WOW! STUFF! (2022)

Video Art by Betty Sargeant

Karachi Biennale, PAKISTAN. October-November 2022

Duration: 2:05. Medium: 4K drone videography, microscopy (microscope imagery), typographic design, field recordings, audio composition and digital design.

WOW! STUFF! : Nature vs Stuff. The discordant aesthetics of this video artwork reflect the artist’s alarm at how we’re selling our future by destroying crucial international ecosystems. WOW! STUFF! features Betty Sargeant’s video footage of the Batticaloa Peninsula (Sri Lanka), her microscope imagery, her local field recordings and her typographic statements. The audio features Betty’s hydrophone (under water) recordings of the Batticaloa ‘singing fish’, field recordings and electronic music.

This video artwork contains audio and visuals collected by Betty while she was in Batticaloa (Sri Lanka) with Dinacon. She came to this landscape with presence and intention and pays respect to the culture, lives and struggles of the peoples and lands of Batticaloa. In making and presenting this artwork, Betty gratefully acknowledge First People’s custodianship and connection to landscape.

WOW! STUFF! is part of a series of video artworks by Betty Sargeant that address ways that consumerism is negatively impacting our natural environments. BUY-SELL is a video artwork featuring Batticaloa Sri Lanka. It was developed during her time at Dinacon 2022. SOLD OUT is a video artwork featuring the Amazon Jungle. It was developed during her time at the LabVerde Artist Immersion in the Amazon Program.

Betty Sargeant lives and works on the unceded land of the Yaluk-ut Weelam clan who are Boon Wurrung people. We pay respect to ancestors, elders and communities.