
Kit Wise, Rhapsodia 2007 (detail), courtesy the artist.

Kit Wise, Rhapsodia 2007 (detail), courtesy the artist.

Kit Wise, Rhapsodia 2007 (detail), courtesy the artist.

Kit Wise, Rhapsodia 2007 (detail), courtesy the artist.

Kit Wise, Rhapsodia 2007 (detail), courtesy the artist.
Rhapsodia is a site-specific installation comprising illuminated digital imagery and animation. The work addresses the representation in popular culture of the desired, transcultural and increasingly virtual ideal city, often defined in an ambiguous relationship to nature. This motif is used to explore the landscapes associated with civilisation and paradise. This work was initiated during an Australia Council Tokyo studio residency in 2006, and supported with an Australia Council New Work grant in 2007. Tokyo was taken as a case study for global trends in the increasingly plastic experience of geographical, historical, social and cultural space. In this exhibition, the ideal city is identified as the site or matrix of desire for the exotic Other. The work draws upon mashup digital practices to present a composite, fantastical hyperreal scene. Borrowing from sources including Western Medieval narrative painting, traditional Japanese ukiyo-e landscapes and science fiction cinema, the installation presents a hallucinogenic yet lyrical utopia.

Kit Wise, Rhapsodia 2007 (detail), courtesy the artist.
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