About Suzon Fuks

As an intrinsically experimental artist I am deeply committed to making & developing art that examines, reflects upon, and helps us survive, today’s disjointed worlds.  Using the live body as a starting point, I focus on process, interaction and diversity, compelled by small human gestures that are shared across cultures and that communicate and reveal the depth and complexity of our human experience. My practice is characterised by a holistic post-humanistic approach that focuses upon magnifying details, synthesizing wholes, collaborating, coordinating, weaving between extremes, playing with contrasts and emphasizing presence and space. My works are made for audiences to interpret, to be provoked by, to view from a range of perspectives and to also directly participate within, as a means for them to be able to reflect upon their own lives and places.
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I approach obsolescence in order to explore the hidden side of things, to discover layers of knowledge amalgamated over time, and to have a better understanding of what seems to escape us in the use of our current tools. All of our electronic devices, although marketed as new and innovative, hold a long history of technological development. My process of dismantling ‘obsolete’ ones to repurpose the components highlights for me these histories.
Seeing these components repurposed makes us aware of the full life cycles of our devices – from design, production, marketing, use, disuse, partial reuse, and waste, to a very slow decomposition, which takes far longer than all the previous processes put together – a ‘galactic’ time scale.
I also wish to raise awareness of the unfair global distribution of these processes, with access to new technologies predominant in developed countries, while workers mining rare earth elements are exploited in developing countries, where much of the electronic waste ends up, again buried in landfill, or alternatively, end up as space junk orbiting the planet.
With the creation of robots, AI and the Internet of Things, some of the ways in which we use our minds and bodies are being replaced. While we are researching and quantifying how human brains function, our senses, perception and creativity are arguably what differentiates us from our machines and makes us unique as humans. We need to delve into the knowledge of our bodies, and our relationships with each other and the natural world. I have the feeling of urgency to address the difference between our tools / technology and our body / senses, to dig inside, to be aware and mindful, to explore the layers.
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Water has fascinated me for many years. Researching networked performance, looking at meshing form and content, I observed that water’s fluidity, stripes and rhythms make links between graphic, choreographic, musical and cinematic forms. I come from a country in Europe where water is often considered a commodity and taken for granted as it rains a lot. For three years in the early 90’s, I lived in a part of India where access to water regulated life. When I moved to Brisbane/Meanjin, Australia, I saw the city going through severe drought for several years and then big floods. These events made me more aware of water issues and the politics around water, and led me to conceive Waterwheel, a project open to all, for cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural dialogues and exchanges around the globe.

“DIVING THE FRAME: in conversation with Suzon Fuks focusing on the moving image, particularly screendance & networked performance” This was the title of the blog I had during the two and half years (September 2009 – April 2012) of my Australia Council for the Arts Fellowship. This period allowed me to explore the frontiers of screendance and networked performance.

#1 Phase revolved around creating three new pieces specifically for the screen & archiving dance footage collected over the last 25 years around the world including some rare Indian dance forms.
#2 Phase involved in-depth research to create a networked performance to occur simultaneously in multiple spaces, using telecommunication to link people and place. This work has been physically generated through audience response and explored issues of flux and connection.

I shared my findings by maintaining this blog, attending international festivals, and presenting outcomes at the Igneous studio, Ausdance Queensland and as artist in residence at the Judith Wright Centre. Then, I received a Copeland Fellowship (Amherst) and Associate Researcher position at the Women Studies Research Centre (Mount Holyoke) at the Five Colleges in Massachusetts, USA (September 2012- February 2013).

My creative practice and artistic innovations have been forged since the 80’s.  See Archives. In this time my work has been highly influenced by the many cultures I have lived within, attracting wide national and international interest.  Since relocating to Australia from Europe in 1996, my work has continued to integrate and initiate innovative new approaches to meshing performance, media and technologies and has in turn received new national and international recognition.  The next logical step for me was to now consolidate this practice by weaving together related threads of movement, performance, visual media, and networked technologies that build upon this rich, diverse, and cross-cultural body of work.

This is the definition I feel the closest to:

“‘Screendance’, alternatively called ‘videodance’, is a genre made for the camera where movement is the primary expressive element in the work rather than dialogue (as in conventional narrative movies) or music (as in music videos).”

Screendance’s definition is expanding to also include live performance, installation and the use of multiple and multi-dimensional screens.