A survey of ongoing Camera Obscura work.

It is through the observation, human interaction with, and transformation of the landscape, that the search for identity can be informed. In this search much can be learnt by listening, looking and sensing the immediate environment and its rhythms. Philosophers like Henri Lefebvre and Gaston Bachelard investigated these ideas in terms of Rhythmanalysis, an approach to investigating this area of thought first developed by Lucio Alberto Pinheiro dos Santos. The emerging thought from this concept considers that listening to, or meditating on, both the bodily and the immediate environmental rhythms can be an important new methodology for investigating societal and human orders and disorders.

In our collaborative and individual work, we are interested in the philosophy of the everyday and how our surroundings define us. In this work we propose the phenomenological nature of the camera obscura as an interstitial, site-specific exposé of time and place. It also operates as a tool for observing and analysing the rhythms of everyday life. In our everyday lives we tend to overlook the commonplace and neglect to identify with its intrinsic nature both inside and outside. The visual nature of the camera obscura allows a space for us to explore this contemporary search for the rhythms of self within the wider context of human experience and the landscape. The camera obscura is a window through which the view of reality itself becomes transcendental.

Victoria Cooper
Victoria Cooper has worked extensively with photographs imported into digital imaging environment and in the production of artists’ books. For her, the computer has provided a space in which she can fully explore the potential of the photographic narrative. Along with this digital work she also finds the traditional photographic processes like the camera obscura and cyanotype also play an important role in her site-specific work. For Cooper, the enigma of the vast and ancient Australian landscape, which bears the marks of human experiences both historical and contemporary, contains many unexplored ambiguities. She is currently exploring these concepts in her visual and academic research and integrates her findings into visual stories and artists’ books.

Cooper’s work is included in State and National Artists’ Book Collections including the National Library of Australia, Library of Australian Fine Arts in the State Library of Queensland. Her work can also been found in Regional Art Gallery collections in both Queensland and nationally. She is currently working towards a Doctorate of Philosophy at James Cook University researching the connections across science, myth, history and art located within the contemporary environment of freshwater in Australia.

Doug Spowart
Spowart has been extensively involved in creative media areas for over 30 years -- his practice includes; artists’ book production, freelance artist, critic, judge, writer and teacher.

Although being involved in these creative industries Spowart’s driving force is his devotion to the conceptualisation, creation and production of his personal imagery and the formation of this work into exhibitions and, almost exclusively over the last seven years, artists’ books. This work has found its way into many private, regional and state public galleries, national and international photography and artists’ book collections. Doug Spowart has also maintained a rigorous exhibition program of both solo and group shows with his images being shown in most states of Australia and internationally in China, Japan, New Zealand and New Caledonia.

In recent years Spowart has concentrated on his personal work as well as academic study. He gained a Graduate Diploma in Visual Art from Monash University in 2002 and is currently studying towards a Doctorate of Philosophy at James Cook University researching the topic of the photobook in the context of the artists’ book.

For more information about Victoria Cooper and Doug Spowart, please visit their website