Experimental. Visionary. Collaborative.#
Dr David Pledger is a conceptual, media and performance artist, a curator, writer, and futurist whose work highlights the relationship of art, technology and science to society and culture.
He has created installations, digital performance, site-specific curatorial programs, and festivals. His ideas-led practice builds artworks and public events of scale, and his work is notable for engaging publics in productive and provocative ways.
David’s direction, design and writing have been recognised by the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, the Australian Writers Guild, the Victorian Green Room Awards. He is a recipient of the Sydney Myer Performing Arts Individual Award and the Kenneth Myer Performing Arts Medal for his work as a director, actor, and teacher.
David’s practice is synonymous with experimentation in new technologies and methodologies. With media art pioneer, Jeffrey Shaw, he created the world’s first interactive, panoramic feature film, Eavesdrop, which enjoys a long exhibition life and is now being reconfigured for iPad Mini interaction. Recent work includes the immersive essay, Wall of Noise, Web of Silence (2018), the interactive digital gatherings, Assembly for the Future (2020, 2022, 2023) and curation of the inaugural triennial event ANAT Spectra 2022 Multiplicity, Australia’s national art-science-technology platform. His research interests lie in the interplay between art, politics, technology, and society, and his many essays are published in academic and industry publications.
David is founding artistic director of not yet it’s difficult (NYID), one of Australia’s leading anti-disciplinary arts outfits with whom he has developed a singular dramaturgy that is internationally recognised.
A compulsive collaborator, he currently operates two futurist practices. With Alex Kelly, he is co-creator/co-curator of The Things We Did Next which generates interconnected, tentacular artworks based on collectively imagining multiple futures.
With friend and collaborator, Tony Briggs, he is co-creator of Tomorrow’s Pasts, a multi-platform concept for digital art, theatre, videogame, and television that pivots around an alternate Australian history in which a race-based civil war is a defining event. The digital art series, Address to the Nations, is the focus of this residency.