interview with Troy Innocent - Anna Pappas Gallery

How do you go about creating pieces; is it a long process with many ideas?

The pieces use a consistent codes and systems, so the process begins with the development of these systems. The possibilities afforded by the formal constraints of these codes is then explored in the studio on different levels – spatial, aesthetic, semiotic and so on. In this show the pieces are connected to landscape and possible spaces, each is an abstraction of certain topography, so the process centres around this particular idea. There are a couple of different levels to the process – scale models, prototyping – it draws upon architecture and software development as much as it does art and design.

What materials do you use?

My hybrid practice blends sculpture, sound, programming, animation and installation in which the work exists in a mixed reality that traverses the object, the screen, form and space. In a way, I see these as the materials that make up the work. The creation of the sculptures involves more ‘hard materials’ such as acrylic, plywood and hardboard laser cut components that are assembled using rules and systems.

How is code and language used?

Each sculpture is a code constructed via a language created for the pieces, as described previously. They are part of a larger project that explores the possibilities of nonverbal and visual languages and the kind of worlds and experiences that these manifest. Each language embeds within it a certain worldview or way of being and I’m really interested in how this plays out, especially in the digital era when each interface, game, system represents a language in itself and so a potentially different way of seeing the world.

How much of an influence is the abstract painters of the past?

Largely through my interest in synaesthesia during the 90s (at that time connected to new media arts, electronica and interactive media) I became interested in the formative years of abstraction, where synaesthesia was a major influence. Klee, Kandinsky and Miró are favourites from that period. Later I have found painters from this time working with asemic writing – a freeform type of writing with no semantic content – and ideograms which have also factored into this more recent work.

Your work is often interactive but the stand alone sculptures seem to a break away from that…

When I first started working with sculpture and mixed realities I saw material objects as portals or signposts linking back to digital and virtual worlds. Increasingly digital spaces are integrated and embedded in the material world, so much so that there is little, if any, distinct line between the two. There is more of a multiplicity of worlds, many layers of reality. Each sculpture is a material expression of a computer program or code. So while they stand alone as aesthetic objects that have a kind of latent potential underneath the surface to be decoded – the interactive piece in this show manifests this process – this is part of the multiplicity expressed in the work, each sculpture is an aesthetic object, a digital code, part of a language, and so on.

The digital era has influenced art in many ways….

In many ways yet to be discovered, there is a lot of unwritten history there! Some people, myself included, call our current time ‘postdigital’ as digital modes of communication and expression are so ubiquitous and pervasive. That said, there is still a lot to be decoded. My PhD thesis was on the poetics of digital media, the many new forms of expression that manifest in the digital era through structures such as games, networks, interaction and so on. Too much to go into right now, but one aspect that has really interested me for a long time is the inherent abstraction in digital spaces, exploring the units and codes that they are made of, which in turn leads to new forms of materiality.

What is the main idea or concept that you want people to take away with them when they look at your sculptures?

Reflection on multiplicity and the double meaning of abstraction. Abstraction in the sense of formal / geometric abstraction which is overtly referenced in the works, and abstraction in the senses of interactive systems – the ways in which our world, our lives, and ways of seeing the world are filtered through algorithms, codes and systems – this is the language of our times.

Your pieces would have a different feel if they were put in a laneway, like street art, They almost have that feel…

That is in fact where they started. A large part of my public art practice involves staging street games that explore the play element in culture. Working with the materials of urban space, the pieces began their life as environmental signage and game tokens that players would interact with in different ways, and to mark space for the Micronation of Ludea. There may still be some out there in Melbourne, Sydney, Istanbul, Tokyo, Paris…

There is an interactive sculpture, a piece a little out the back. It doesn't take centre stage but I thought it could have. Tell us about that.

That is working prototype of a larger project. In my public art practice I have explored art walks using mobile devices to find and decode markers in streets and laneways to manifest alternate realities in cities around the world. I’m now looking at ways to stage this type of interaction within gallery spaces that have their own codes and systems. 

What are some of your future projects?

Right now I’m working on developing software to add another layer to the interactive experience of the sculptures which may manifest inside or outside the gallery. At some stage I’d like to show all of these codes and the multiple lives that they have all together in one space – a mixed reality.