Inferno
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You’ve missed this one but don’t worry there’s still so much on at Acton.
Find something newInferno is a hyperreal fever dream that blurs the boundary between digital and physical.
Event details
When
Now closed.
22 August – 16 November 2025
Where
Cost
Free
Step into Inferno – an exciting new audiovisual installation by Paris-based Australian artist, Mikaela Stafford
Inferno is a hyperreal fever dream that blurs the boundary between digital and physical. It was produced in response to Mikaela Stafford’s experience as Resident Artist with the NFSA in 2025.
Drawing on Dante’s Divine Comedy, artist Mikaela Stafford reimagines descent not as moral reckoning but as spiritual transformation. Working in 3D animation, she builds an alternate reality that explores how memory, identity and simulated consciousness intertwine amid 24-hour news cycles, artificial intelligence and precarious futures.
Stafford collaborates with electronic composer Kate Durman, united by a fascination with worldbuilding and the meeting point of technology and nature. Durman’s techno-infused, transcendental score amplifies Inferno’s emotional and spatial dynamics, evoking a euphoric, club-like atmosphere while heightening its suspense and quiet optimism. As Stafford notes: ‘The essence of the work is hopeful; it’s about navigating through Inferno and coming out the other side.’
Images:
Inferno (detail) 2025, Mikaela Stafford
Inferno at NFSA, photography by Grace Costa
The making of Inferno
Step behind the scenes to unpack a world where the digital and physical collide.
Artist bios
- Mikaela Stafford and Kate Durman
Mikaela Stafford (left) and Kate Durman. Photograph: Cassie Abraham
About the artist
Mikaela Stafford (pictured left) is an internationally recognised Australian artist working across motion graphics, sculpture and installation. Her practice explores world-building, speculative futures and complex relationships between humans, technology and nature. She has created work for MECCA, Jamsheed Wines, and transformed her digital art into a four-metre sculpture for PITCH Music & Arts Festival. Mikaela studied at Sydney College of the Arts and RMIT, and has collaborated with Art Projects Australia and Common Ground to support inclusive and First Nations-led storytelling.
About the composer
Kate Durman (pictured right) is a Naarm/Melbourne-based composer, sound designer and music producer known for crafting immersive sonic worlds that balance the ethereal with the visceral. She releases solo work under Purient, blending shimmering textures, ominous synths and hypnotic, club-inflected rhythms. A key figure in Melbourne’s electronic music scene, she’s also one-third of the indie-pop trio Acopia. With a distinctive style of layered ambient atmospheres and restless beats, Durman brings a unique sonic identity to a wide range of musical projects.
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