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Abstract
Australia's cartographic form has transcended the atlas, becoming a ubiquitous hyper-translated symbol across the Australian visual environment. From non-distinct urban and industrial streets to grocery store aisles, its proliferation throughout the 'anyplace' landscapes of 21st century postcolonial Australia acts as a mechanism of banal nationalistic geo-reification. In its non-cartographic guise, it ceases to perform as a way-finding or geographic tool, becoming a pure symbol continuously connoting 'Australiana.' Drawing primarily from Michael Billig's concept of banal nationalism, actor-network theory, W.J.T. Mitchell’s discussion of imperial landscape and Homi Bhabha’s theories on postcolonial hybridity and mimicry, Camofloz is the culmination of practice-based research investigating the use of gamified mobile media as a method for collaborative landscape documentation folded back into a contemporary landscape painting practice. Through the development and dissemination of a mobile app titled spottin'oz, a 'Parliament of Witnessing' was created that extended the observational and geographic extent of the singular artist, engendering a performative network of actors whose goal was to photograph and submit instances of the cartographic form's use within the environment. Imagery from the app became a non-traditional sketchbook used in the creation of hybrid 'New Aesthetic' landscape paintings that blend western Australian landscape painting's history with postcolonial concepts of camouflage. Performing simultaneously as anti-camouflage and seductive camouflage, they encourage the viewer to reconsider the contemporary 'anyplace' landscapes of postcolonial Australia and the seemingly innocuous symbols that inhabit them.