Sound and light play a key role in his practice. During his formative years, the parallel experience of working as a television repairer and experimental electronic musician informed his aesthetic development. Eventually the two pursuits conjoined. He began to create instruments out of the old televisions, VCRs and computers from his workplace. This lead to explorations into kinetic sculpture, which Manning initially created specifically for their sound component. From his research into soundwaves came an interest in light waves, which was also informed by his latter experience as an audiovisual technician. Working with AV gave Manning insight into additive colour mixing, the process central to contemporary screen technology where different coloured light beams overlap to produce new colours – the primary example being the construction of white onscreen by the mixing of red, green and blue. This process is seen most clearly in Manning’s ongoing body of work called Spectra, another name for the beams of light that construct colour electronically. Whilst his work addresses science and technology, it also references the legacy of minimalism, sound art and expanded cinema.
In 2017, the Institute of Modern Art (Brisbane) presented a survey exhibition of Manning’s work, which will tour to ten venues across Australia between 2018-20. His work has been included in the 2016 Shanghai Biennale and the 2014 Biennale of Sydney. Manning has received major commissions from the Institute of Modern Art (Brisbane, 2015), Len Lye Centre | Govett- Brewster Gallery (New Zealand, 2016), and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Seoul, South Korea, 2016).
