Geurts works with video by manipulating live feed to force errors in the recording process. Abstraction of real-time into video static opens the possibility of unexpected relationships between visual and aural elements.

"At four equal sites on the equator, a corner of a right angle plastic frame pierces the skin of the landscape to give the illusion of a frame that passes through the earth. I developed a portable sculpture in the form of a 90-degree frame, which was set up at the four sites and photographed. The frame is made from fabricated plastic and internally lit with fluorescent light."
The project occurs at four locations which are 90° apart :

100° East - Pandang, Sumatra, Indonesia  
10° East – Libreville, Gabon, Africa
80° West – Perneldes, Equador, South America
170° East – Kirimatti Atoll, Pacific Ocean

"James Geurts' recent works have included moving projections that are abstract and powerfully ambient—an amniotic surround of pulse and pattern— and works that resemble more closely filmic narrative vignette—as well as static works that are akin to traditional painting and sculpture. They work singly and, assembled, aggregate effectively as installation.

"It is 'academically' interesting as well as immediately so, that this new application of the Sublime should have the same improving, enlarging effects on the 'participating' viewer as envisaged by the Romantics. I say 'participating' because we are required, I think, to put ourselves 'under the spell' when we sense it as there, available, proffered. It is this respect, among others, that James Geurts' work is openly propositional, to a degree declaring its intents, foregrounding its strategies. That is, its manner of proposing, of address, is offered undisguised. On the other hand, the induction the work would effect is via a relatively complex understanding or reception—made of both the somatic and intellectual. It is Assent/Recognition that is somehow bodily, or fuller than mere 'front brain' apportioning of categories, for it brings into play the body's somatic and instinctive registers of scale, calibration of threat and of predictable sequence, in parallel with our rational reception of the data as art works."
Ken Bolton

Melbourne-based James Geurts's art practice includes site-specific works, installation, video, photography and drawing. James explores human language and intervention with landscape. In 2006 James completed Artesian, multi-screen video installation, funded by the Australian Film Commission;Tidemark (2) site-specific works at Canvas International Art Gallery Amsterdam; Gravitas, public projection video work, Project 3, Adelaide Festival of Arts; SPAN Gallery, Melbourne; Picnic, video installation at Conical Gallery, Melbourne; Bastards of Paradise, Greenaway Art Gallery Adelaide. Other recent exhibitions include Reception, 2004 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia; Suburban Edge, Australian Centre for Photography 2004-06; Tidemark, (in collaboration with Brussel’s sound artist Hans de Man, Foton) Greenaway Art Gallery 2004. Other recent screen based works include: Limbo, Luminosity public projection commission, Adelaide and Federation Square Melbourne 2006; White wash, Art Gallery of South Australia 2005; Shellfish/man, ACMI Melbourne and Brisbane 2002 and Art Gallery of South Australia 2003; Toying with Paradise at Experimenta, Melbourne and ACCA in 2001. Accord, screened live with the State Orchestra of Victoria at the Melbourne Concert Hall 2001.

Image credits James Geurts

  Artist's website http://jamesgeurts.com/index.php

  Media release pdf