Critical Senses

liquid architecture 10

2009-04-06T00:49:00.005+10:00

photo: jodi rose

Performing in the Sydney leg of Liquid Architecture 10 in Concert Two - 27th June 2009, Performance Space, Carriage Works, Sydney.

finding

2009-04-04T01:19:00.001+11:00

Somaya Langley & Christian Malejka

Finding
2008
photos: Berlin, Germany & Aegina, Greece

exhibited in Feathering the Nest, run by Garage Openings (Melody Ellis & Sarah Logan) in Yarralumla, Canberra

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GARAGE OPENINGS PRESENTS:
feathering the nest (a group mail art exhibition)

Opening Saturday 4 April 2009
6:00 - 8:00pm

66 Hopetoun Circuit Yarralumla ACT

Marc Alperstein
Jonathan Baskett
Zanny Begg
Lauren Brown
Kate Carr
Monica Carroll
Melody Ellis
Marc Freeman
Somaya Langley & Christian Malejka
Sarah Logan
Annette Marie
Paul McGee
Brendon McKinley
Sarah Mosca
Vedanta Nicholson
Kalina Pilat
Francesca Rendle-Short
Spyridon Simotas
Richard Spellman
Alison Spence
Sarah St Vincent Welch
Casey Temby
Nella Themelios
Amy Thompson
Stedman Watts
Zuza Zochowski

and more....

collars

2009-03-27T00:33:00.000+11:00

Exhibition at Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Gorman House

27th March - 2nd May 2009

Opening: 18:00 Friday 27th March, opening speaker Martyn Jolley

Collared

…a collar is a thing that goes around the neck of a person, animal, or object…
Whether it be a crisply starched and ironed collar, a scruffy paint splattered striped pastel collar, or a zebra print shirt dress collar - a seemingly fragile textile fragment exudes a strong personality. A history is presumed, a position is assumed, a performance appropriate to status, wealth and office is expected. Simultaneously obvious and nuanced, the collar is embedded with wide cultural knowledge and reveals quirky sub-cultural significance.

Alexandra Gillespie and Somaya Langley’s collaborative exhibition of twenty highly individual collars are presented at the actual height of the previous owner from neck to feet. Arranged spatially in conversational groups, these highly fetishised personal adornments create an absent crowd, a crowd that speaks to both us, and each other, visually and audibly. Here coexistence is paramount as collars internal relationships interweave with the sensibilities of exhibition visitors.

Others such as Rafael Lozano-Hemmer utilise the absent crowd in their work. Standards and Double Standards (2004) creates a brooding and uneasy atmosphere by suspending fifty belts at waist height and having them rotate automatically to follow the movements of audiences in the exhibition space. The singularly unremarkable objects in multiple provoke a sense of surveillance and paternal authority, encouraging visitors to either subvert that authority and play with the movement, or submit to its intent and quickly move themselves on.

Langley’s and Gillespie’s artforms engage us far more intimately and viscerally with phrases garnered from the collars original owners - significant others in the artist’s lives - friends, family, colleagues and other artists. These text snippets are projected from within the textures and patterns that once caressed a treasured ones’ neck. One collar in the group lights up and a corresponding spatialised phrase whispers or reverberates around the room. Then another responds, and another, moving the narrative around the group, then from group to group, with random sequencing ensuring endless associations.

Some, such as the A SECURITY BLANKET green knitted collar, signify an immediate relationship with tightly emotionally bonded text, object and sound. Yet the intriguing yellow cotton of A CHINESE RESTAURANT, or the square embroidery detail on white of PALM TREES, SUN, IN L.A, make us wonder. It is these less obvious connections that extend an open invitation to the exhibition visitor to interweave our own memories and linkages within the works constantly shifting narrative.

Like the flexible electroluminescent strips slipped between the collars’ fabric layers to emit intimate phrases in cool white light, the artists slip us emotionally and intellectually between the unconscious, the coincidental and the considered. Collars resonates with subtle tales and intense recollections, generating intricate textures of identity and connection from a seemingly simple thing that goes around the neck.

Dr Melinda Rackham
March 2009

The artists would like to acknowledge our sponsors E-Lite and Sun Industries, and to thank Thylacine for the stands, Ben Lippmeier for the programming and Christian Malejka for audio contributions.

We extend our gratitude to the participants: Alessandra Pretto, Antonio Gambale, Caolan Mitchell, Govinda Lange, Jasmine Guffond, Joc Curran, Justine White, Lindsay Bingham, Maria-Eleni Alesandre, Marie-Louise Ayres, Melissa Penrose, Meredith Hughes, Michelle Fix, Nick Mariette, Nicole Leuning, Quentin Mitchell, Rod Gillespie, Rowena Jamieson, Rozi Suliman, Willow Fix Berry

brisbane antics

2009-03-09T00:34:00.001+11:00

with Tom Hall @ Sonic Boom

tha ridge

2009-01-04T00:27:00.001+11:00

with a few days off and a laptop that died only a few days prior, i somehow managed to do two gigs at peats ridge festival...

the first, a daytime ID-i/o performance in collaboration with Queazel (Michael Norris) and Parking Sun (Dan Mackinlay)

photo: christian malejka

and then in the evening, a laptop quartet with Dan Mackinlay, Christian Malejka and Paul Mosig on visuals in the Figure 8 geodesic dome ... beautiful.

