Experimenta Make Sense:
International Triennial of Media Art
I dun good (2015) was selected by curator Lubi Thomas to be included in Experimenta Make Sense: International Triennial of Media Art.
The exhibition included a national tour around Australia, 2018 – 2021
The Lock-Up (NSW), Plimsoll Gallery (TAS), Tweed Regional Gallery (NSW) and Rockhampton Art Gallery (QLD), Latrobe Regional Gallery (VIC), University of the Sunshine Coast Art Gallery (QLD), New England Regional Art Gallery, Armidale (NSW), Benalla Art Gallery, Benalla (VIC), Albury LibraryMuseum Albury (NSW)
I dun good (2015)
I dun good (2015) tablet, app, stylus pen, recycled cardboard, self-inking stamp, string, wood 115 x 77 x 30cm
I dun good is an interactive artwork that aims to uncover potentially uncomfortable conditions underlying political and social action performed online. Social media’s promising appearance to transform production relations and therefore move towards re-connecting a fragmented society and distribute more power to the public makes it appealing as a tool or platform for protest. This appeal, in combination with the commercial pairing of multimedia technology with ideas of enhancing personal agency, has resulted in heightened expectations on power and effectiveness of online participation, ‘protest’ and social action. Numerous times in recent history, the internet has proven that it can be used effectively in organising mass political action. Many cases have succeeded in spurring real-world change. However, these events have been effective when they do not replace real-world action but have used social media to coordinate it.
Using methods of estrangement akin to Bertolt Brecht’s Brechtian Theatre, I dun good uses elements of montage, astonishment, and humour to create a disruption that distances the participant from the work and begins to expose some of these conditions of online action. I dun good developed out of an Honours project of the same title.
At one end of the work a self-inking stamp connects to a cardboard mechanism by a dangling string. On the other end of the mechanism is a stylus pen, positioned in front of a tablet. Pressing the stamp on supplied, recycled paper, the stylus pen moves forward and taps the tablet’s surface, ‘clicking’ on a blue ‘Like’ or orange ‘Sign Petition’ button, interchanging every click, only separated by a brief circular loading symbol. The stamped image reads ‘I DUN GOOD’.