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11 November 2020 @ 4:00 pm

Clanger

In this SensiLab Forum, Baden Pailthorpe will present his recent work on AFL player GPS data, Clanger (2018) and its future directions.

Using anonymous player and crowd data captured during the 2017 AFL Round 23 Swans v Carlton game, Clanger re-stages the drama and flow of a match in its entirety. Pailthorpe moves the game from the field to the virtual plane, rendering both players and the crowd as data-borne creations caught in a deeply emotional, cultural and aesthetic tradition.

In statistical terms, the word ‘Clanger’ refers to a turnover or a silly mistake made by a player in an AFL match. The criteria for each player’s usefulness is defined wholly by the data they generate during the game— AFL players are tracked using micro wearable units that include GPS and accelerometers. The amount of data generated from these devices in a given game is immense; every movement is tracked, stored and interpreted in an effort to understand performance, mitigate injury and measure value.

By adopting the vernaculars of sport and gaming, the artist creates an immersive environment that emphasises the role of experience in the propagation of labour, culture, and ideas. A new 36-channel video work re-articulates the match using the two team’s GPS data, while a single-channel video work on the opposing end of the gallery/field renders the crowd via audio data captured at the game. A soundtrack by composer James Brown accompanies this work. By pairing the compelling languages of creative practice with
the statistics of player performance, Pailthorpe’s Clanger demonstrates that data becomes information only by interpretation.

Clanger results from Pailthorpe’s Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) 2017 Synapse Artist Residency with UTS Sport and Exercise Science and Professor Aaron Coutts.

This SensiLab Forum was held on 11 November 2020.

Photo: Steven Siewart (Fairfax)

Dr Baden Pailthorpe (b. 1984) is part of a generation of artists whose practice is shaped by Internet culture. He holds a Ph.D from the University of New South Wales, an MFA from l’Universite´ Paris VIII, an MA from COFA and a BA from the University of Sydney. Much of Baden Pailthorpe’s work consists of hyper-real animations, video and sculpture that engage with the spatiality of power, politics and the cultures of late-capitalism.

More recently, he has been awarded an Asialink/Australia Council residency with the renowned Japanese digital art collective teamLab. Baden has also been awarded residencies at UTS Sport and Excercise Science, Screen Space, Melbourne and the Cite´ Inernationale des Arts, Paris, where he developed a performance work for the Centre Pompidou in 2014.

Significant exhibitions include Clanger, UTS Art Gallery, Sydney (2018); Pitch Deck, Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney & Singapore (2017); GAME ART/VIDEO, 21st Triennale di Milano, Milan (2016); Spatial Operations, Newcastle Art Gallery, Newcastle (2015); Guarding the Home Front, Casula Powerhouse, Sydney (2015); On Return and What Remains, Artspace, Sydney (2014) & CACSA, Adelaide (2015); Students of War, Hors Pistes, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2014); Cadence, Westspace (2014); Moving_Image 10, La Gai^te´ Lyrique, Paris (2013); and Rencontres Internationales, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012).

Baden’s work is held in significant private and public collections, including Artbank, Australia; Australian Parliament House Art Collection, Canberra; Newcastle Art Gallery, Newcastle; The Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; The Australian War Memorial, Canberra; The Netherlands Media Art Institute (NIMk), Amsterdam; The National Library of Australia, Canberra; UTS Art, Sydney; and UQ Art Museum, Brisbane.