People Like Us
- When 5 Sep - 7 Nov 2015
- Where
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Address
CNR OXFORD ST & GREENS RD PADDINGTON NSW 2021
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Hours
TUES TO SAT, 10AM–5PM
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Phone
+61 2 8936 0888
'People Like Us' explores the interrelationship between art, technology and the human experience. It considers the capacity new media and technologies offer for humans to experiment with ideas and interpret information in the 21st century. The works use moving image, interactive digital technologies, data visualisation, sound and music to explore connections between our inner selves, each other and our environments.
Interactivity also plays a key part in this exhibition with a wide variety of opportunities for visitors to engage with the artworks: George Poonkhin Khut’s Brighthearts app uses your real-time bio feed data in heart rate controlled images and sound; John McGhee’s digital animations invite visitors to take the wheel on a wild ride through human blood vessels; while Volker Kuchelmeister and Laura Fisher’s Veloscape offers participants a chance to take a virtual bicycle tour of Sydney inside the gallery space.
UNSW Galleries is proud to present a number of Australian premiere works by high profile international artists. This includes Michael Nyman’s poignant sound work, a symphony commissioned by the 2014 Liverpool Biennale to mark the 25th anniversary of the Hillsborough stadium collapse. The people’s names sung in Memorial are not those of celebrity players, but those of 96 everyday sports fans who lost their lives attending a Saturday afternoon football match. They are ordinary people rendered extraordinary by art. Nyman is well known for his music and soundtracks for important art films, including The Piano, Gattaca and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover. He is less known but equally respected for this personal, prolific output of video art.
Other Australian premiere artworks by international artists include Italian video artist Yuri Ancarani’s Da Vinci, whose acclaimed, uncanny portrayal of a robotic surgical procedure confounded visitors to the Venice Biennale. As well, award-winning Luxembourg artist Su-Mei Tse’s aurally immersive purring cat portraits confirm why cats are today the most searched for creature on the Internet.
Well-known Australian artists include Aboriginal-Chinese artist Jason Wing whose sound work tells a moving story about the Stolen Generations. Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro’s first ever video work celebrates humans’ love of the car as it documents a mechanic patiently dismantling and rebuilding a racing car before our eyes. The dissected car also inhabits the exhibition space. Angelica Mesiti’s Rapture (silent anthem) dramatically describes without sound the trance-like euphoric state of music festival fans. Joan Ross animates the British invasion of Australia in a witty post-colonial narrative that combines art history and building construction noise. Daniel Crooks uses his acclaimed time-splice technique to observe the activities of strangers in a typical Melbourne laneway as they wander the narrow pockets, never quite touching, oblivious to the events around them.
Artists
George Poonkhin Khut
John McGhee
Volker Kuchelmeister
Laura Fisher
Michael Nyman
Yuri Ancarani
Su-Mei Tse
Jason Wing
Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro
Angelica Mesiti
Daniel Crook
Joan Ross
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Curator
Felicity Fenner, UNSW Galleries Director
'People Like Us' is a National Exhibitions Touring Support (NETS) Australia exhibition developed by UNSW Galleries.

Yuri Ancarini, Da Vinci 2012. Installation view, 'People Like Us', UNSW Galleries, 2015. Photo: Silversalt Photography

Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro, The Drag 2015. Installation view, 'People Like Us', UNSW Galleries, 2015. Photo: Silversalt Photography

Volker Kuchelmeister and Laura Fisher, Veloscope 2014-Ongoing. Installation view, 'People Like Us', UNSW Galleries, 2015. Photo: Silversalt Photography

Angelica Mesiti, The Calling 2013-24. Installation view, 'People Like Us', UNSW Galleries, 2015. Photo: Silversalt Photography

John McGhee, Inside - Topologies of Stroke 2015. Installation view, 'People Like Us', UNSW Galleries, 2015. Photo: Silversalt Photography
'People Like Us' will tour nationally from 2016 to 2019, delivering cutting-edge contemporary digital media art to regional and remote Australian communities as part of the National Touring Initiative. The tour commences in Burnie, Tasmania and continues to a further 13 galleries and arts centres in regional centres across Australia including Mount Gambier, Geraldton and Alice Springs. Managed by Museums & Galleries of NSW on behalf of NETS, People Like Us forges connections between the lives and experiences of diverse Australian audiences.
The National Touring Initiative is supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its principal arts funding body, and by the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments.
The NETS Australia network comprises Artback NT, Art on the Move WA, Contemporary Art Tasmania, Country Arts SA, Museums & Galleries of NSW, Museums & Galleries Queensland, and NETS Victoria, and is supported by the Australia Council and state and territory funding bodies.