Shaun Wilson (born

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

, 1972) is an

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...

artist, film maker, academic and curator working with themes of memory, place and scale through painting, miniatures and video art. He teaches digital media in the School of Design at

RMIT University The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (abbreviated as RMIT University) is a public research university located in the city of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia., section 4(b) Established in 1887 by Francis Ormond, it is the seventh-o ...

and exhibits inter/nationally at artist run spaces, university galleries, contemporary art centres and art/moving image museums.

Biography

Shaun Wilson studied Fine Arts at RMIT University (BFA) between 1992–94 and then

Monash University Monash University () is a public university, public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. Named after World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the ...

(BFA hons) in 1995. In 2002 he moved to Hobart to undertake a PhD in Philosophy and Media Arts (completed in 2005) at the

University of Tasmania The University of Tasmania (UTAS) is a public research university, primarily located in Tasmania, Australia. Founded in 1890, it is Australia's fourth oldest university. Christ College (University of Tasmania), Christ College, one of the unive ...

. His dissertation was titled ''The Memory Palace: Scale, Mnemonics and the Moving Image'', which translated the Roman mnemonic texts ''Ad herrenium'' and ''De memoria'' through video installation. In 2005 he moved back to Melbourne to work in the School of Creative Media at RMIT University, Melbourne where he specialises in the relationship between memory and place in the moving image and further, the role and theorisation of

Video art Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting. V ...

after 2000. He has also been a visiting professor at the Hochschule der Medien

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; ; Swabian German, Swabian: ; Alemannic German, Alemannic: ; Italian language, Italian: ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, largest city of the States of Germany, German state of ...

in 2006. Since 1995, Wilson has held over 40 solo exhibitions/screenings and 200 group exhibitions/screenings at notable galleries including the National Centre of Contemporary Art

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

(2008),

Australian Centre for Contemporary Art The Australian Centre For Contemporary Art (ACCA) is a contemporary art gallery in Melbourne, Australia. The gallery is located on Sturt Street in the Melbourne Arts Precinct, in the inner suburb of Southbank, Victoria, Southbank. Designed by W ...

(2006),

Bilbao Bilbao is a city in northern Spain, the largest city in the Provinces of Spain, province of Biscay and in the Basque Country (greater region), Basque Country as a whole. It is also the largest city proper in northern Spain. Bilbao is the List o ...

Arte (2006), Center for Contemporary Culture

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

(2006), Presidential Government of the

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; ) or Canaries are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean and the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, Autonomous Community of Spain. They are located in the northwest of Africa, with the closest point to the cont ...

(2006),

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

New Media Arts Festival 05 (2005),

Australian Centre for the Moving Image ACMI, formerly the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, is Australia's national museum of screen culture including film, television, videogames, digital culture and art. ACMI was established in 2002 and is based at Federation Square in Melbo ...

(2005), Institute of Modern Art

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

(2004), 24hrArt: NT Centre for Contemporary Art (2004), and the Centre on Contemporary Art

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

(2018). Wilson has delivered over 55 guest lectures on contemporary art and video art throughout

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and Europe.

Video Art Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting. V ...

production includes the ''Uber memoria Series I-XX1'' (2006–07) composed of 210 video paintings filmed in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

U.S. The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...

and Australia and the ''Gothic memoria series I-VII'' (2006–07) composed of 1000 video paintings filmed in Germany, UK,

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

and Australia. In 2014 he published his first vampire novel ''The Gothic Memorium'' through iTunes.

Work

Painting

Wilson trained and worked as a painter throughout the 1990s undertaking medium and large-scale oil on canvas and also acrylic on vinyl paintings which addressed two concurrent themes: the politicalization of the image in the mass media and the politicalization of narrative in the mass media. Influences are drawn from

Caravaggio Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (also Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi da Caravaggio; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), known mononymously as Caravaggio, was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the fina ...

Théodore Géricault Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault (; 26 September 1791 – 26 January 1824) was a French painter and lithographer, whose best-known painting is '' The Raft of the Medusa''. Despite his short life, he was one of the pioneers of the Romanti ...

Francisco Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828) was a Spanish Romanticism, romantic painter and Printmaking, printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Hi ...

, the political works of

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (;''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''"Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol ...

