Alexandrer Knox
Past Artist In Residence
2002

Alexander Knox is a Melbourne based artist working with a various range of materials combing lighting, optics, audio, kinetic and more formal elements that pull from his training in film and industrial design. In his piece Channel Me, Knox combined the aesthetics of optical art, computer games, and commercial mall architecture with state of the art technology to create a multifaceted panel that was suspended from a central gallery column. He has exhibited at Asia Pacific Artist’s Initiative’s Project 1 in Melbourne, and Project 2 in Bangkok. In 2000, Knox worked on a series of sculpture commissions for NFK, a leading Melbourne architecture firm. Beginning in November of 2002, Knox, funded by the Australia Council for Arts, traveled to Los Angeles to be the artist in residence at 18th Street for three months. While here, he experimented with a hybrid of optical technologies and created virtual environments that explored the machinations of visual spectacle. Referencing both historical and contemporary uses of illusion, Knox challenges an understanding of special effects that relies on a linear conception of technological evolution, and incorporates devices that range from trompe l’oeil, proto-cinema and dioramas, to op art, video, cinema and computer games.