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                    Astra Howard

                    Test Sites: Round 1

                    Test sites artist astra howard
                    Astra Howard is an action researcher/performer working predominantly within public spaces in cities.

                    Since 1998 Astra has designed and produced site-specific works across Australia and internationally. These projects use iterative research methodologies, testing urban and social theories in the city spaces they critique. Information is gathered about a location, the data collected and visualised, which in turn generates dialogue and debate amongst members of the public about issues affecting their city.

                    An evolving series of Machine-Vehicles, disable the normal means of communication to heighten the engagement between researcher and members of the public. By reducing certain sensorial capacities others are enhanced through concentrated attention.

                    This altered means of communication encourages direct, honest, sometimes unexpected and often quite intimate responses. Wheeled quietly in and out of cities (the Trojan Horse Effect), these Machine-Vehicles create the catalyst for and means by which individuals tell their stories of the city.

                    Scene Capture Integration Vehicle

                    Scene Capture Integration Vehicle (SCIV) was an experiment in observing and responding to the visual dynamic of the streetscape of Melbourne.

                    Part of Test Sites, this project captured city imagery and reintegrated these images into a multiplicity of alternate scenes. The SCIV was wheeled between Union Lane, Hosier Lane, Rutledge Lane, ACDC Lane and Duckboard Place with laser cut panels in sets of nine depicting iconic scenes of Melbourne.

                    The graphic nature of the scenes and the laser cut process meant there was constant interplay between positive and negative imagery recognition. The scenes were interchanged and positioned against the many and varied colourful walls of Melbourne's graffiti laneways, initiating the scene capture and integration process. The laser cut panels were also used as stencils to spray paint images into a series of blanks carried by the SCIV.

                    New scenes and combinations of scenes were therefore created on and between sites and became increasingly interpretive of the aesthetic dynamic of the city of Melbourne.

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