leaves in the streamTom Blake

Artworks
Video:A three-channel video projection of a wave breaking, situated in a gallery space in Taipei. The water is foamy and white and each video moves at a slightly different frame rate.Video credit:Tom Blake, leaves on the sea, 2024, gif. Treasure Hill Artist Village, May 2024. Photo: An-Ting Ta.

Tom Blake’s project, leaves in the stream, is inspired by the churning and circular movement of water. The work explores Blake’s ongoing fascination with opacity, repetition and fragmentation, drawing connections to the behavioural patterns and loops we experience online.

Made up of live and digital works, leaves in the stream encourages visitors to pause and drift, disrupting habitual scrolling and dwindling attention spans. Blake invites reflection on how we engage with repeated images and fragmented text.

Guided by the swirling features of an eddy (small temporary loops of water), the digital artwork combines videos, text and drawings. Hosted on a website, a series of pages are daisy-chained together, forming a circular path for visitors to move through. Each page in the chain holds a pair of looping videos, a drawing and a fragmentary poem embedded in the URL. The looping videos ask the viewer to linger with a fragment of time as a particular moment is repeated endlessly across a pair of screens. These videos create new versions of themselves as they drift in and out of sync, continuously meeting in different moments throughout the day.

This event has concluded

  • DATES

    • SAT 01 – SUN 16 June

  • LOCATION

    • Treasure Hill Artist Village, No. 2, Alley 14, Ln. 230 Sec. 3 Dingzhou Rd, Taipei, Taiwan
    • Wheelchair Accessible
    • Assistance Animal

leaves on the sea was presented in Taipei at the Cross Gallery, Treasure Hill Artist Village as part of BLEED and PICA’s International Exchange Program. The works in leaves on the sea explore ideas of opacity, repetition, fragmentation and disintegration across a range of media, including a three-channel video projection (sound of waves, 2024), drawings (eddies 2024), a de-silvered mirror (holding lines 2023) and a constellation of small videos (index / silt 2018-2024) looping across a pair of phone screens installed side-by-side. At the centre of the exhibition, the video sound of waves shows three versions of the same video playing slightly out of sync, giving the effect that the water is moving across the three screens.

Tom Blake, leaves in the sea, 2024. Treasure Hill Artist Village, Taipei.
Tom Blake, leaves in the sea, 2024. Treasure Hill Artist Village, Taipei.
Tom Blake, leaves in the sea, 2024. Treasure Hill Artist Village, Taipei.
Tom Blake, leaves in the sea, 2024. Treasure Hill Artist Village, Taipei.
Tom Blake, leaves in the sea, 2024. Treasure Hill Artist Village, Taipei.
Tom Blake, leaves in the sea, 2024. Treasure Hill Artist Village, Taipei.
Tom Blake, leaves in the sea, 2024. Treasure Hill Artist Village, Taipei.
Tom Blake, leaves in the sea, 2024. Treasure Hill Artist Village, Taipei.
Tom Blake, leaves in the sea, 2024. Treasure Hill Artist Village, Taipei.

  • DATES

    • FRI 30 August – SUN 29 September
      Available On Demand

  • Experience Notes

    Please note that this digital work only functions on a computer.

  • The image is a screenshot of a webpage. The webpage features a central image displayed twice, side by side, showing a close-up of clear, cylindrical glass objects submerged in a pale aqua liquid. The liquid appears to flow from a spout or nozzle into the glass objects, creating a gentle swirl and bubble effect. The background of the webpage is a textured white surface covered with small, scattered, black, wave-like patterns. At the top center of the page, there's the word
    Click to access the digital work
  • The image is a screenshot of a webpage. The webpage features a central image displayed twice, side by side, showing a close-up of clear, cylindrical glass objects submerged in a pale aqua liquid. The liquid appears to flow from a spout or nozzle into the glass objects, creating a gentle swirl and bubble effect. The background of the webpage is a textured white surface covered with small, scattered, black, wave-like patterns. At the top center of the page, there's the word
    Visit this page on a computer to access the digital work

Comprising a series of web pages, daisy-chained together to form a continuous loop, leaves on the stream provides a space for visitors to pause and drift. Blake uses multiple layers to guide website visitors into the work and reflect on how we engage with repeated images, fragmented text and pathways in the digital age.

The interconnected web pages are guided by the swirling patterns of an eddy – the part of the stream that briefly pauses and spins before continuing – which connect the looping videos, recurring drawings and fragmented poems.

Acknowledgement of Country
Arts House, Campbelltown Arts Centre and Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the lands we live and work on, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung, Dharawal, and Whadjuk Noongar peoples. We extend our respects to their Elders past and present. We extend this acknowledgment to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander audiences and communities, and First Nations peoples globally.