1986-2026
For more than four decades I have worked with language as the foundation of my art practice, moving between old and new technologies. Paint, ink, paper and canvas sit alongside computers, networks, digital image-making, performance and AI. The materials change, but the enquiry remains: consciousness, perception and the shifting boundaries between human and machine. This selection traces that movement through time, not as a linear history, but as an evolving field of connections.
At the centre of my visual and performance work are three long-form, unpublished manuscripts: The Corpse in Eden, Narcolepsy on Triton and the ongoing If You Find Me I Am Already Someone Else. Developed over decades, they are not separate from the performance work. Their language, fragments and ideas are spoken, embodied and transformed through performance. Together, the manuscripts bind the practice, continuing its movement between text, image, voice, technology and consciousness.
1986
Drowning in the Bath of Vermillion / Axeman
The first performance work in which I began to develop the relationship between language, image, object and performance that has continued throughout my practice. The work established an ongoing commitment to text as both visual and conceptual material.
KSK gallery, Sydney
1987
Telephonix
Installation with Virtual Object: art and technology. A rewired telephone on a plinth rang at random intervals throughout the exhibition. When answered, my recorded voice asked: “Is there anyone out there? Is there anyone out there at all?”
Made at a time when networked communication was still an emerging technological experience, the work began an ongoing investigation into communication, presence and the possibility of an unseen interlocutor.
Performance Space, Sydney
In 1986 I had a dialup modem. It was not called the internet then.
1989
The Art of Commodification / The Commodification of Art
Installation and performance with Virtual Object: art and technology. Text was written across the gallery walls while I performed the work suspended from a remotely controlled rotating rack. Video documentation of the performance was incorporated into the installation, with a modified version later presented at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane.
EMR gallery, Sydney
1989
The Art of Commodification / The Commodification of Art
Computer printout accompanying the Virtual Object: art and technology exhibition and performance at EMR Gallery, Sydney. Later exhibited and performed at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane.
Related text / exhibition document, 1989
1991
The metaphysics of desire produced by an infinite longing for sustenance
Text from The Corpse in Eden 1989-1991
Eyers first manuscript
Presented as part of Perspecta 1991 at the Art Gallery of NSW. The large-scale installation combined acrylic painting with text drawn from The Corpse in Eden. The work brought together language, image and desire within an environment in which the written word operated simultaneously as text and visual form.
Documentation: Perspecta 1991 catalogue.
c1992
Of this I have not seen only that which was said
Text from Narcolepsy on Triton, 1992-2023
Eyers second manuscript
Indian Ink on craft paper 28×26cm
2003
Echoes the rock of times towers tunnelled swim on
Text from The Corpse in Eden
acrylic paint on canvas · 76 × 92 cm
2015
From whence arrives the Axeman and how to heed the call
Text from The Corpse in Eden
Indian ink, acrylic paint on Arches paper · 21 × 15 cm
2021
Linguistics shattered new terminologies produced to give validity to a reason that is no longer there
Text from The Corpse in Eden.
Language accumulates, overlaps and begins to fracture, becoming both image and obstruction.
Acrylic paint on canvas 122×153cm
2021
And down dark corridors the Bully Boys and Bracelet Girls Ran
Text from The Corpse in Eden.
Acrylic paint on canvas 102×123cm
2023
What was before is now but never was
Text from The Corpse in Eden.
Acrylic paint on canvas 100×75cm
2026
Who Are You
Text from If you find me I am already someone else
Eyers third manuscript, 2025 -
Indian ink, acrylic paint on Canson 29.7×42cm
2023-24
Labyrinth Express
Text from The Corpse in Eden
A text-based performance developed within ILA’s immersive environment, translating language from The Corpse in Eden into projected digital space. The work marked a further movement of the text from the physical surface of the canvas into an environment in which image, language, light and performance could occupy the same space.
Digital LED Screens: performance in collaboration with Lab Rats
The Lab, ILA (Immersive Light Art) Adelaide
2025
Experimental Performance
Text from If you find me I am already someone else
The work evolves through spoken language interpreted by real-time AI systems, speech, text, image.
Digital LED Screens: performance in collaboration with Bootleg Collective
ILA (Immersive Light Art) Adelaide
CLOSING STATEMENT
The work continues to move between what is known and what is becoming. Technologies change, but the underlying enquiry remains: what happens to perception when the boundaries between language, image, body and machine begin to dissolve? Looking back reveals less a progression than a series of returns, repetitions and unexpected connections. The earlier works are not simply antecedents to what I make now. They remain active within it.
The history is still unfolding.
Current performance collaborators: Helen Chandler digital artist, James Shepherd electronic musician
Recent performance collaborators: Bootleg Collective — Lab Rats