AbstractsPsychology

This visual arts research project utilises filmic explorations of scale models to investigate the nature of Colonial Nelson Civic buildings as architectural spaces of implicit and hidden power, with the notion that governance is in the hands of corporations and not elected councils governments. It questions if democracy is an illusion; an ideology rather than a reality. It explores hidden meanings within this architecture; the inherent metaphysical connotations imbued not only in the architecture, but also in the model and the image. The project investigates the merging of boundaries between what is real and unreal, creating an illusionary space that aims to establish the uncanny through the transformation of the familiar to the unfamiliar. This filmic exploration acknowledges the paradoxical nature of the project; that while investigating and critiquing manipulation, it is at the same time attempting to draw the viewer into a manipulated experience.