Dennis Hollingsworth

Fil R?ting opens at WPA/LA

Fil R?ting | AUSTRALIAN
September 3rd - October 2nd, 2011
Opening Friday, September 2nd, 8-10pm

WPA is pleased to announce "AUSTRALIAN",
a new Video Installation by Fil R?ting.

Fil R?ting | AUSTRALIAN
September 3rd - October 2nd, 2011
Opening Friday, September 2nd, 8-10pm

WPA is pleased to announce "AUSTRALIAN",
a new Video Installation by Fil R?ting.

"AUSTRALIAN" consists of two video projections screened on opposing walls. As the title suggests, the work's focus is on the artist's homeland, exclusively sourcing its imagery and sound from the cinema of Australia. The video is the next installment of R?ting's ongoing process he refers to as "Tri Repeta?". "Tri" referring to the human ability to see three channels of color, trichromacy. "Repeta?" referring to meaning affirmed through repetition and context. R?ting uses cinematic sources, wrenching them from their linear format, cutting and shifting time, recomposing imagery in colorful ghost-like forms and figures moving through a stationary camera space. In "AUSTRALIAN", the tri repeta? form explores a compositional narrative focusing on the question of what the term "Australian" means.1

Themes explored in R?ting's video installation include primitive utopianism, colonialism, gender politics, transgression, the modern condition and spirituality. The artist has subtitled a few segments within the installation, "Nura (Country)", "White Fellas", "Petrol Heads", "Blokes and Sheilas", "The Big Smoke" and "Dreamtime".

The result is a thirty-minute drop into a psychedelic Down Under, filled with wonder, angst, hedonism, transformation and suspense. Sonically abrupt and mesmerizing "AUSTRALIAN" disarms the viewer into a bi-polar space, where iconography and narrative meet to create a poetic identity hidden within the cinematic condition of a unique modern nation.

Australian refers to the inhabitants of the island continent in the South Pacific. Though large in land mass this culture is populated by a mere 22 million people largely due to an uninhabitable central desert region that takes up a large percentage of this United States-sized island. It's ancient cultural history, dates 68,000 years and is reflected in the indigenous culture generally referred to as Aboriginal. 2 Its relatively recent colonization by the British occurred directly after the loss of the American colonies with settlement occurring In 1788. White Australia in its infancy was a penal colony to house "transported" convicts from Britain's overwhelmed prison system.
The Australian continent quickly became a natural resource bounty for Europe, with key historical growth during the gold rushes of the 1850's and later in the cyclical resource booms predominately in minerals, coal, wool, beef and wheat, that continue through today. In 1901 the colony claimed non-violent independence from Britain and surged on to an egalitarian affluence by the end of World War II. The demand for skilled labor to support mining and agricultural endeavors led to a flood of immigration from all over the globe. Despite an apartheid-like immigration policy that was in place until 1973, Australia has become one of the most ethnically diverse modern nations per capita in the world; more diverse than either Europe or North America.3

A great resource on Aboriginal culture and history can be found at CreativeSpirits.info
"Nationmaster.com" - Net migration rate (most recent) by country

Gallery hours:
Open 12-6pm, Saturday and Sunday or by appointment.

WPA | 510 Bernard Street Los Angeles, CA 90012 | +1 213-290-5632