Music

2025: Another amazing year for my videos!

2025 has ended up as another amazing year for my videos! Overall, 22 different videos have been shown in some way in 17 countries around the world for a total of nearly 60 screenings. Four videos – Eviction, DEADEYE, WHY-EEELA and The Exclusion Principle –  won awards or were short-listed for awards at international festivals.

The year began on a big note with The Taken Path, a 6-screen installation made in collaboration with Catherine Truman, exhibited at Carrick Hill as part of the 2025 Adelaide Festival. A different single screen version was exhibited later in the year at the ANAT SPECTRA conference in Queensland.

While most of my work is shown internationally, it has been especially gratifying to have videos screened at different short film festivals around Australia this year, since it is rare for local festivals to encompass experimental film as part of a general program. I will continue to support these events, even if my work does not get selected.

Most of the videos deal with the state of the environment in some way or another: climate change, habitat destruction, and the consequential effects on the survival of plants and animals, many of which we … Click here for more.

public science

new page under construction! stay tuned…

Ever since I began as a lecturer at Flinders University in 1985, I have been heavily involved in bringing different aspects of science to the wider public. Here is a list of some of them:

Science vs Creationism
For some reason, I ended up being one of the main voices for science against a rise in the public profile of Creationists in South Australia. I appeared on radio and public debates and was interviewed for the local newspaper. Some of these activities were sponsored by the Humanists and the Sceptics associations. I remained independent of them, however.

Flinders Medical Centre Research Foundation
The FMC Research Foundation often held open days or tours of the facilities for the public, patients, and supporters. We regualrly had to explain what we were doing in our laboratories in plain language in a short amount of time.

Arts in Health
FMC was one of the first hospitals in the world to have a full time Arts in Health program, in this case led by Sally Francis. I became regularly involved in their projects and events. An all-day event in 2007, With Body In Mind, ended up being a … Click here for more.

science and art

The Neuroscience of Embodiment

a feeling for the body

How do we understand the feeling we have for our own body? Where does that feeling start and finish when we are using a familiar tool or playing a musical instrument, for example? Modern neuroscience is getting ever closer to answering these questions with the development of concepts such as ‘Motor Cognition’. Ian does not do primary research in this area, but he knows the field well, having taught about it for years…

Since 2007, Ian has been collaborating with artist, Catherine Truman, to explore the consequences of these ideas on the ways we learn anatomy and how we communicate the feelings for the body we have acquired throughout our lives. This formed the basis of their work in not absolute and The Microscope Project.  This work also deeply informed his collaborations with Garry Stewart and the Australian Dance Theatre in the development of Be Your Self and Proximity.

Read Phantom Limb, one of Ian’s poems about body sense here.

Read about Ian’s collaborations with Catherine Truman in the study of anatomy here.

Read a conversation between Ian and Garry Stewart here.

Music

… Click here for more.

Physalia

“corzee mol o emarlm eszee … tsnyora snook snay nornse … forcanlows sekmalafair nischniss seconlyaire”

Although Physalia, the Portuguese Man O’ War, with its gas-filled float and tentacles bearing venomous stings, resembles a jellyfish, “like all siphonophores, it is a colonial organism made up of smaller units called zooids.” (Quoted from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physalia)

“Physalia” is derived from a Latin word meaning “bubble” or “bladder”. Its stings (nematocysts) create intense burning pain and its neurotoxins can cause paralysis. 

The “Man O’ War” was a sailing vessel developed by the Portuguese in the 16th Century as a powerful warship, heavily armed with cannons. They were widely used by other European colonialists, including the British, French, Spanish and Dutch, well into the 19th Century. The strength of the Portuguese navy was instrumental in acquiring and maintaining its colonial empire from the 15th Century until the 20th Century when the last remnants of the empire were decolonised. 

Physalia is highly successful organism, widespread across the world’s oceans. Nevertheless, its environment is under increasing threat from pollution and climate change. Its potent armoury of highly toxic stings is no match for this type of attack. Perhaps new forms of cryptic colonial zooids … Click here for more.

The Taken Path at Carrick Hill, Adelaide Festival 2025

The Taken Path: a durational project
Catherine Truman & Ian Gibbins

Controls: 2 channel video, HD, 03:43:45, 2 x 75″ screens, silent (2025)
Peripheries: 4 channel video, HD, 00:58:14, 4 x 43″ screens, silent (2025)
Soundtracks: 2 x 2 channel stereo, 01:00:49 and 01:04:33 (2025)

The Wall Gallery, Carrick Hill House Museum
46 Carrick Hill Drive, Springfield, SA 5062

Wednesday 12th February – Sunday 16th March 2025
Wednesdays – Sundays | 10:00am – 4:30pm

https://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/events/the-taken-path

The Carrick Hill estate, nestled in the foothills of Adelaide, presents a conundrum of the delicate connections between humans and the greater environment. Here, pure fantasy and the hard reality of both ancient and present life are encountered at once in a microcosm of the wider world.

At monthly intervals over a year, my long-standing artist friend and collaborator Catherine Truman and I used an iPhone and professional video camera respectively to record our walks along a defined path that traverses the natural and altered landscapes at Carrick Hill. This speculative, durational project was inspired by a poetic idea: what would we notice if we walked the same path, once a month over the course of a year and … Click here for more.

The Taken Path: a durational project – Carrick Hill, 2025 Adelaide Festival

The Taken Path: a durational project
Catherine Truman & Ian Gibbins

Controls: 2 channel video, HD, 03:43:45, 2 x 75″ screens, silent (2025)
Peripheries: 4 channel video, HD, 00:58:14, 4 x 43″ screens, silent (2025)
Soundtracks: 2 x 2 channel stereo, 01:00:49 and 01:04:33 (2025)

The Wall Gallery, Carrick Hill
46 Carrick Hill Drive, Springfield, SA 5062

Wednesday 12 February – Sunday 16 March 2025
Wednesdays – Sundays 10:00am – 4:30pm

https://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/events/the-taken-path

The Carrick Hill estate, nestled in the foothills of Adelaide, presents a conundrum of the delicate connections between humans and the greater environment. Here, pure fantasy and the hard reality of both ancient and present life are encountered at once in a microcosm of the wider world.

At monthly intervals over a year, my long-standing artist friend and collaborator Catherine Truman and I used an iPhone and professional video camera respectively to record our walks along a defined path that traverses the natural and altered landscapes at Carrick Hill. This speculative, durational project was inspired by a poetic idea: what would we notice if we walked the same path, once a month over the course of a year and recorded the journey?

This repeated … Click here for more.