Digital Portfolio

Spectral Sensoria

Spectral Sensoria was a creative community project I facilitated in April 2021, which was initially developed as part of my Toowoomba Arts Footprint Artist Residency. The project explores the full spectrum of sensory perception through a deep engagement and connection with the environment.

During the first phase of Spectral Sensoria through Toowoomba Arts Footprint, I sought expressions of interest from community members and artists to participate in a multi-sensory creative project. Seven people participated as artists in the project including: Jennifer Baker, Jade Courtney, Sue Davis, Nicole Jakins, Annica Marks, Kelli McAlpine and Jemma White. I would like to acknowledge and thank Gummingurru Aboriginal Corporation, Paul Carmody, Conrad Bauwens, Shannon Bauwens and Damon Miri Anderson for their generousity, knowledge sharing and warm welcome.

The Toowoomba Arts Footprint Artists in Residence Program was developed by The Friends of Cobb+Co Museum, a group of key Toowoomba Community members who support the Museum. The program provides a special opportunity for three Queensland artists to share their creative skills with the Toowoomba community through demonstrations, workshops and displays. This program has been fully funded by Arts Queensland and South West Qld Regional Arts.

Videography: Jade Courtney (https://vimeo.com/jadecourtneymedia).

Furari Flores (Stealing Flowers)

A vanitas series of one-on-one plant interviews. Each work is produced using hundreds of stills focus stacked and collaged with spectrographs (visual analysis of soundwaves). The titles are spoken in Latin and translated into spectrographs. There is an irony of speaking a dead language to plucked flowers/fruits, now also dying, and leaving only the visual representation in the world, the movement of sound left in the past.

As we navigate a way into an unknown future, we are granted the endless opportunity to also look back – to see the past with present eyes, understand it anew, and find our truths. So often this means changing a narrative that has been committed to writing. Fighting against text that is accepted, endorsed and taught. Challenging the accepted is a far more difficult task, than writing an acceptable version of events for the very first time.

Image above:
Cara-Ann Simpson
mutantur narrationis exsequitur, tua veritas I (changing the narrative, into your truth I) 2021
digital image, 78.2 x 78.2 cm

beneath my feet

There are places that connect us to the matter making up our reality – the atoms, molecules, chemical reactions and atmospheric interactions. They morph and coexist, ever-changing and yet often remaining in situ waiting for our disruption.

Beneath my feet IV embraces the dysfunction of algorithms in Adobe Photoshop, where I cut and collage numerous still photographs and bring across site specific field recording spectrographs (visual analysis of soundwaves). The image is developed from numerous aerial photographs of understory plants and the varying forest floor of the Bunya Mountains. I leave ghosting and pixelation triggered by my use of Photoshop’s inbuilt algorithms.

This flickering image is a simulacrum, a reminder of my lost memories from illness that have been infilled with detail by my brain trying to make sense of disjointed time. It echoes varying spectral forms, flickering between the tensions that pull us from one moment into another, searching for grounding through place.

Image above:
Cara-Ann Simpson
beneath my feet 2021
direct bond UV print on aluminium

M.aking R.eal I.mprovements

Over the past few years I have had many MRIs, the images are incredible, beautiful and scary – a tiny ‘blip’ could be damage that can never be recovered, or cause any number of my MS or neurosarcoidosis symptoms. Having a disability means being stronger and smarter in many ways – you find alternative methods of solving problems that fall within your abilities. Initially I struggled against this, but the longer I am ‘disabled’ the more I realise that my disability offers me new opportunities to perceive the world.

This series uses real MRIs of my brain, which I’ve overlaid with text and spectrographs. The spectrographs are overlaid on approximately 1 in 5 images; this is the same statistic of people that have a disability in Australia (ABS). That’s a whopping 20% of our population. Whether you develop a disability, or are born with disability, it doesn’t change the person you are, and most definitely doesn’t mean you can’t contribute meaningfully to society.

Disability doesn’t discriminate – it can be visible or invisible.

Image above:
Cara-Ann Simpson
M.aking R.eal I.mprovements 2018
pigment print on metallic pearl paper

Geo Sound Helmets

Geo Sound Helmets is an interactive sound and sculptural art installation exploring the perceptions of space and place in relation to our bodies. Participants are invited to put their head inside each of the ‘helmets’ to hear different three-dimensions soundscapes from locations around the world. The audio output is breath-controlled, and visitors are able to change their experience by slowing down, speeding up, deepening or taking more shallow breaths.

Critical Essay: Listeners are Creators, Anabelle Lacroix (https://caraannsimpson.com/text/anabelle-lacroix-listeners-are-creators/)

Image above:
Cara-Ann Simpson
Geo Sound Helmets 2011
Installation photo at Blue Oyster Art Project Space, Dunedin NZ
Photo: Emily Hlavac-Green

Noise Cancellation: disrupting audio perception

Open-air active noise cancellation installation using live sound from the street below, as well as audio from the gallery.

Catalogue Essay: The Act of Things that Aren’t There, Dr Kyle Jenkins

The work of Cara-Ann Simpson is about constructing environments where the ephemeral nature of experience is explored. This exploration forms a seminal material within the reading of the work ‘Noise Cancellation: disrupting audio perception’ as this installation questions the relationship between public and private space as an architectural metaphor for spatial collage. This is done by creating objects that have a physical and sonic construction.

Critical Review – if walls had ears, Ben Byrne: http://www.realtimearts.net/studio-artist/noise-cancellation-disrupting-audio-perception

Image above:
Cara-Ann Simpson (with Eva Cheng, DSP Engineer)
Noise Cancellation: disrupting audio perception 2011
Installation photo at Conical Inc, Melbourne
Photo: Cara-Ann Simpson