3x2
Joanne Moar & Jim Speers
Fiona Gunn & Frances Joseph
Phil Dadson & Mike Stevenson
3x2 was a series of three exhibitions, each featuring two artists, that ran at the Physics Room from February to June.

The artists were invited to present their work with the exhibition space's context in mind, including its past uses and its wider surroundings. One way of considering the work, then, is in relation to these things.

Phil Dadson & Mike Stevenson, the two artists paired for the third of the three shows in 3x2 are established artists.

Phil Dadson'svoicings is a work that has evolved over a period of weeks involving a process of communication between the artist and the Physics Room Gallery staff. Unable to attend in person, Phil requested video documentation of the space to help him build a visual and aural picture of the site. The artist's initial intention was to create a work that was responsive to the space it was destined for, in other words, was site-specific.

In the course of this correspondence, however, the methods of communication (in this case video tapes and email) have taken precedence over the contents of the messages. For Dadson, the nature of the video medium itself is just as important as the content of the video. Dadson alludes to the medium with its three different light sources, red, green and blue, in the monitors themselves, the hanging lightbulbs, and the "choir" of balloons at the opening night. Dadson forces us to think about the intrinsic qualities of video by inverting its usual positioning as central yet unobtrusive. His inverted monitors are obtrusively perverse seeming to thwart the smooth flow of communication while drawing our attention to its very machinations.

In the tradition of a performance or happening, Dadson's installation will not be static, rather the artist, even from a distance, is engaging in an interactive work which encourages the viewer to participate. The artist is throwing open a channel of communication and allowing himself the provision to change the physical elements of the installation in a continual cycle of response over the course of its duration. Dadson's instructions to those present at the opening were to sing a note into a balloon filled with helium, so that a choir of colour and stored sound resonated on the ceiling.

Reviews, Essays & Articles

Stevenson and Dadson show fails to impress
The Press, 1997 June 11, p. 18
Lorimer, Wayne.
Let Those who Ride Decide, by Mike Stevenson, and Voicings, by Philip Dadson.

Participatory Elements
2 CENTS 12 June 1997
Nick Cain
Philip Dadson and Micheal Stevenson @ The Physics Room
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