EMPIRE. Negotiating Space within a Visual City (2005) was a concept-driven piece of work that required Lisa Anne to momentarily step aside from photography and attempt a multi-disciplinary approach in her art-making. It is a combination of sculpture, photography, site-specific installation and real-time navigation through the city of Sydney to view the 2 aspects of the work: a gallery installation at PhatSpace and a commercial billboard along the Princes Highway in Tempe.

Empire looked at the city through the notion of scale, annonymity and space. A concrete model of a fictional city was created and installed in the gallery. A photograph of this "city" was then reproduced as a 6 x 3 meter vinyl billboard and installed along the Princes Highway. The viewing of the billboard and the gallery show ran concurrently through the month of January 2005 and allowed for the possibility to journey between the 2 sites, experiencing the city whilst mediating its space through the 3 aspects of scale.

Gillian Fuller, author of "Aviopolis" said of Empire:
"(Empire) is a conceptually sophisticated piece that extends our understanding of mediation and materiality as it relates to the urban condition. The work thoughtfully explores the emerging rhetorics of cities as navigable, reproducible nodes in global networks. The work while flawed in some ways is the work of a very promising artist."

The artist acknowledges the generous support of all the staff at Australian Posters.

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