This installation is a development of the heartbeat work that I installed at Stonehurst Cedar Creek last year.
Flat-lining is a site-specific work for the length of the barbed wire fence leading up to the cellar door at Undercliff Vineyard, Wollombi, The Hunter Valley. Red knitting yarn is bound around lengths of barbed wire for the entire length of the fence, occasionally zig-zagging like a heartbeat. The brightly coloured, soft, fuzzy-edged materiality of the yarn contrasts the harsh aggressive material of the barbed wire.
Flat-lining explores the concept of boundaries. The use of the barbed-wire fence conveys multiple associations of defense, aggression, possession, containment and protection. The colour, softness and tactility of the continuous red line of bound yarn, combined with the title, Flat-lining, indicates an indeterminate moment on the boundary between life and death.
The term Flat-lining is mostly used in the medical industry when a person's pulse has stopped, indicating a flat line on the heart monitor. Even at this point - the boundary can be breached in either direction - there is still the possibility of resuscitation.
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