Sending The Message

Sending The Message at Customs House, Sydney 2010.
Photo: Christine Sutana and Ray Verez

Commissioned by Stagejuice, for the launch of the Dictionary of Sydney site supported by the NSW Historic Trust at Customs House.

Sending the Message was inspired by and a tribute to, the amazing work of Florence Violet McKenzie. Working with collaborator Ashley Scott, Julie collected messages from the public, which were then entered and transformed via computer software written by Ashley, to create a poetic morse code soundscape. This was live mixed with the constantly updated material and radio frequency drop-ins.

Read about Florence at the Dictionary of Sydney

Trawl at This is the Time, The Bakery, Perth 2008. Photo: Bodhan Warchomij

Trawl asks the question:

“What do you regret you never said?”

Julie worked on top of a 3 storey stack of shipping containers from which a long fishing net dropped toward the ground. Over 4 hours, responses flooded in via SMS. Each response was transcribed onto a silver piece of paper and then placed inside a plastic fish. The fish was then attached to the net accompanied by a small LED light. Over the duration of the work the net slowly filled up with its catch of tiny fish and luminescent beacons.

curated as part of Nighttime at the Performance Space Sydney 2007 and This is the Time at the Bakery, Perth November 2008

TRAWL at Carriageworks

Harbour at Serial Space, Sydney 2009

Harbour asks the question:

“What does your scar harbour?”

In residence for a week at the Serial Space Gallery, Julie received responses from the public via SMS. Over this time, Julie created a single origami boat for each person after which she transcribed their response onto the bottom. On the fifth day, all the boats were hung in the space creating a harbour of scarred yet sea worthy vessels.

Wend at Medium Rare Window Gallery, Sydney 2009. Photo: Eleanor Lind

Wend asks the question:

“What do you want to leave behind?”

Wend was installed in a window gallery space in Sydney. The initial call out for responses started 2 weeks before the official opening and continued for another 2 weeks allowing passers by to contribute to the growing work. The contributions came through continuously (via SMS) over this period with a spike after the opening. Each response was carefully handpainted onto muslin and then wrapped around a buoy or ballast object, before being secured by red rope. These objects developed greater weight as they nestled together and were continuously added to over the timeframe.

An ongoing research project for performance/installation and DVD.

This project is an excavation.

It starts from the simple question: “How do I read the evidence of what remains?”

This question is a springboard to explore many paths from ancestry and possessions, cultural/historical inheritance, bearing witness to the ones slipping off the edges and ultimately how we respond to weakness and death.

This project had its first development at Hothouse Theatre’s Month in the Country artist residency, Albury in October 2008.

Don't Look Gallery Sydney 27th Dec 2009

This is an ongoing project where Julie hopes to inhabit many window spaces in many cities.

For one night or one week, Julie arrives at a window space in the late evening and proceeds to inhabit it. She responds to the site and the urban landscape around her. She is witness to the habits of the night, those that unfold when most are asleep. Before daybreak she leaves. However there are traces, remnants. These traces grow over the course of the week. Everyday the public may be aware of something shifting and changing. It is an exercise in provoking the complacency of the everyday mundane routine. It is a challenge.

video still: So it goes like this... #2

This is a short performance series merging live text and film. Stylistically it draws on the staccato delivery of a news desk presenter to relate a number of stories juxtaposed against the slower, more intimate film exploring gesture and sound. This work evolved from a desire to give a stage to the strange, weird and beautifully poignant stories that fleetingly appear in our media, tucked away in corners and occupying mere paragraphs. The text blurs fact and fiction while the film is a window into an intimate space, breaking down gestures and personal rituals.

Still from Disclosed no.8 2009. Photo by Chris Ryan

This was a two year performance project. It took place on the last Sunday of each month in the years 2008 (undisclosed) and 2009 (disclosed). It in essence, became a research project exploring and teasing out ideas and questions that surround the performative act, the audience, memory and the document. The project could only be viewed online. There was no invited audience at the actual performances. Therefore the document was the primary entry point for the audience. In the first year I gave a first person written account of the event as it unfolded, there was no other documentation. In the second year I invited one witness to document in whatever format they chose. I did not stipulate or direct. I did not write an account.

You can view the project at: http://undisclosed1.wordpress.com

This was a one year collaborative research project between Richard Hancock (UK) and Julie Vulcan April 2007 - April 2008.

In April 2007, Richard and Julie were part of a group of International artists gathered to perform in Pacitti Company’s Grande Finale. Threepointthreeseven arose from a response to a provocation within a task driven devising workshop for the Finale framework.

On April 16th 2007, Richard Hancock played a favourite piece of music for the last time. Its duration was 3.37 minutes.

This was an act of finality, an exercise in self-obliteration, and an active inquiry into a space for something new to grow.

This act was witnessed by Julie Vulcan.

For the following 12 months, Julie would replay the music on the 16th day of every month. Each time the date rolled around, Hancock and Vulcan dedicated 3.37 minutes of time to the memory of this moment, honouring the here
and now and the potential for new space.

You can view this project at:
http://threepointthreeseven.blogspot.com

Headspace Laboratory Performance Space, 2003

B(b)UG is a devised solo performance work, incorporating live and pre-recorded footage, light sensitive "bugs" and SMS.

B(b)UG developed from an intention to investigate our unwitting complicity in sanctioned methods of surveillance and the effect (subversive or otherwise) of our telecommunications era on the changing human psyche.

Is the constant desire to map our location through telecommunications, a method to thwart our fear of being alone?

Underlying the work is the desire to juxtapose innocent notions with their sinister counterparts, alongside a need to address the rise of paranoia and phobic behaviour as a psychological response to making sense (thus gaining some personal control) of a seemingly threatening world.

In 2007 Julie started a creative writing project. Underpinning this was my continuing research into the ways in which the everyday can be woven, transcended and returned, utilising readily available tools, tools that have become mandatory in our culture. The EDD Diaries take as there starting point, internet spam, specifically spam that has arrived in Julie’s inbox offering solutions for Erectile Dysfunction Disorder (EDD). In response to the many creative ways in which spam is shrouded to sneak past filtering systems, Julie has used this material to create new fact/fictions to return to the cyberworld.

You can view the EDD Diaries at: http://edddiaries.blogspot.com