The website platform became a dedicated art space which facilitated the unique visual art exchange from two art collectives. The Cross City Experience framework enabled streamline art collaboration taking place in two different cities from Australia, while providing an online space for a national and international audience to view this. Below is an archive of the information and works which took place during this Cross City Experience collaboration.

Clark Beaumont (Brisbane)

Clark Beaumont is the collaborative performance art practice of Sarah Clark and Nicole Beaumont. The Brisbane based emerging art duo investigate themes of intimacy, identity, sociology, and female subjectivity within their artworks.

Interview with Clark Beaumont

Ok Yeah Cool Great (Sydney)

OK YEAH COOL GREAT is fundamentally interested in exploring what it means to work as a collective. By exploring what it means to practice as an art collective Anna McMahon and Kate Beckingham attempt to unveil for the viewer the process of art making. Although they share many aesthetic similarities, what is of most interest to them is the act of compromise and co-operation that is needed to form a successful collective. Concerned with elements drawn from both art history and theory, OK YEAH COOL GREAT approaches their subject with both lighthearted and sober wit.

Interview with Ok Yeah Cool Great 2010
Cover Image (Collaborative work #1)Animation 2010
Cover Image (Response work #1)Recorded performance 2010
(Response work #1)Animation 2010
Camouflage(Response work #2)Recorded performance 2010

Clark Beaumont talk intimately about their lives, hiding the dialogue between the fragmented overlay of each others monologues. These confessions are further obscured throughout the video as the images visually morph into one another, creating the illusion of one single person, monologue and purpose.

Dedication (Response work #2)Digital Collage 2010

This work is a response to Clark Beaumont sharing their secrets through their abstract video work. We were interested in exploring this idea of both camouflage and intimacy through a still image. We explored how books, when removed of their text, become nothing more than objects, however the dedications at the beginning of the books show an intimacy that is really only available to the author and the one to whom the dedication is made. We selected our favourite art theory texts because although they are widely read, we have had our own personal relationships with the books and the author through the text. By showing the book closed, and removing the title and author, we are concealing the true intention of the book but by displaying the most private and intimate part of the book (the dedication) we expose the part of the book that in reality holds no bearing to the text.

Untitled(Response work #3)Recorded performance 2010
Bless (Dedication #2) Digital Collage 2010

This work deals with the limitations and processes used during our current stage of physical separation. We were interested in exploring what it meant to try and work closely as a pair even though we are now divided by state lines. Through use of skype, we have been discussing and creating our most recent artwork. We found this experience both challenging and interesting and have directly referenced this in ‘Bless (Dedication #2). After viewing Clark Beaumont’s last video response we found the idea of fandom and absence both very interesting ideas. We wanted to draw from these two points and have consequently also referenced fandom through our display of the BLESS website on both computer screens (as we both draw influence from the BLESS aesthetic). Our work interprets the idea of absence by highlighting our physical absence and making a point of stating ‘This is how I see you’ (with both melancholic and literal underpinnings). As we attempt to stimulate our practice online we find that it is stimulating us.

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