Psychoanalysis suggests neurosis to be the result of a fantasized battle that takes place outside of
consciousness.
Phobias result from anxiety produced by repressed identity impulses. It occurs in a realm of mind
that is like a virtual reality, in which illusory versions of ourselves seek to win over, escape and
overpower.
Compulsion disorders can be repetitive, intentional behaviours, performed in a ritualised manner in
an attempt to neutralise the obsession and control the anxiety associated with it.
My mind deconstructs reality into categories of risk, i.e, I fear heights and flying, I’m germophobic, I
hate it when I can hear people eating, I hate needles, I cant stand the sight of blood, I hate crowds,
no farting, no burping, I get vertigo, you’re trying to kill me, I hate spiders.
To allay these fears a mantra is repeated up to 200 times a day – it is called ritualising, “g f c - g f
cs - f o c – f o cs”. The process can be exhausting (it has been encoded for obvious reasons).
This work explores ideas around the constructed landscape and its intersection between hybrid,
virtual and psychological environments. They are metaphorical and allusive rather than literal. As
such these works represent places, objects and figures we can identify with but remain ambiguous
and uncertain.
This work also considers the assumption that photography’s role to record the facts is questioned.
In this sense the work undermines any clear concepts of reality and truthfulness. It questions traditional
histories of photography, mapping and rendering of the landscape.

 

MC: Introduction: Stephen, give us some pictures from your personal album.
SD: Humble beginnings attending university and causing general havoc. Originally from Melbourne, Australia, I am currently living
in London. Professionally I function as artist, curator and provocateur. I have spent a lot of time over the past 4 years working in China,
Australia and Japan with my own exhibitions as well as curating photomedia, video and new media projects such as the Vernacular
Terrain and VT2. I also have a background in behavioural/social science. I’m constantly pondering why human beings do the things they.
I spend a lot of time travelling, meeting creative people and documenting events of the day. I also love Italian food!
MC: UN_PLACES as places marked by negation (unknown, unreal…); do you consider them human places, since the contradictory
and multi-layered nature of human beings?
SD: They’re very much ‘human places’ albeit virtual environments. Feelings, beliefs, facts and ideas make up the human
experience. As such, human nature battles between instinct and intelligence to form reality. In doing so we adopt different personas
as a coping mechanism to filter any given experience. Some of these personas remain hidden in our psyche for different reasons be
it cultural, religious or social; as well as the basic need to survive. These experiences then become our stories which help define our
psychological space and belief systems. We deal with enormous amounts of information coming from mass media and pop-ular culture.
This information is mimetically engineered and sent ‘virally’ though many different electronic channels. As such, this rate of exchange
can literally change belief systems overnight. The Un_Place becomes a manifestation of the real, an exploration of how we engage and
project our self into the landscape.
MC: I don’t think you’ve created another world; you mould a world that, with analog photo we couldn’t see. Is this the same way
followed by painting in the 20th century?
SD: The conceptual framework is philosophical. Art has always emulated life in both representational and non-representational
forms. The idea of Pictorialism for example focused on the emotional impact of the image and subscribed to the idea that art photography
needed to emulate painting.
Im not interested in using art history as a comparative document in this context. The digitally created photograph can emulate any space
both psychological or real however I feel this is an oversimplification. I engage in an interdisciplinary practice which considers outcomes
that go beyond any single idea.
The Un_Place worlds are not literal and represent three separate environments ie. psychological, responsive and ideas around desire.
MC: In the same way if I don’t believe your photography is abstract; do you think you made the subjects present in UN-PLACES
abstract instead?
SD: This would relate to the nine sky diving images and animation/soundscape. They’re more about abstract thinking models - and
so the figures are a manifestation of fears, neurosis and transformative responses to different stimuli (audio included). Nietzsche wrote
extensively on perception and the unreal experience. Life is essentially grey matter sometimes presents extraordinary situations to which
the human condition is challenged, and how we might respond to new experiences.
MC: Even if it may sound a paradox since we're talking about photography, is it possible that the only real thing in your photos is
the technique?
SD: The only original thing I own are my ideas and who knows if they are in fact original! Although technique is important it is not
the primary objective.
MC: A photographer for a movie director who's one of the most involved in painting: how's your collaboration with Peter
Greenaway?
SD: I collaborated on the Bolzano Gold multi-media project with Hungarian artist Istvan Horkay. Greenaway is not just a film maker.
He has his own connections as a painter, inventor of weird artefacts as well as a cataloguer of the bizarre as it is well documented. In
2006 I curated a large new media exhibition for the Beijing Film Academy, China, where I included Peter and Istvan’s first three Bolzano
video instalments. During this exhibition I interviewed Peter for the Beijing Film Academy which later became an article I wrote for,
Machine titled, ‘A conversation with Greenaway, Horkay, Tulse Lupur and Rembrandt Vin Rijin’. I also presented a public lecture with
Istvan on the Bolzano Gold Translations and was subsequently invited to contribute to the project. Istvan is the principal art director
for Bolzano Gold. I worked on, ‘The Scheherazade Commandant’, story #16 from the Gold series. The digital medium fits perfectly for
Greenaway as we were able to digitally “paint” multiple layers into the video structure as you would typically see in a Greenaway film.
MC: As special correspondent from ‘Outside World’ you give us a portfolio much more similar to a leading article than to a reportage:
is your personal challenge to the information given by mass media?
SD: In Walter Lippmann’s book titled, “Public Opinion”, he states that government and mass media need to censor and filter
information because the real environment is altogether too big, too complex and too fleeting for direct acquaintance. It’s quite ironic that
Lippmann wrote that in 1922 as nothing much has changed since.
My research for Chapters also looks at the principle of exchange and dependency theory of how politics and the media do deals with each
other. How the relationship between politics, mass media and news broadcasting deny basic civic rights and journalistic responsibilities
to be open and transparent to its public.
MC: There's no aesthetics in ecstasy of the Chinese man, or better we can find it only by taking each single photo. Don't you allow
it yourself since China, so complex, can't be simply contemplated?
SD: I have spent the past 4 years working in and out of China. CHiXTC series is really about a Western response to contemporary
Chinese culture. Earlier this year in Beijing I became very ill. I developed secondary lung and throat infections from exposure to excessive
pollution levels in Beijing. This illness subsequently became one of the focuses for my research. I was dealing with a similar psychology
of how the local Chinese survive in such an extreme industrialised and populated environment. Ideas around displacement, duty, stress/
anxiety, neurosis and phobias sit within the vernacular.
MC: Do you think human beings may be classified in analogue and digital?
SD: I think contemporary culture has merged with technology. Human beings remain uniquely human in their desire to be digital.
PDAs, mobile phones, laptops, ipods, GPS and wifi are mandatory human attachments. Could you imagine if the internet was deactivated
tomorrow and how that would implicate our lives? I suppose artist’s such as Stelarc are looking at more philosophical structures and
debates around the interconnections between humans and machine. Biotechnology has provided medical research with the ability to
integrate technology into the body - the deaf can now hear, the blind can see; as well stem cell research capable of replacing whole body
parts. I guess a more interesting question would be, do ethic committees interfere with evolution? I guess only time will tell.