People Like Us

People Like Us captured universal aspects of the contemporary human condition in film, animation, digital and interactive art. In a diverse collection of new media works by Australian and international practitioners, the exhibition also revealed the many experimental technologies being deployed by artists as they comment on issues confronting us in the 21st century.

Real human experience underpined the exhibition, a concept that extended to visitor engagement with many of the works on display: George Poonkhin Khut’s BrightHearts app, for example, used real-time biofeed data in heart rate controlled images and sound; John McGhee’s digital animations invited visitors to take the wheel on a wild ride through human blood vessels; while Volker Kuchelmeister and Laura Fisher’s Veloscape tracked participants’ emotional responses as they took a virtual bicycle tour of Sydney inside the gallery space.

International works included Italian Yuri Ancarani’s Da Vinci, his acclaimed, uncanny portrayal of a robotic surgical procedure that confounded visitors to the Venice Biennale. Other Australian premieres in People Like Us included British composer Michael Nyman’s Hillsborough Memorial, commissioned by the 2014 Liverpool Biennale; and award-winning Luxembourg artist Su-Mei Tse’s aurally immersive purring cat portraits.

Well-known Australian artists represented in People Like Us included Daniel Crooks, Angelica Mesiti and Joan Ross, who all deployed innovative filmic methodologies to achieve unexpected and immersive visual experiences. In two firsts, Aboriginal-Chinese artist Jason Wing created a sound work, which told a moving story about the Stolen Generation, and Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro presented first ever video work.

Curated by UNSW Galleries Director Felicity Fenner, People Like Us was commissioned by National Exhibitions Touring Support (NETS) Australia.