged masculinity and self-destructive psychosis in the Australian landscape that is as relevant now as it was then. Douglas revives the aesthetic of cheap Australian TV Dramas of the sixties and seventies in an attempt to foreground the forgotten narratives that lay buried deep in the past.
The experimental like process of these screen tests disrupts the narrative structures inherent in the original films, shifting the role of the artist to an aberration of the self mirrored on the screen.
DVD available