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" or "Bob" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combine painting, Combines (1954� ...

, and the butterfly paintings of

Damien Hirst Damien Steven Hirst (; né Brennan; born 7 June 1965) is an English artist and art collector. He was one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United Kingdom's richest ...

Miniatures

Wilson began three noted series of miniatures: ''Crash'', ''Disasters of Small'', and ''The Empire of Small''. These detailed works began as a response to the role of the scaled object in contemporary art and later evolved to embrace themes of memory and place through issues and tensions between narrativity. Materials used are both commercially manufactured model kits and scratch-built cardboard/plastic objects attached onto various types of vintage hard-cover books.

Video Art

Wilson began using video from 1998 onwards as a temporal response and extension to painting. Works produced are categorised into series and sub-series. Since 2004 he has produced over 350 video artworks under the titles of ''Mnemoria series'', ''The Memory Palace series'', ''Filmic Memorials series I-IV'' and ''Uber Memoria I-VII/Proto''. These particular works that Wilson himself describes as 'video paintings' explore the nature of memory and place through the moving image and its subsequent effect on autobiographical memory. In doing so, Wilson has deconstructed family home movies, vintage 8mm film, and found 9mm film and from late 2006 onwards he has incorporated these filmic images with High Definition Video (

HDV HDV is a format for recording of high-definition video on DV (video format), DV videocassette Videotape, tape. Conceived as an affordable high definition format for digital camcorders, HDV quickly caught on with many amateur and professional vi ...

) to convey tensions of fractured memory. Film theorist Leon Marvell describes Wilson's later work in ''Photofile'' as 'an ambitious and exquisitely realised exploration of the tension between artifact and memory' while other reviews, such as Diane Clausen in ''Realtime'', have described his video art as 'hypnotic' Recent work examined how cinema and video art co-exist to what artist and writer Brendan Lee describes in ''Artlink'' as 'best illustrat nghow cinema can affect another medium and comment on it' In 2007 he produced two feature length video artworks ''Uber nocturnus'' and ''Uber Memoria Protus'' that reconfigure Gothic Romanticism through the moving image and how this impacts on theories of false memory and its effect on places. As an extension to the Gothic memoria video art series, Wilson wrote and has embarked on feature length independent films titled Gothic memoria (2008), Epic memoria (2009) and Locus memoria (2010). Each film is based on the reinvention of paintings and etchings by Francisco Goya and Caspar David Friedrich and adapted with Napoleonic Gothic narratives. Recent work has also included ''Uber Memoria X'' composed of ten large scale video works 'where Wilson re-addresses Australian Colonial Painting through video art' 0 In 2013 he released the feature-length movie "51 Paintings" filmed in Germany, England, and Australia between 2006 and 2013 which is the first of five planned films in the serie
The 51 Paintings Suite
The second film from the series "The Tailor of Autumn" was released in 2015 1 The third film from the series "Indigo Rising" was released in 2018 where it premiered at the Dallas Medianale 2 The forth film from the series "Winter Orbit" premiered in the Venice Production Bridge at the 77th Venice Film Festival 3in 2020. Videoart influences include

Bill Viola William John Viola Jr. ( , ; January 25, 1951 – July 12, 2024) was an American video artist whose artistic expression depended upon electronic, sound, and image technology in new media. His works focus on the ideas behind fundamental human ...

and Eija-Liisa Ahtila. Filmic influences include

Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featu ...

, Michel Gondry and Oliver Hirschbiegel.

Sound Art

Wilson began to publish sound art in limited editions from 2003 onwards as companion works to video art. These are the sonic versions of a winder inquiry into memory and place with many source references appropriated from family recordings and related material. Tracks are organised into series and sub series divided into four major categories and as limited edition single and double CDs. In 2004, the track 'statica' was released as a compilation double CD 'People Doing Strange Things With Electricity Too' (1994) available on Comfortstand Records (USA) and launched at the Centre on Contemporary Art Seattle in early 2005. In 2007, his artwork 'Athenian Memory Palace' was included in Artwave Radio as part of the 1st Athens Biennial 2007. Sonic influences include sound artists

Philip Glass Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimal music, minimalism, being built up fr ...

