The word fell is a perfect obfuscation — both active and passive, depending on tense. This film is the culmination of a body of research into the extraction and refinement of Eucalyptus regnans into the popular timber product, Mountain Ash/Tasmanian Oak — simulacra of a colonial fantasy. Set in Toolangi, an old growth forest implicated in allegations of illegal logging by VicForests, the film speculates on a lump of wood found on the side of the road as an artefact of entangled climatic conditions, material relations, and human encounters.
Using LiDAR scanning — a technology used by the forestry industry and restricted in its capture of only surface — combined with archival film footage from both Victorian and Tasmanian State Libraries, these limited mediums offer a critical perspective on exclusion. Finding fuzzy edges with analytical tools and moments of multiplicity in compartmentalised categories, the film asks — how can we rupture the hegemonic gaze which sees objectivity everywhere?
Audio courtesy of Wilson Tanner.
Fell is presented as part of STRAY VOLTAGE, KINGS Artist-Run’s iterative video program, collaboratively facilitated by Rebecca McCauley and Aaron Claringbold. Looking to the potential that exists between seemingly incompatible ideas, STRAY VOLTAGE premises an experimental program of critically engaged moving image works, fundamentally grounded by the earth.
STRAY VOLTAGE is supported by the City of Melbourne 2022 Annual Arts Grants Program.