Soda Jerk is an Australian two-person art collective that works with found material to trouble existing formulations of cultural history. By strategically reimagining historical trajectories, the artists are concerned with producing counter-mythologies of the past that open new possibilities for the present. Taking the form of video installations, cut-up texts and lecture performances, their archival practice merges the zones of research, documentary and speculative fiction. Current fields of research include Afrofuturism, Australian gothic, cinematic hauntology and The Nova Trilogy.
Their most recent work, Terror Nullius, is a decolonial political satire which offers an un-writing of Australian national mythology. It works entirely within and against the official archive, in order to achieve a queering and othering of Australian cinema. A world in which minorities and animals conspire, and not-so-nice white guys finish last. Where idyllic beaches host race-riots, governments poll love-rights, and the perils of hypermasculinity are overshadowed only by the enduring horror of Australia’s colonising myth of terra nullius.
Following their acclaimed political revenge fable Terror Nullius in 2018, Soda Jerk are currently working on a new feature called Hello Dankness. Formed in Sydney in 2002, they’ve been based in New York since 2012.
COUNTERSPACE 