Human Effect
| YandellHuman EffectProjection installation Various dimensions |
About the Work
Human Effect employs new technologies to create a responsive public projection installation. Mapping the contours of an urban facade, Walton repurposes it as a canvas for a series of vibrantly animated projections, creating a paradise of verdant growth. Flowering vines twine up pipes, moss and ferns spread across the walls, while vividly coloured butterflies alight on ledges. An echo of ages before human inhabitation, the scene entices viewers to move closer: an approach that sees the new life wither and slowly die, destroyed by the human presence, only to be renewed once more in a riot of foliage and motion as viewers move away. Human Effect was originally created for a Melbourne laneway and exhibited as part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival 2012. Since then it has been redeveloped for different sites including Light City Festival Baltimore, ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE Festival 2017, Vivid Festival Sydney, Public Festival Perth and was part of Experimenta Speak to Me 5th International Biennial of Media Art. In 2015 it won ‘best of show’ at Digital Graffiti in Florida.
Daren Toft’s review of Walton’s work found that,
“Human Effect reveals how important the fragility of endless cycles and the spectral are to Walton’s practice. Not, though, in the spectral’s otherworldly or post-mortem connotation of uncomfortable return (though the idea of haunting is a tangible theme in her work), but rather more generally in terms of materiality. She daringly inverts the matrix of touch and growth, interactivity and productivity. As transitory passers-by or determined visitors approach the organic forms manifesting on the walls before them, their touch initiates a process of decline and fall, of degradation. Yes, you may indeed touch the plants, but at your risk. Lingham Lane may never be the same again.”
About the Artist
Yandell Walton is a Melbourne-based artist whose work encompasses projection, installation, and interactive digital media. Through work that melds architectural space with the projected image, Yandell has become recognised for her immersive projection works that merge the actual and the virtual to investigate notions of impermanence in relation to environmental, social and political issues. Yandell grew up in Far North Queensland and has a connection to the unique landscape and rainforest. Her major solo exhibition Shifting Surrounds was presented at NorthSite Contemporary in Cairns earlier this year and her research will continue to engage the Wet Tropics throughout 2021. Yandell has been the recipient of numerous grants to produce an extensive body of public artworks; and her work has been commissioned for public projects in Frankston (2006), Albury City (2010), Townsville (2014), Melbourne (2014 & 2015), Wagga Wagga (2016) and Nillumbik (2019). Yandell’s work has been widely exhibited nationally and internationally including Light City Festival Baltimore (2016), Digital Graffiti Florida (2015), Experimenta Speak to Me (Melbourne & Brisbane 2012-14), PUBLIC Festival Perth (2014), Melbourne Festival (2012), VIVID Festival Sydney (2013), ISEA (International Symposium of Electronic Art 2013) and White Night Festival Melbourne (2015), amongst others.
Awards include the National Gallery Of Victoria Women’s Association Award (2014), Best of Show Award Digital Graffiti (2015), The Windsor Prize (2014), Finalist Sunshine Coast Environmental Art Award (2015), Highly commended Sunshine Coast New Media Art Award (2015), Finalist Linden Art Prize (2015), Special Recognition Digital Graffiti (2016), Finalist Screengrab International Media Arts Award (2014), Best Video Work, Centre for Contemporary Photography Salon (2014) and the recipient of an Australian Postgraduate Award. In 2020 she was the recipient of the inaugural Philip Hunter Fellowship, a research project investigating ecological shifts in forests due to human impact. This research continued during the IDEATE program awarded by Australian Network for Art and Technology allowing her to interrogate technological processes to enable 3D scans of the environment to be animated, introducing human-like movement.
