Georgie Roxby Smith

Artist Statement

I am a hybrid artist working across a range of disciplines including theatre, performance, video, new media, sound and installation. My practice explores new possibilities of the use of virtual reality software, specifically Second Life, in contemporary art through the extraction of “in world” performances into physical installations to create mixed reality events and happenings. Whilst most contemporary artists practicing in this medium work with interactive new media works within Second Life or reality “bleedthroughs” (where real world audiences can communicate with Second Life avatars), my work aims to push the boundaries of both realities . The key difference in methodology is my approach to the work from an installation paradigm rather than code or script based models used by new media artists. Developed during my Masters degree, the work breaks with traditional forms of visual arts practice - installation, new media art, video art, theatre and performance - and attempts to bring them together in one "event". Questioning materiality and the digital analogue relationship, the work exists on several planes, "in world" where the performances take place, within a body of physical sculptures and as projections within a real world space which can then recreated by a live performer in real time before being re-injected back into the screen.

Bio

Georgie Roxby Smith is an Australian visual artist working across a range of disciplines exploring new pathways between virtual and physical worlds. Georgie has a career history in theatre, sound, events, sculpture and installation. She received a Bachelor of Media Arts from Deakin (Rusden) in 2004. Her graduate studies include a Post Graduate Diploma in Visual Arts and Master of Visual Arts from the Victorian College of the Arts. Amongst other projects, Georgie has recently been accepted into the Watermill Center Spring Residency Program (New York) and the Linden Centre for Contemporary Art Innovators Program 2010. Georgie has taken part in the Melbourne International Arts Festival for the past three years including ‘Navigators’ 2006 (for which she received the Eldon and Anne Foote Trust Travel Grant), ‘John Cage’s Musicircus’ 2007 and, in 2008, contributed to ‘Longing Belonging Land’ on opening night and assisted artist Chris Doyle (US) with his ‘Ecstatic City’ installation.

• Conceptual
• Media arts
• Multimedia /hybrid
• Performance
• 3 D (sculpture/installation/public art)