Stranger than Fiction presented a number works that reference sensory deprivation, the unearthing of memory, objects and history, where the audience is invited to build their own connections in confronting the void. All the artworks contributed to the wider themes of abstraction and storytelling.

Terrence Handscomb’s (b. 1948, Wellington) video installation, Der Himmel über Kalifornien (2007), was a sardonic critique of Californian culture, an obscure dreamspace. Handscomb, based in Los Angeles, took some fundamental Californian cultural tropes – a fascination with the body, cosmetic surgery and the prolongation of youth, science-fiction mysticism and the suspension of death – and stired them all into a thick mix of low-resolution Film-Noir stylistics. Having also lived in Germany, Handscomb compares these two great nations and their cultural identities.