, Phil Edwards,

Philip Brophy Philip Brophy, born in Reservoir, Melbourne 1959 is an Australian musician, composer, sound designer, filmmaker, writer, graphic designer, educator and academic. Music In 1977, Brophy formed the experimental group → ↑ → more often writt ...

, and

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...

and musicians

Moby Richard Melville Hall (September 11, 1965), known professionally as Moby, is an American musician, songwriter, record producer, disc jockey, and animal rights activist. He has sold 20 million records worldwide. AllMusic considers him to be "amo ...

and

David Helfgott David Helfgott (born 19 May 1947) is an Australian concert pianist whose life inspired the Academy Award-winning film '' Shine'', in which he was portrayed by actors Geoffrey Rush, Noah Taylor and Alex Rafalowicz. Biography Early life Helfgott ...

Cinematic Films

Wilson has directed, filmed, and wrote two feature films ''The Last Man in Vegas'' 4and ''Black Garden'' 5described by film critic John Noonan in

Filmink ''FilmInk'' is an Australian film magazine published by FKP International Exports. It was founded by current publisher Dov Kornits and Colin Fraser in July 1997, in Sydney. The magazine has been through many changes over the course of its exist ...

as 'asking us to think about how far we'd push ourselves when all hope is lost.' 6

New Video art movement

In December 2006, Wilson founded a

video art Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting. V ...

movement called Vothic ('Video' and 'Gothic') in response to his investigations of

Gothic Romanticism Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, a Germanic people **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Gothic alphabet, an alphabet used to write the Gothic language ** Gothic ( ...

from research undertaken for the curated exhibition ''Australian Gothic: video art now''.

Curatorial ventures

In 1996, Wilson and Melbourne-based painter Monica Adams opened ''Indigo Studios'', a private art school located in the suburb of Burwood, Melbourne. The intent of the venture was to introduce contemporary art to audiences who were not traditionally art focused. A total of 45 exhibitions by art students and emerging artists were held in the gallery between 1997 and 2002 at the three different sites that ''Indigo'' occupied between these periods. The second site was a derelict shopfront and residence previously used as a backstreet brothel also located in Burwood. The third and final site was a derelict two-storey

Federation A federation (also called a federal state) is an entity characterized by a political union, union of partially federated state, self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a #Federal governments, federal government (federalism) ...

shopfront and residency located in

Camberwell Camberwell ( ) is an List of areas of London, area of South London, England, in the London Borough of Southwark, southeast of Charing Cross. Camberwell was first a village associated with the church of St Giles' Church, Camberwell, St Giles ...

renovated by Adams and Wilson into a two-gallery floor space with studios and accommodation upstairs. It was also haunted. In 2001, Wilson left ''Indigo'' and Adams later closed the business in 2003. Wilson was a curator at the Jackman Gallery in St.Kilda, Melbourne in 2000. Independent projects have included over 20 exhibitions in Melbourne,

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

and

Hobart Hobart ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the island state of Tasmania, Australia. Located in Tasmania's south-east on the estuary of the River Derwent, it is the southernmost capital city in Australia. Despite containing nearly hal ...

. These include ''Australian Gothic'' (2007) at Project Space/Spare Room, Melbourne and the

Directors Lounge Directors Lounge (abbreviation: DL) is an ongoing Berlin-based film and media-art platform with year-round screenings and exhibitions in Berlin and various other cities. Annually parallel to the Berlin Film Festival (February), the central event of ...

, Berlin (2007) and ''Post-Cinema'' touring Australia and Germany in 2007 and 2008. In 2022, Wilson was appointed curator of art with the G Biennale in Melbourne 7

Academic appointments and ventures

Wilson has upheld a strong commitment to academia with teaching appointments at

Swinburne University The Swinburne University of Technology (or simply Swinburne) is a public research university in Melbourne, Australia. It is the modern descendant of the Eastern Suburbs Technical College established in 1908, renamed Swinburne Technical College ...

