AUDIENCE WORKS
Contemplating Gold was presented in Castlemaine as part of Punctum's 2009 season of seedpods.
contemplating gold is an outdoor site-responsive audio-video event which provokes a dialogue between contemporary relationships to money and images of heritage gold-digging sites.
contemplating gold incorporates the following:
the site: a footpath and the wall of a bank
the video: footage of heritage gold-mining sites (addits, vertical mining shafts, slag heaps, etc.)
the audio: voices of people from all financial strata of life reflecting on their current financial predicament.
contemplating gold presents a focus not upon the gold mining that was, but rather upon the present environment, the earth emptied of gold. Rather than an archival work, the juxtaposition of footage which shows the consequences of a past relationship to gold and money, with audio of contemporary reflections on our present financial concerns, acts as a provocation, setting up echoes, oscillations, reverberations in the midst of our present financial downturn and concerns; in this context, the work may perform a role somewhere between an oracle and an elderly neighbour who has seen a lot of change, a lot of repetition.
