Hale Tenger

Featuring the work of twenty-five Australian and international artists, IMPACT is a selection of recent Gallery acquisitions with a focus on video, video installation and soundscape works, along with recent sculpture, paintings and works on paper. All play out in one form or another various modes of impact, including the physical, psychological, perceptual and the political.

Video art has been developing since the late 1960s and early 1970s. Its original form was analog video tape which was then, largely, superseded with the advent of digital technology in the 1990s as hard disks, CD-ROMs, and then DVDs came to prominence. Digital video with its access to control technology gave artists an expanded field of creative possibility. They could abandon or reimagine the conventions of montage, narrative, sound, duration and the relationship between moving images and audiences employed by the motion picture industry. These technical advances gave artists the option to edit and manipulate moving image sequences themselves instead of relying on expensive editing studios.

The combination of this wide variety of work is not intended to literally illustrate the title theme, but instead offers a range of compelling viewing experiences. Each work has its own power; each work creates its own impact.