Objects In Motion

Torin Francis
The works in Objects in Motion comprise durational site responsive installations, sculptures and video work, which explore liminal and transient relationships between weather balloons and found objects in site-specific locations. This project creatively explores slippages of motion and alterations in material states and how objects can act as markers of energy and time through constantly changing and ephemeral forms. Objects in Motion re-contextualises and re-evaluates the formal, material and conceptual potential of weather balloons, utilising process-driven methods of chance, improvisation and play.

The outcomes of outdoor site-responsive installations are documented using video, and the iterative process of utilising material remnants of burst balloons from previous works is played out through developing assemblages in the gallery space. The works investigate the ways in which material properties of weather balloons—and their expression as inflated or attenuated form—act as registers of time. The exhibition seeks to dramatise the spatiotemporal dimension of the sculptural encounter and by extension our encounter with all objects.

Torin Francis’s practice considers the devices we use to quantify, navigate, and comprehend the way in which the passing of time is perceived and experienced—often in lieu of our own bodies and senses. This engagement with these mechanisms is explored through poetic relationships between objects and space in site-responsive installations, kinetic sculpture, assemblage, and moving image works. Of particular focus in his recent work has been the weather balloon. Questioning the premise that an object is limited by it’s intended form, Francis re-evaluates and re-contextualises objects in both outside outdoor space and inside spaces.

Natural phenomena such as wind, weather or the environment, are used to harness outcomes and material remnants from previous work are used in assemblages within gallery space. Torin graduated from the Queensland University of Technology in 2017 and recently exhibited at Cut Thumb Laundry ARI, Brisbane and was part of Future-Proof at Boxcopy Gallery.

Images | Torin Francis, Installation View, Objects in Motion, 2017, Concrete, steel and weather balloon, dimensions variable | Torin Francis, Span, 2018, 2018, Aluminium, ply wood, Oak, screws, 12volt motor, ball bearings. Boxcopy Gallery, Brisbane. Photograph Callum McGrath | Courtesy the artist.