Found furniture, electronics with sound, streamers, champagne bottle,
165 x 50 x 100 cm
In the gallery, we see a wardrobe. It omits the bass notes of muffled music and the indecipherable chatter of an enclosed party as if this wardrobe could transport us to some kind of adult Narnia or contains a rave for smurfs.
Yet when the viewer opens this door, the sound and vibrations stop and one is left pouring over the aftermath of a party that might have been. Once the door is closed again, the rumbles of the party recommence.
Adopting live recordings from a party at Space 3, a Sydney Artist Run Space of which Kyriakidis was director 2000 - 2006, the work points to the complex strata of art interactions and networks. Perhaps now more than ever, the aesthetics of the contemporary artist experience is foremost one of being a node in a network. Whilst this work could be construed as a critique of art’s exclusionary circles and rubbernecking, it also perhaps points to the agency that comes with this - no, corporate fat cats and socialites, you can’t come to our squat party, despite your FOMA (Fear of Missing Out) motto adopted by squeamish silicon valley life hacking entrepreneurs.
There is also something quite comforting in the artist’s emulation of a wrung-out dance-floor. The sticky streamers and footprints of walls and floors that have been worked over in cheap spirits and reverb, reminding us of the micro-political act of getting lost in the sound and a sea of bodies.
(ella barclay 2016)
China Heights Gallery, Surry Hills, 2016