Digital Media Exhibition Featured Video Work

Cromlech 

By Layla Vardo

Artist Statement:

Cromlech has been developed as part of my on-going archival video project O-bit. It is conceived as a kind of burial mound in observance of the death of analogue television. The work incorporates archival footage of television presenters who have made regular appearances on television over decades and chronicles the subject’s on-screen presence over time. The installation is a reflection upon the sense of universality of place, time and experience engendered by television, yet it is also intrinsically autobiographical both in form and content. The video subjects are presenters I have grown up watching on television and the chromlech or burial mound formation is reminiscent of one situated near my place of birth in Wales. It is my intention that mortality is present in every element of this work

Layla Vardo is a Melbourne based video artist who works with recycled imagery, found footage and archival video to create works that engage critically and poetically with the content of mainstream mass media. Layla’s installation and screen-based works appropriate and re-edit content sourced from advertising, print media, internet and television. The work reflects upon notions of time, transformation, mortality and human connection within contemporary media culture.

Layla’s art practice dates back to 2002 and has encompassed performance and installation, as well as screen based animation and video works.

In 2009 she Graduated with Honors From RMIT School of Art (Media Arts). Layla has participated in residency programs at Performance Space in Sydney as well as at the State Library of Victoria. Additionally she has presented multi-media performances at venues and festivals throughout Australia. Currently she is producing video installations that incorporate archival television material.

The artists ongoing video project ‘O-bit’ has been produced in co-operation with ABC Archives and has been exhibited in various forms at PICA in Perth , Rearview Gallery Melbourne, Ryan Renshaw Gallery Brisbane and at West Space in Melbourne. O-bit was selected for Hatched 2010 where it was awarded second prize in the DR. Harold Schenberg Art Prize. O-bit was also a finalist in the Royal Bank of Scotland Emerging Artist Award and the Viscopy John Fries Memorial Prize.