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Samuel
James

Samuel James, PANIC_ EMBRACE, 2022, 4K video mapped onto clothing fragments. Supported by

122 Gertrude Street, Ngár-go (Fitzroy)

Biography

Samuel James is a filmmaker and projection designer who has collaborated on more than 250 works since 1994 with contemporary performance companies and independent dancers. James' projection work is seen in major Australian Festivals in addition to smaller developments with experimental companies. His work uses object tracking with light sources and video light drawing to activate the spirit of place in video graphic site research. He participates in international residencies to broaden sensorial experiences and deepen an animated archive (Czech Republic, Iceland, Finland, The Banff Centre, Calcutta, Berlin) to develop and present performative videos that are mapped onto urban and natural spaces.

PANIC/EMBRACE, 2019

PANIC/EMBRACE is a response to the feeling of fleeing - either from political conflict or natural disasters. The world has always been interwoven with a diaspora of those in transit caused by violence, political or natural. The culture of the world is being reformed and recontextualised out of necessity. The displaced state of mind lives immaterially when essential pivoting of life takes place to survive; the distorted, white items of clothing are ghosts of the former wearers, unpicked and cut to their seams, deconstructing the former body that lived in it. The projections show forces of nature and mental strategies involved in long journeys of escape, dealing with bureaucracy and personal-psychological entanglements.

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Find out more about Samuel James

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