POETRY IN THE DARK

MATTHEW BRADLEY

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The poem is air: “An instant is that particle of time in which the tyre of a car going at full speed touches the ground, touches it no longer, then touches it again”’, writes Linda Marie Walker, quoting Clarice Lispector.¹ Matthew Bradley’s artwork seems to capture these flowing moments, this ‘getting air’, these small poetic instances where for just an instant you are free-floating. These moments can be filled with fear, panic and exhilaration, and also a type of strange light, or ekstasis, they are moments of transcendence.

In Tongue of Fire vs. Rat Patrol, Bradley filmed Adelaide bike club, the Tongue of Fire, as they constructed, rode, adjusted and dueled on their custom-made bikes. A man throws his leg over the bike frame and hoists himself up onto a custom-made extra-tall bicycle. He has to be in motion from the moment his leg leaves the ground, if the bike stops he may lose his balance and topple. For a while he is free-floating, high in the air as he pedals along, the ease of his movements denying the skill, and perhaps bravado, needed to ride a tall bike. He is in the instant. But when you ride a tall bike you have to know how to fall. In a recent lecture Linda Marie Walker spoke of how we do not yet know what the body can do. She spoke of how most architecture is designed for an assumed body, and that when the heights of stairs are changed from the norm people will often stumble or trip; this is how the body has been regulated within urban spaces.² In the Tongue of Fire vs. Rat Patrol we... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline

Final Warning, 2006. Video still. Courtesy the artist and Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide.

Skylab: Commodore mount, from The Aesthetics of Amateur Astro-Imaging, 2010. installation view, 2010 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia. Hardware: VN Commodore shell, steel, zincalum, custom steel mounting arms and EQ5 base, Celestron EQ5 mount with dual axis motor drives, custom aluminium telescope mounting plate, William optics 110mm apochromatic refractor telescope, Skywatcher 90mm refractor, Precision 8inch reflecting telescope, 60mm refractor telescope, Phillips SPC900NC ‘ToYou’ web-cam, 2 x Logitech quick-cam web-cams, generic web-cam, 2 x custom machined and anodised aluminium web-cam to telescope adapters, Canon 450d DSLR camera, T-Ring adapter, 25mm lens, 10mm lens, Plossl 6.3mm lens, GSO 3 x Barlow lens, 2 x Barlow lens, Baader UV/IR cut filter, focal reducer, custom plastic extender tube, small electrical components box, Compass, repaired Motorola traxar gps, Acer Aspire One netbook, old desktop computer, Texas instruments TI-84+ calculator, crompton mini flouro light. SanDisk 8 GB USB storage device, Bosch tool case, MTV DVD player, AWA DVD player, 2 Acer monitors, Power cables, RCA and VGA cables, Power boards. Hand-made knitted balaclava (after Mawson), with Jena Woodburn. Software: K3CCD tools, Macam, Registax 2, Registax 5, Instructables: Turn Texas instruments calculator into intervalometer, posted by ‘yonderknight’. 220 x 380 x 180cm. Courtesy the artist and Greenaway Art Gallery. Courtesy the artist and Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide