Immersive Installation. Karachi Biennale. 2022
By Betty Sargeant, Lorraine Brigdale (Yorta Yorta First Nations Herritage), Justin Dwyer.
MEDIUM: 8-Channel video-art, audio, light show, designed space, sculptures, mirror ball.
SIZE: 8.2m x 12m x 2.6m (h).
COMMISSIONED BY: Karachi Biennale, Pakistan.
Welcome to DISCO APOCALYPSE. A nihilistic frenzy. An almost unbearable reality. We invite audiences to rave on the precipice of the abyss.
This immersive light installation is a perspective-warping onslaught of over-saturated colour, light and sound. Layered visuals coat the disco’s walls and floor. Shafts of moving light and bass-heavy electronic grooves are felt viscerally. Multiple video artworks beam out from screens. People are invited to stay and absorb this hedonistic celebration of end times.
DISCO APOCALYPSE places the artists’ work in the context of a wider society who is in stasis. A society who is unable to take action on climate realities, and who draws on rich environmental and cultural resources for hedonistic pleasure. This night club is a warning, one that inspires change that’s led by environmental and culturally embedded action.
This immersive disco was made using traditional art, science, computational mathematics and graphic-design skills. The visuals feature First Nations war shields. Shields elicit protective qualities. They’re re-imagined here, by Yorta Yorta Australian artist Lorraine Brigdale, as a tool for the protection of natural ecosystems. Accompanying the shields are enlarged microscope imagery and generative-computational imagery.
CREDITS
Betty Sargeant (she/they): Artist (micrographs, graphic design, video artworks, audio field recordings), creative director, producer
Lorraine Brigdale (she/her): Artist (shields), cultural leader
Justin Dwyer (he/him): Audio composer, lighting designer
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Betty Sargeant lives and works on the land of the Bunurong people and the Yallakut-Willam clan who are Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation (Australia). Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. Betty Sargeant respectfully acknowledges the ongoing struggles and achievements of First Nations custodians. Sovereignty was never ceded.
DISCO APOCALYPSE was created from audio and visual elements collected and created during Betty’s time in numerous international locations. This immersive light installation features fractured visuals and audio from Amazonia (Brazil), Gamboa (Panama), Batticaloa (Sri Lanka), Karachi (Pakistan), Gili Trawanga (Indonesia) and on Koori lands (Australia). She acknowledges the First Peoples and communities of these lands. Betty came to these landscapes with presence and intention and pays respect to the culture, lives and struggles of these peoples and lands. In making and presenting this artwork, Betty gratefully acknowledges First People’s custodianship and connection to landscape.
