Blog Archives
Land of Instant Forget
These are now the final days of the 2011 RMIT Media Arts Graduate Show.
Visit the upper confines of Curtin House, in the heart of the City on Swanston Street to view an excess of works from the graduate class of 2011. These emerging Media Arts artists offer works disseminated across video, audio and sculpture. The show is billed as a space that has been ”transformed to create a world where you can leave your memories behind“ as you immerse yourself in these parallel lands. Below, you can sample one of the works on show. This piece is projected onto a giant, free hanging t-shirt and is titled Trashface by Rob Graham.
The Land of Instant Forget
Running until 30th November, 12pm until 6pm.
Curtin House, Level 6 252 Swanston St. City
Media Arts 1+2
This week, Wednesday 2nd November: Come party with the RMIT Media Arts crew.
From 7pm, we shall inhabit a specially-chosen and almost purpose-built venue to strut our collective self on the big screen. We‘ll have a few drinks, feel the beat, and settle down for an hour-long feast of video and filmic works by 1st and 2nd year Fine Arts students. Following the screening, the DJs will come to the fore: featuring Utopian Swagger‘s Faggot Swagger tunes accompanied the visuals of the Bearded Ladiezz (A.K.A. Permian La Cube), a VJ set by Andy Turland (our supremo host), yours truly spinning Autobox DJ styles and the main man, Rob McDougall kicking out the tech later in the piece; spinning ‘til stumps.
So get your Art on and groove on. Get your travel down on up into this bitch, and jig along to 14 Hardy Street, Brunswick (just off Albion St). Nearest Station is Anstey. Check it.
Media Arts: Greatest Hits
This Saturday 24th September, people, come & check out works from the RMIT Fine Arts (Media Arts) programme; as they present theirs labours of love, hate and everything in between. On the big screen.
Greatest Hits features 2 half-hour, curated screenings from some of the best current video and animation coming out of Australia‘s foremost Media Arts school. The works are bound to captivate: with a little bit of everything for everybody!
Also included on the night is an immersive sound performance by Wrong Room; with Byron Dean, Chiara Costanza and Jonathon Nokes fronting up for the performance. $5 entry ($3 students) gives you the pleasure of viewing a swathe of seminal works by the Media Arts crew. Media Arts: Greatest Hits Of 2009-2011 takes place at Tape Projects, 1/81 Bouverie St Carlton. The action starts at 7pm, so come on down and experience the unknown! Refreshments available.
The Light In Winter
Fire In The Belly: Projector Bike.
This year‘s Light In Winter Festival at Federation Square features dozens of cultural activities; making for the perfect winter warm-up. Featured as part of the Fire In The Belly programme, the Projector Bike will present works from various local up-and-coming filmmakers and visual artists: featuring works from Me: your favourite bloggage host, alongside members of the creative genus born from RMIT Media Arts (among various other students and artists). The Projector Bike will visit different locations in the course of both evenings that it is exhibiting, and everyone is welcome to ride along -whether in utilising the Melbourne Bike Share or indeed upon your own ride. The screenings will be projected onto different surfaces in unique and hidden spaces about our fine city.
Sunday 12 + 26 June, 7pm - 8.30pm, departs Fed Square Bike Share Station (and it‘s free!)
Gil Scott-Heron
Hello Friends,
As part of my Remix Culture studies I have compiled a video to complement Gil Scott-Heron‘s classic track The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. The video is made up from old Drive-In theatre advertising film reels, in a nod to the postmodern advertising epidemic that is the subject of this track. The music itself is slightly modified, fragmented and mixed to epitomise the repetition of advertising.
Although I have removed nearly all of the companies from the adverts, one still remains: Winston Cigarettes. This particular advertising brand was saved due to the nature of the commercial, but also because of my affection for cigarettes.
-RTB
Semantic Clutter
I was up near A’Beckett today and took the time to check out this exhibition that is part of the Liquid Architecture Festival.
West Space is a truly independent art gallery operated by the artists themselves as an ARI (Artist Run Initiative), established in 1993. The gallery is driven by works that reference multimedia, visual and media arts. They offer a comprehensive range of visual arts literature and ‘alternative’ or underground, independent publications.
This exhibition purports to present the “creative detritus generated throughout an artist’s work process” and includes audio-visual, sound and installation works by Paul Candy, Lizzie Pogson, & Tess Elieff with James Wright (among others).
I was impressed by the nature of Candy’s piece that references 16th and 17th century cathedral architecture in an ode to atonality pioneer Arnold Schoenberg. However, I was moreso taken by a part of the curtains and projection piece that is displayed upon entry to the venue. Although being immersed in the feel of this work, I couldn’t help but tie it to an existentialist or perhaps superflous view of the natural environment. Having the title of the show, Semantic Clutter foremost in my rationale, I chewed on the notion of this piece as representing a reality that is detached from objectiveness and language, signs and signifiers. I was also drawn to a piece featuring moulding fruit and vegetables on display; and the scent that confounded my senses and released inquisitive emotions. The sound pieces by Pogson were also sensational. In all, it was definitely an enjoyable experience and I look forward to the next incarnation of the 3-part cycle of works; beginning Tuesday 13th july.
West Space: Level 1, 15 – 19 Anthony Street, Melbourne.
-Rock The Boat
Utopia Now
During the past week I have visited the ‘Utopia Now’ media art exhibiton at the Black Box on Southbank a few times and cannot get enough of these profoundly sick-arse media arts exhibits.
The exhibition is composed of interactive and video imagery installations that both confound and amuse. And it’s FREE.
Upon arrival you are confronted with a giant dissected Michelin Man straddling the exterior. Once inside, a jungle of plants with hyper-sensitive electronic sensors greets you with jungle sounds when brushing your body against their plastic flesh. The sensors are triggered by the body’s own electric charge (or aura). Following is a plethora of viewing and touching and feeling material; with my personal highlights comprising the video shorts. The works include engrossing 10min film pieces by Patrick Bernatchez, Rowan McNaught and David O’Reilly that are certainly a-typical of what I like to think is “the shit”. Also, an interactive shadow and movement piece by Shilpa Gupta is quirky and very amusing. Go on, check it out (did I say it is free?) -the exhibition is on for another 3 or so weeks. And make sure you have ample time or return to the fold, as there is so very much to take in. Shitloads.
Check the website too if you like: http://www.experimenta.org/
-Rock The Boat
