Directors Lounge: Steven Ball - Travelling Practice
Digital video works 2003 - 2010
Thursday, 27 Oct. 2011, 21 h
Z-Bar, Bergstraße 2, 10115 Berlin-Mitte

These works travel near and far, across physical and virtual space using material collected en route. Steven Ball's video work is radically contemporary in its appearance. He generally uses his own camera footage, his own voice as text, and with it a different layer of discursive material. His audio-visual material appears to be straight, clear and sharp, but the themes the artist is concerned with are less easy to encompass. In very short it may possibly be described as an interest in landscape and the politics of its reproduction.

It may not be immediately obvious that Steven Ball's work has been much influenced by his experiences in Australia. He lived in Melbourne for 12 years from 1988 to 2000, where he was a very active member of the local art and super-8 film scene. Upon returning to live in London, he made another decisive move to the then "new medium" of digital video. Another idea he brought in his luggage was the intellectual debate around native Australian thinking and the respect for traditional beliefs and myths. Ball's critical reflection on the seemingly unquestionable "truths" of the Western world may be related to this discussion.