Jon Hunter
Born 1982, Lithgow
Bachelor of Electronic Arts (Hons)
Graduation show: 2003, 2004 (Hons)
Graduation ceremony: 2009
Artwork in Space YZ
I don't go to Penrith on Sundays anymore, 2008
Single channel video with sound
20:18 mins
This work is about cycles and repetition, about being stuck in a rut and needing to change it up.
Lumens and Pressure, 2005, 17:13 mins, digital video, sound. Exhibited at Pelt Gallery, 2005.
I’m pretty sure I applied to do Electronic Arts at UWS based on the 70 word blurb in the handbook they handed out in highschool. I thought I’d be making sick beats and hanging out with cyber punks, like in the movie Hackers. In part, it kinda was like that, but in a paddock in Kingswood - no coding but plenty of nerding out over computers. (I do wish I had been part of Dysfunctional Feed!).
I was in the first cohort of Electronic Art students, I was joined by two of my best friends Ivan Lisyak and Peter Newman. From memory there were eight of us in the year and we jumped between classes in the Art and Music faculties. For the first year or so I carried a cheap metallic road case instead of a backpack. This distraction seemed to make up for my lack of knowledge on contemporary art or music as I had little prior understanding of either. I didn’t do art in high school, I’d never been to the MCA or any other contemporary art exhibition. I played in some bad pop rock bands and some silly punk bands but I knew nothing of experimental music outside of my own failed attempts to be the Prodigy with only a guitar and a Zoom Multi-effects pedal. I nearly quit the degree after about 5 weeks. Terry Hayes had us sitting in a grid of one metre squares on the floor for Foundation Studies and each week he’d give some vague direction “next week, bring something to disassemble”. It felt like a waste of time and I couldn’t see the point, “what are we supposed to do?” But slowly things happened, out of boredom, out of frustration, out of curiosity, out of competition and a camaraderie began forming amongst us all and looking back this was the most transformational class that I remember. After that, art was no longer distant. My knowledge and opinions or lack thereof was just as valid as the painters and sculptors who talked about gallery openings in the city, a world completely foreign to me. And the more I hung around Z block, the more you would meet other folk who were on their own path.
Structure, 2003, 10:00 mins, digital video, sound. Exhibited in impermanent.projections, Performance Space, Redfern, curated by Caleb Kelly, 2003.
Structure II, 2004, 5:10 mins, digital video, sound. Honours Grad Show, 2004.
I remember Andy Petith, an ex-Jockey, and his huge sprawling sculptures. I especially remember his first foray into video with an epic work called the line where he filmed himself painting on TV screens and then filmed himself painting that scene again, taking the notion of feedback and running miles ahead with it.
I remember Michael Fardon whose paintings beautifully documented his neighbours on the outskirts of Campbelltown getting home tattoos. He talked about his neighbourhood and how on one street there was the primary school, a high-school and juvenile justice centre all in a row.
I remember the amazing hot chips from the chicken shop. I still dream of them.
I remember Diego Bonetto talking about weeds and squats and my astonishment when he won the Helen Lempriere Scholarship.
I remember classes were always outside with Harry Barnett.
I remember a drawing class where I never picked up a pencil or pen.
Jugs from the Swamp Bar.
Stephen Fox erasing the birds in his video The Birds (included in this show).
Emily Morandini’s sprawling speaker installation with hundreds of speakers.
I remember Marius Jastkowiak’s blurry paintings.
George Tillianakis’ experiments with pineapple juice and semen in David Haines’ Radical Rock Video Class. Truly Radical!
The guerrilla video I made with Ivan Lisyak, Peter Newman and TV Moore where we made Peter jump up and down over and over again.
VHS tapes with recordings of music clips taped off Rage.
Luis Martinez and his life-like paintings of suburban streets.
Yuko Matsuzawa everything with polystyrene balls.
Daniel Green smashing a washing machine with a baseball bat in front of a class for, what I assume, was a performance.
I remember David Haines borrowing Tarkovski’s Stalker from the film archive to show us and one of the reels spooling onto the floor.
Matt Chaumont’s very large subs and even larger metal objects. For grad show he craned in a huge old petrol station tank and covered it in transducers making it vibrate at a super low frequency.
I remember moving William Noble’s camera after he had spent hours or possibly days manually projection mapping the surface the camera was pointed at :(
I remember Wade Szumyn showing us WikiLeaks.
I remember Jon Wah’s band The Bloodied Cunts with Abe Powell, Matt Chaumont, Flynn Donovan and Tim Crew (especially their performance at Harmony Day!), Political Graffiti, Turkish Pop Group, Uber Cube, Newman & Chaumont and some wild parties at Z block.
I remember Joyce Hinterding giving me a lift in the boot.
I remember trying to set up render farms with Darren Wilkins.
I remember Ann Finegan slowly blowing my insulated mind with philosophical theory I never thought I could wrap my head around.
I remember Caleb Kelly inviting me to play at impermanent.audio after marking a performance for Music Technology. I thought I’d entered the labyrinth when I loaded into the Knot Gallery in Hibernian House with Ivan Lisyak’s careful guidance. And after that Hibernian House became a second home until Pelt and then Serial Space after that.
New Lifeform (still and install view), 2003, 3 channel digital video, 5 channel sound.
If you would like to learn more about Jon Hunter, you can visit his Bandcamp, Vimeo, Instagram or SoundCloud.
Shards, 2005, 5:39 mins, digital video, sound. Exhibited in AV OUT at Blacktown Art Centre, 2005.
The work featured this animated video along with a live audio installation which used the light from the projection to instigate the sounds heard.