Shadow Play: How is a concern with the uncanny made manifest in the artistic practice of Brass Art?

This thesis and the portfolio of supporting work, uses an expanded interpretation of the uncanny to reveal how through shadow play, a concern with the uncanny is made manifest in the artistic practice of Brass Art. In doing so it makes a claim for originality through the public presentation of six artworks created between 2008 and 2016 by the artistic trio Brass Art, of which I am a contributing member. Brass Art is Chara Lewis, Kristin Mojsiewicz and Anneké Pettican, a trio of women artists. For the purposes of this PhD by publication my original contribution to knowledge is an exploration of the emergence of the uncanny in our practice and in the artworks and associated exhibitions presented.

Brass Art use light-based technologies to record our individual and collective presence in a range of situations; from writer’s rooms, to natural history collections, airports, hotels and hot air balloons. These performances are captured by eclectic tools including cameras, watercolour paints, 3D bodyscanners, 4D biomedical facial scanning apparatus, and the Kinect motion sensing device. Each process creates a very different ‘material’ render of our activities: on paper, in code, as data, through match-moving and rapid prototyping. The tools, methods and processes Brass Art use are iteratively tested in order for us to harness their particular qualities and unforeseen flaws in an attempt to capture the elusive uncanny. Our discoveries are presented in my portfolio of supporting work, and in my thesis and footnotes.

In my reflections upon the unexpected and original discoveries our active participation proffers, this thesis develops my individual appreciation of the uncanny as a vital, ambivalent concept in my investigation of Brass Art. Adopting hybrid performative strategies, material transformations and engagement with technical processes, I assert Brass Art seek to explore a fundamental instability akin to an expanded view of the uncanny.