Brodie Ellis | The Crystal World

31 May – 23 June 2018

Brodie Ellis is based in Castlemaine, Victoria, and her work often attends to contemporary ecological issues between science and ethics. The Crystal World 2016 incorporates open source found footage from the internet of Australian mining detonations. This material is edited together to form an ongoing series of explosions, as barren desert landscapes suddenly erupt in plumes of earth. The work evokes elements of Land Art and Abstract Expressionism, while the soundtrack, composed of mechanical clinks and technological groans, was recorded by Ellis with fellow artists Cameron Robbins and Jake Clover. The title refers to a 1966 science fiction novel by English author J. G. Ballard, in which a physician tries to find a secluded treatment facility deep in a jungle where an apocalyptic phenomenon crystallises everything it touches. In the context of Ellis’ work this becomes a metaphor for the environmental consequences of the anthropocene.