Created by: Kellie O'Dempsey From: Sunshine Coast, QLD, Australia

Drawing directly from the Queensland Museum Natural History Archive, Kellie O’Dempsey’s multi-dimensional artwork, Soft-body Adapters, takes a deep dive into the historic origins of ancient ocean biology to re-imagine the life of the ancient Anglerfish as marine and human hybrids.

Scientific evidence shows that the first vertebrates recorded in fossils were animals that looked like fish and had respiratory gills. This digital artwork reveals a psychedelic subaquatic ecosphere as a playful and absurd interpretation of what could happen to sea life as water encroaches onto the human landscape as the ocean levels rise.

Reconsidering our ancestors’ transition out of the water and onto the land through the lens of the climate crisis, Soft-body Adapters imagines a new biological adaption where ocean life metamorphosise from marine creature into human.

Made in collaboration mixing collage, animation and sound into digital video and augmented reality, Soft-body Adapters could be described as a Queensland underwater world crossed with surreal science fiction.

Roving demonstrators will be on site during Curiocity to explain how to use the EyeJack app. and make social media posts with the images generated. 

About the Creators

Artist: Kellie O’Dempsey in collaboration with:
AR Animator: Helena Papageorgiou
Sound Artist: Mick Dick
Visual Artist: Jon Weber

In search of transformation and wonder Kellie O’Dempsey intersects site-generated installation and performance incorporating projection, collage, architectural space and digital drawing. Hybridising these elements Kellie generates accessible artworks that are experiential and emergent. Creating in both solo and collaborative formats with sound artists and contemporary performers this diverse practice interrogates notions of the public and the private.

For more information: kellieo.com