(2000–01), Box Hill Institute (2000–01),

(2004) and RMIT University (2005-). In 2006, he founded the ''International Conference on Film and Memorialisation'' series which held its inaugural conference at the University of Applied Sciences, Schwaebsich Hall, Germany. In addition, related ventures complementing the series were also founded by Wilson including the ''Film and Memory Research Network'' and the ''Film and Memory Quarterly'' refereed academic e-journal. Wilson is a contributing editor for both. Other appointments include the Co-ordinator of the ''Digital Cinema Research Group'' (RMIT University), Co-coordinator of the ''Narrative and the Image Research Group'' (RMIT University) and the Deputy Co-orinator of the Place Research Network (University of Tasmania). In 2002 he was awarded the prestigious

Australian Postgraduate Award The Australian Postgraduate Awards (APA) was a scholarship program, founded by the Australian Federal Government, designed to support postgraduate research training, which was awarded to students of "exceptional research potential". The allocation ...

to undertake doctoral study at the University of Tasmania. In 2005, Wilson wrote a series of lectures delivered in his 'Media Cultures' course at RMIT University which explored the evolution of technology through modernity and postmodernity. These formed the basis of further articles exploring the histo-philosophical nature of digital media, especially MP3 and iPod culture, as evidenced in the forthcoming e-book ''Post-Pod'' available in 2008. Archive projects include the ten-year ''Memory and Place Video Archive Project'' (2007-2017) started in December 2006 that aims to build a sizable archive of videoart from emerging and established artists who explore themes of memory and place, locational memory and locational identity through remembrance. This will be donated in 2017 to the

and

Rhizome In botany and dendrology, a rhizome ( ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and Shoot (botany), shoots from its Node (botany), nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from ...

as a major filmic collection of international significance. In 2006 he was the Program Coordinator of Higher Degrees by Research (MA and PhD) in the School of Creative Media at RMIT University, Melbourne (City) campus. Wilson is currently a Senior Lecturer in Digital Media in the School of Design at RMIT University. 8

References

Bywaters, B (2004). 'The Empire of Small', exhibition catalogue essay, Academy Gallery, Launceston. Marvell, L (2006). 'Brendan Lee, Shaun Wilson, Alexandra Gillespie', ''Photofile'', No. 76, Summer, Australian Centre of Photography, Sydney, p. 77 Klaosen, D (2004). 'Seductive Talents', ''Realtime', June/July, p. 41 Lee Davis, B (2004). 'Boogy Jive and Bop', ''Artlink'', Vol.24, No.2, Hently Beach, Adelaide, p. 84 Benedicts, L (2006). 'A Shot of the New', ''The Sunday Age'', Melbourne, 26 March, pp. 6–7 Green, C (2006). 'New06', in Picks$, ''artforum.com'', 27 March. Church, D (2007). 'Hearts of Darkness in the Australian Gothic', exhibition catalogue, ''Australian Gothic: video art now'', Project Space/Spare Room, RMIT University, Melbourne. Bywaters, M (2006). 'The Memory Palace: Family History and 1975', ''NEW06'', Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, pp. 40–47 Lee, B (2007). 'More Video Art Please', ''Artlink'', Vol.27, No.3, Hently Beach, Adelaide, pp. 28–31 0Jones, L (2008). 'Uber Memoria X', ''The Monash Journal'', Melbourne 20 July, p. 20 1'The Tailor of Autumn', Internet Movie Database (IMDB)
Internet Movie Data Base
2'Indigo Rising', Dallas Medianale
Dallas Medianale
3'Winter Orbit', Venice Production Bridge, 77 Venice Film Festival
Venice Production Bridge
4'The Last Man in Vegas', Internet Movie Database (IMDB)
Internet Movie Data Base
5'Black Garden', Internet Movie Database (IMDB)
Internet Movie Data Base
6Noonan, J (2019). 'Black Garden', Filmink online
Filmink
7'G Biennale', ''G Biennale''

8'RMIT University', RMIT University

External links

Shaun Wilson official site
* Shaun Wilson Saatchi Gallery Profile

New06 Podcast interview of Shaun Wilson at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art

Small Black Box, Institute of Modern Art Brisbane

In Transition Russia 2008, National Centre of Contemporary Art, Russian Federation

51 Paintings film website

The Gothic Memorium on iTunes

The Last Man in Vegas

Texts by Shaun Wilson

The New New: video art in the 21st century

Slow Motion as a Condition of the Moving Image

Alternative Characterisation Strategies in Contemporary Mainstream Zombie Cinema
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, Shaun Living people 1972 births Academic staff of RMIT University Australian video artists