Ballistic Bundts was one of four new works commissioned by the Powerhouse Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences in Sydney, Australia, on display August 2018 to January 2019. Sculptures form the basis for an installation that includes an interactive glove box, video works, and a performance series.
This exhibition is an outcome of the Australia Research Council Linkage Project ‘Curating Third Space: The Value of Art-Science Collaboration,’ led by Dr. Lizzie Muller and Katie Dyer (LP150100481). The exhibition, ‘Human non Human,’ asks how human experience is deeply enmeshed with non-human actors or agents, from plants and animals to molecules, data flows, buildings and robots. My portion of the exhibition focuses on “Food.” I was assisted in making the work by Dr. Keith Leggett and Athena Thebus.
This is the blurb from MAAS about the exhibition:
Featuring artists Dr Lindsay Kelley, Liam Young, Maria Fernanda Cardoso and Dr Ken Thaiday Snr with Jason Christopher, these works combine many perspectives, including architecture, design, biotechnology, botany, chemistry, film and performance. This series of immersive installations offer space in which to consider the past, present and possible futures of human and non-human relationships.
Dr Lindsay Kelley’s Ballistic Bundts installation invokes a kitchen of the past and a kitchen of the future to question how the experience of eating changes when technologies are changing. Featuring cakes made from ballistic gel, which mimics the density of human flesh to test projectile weapons, her inedible delicacies invoke the close relationships between food and military technologies.
Documentation from the January 11 2019 edible tissue phantoms performance:
Links:
- MAAS Powerhouse exhibition page
- Human non Human interactive map
- An audio tour I recorded for the Composting Feminisms and Environmental Humanities collective at Sydney University (transcript of audio tour) created with the expert assistance of Hethre Contant
- Social media aggregate from #4S2018
Photo archives:
- Installation photos (credit: Campbell Henderson)
- Performance photos (credit: Campbell Henderson)
- Process and behind-the-scenes photos (credit: Lindsay Kelley)
- Social media photos (credit in captions)
- #4S2018 photos by @agentdeclan (flickr)
- Photos of Human Non Human opening (credit MAAS, Ryan Hernandez)
- higher resolution versions of certain photos available
Reviews and Media:
Conference Presentations
- College Art Association panel: “The Gelatinous, the Slimy” February 2021.
Book Chapters
-
Dyer, Katie, and Lizzie Muller. “Objects, Energies and Curating Resonance across Disciplines.” In Curating Lively Objects: Exhibitions Beyond Disciplines, edited by Lizzie Muller and Caroline Seck Langill, 179–94. New York: Routledge, 2022.