Artists Statement

Video Installation (2014)

Dancing with Drones is a two channel video installation that explores the normalization of drone warfare and surveillance. In this work Starrs and Cmielewski use drones to capture still and moving images of a dancer performing within landscapes that are in crisis due to climate change. The figure exhibits a range of emotions, including curiousity, agitation, and resignation, in response to the persistently intrusive drone.

• Josephine Starrs & Leon Cmielewski are Australian artists who produce media art  installations situated at the juncture of cinema, mapping and sublime landscape. Their project Incompatible Elements, focusing on landscapes in crisis has been shown in Australia, USA, Taiwan, Korea, NZ, and the Maldives Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2013. In their current work they use a drone to record a dancer’s site-responsive performances in several locations. The result is a video artwork that encourages contemplation about our relationship to nature and technology. Cmielewski is a Senior lecturer at the School of Humanities and Communication Arts, University of Western Sydney.

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