Contraption Molecular

Contraption Molecular is a stop motion animation shot in Griffith, New South Wales, that documents a ‘body’ performing within a deserted orange orchard. Contraption Molecular incorporates over two thousand still images displaying ‘the body’ moving through the landscape, skimming a surface between reality and dreamscape to discover the potentials and connections ‘the body’ can make and attach to.

Contraption Molecular defines ‘the body’ not as a vessel that carries and collects information, but rather as a link or node in a larger structure or environment; ‘the body’ shaping, building and dismantling connections to extend to new potentialities for action and transformation. The processes ‘the body’ undergoes during these connections are acknowledged by representing the body as a machinic entity that combines present actions and potential connections within a continuum. These representations imagine the body as an abstract entity, interacting within complex systems to produce change and transformation. In doing so ‘the body’ in performance focuses on the ways it connects with other objects and entities within an environment.

In order to rethink ‘the body’ as a set of new possibilities which imagine it as an extruded system, it is exhibited as a set of capabilities and limitations. ‘The body’ as a machinic potentiality as opposed to an enclosed structure extends itself within an environment. Rather than being bound by its skin, ‘the body’ mutates and attempts new connections in any given environment. It thereby opens up new sensory functions and becomes embedded in new systems.

Kate Brown, Contraption Molecular, excerpt from 3 minute stop motion animation, 2010

Exhibited as a part of the Honours graduate program at Sydney College of the Arts and Art Beat Gallery, North Melbourne.

Photography Sarah Brown