Pressure Systems

Yandell Walton & Jana Irmert

Pressure Systems (2026) is a projection and sound installation that examines the hidden forces shaping the Gardens of Stone landscape, where deep geological time intersects with ongoing resource extraction. Coal in this region formed from ancient swamp ecosystems that were gradually compressed over millions of years into subterranean seams. Above these deposits, Triassic sandstone has weathered into the distinctive pagoda formations that define the landscape today, while beneath them, active longwall mining continues to reshape and destabilise the ground. 

Using a high-resolution 3D scan of a sandstone formation, the work digitally transforms the rock into an uncanny, shifting object suspended between presence and absence. Its surface appears to buckle and distort under invisible pressures, making perceptible the slow, often unseen violence of extraction occurring deep below the earth. The installation draws attention to the entangled relationship between geological processes operating across millions of years and the accelerated temporalities of industrial mining. 

The accompanying soundscape, composed by Jana Irmert using rare analogue synthesisers, is informed by her experience of carrying the sounds of the mine in memory after visiting the site. Rhythms of drilling, grinding, and excavation merge with resonant tonal shifts that evoke the compressed traces of ancient ecosystems embedded within the coal itself, inviting listeners to consider the landscape as both archive and active witness to deep planetary time. 

About The Artist

Yandell Walton

Yandell Walton is a multi-award-winning artist based on Wurundjeri Country in Melbourne. Creating site-specific installations in both public and gallery contexts, she has become recognised for immersive moving-image works that merge architectural space with technology in unexpected and unprecedented ways. Walton often repurposes technologies to create environments that blur the boundaries between physical and digital experience, exploring ideas of impermanence, ecological fragility, and human entanglement with more-than-human worlds. Her practice spans moving image, real-time systems, motion capture, and experimental digital workflows, resulting in installations in which mediated landscapes feel simultaneously embodied and ephemeral. 

Walton is currently undertaking a PhD in Fine Art at the University of Melbourne, where her research examines cross-species embodiment and distributed agency within computational media art. Recent projects include When We Are One, presented at the International Symposium of Electronic Art (ISEA) 2024 and Re:Cultivate research residency in partnership with Australian Network for Art and Technology. 

 

Jana Irmert

Jana Irmert is a Berlin-based sound artist and composer working across spatial composition, film and live performance. Her practice explores the liminal space between musical sound and noise, using extensive experimentation with field recordings to shape immersive sonic environments. Engaging with themes of temporality and impermanence—particularly in the context of ecological crisis—she creates atmospheric sound worlds that embrace dissonance and fragility as reflections of our reality. 

Her work has been released on labels including Shelter Press, Fabrique Records, Important Records, and Longform Editions. As a composer and sound designer, she has contributed to award-winning feature films, documentaries, VR experiences, and video installations. She has performed at international festivals and institutions such as Berlin Atonal, GRM (Paris), Extreme Chill (Reykjavik), and Elevate Festival (Austria).