Carriage­works undertook the commissioning of 24 new screen-based works for 24 Frames Per Second, collaborating with choreographers, visual artists, performance-makers, and filmmakers. Developed over three years, this project aimed to support artists, both Australian and international, engaged in cutting-edge experimental and cross-disciplinary practices, often in collaborative settings.

The intersection of visual and performing arts has a rich history, marked by a twentieth-century trend of artists collaborating in more open, entrepreneurial, and externally influenced ways than solitary creators with singular modes of expression.

Today, artistic disciplines' boundaries are more permeable than ever, with contemporary artists seamlessly blending different media to co-author artworks. Dance and performance have also entered museum spaces, breathing life into galleries once dedicated to static objects.

In its unique iteration, 24 Frames Per Second takes place in the industrial spaces of Carriage­works, extending beyond the traditional confines of the white cube, cinémathèque, or dance studio. Many artists incorporate the building's distinctive architecture into their works, playing with scale or highlighting the relationship between the moving figure and its environment.

This exhibition embraces an expanded notion of dance, where artists explore embodied movement in various forms. Some works turn the camera into a choreographic tool, engaging in a duet with performers. Thematic concerns explored include the body's relationship with technology, the figure in the landscape, the intersection of vernacular dance and mythology, the role of movement in self-representation, inquiries into the dance film genre, heightened states of consciousness, and the portrayal of the body in states of stress or excitement.

Encountering the works in 24 Frames Per Second underscores the exhilarating physicality of dance as presented on screen, ranging from individual movement to collective expression, endurance to exhaustion, and rehearsal to performance. It serves as a reminder that artists collaborating across disciplines can reveal complex and multifaceted truths about contemporary experience.

Curat­ed by Beat­rice Gral­ton and Nina Miall