Snap! (You Have Nothing to Reconnect But Your Chains)

Performance lecture by Catherine Ryan

Thursday 17th of October & Saturday the 19th of October

Doors open: 6:30pm,

Performance: 7-8pm

Presented by Composite Moving Image Agency.

Please join us for the premiere of a new experimental performance lecture by Catherine Ryan entitled Snap! (You Have Nothing to Reconnect But Your Chains). This ambitious, research-based work tells the tragicomic story of one of the neoclassical statues adorning the interior of Victoria’s Legislative Council in Parliament House. The work draws on the comedic travails of this political decor to critically examine the idea of connection to tradition and the telling of origin stories about the settler-colonial society of Victoria.

This tongue-in-cheek, engaging piece blurs the boundaries between traditional lectures and live performance, combining the informative and educational aspects of a lecture with the creative and expressive elements of a performance.

The performance lecture will be introduced by Channon Goodwin.

Catherine Ryan is an artist who lives and works on Wurundjeri land in Naarm (Melbourne). She makes sound work and projected video work, as well as performance lectures. Her practice interrogates the limited (and limiting) ways in which neoliberal, nationalistic frameworks conceptualise our relationship to time and temporality. Her performance lectures have examined how the imperative to be productive structures the experience of time under neoliberalism, as well as ways that concepts from the history of experimental music can provide fresh insights into the ecological crisis. She often uses resources and ideas taken from the history of experimental electronic music, as well as from the overanalysis and ‘misuse’ of well-known, cheesy pop songs. Catherine has exhibited at and performed in exhibitions, venues and festivals across Australia and in Europe, including Gertrude Contemporary (Melbourne), Vitalstatistix (SA), PACT (Sydney), the Royal College of Art (London), and the Vienna Biennale (Austria).

Catherine would like to acknowledge that this project was supported by the VCA50 Creative Development Grant, funded by Mr Konfir Kabo. This project has also been supported by the City of Melbourne Arts Grants and by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.