Drew Waters is an Australian video installation artist and photographer residing in Brooklyn, New York. Australian video art - Drew Waters installation artist, drew waters photographer brooklyn new york
australian video art
Candy-coated Humvee
single screen video installation
15 minute DVD loop
The Humvee, symbol of military machismo, unstoppable, go-anywhere, all conquering off-road King is here revealed in a more realistic mode: a vehicle easily pierced and burned by insurgent attacks, ultimately vulnerable.
Though perhaps we can overlook this, perhaps we can digest it, perhaps with a little persuasion we can even taste its sweetness.
>>A 1.5 sec clip from an evening news story on Iraq is transformed to create an iconic representation of a failed US military presence in the Middle East. The visual effect of the loop is meditative, asking for a contemplative response to an image of perpetual warfare.
Toll Plaza
single screen video installation
10 minute DVD loop
In the middle of the night, in the event that suspicious or criminal activity may occur and need further investigation, a Toll Plaza security camera records unidentified drivers as they enter and exit a major U.S. city.
Mostly though without incident, these passing drivers and their vehicles are just added to an ever growing archival database of recorded information.
Oh Dude
2 channel video installation
1 minute DVD loop
Oh Dude breaks with the heroic or benevolent war narrative that commonly frames images from Iraq as they are presented to a mainstream Television audience. In displaying segments of footage outside the framework of a news narrative, a clearer perception arises, a closer view of the realities of technological warfare.
In 2006, during a seemingly endless White House public relations campaign promoting surface patriotism and a continued need for war in the Middle East, I rode the subway home each day to Brooklyn and watched in the distance a tattered flag flying furiously in the wind. It seemed so beautifully at odds in its state of decay. It became for me a new symbol, speaking volumes about a history of US foreign policy and the worn rhetoric used to sell democracy to the world. Eventually over a period of about 2 months the remnants of the flag fell off the flagpole. It was never replaced.
