TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN

2 August - 12 September 2017

Curated by Anita Spooner, presented by Channels Festival 2017

Sofi Basseghi, Matthew Berka, Annie Berman, David Brazier and Kelda Free, Hanna Chetwin, Caitlin Cummane, Julia Davis, Jane Frances Dunlop, Mahmood Fazal, Giles Fielke, Joe Hamilton, Pat Hamilton, Timothy Hillier and Danzel Baker, Timothy Hillier, Harry Hughes, Adam and Zack Khalil, Olivia Koh, Katrin Koenning, Collin Leitch, Madeleine Martiniello, Sabina Maselli, Salome Oggenfuss, Steven Rhall, Crack Rodriguez, James Vaughn, Grahame Weinbren, Adele Wilkes, Nina Yuen.

A scientist gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"

— Hawking, 1988

Turtles all the way down is a collaborative video essay with a nonlinear structure that grows ad infinitum.

When two mirrors face each other, they reflect an abyss of virtual imagery. The image unfolds in depth, creating an enclosed portal, a formal enaction of a crisis of representation. This optical paradox has an analytical echo. Collage severs images of their context, inviting narrative and semiotic speculation through new sequencing. Unfixed, signifiers can float on a receding horizon of interpretation. We can analyse to oblivion with different ideas in new jackets.

The internet is also expanding. Turtles...' narrative structure enacts the way our consciousness is channelled through networked database technology - it is flattened, non-linear and hypermediated. An infinite regress of formal experimentation, Turtles all the way down is multilogue of authors, narrative pathways and interpretations.

Presented by Channels Festival 2017.

Image: Josh Abramovici, 2017, Turtles all the way down