I’m currently referring to this experiment as Arms for Animating Architecture. I think these limbs are calling out to anthropomorphise a building somewhere with their twinkle-fingers and superpowers projected up nice and large.
The twinkle-fingers, sadly, are possibly a little too subtle in movement to read through the animation… I dunno, what do you think?
Bigger movements from now on in anything destined for overpainting I think…
As a video within a video it will appear without Jamie Kiffiak’s deliciously soporific voiceover, but it’s quite exciting to think something from so long ago has some life. I was intruiged by the directors synopsis and am really looking forward to seeing the finished piece which must be in production AS I TYPE!
I made it while living in Vancouver, Canada in 2000 and there are a lot of things I would do differently now, but I still like the 100 freakishly differing self-portraits taken with a Nintendo Gameboy camera and anyone who’s really UP with everything I do will recognise Jamies script as having been re-used for 2011′s A Pack of Lies and indeed was the concept model for ALL the scripts from that work.
You can hear Tjaere+Fjer’s latest release II including Faking It All here.
This is a video for an earlier track Away which I quite dig too. Retro sounding electronica with 80′s mumbles.
In a slight sidestep from the PhD, on Sunday I commenced shooting a music video for M.0.1.0.s recently released single ‘Stab’. Led by dance mistress @SisterO (also known as artist/performer/programmer Nancy Mauro-Flude), my three subjects performed marvellously and I’m very excited to push this video through and see the end product. I’d like to name them and give them full credit but I did hoot something at them when begging their participation about a level of anonymity. I’m not sure they don’t still want that so just let it be said: these guys are kind, generous and hard-working chaps and I am immensely grateful.
Some of it may yet see it’s way into the PhD too… let’s see. Stay tuned for the finished video in the meantime…
Here is some documentation of Ectoplasmic insitu in Ballarat. It’s so nice when pictures come back of the thing you sent out into the world.
All images courtesy of Ben Cox, Ballarat Art Gallery. Thank you Ballarat Art Gallery.
I just wanted to post a record that indicates things are still happening. The PhD research is a project about lived time. It takes time.
This year the bushfires around the edges of Hobart, the city where I live, have been devestating. Driving to a wedding at Marion Bay on the weekend was the first chance I’d had to witness just a small portion of the damage wrought. It’s really something and it’s really frightening.
There has been a tremendous amount of support and goodwill (in a large part generated through online social networks) and I have had the pleasure of recognising what good people I am lucky to associate with as I have watched them jump in to help.
This event is the local art community’s turn to assist. They say donations of goods is awesome but money is what’s really needed, so some of the finest artists in the city (and me, uh-huh) have all donated works to be sold, raising money for the Red Cross’s bushfire appeal. There’s some big names there folks – it could be your chance to pad your collection while boosting your good guy points at the same time.
Being brand new to this commercial game, I am impressed and delighted that Bett Gallery have generously agreed to wave their commision so all their represented artists are free to donate the full proceeds of sale to the appeal. This commercial gig just gets better and better.
There’ll be music, drinks and of course the art. Please come along, and be ready to spend. You won’t regret it.
EDIT: Oh yeah – its on TOMORROW.
POUAW! is the name of a work composed by Mat Ward for the 2013 MONAFOMA festival that just ended. As the MOFO blurb says: It celebrates the centenary of Luigi Russolo’s manifesto L’arte dei rumori – The art of noises, a seminal text in the history of musical aesthetics. The concert turns its back on the digital tools of contemporarynoise and sound art, and returns to Russolo’s roots: an ensemble of six noise machines based on his original sound families will be accompanied by power tools, heavy machinery, domestic white goods, spoken word, and forklift trucks. .I
Mat had instruments – intonarumori - recreated from Russolo’s original designs and these were played by an assortment of artists and musicians Mat refers to as the No Mates Ensemble. Matt (Warren) and I performed as part of the Ensemble – M as a percussionist and me as a part of a three-lady shouting chorus.
It was the first time I had performed in front of a live audience in many a year and I had a real hoot. Those who have known me well over recent years will know how amazing it is that this was able to happen. Things have really changed and shifted. I felt more secure than I could have imagined.
The collective ensemble was keen, fun and professional and Mat really pulled something great together. So much kudos to him alongside my gratitude for asking me to be a part of it. My general impression from the way the audience rose to their feet and joined in the noisemaking in the final act of each performance suggests it went over really well with the MOFO crowds too. I really hope I get asked to do more some time. I think my lungs loved the workout.
Stay tuned: I’ll advise if an audio or video recording goes up online somewhere.
(Photo above was taken by Lucy Hawthorne at the final performance. Pictured from L to R are Andrew Harper, Jorge Burgess-Lowe, Carolyn Wigston, Pip Stafford, Me and Tania Bosak, all having a bit of a yell.)
Another happy outcome of the Bett Gallery exhibition is an ongoing screening of Ectoplasmic in Ballarat Art Gallery‘s projection window. It’s running from 8pm to 7am until Feb 1 so if you have call or cause to be in Ballarat in the evenings in the next couple of weeks – do check it out. And take a photo for me would ya?
Hi, Happy New Year. I’m back to business…
The Medium closed at the beginning of December and along with being more successful commercially than I could have expected, was a totally positive experience. I received such warm, supportive feedback and such warm support from Bett Gallery itself, I really can’t imagine now what it was about a commercial gallery/artist relationship that put me off for so long.
Here follows some installation shots, bit daggy but proof that it ever happened and a good record of the hang.
Thank you to all who got there to check it out, your comments passed back to me via gallery staff have really left me buoyed to keep moving forward with this PhD thingo.
EDIT: BTW If you didn’t get to the show and want to see the video, a poorly compressed (sorry – it’s all that ‘fizzing’ – compression says ‘no’.) upload of the video can be seen here .
In the wake of the Bett Gallery show opening, I decided to finally bite the bullet and create an online archive of my video works. This has never happened before now because in the early days of online video hosting, I wasn’t happy with the quality. This has SIGNIFICANTLY changed now and while the compression can still be problematic, particularly for some of these newer animated works, for the most part they look great and it’s really satisfying to see them all up. I’ve used this blog repeatedly to have a whinge about video being an art form that exists simply as data and without an exhibition, simply remains unseen. Well, this is an opportunity to stop the annual whinge in it’s tracks and actually do something about that.
I’m drawing the line at work from my undergrad days, but there’s stuff from all over my professional practicing career. It’s still incomplete but there will be plenty more going up over the next month. I doubt EVERYTHING I’ve ever made will go up but you can see stuff that dates back to 2000 so far and yes, even back that far it’s MOSTLY videos of my head.
I obviously have a schtick, But we knew that, right?
The work embedded here, Mustang Sally is an exception (still me though), a personal favourite and represents one of those works that I dearly wish had had a greater life than a single installation.
You can view the whole archive here and if you’re really keen, keep checking back as more stuff from all over the timeline is being uploaded over the next couple of months.
