From Stella Rosa McDonald…
Any anecdote regarding the Segway — the motorised, two-wheeled, self-proclaimed ‘future of transportation’— now necessarily ends with the fact that the CEO of Segway was killed after he drove one of the vehicles off a cliff. Rather than aiding progress, the motorized human transporter became a prop in utopian history, going the way of the jet pack, the urban monorail and Cryogenic freezer. In Segue/Segway Pt.2, Dara Gill imagines an anonymous urban environment in which the Segway is both outlawed and revered.
Segue/Segway Pt.2, quite literally, suggests the act of moving without pause, the continuance of progress despite apparent failure. Gill uses the narrative of the Segway to revisit the themes of anxiety and failure that are central to his work. The exhibition features video, photography, textiles, sculpture, robotics, text and painting. Each work acts as a darkly humorous memorial to failed dreams, but with so many iterations on the Segway theme Gill blurs the line between narrative and obsession. This could be the clubhouse of the Australian Segway Enthusiasts Group, whose embroidered uniforms hang in the corner of the room. A commissioned double portrait in oils of deceased Segway CEO Jimi Heselden and inventor Dean Kamer hangs on one side of the room. Two robots balance glasses of water as they circle endlessly around a platform. With all its challenges to balance and permanence the Segway itself—absent in the space save for the inclusion of a slumped, almost fatty foam maquette in the corner—comes to represent the apprehension of the human body as it moves precariously in space and time.
Until 30 October
Firstdraft, Woolloomooloo
Pic: Dara Gill, Untitled (Segway Death Wobble), 2015. Inkjet print, 89 x 62 cm