photo: michael norris

in transit again

2008-11-25T09:19:00.007+11:00

TRANSIT LOUNGE 2009 : MOVING WHILE STANDING STILL

www.transitlounge.org/2009/

...has now been launched, with three conversations between the artists:
Anna Tautfest
Debbie White
Jordana Maisie
Muse-Me (Susanne Wimmer / Nadim Sara / Franziska Schreiber)
Nick Mariette
Gaby Bila-Günther
Steve Smart

dork collars

2008-11-19T19:31:00.002+11:00

DorkbotCBRExhibition_MG_5351.jpg
Originally uploaded by gillespieA

Alexandra Gillespie's and my Collars collaboration project, on exhibition as part of Dorkbot Canberra, held at Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Manuka Gallery - November 2008.

cleaning up online, eh?

2008-10-27T14:53:00.000+11:00

smiling emails

2008-10-21T19:34:00.004+11:00

how nice is it when you receive an email that starts something like:

>to welcome our favourite wandering Australian [1] to Montréal just before some
>of us head of to New York [2]
....
>[1] you know, the one we keep meeting at places such as New York (NIME),
>Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris... ;)

made me smile all day today

last nite

2008-09-21T21:57:00.002+10:00

get some

2008-09-14T17:09:00.002+10:00

see me

2008-09-12T18:26:00.002+10:00

running around...

raiding tha channel

2008-09-01T18:09:00.003+10:00

warehouse party time...

then a few text messages like:
"100 riot police outside"
&
"Cops everwhere. Just got dragged out. People throwing bottles, its going to get nasty i would leave now"

and then the cops roll in

SUBVERSIVE IN CHINA - MAINSTREAM IN ADELAIDE

2008-08-22T12:23:00.001+10:00

graffiti research lab testa
Originally uploaded by somaya

Tuesday 19th August 2008 - news begins to circulate about James
Powderly's detention in Beijing. Since text messages reading "detained since 3am" and "there's 8 of us here, we're all OK", nothing has been heard from them.

James, co-founder of Graffiti Research Lab (GRL) was detained by
Chinese Authorities while preparing an intervention in support of the
Students for a Free Tibet protest. His current whereabouts remain
unknown.

GRL visited Adelaide during the Adelaide Bank Festival of Arts earlier
this year, thanks to Carclew Youth Arts & ANAT's emerging technologies (et) lab, to present the GRL Masterclass - http://grl.anat.org.au/.

Using an updated version of the L.A.S.E.R. Tag system enjoyed by
participants of the lab, general public and even Police officers in
Adelaide, James had planned to "project the message 'Free Tibet' and
additional messages that would have been three-stories high" said
colleague Nathan Dorjeee.

Reports state James and his associates were detained before they were able to use the stencil, although a 'Free Tibet' banner was later
displayed briefly by five other American artists before they too were
detained.

"James has always been dedicated to providing tools for free speech,"
Ms. Michelle Kempner (James' wife) said in an interview with the New
York Times, and later commenting on what can be done to help she
stated, "the best thing is to get attention...just spread the word. We
need to make sure they release them."

Unsurprisingly the blogging community and independent media sources have been rife discussing the issue. Public declarations of "what the hell was he thinking" through to "I'm sure he knew full well what the risks were....all signs suggest the goal was to draw maximum attention to the nature of Chinese repression" suggest that whatever his original intentions he has certainly encouraged debate. Clearly, anyone who can run a class entitled 'Internetfamo.us' at Parsons New School for Design knows a thing or two about utilising today's online social networks.

Meanwhile in Adelaide, the GRL legacy lives on. An innocent
intervention made by lab participants changing the white light of the
North Terrace National War Memorial to a red glow is now to be adopted across the city. Celebrating the 90th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice to end World War I, a number of prominent Adelaide landmarks will be illuminated in poppy red between November 4th and Remembrance Day. Sites will include selected trees and prominent points of the CBD and of course the original GRL-branded War Memorial. ANAT are very proud and excited to see artist interventions being adopted by the wider community.

ANAT supports and encourages the safe and quick release of James and co-detainees.

electrofringe 2008

2008-08-14T02:49:00.001+10:00

tuned citizens

2008-08-13T18:27:00.000+10:00

reflections on tuned city and das kleine field recordings festival...
http://kleine-frf.blogspot.com/2008/08/4th-of-july-tuned-citizens.html

direct

2008-07-25T03:12:00.002+10:00

have recently become one of the co-directors of the Electrofringe festival for 2008

telepathies

2008-07-22T21:15:00.003+10:00

video ID-i/o

2008-07-22T03:38:00.002+10:00

short clip of gig at wriezener bahnhoff in berlin as part of the tuned city festival (and das kleine field recordings festival)

with morry photographing in tha background

singaporean electricity

2008-07-17T09:53:00.003+10:00

my dj gigs in singapore....

berlinerz

2008-07-17T01:02:00.002+10:00

icke & er

motion media

2008-06-30T18:01:00.004+10:00

just recieved notice that my paper has been accepted into the Media in Motion Symposium run by DOCAM. The symposium will be in Montreal from October 29 2008.

Abstract
Recontextualisation of technology in contemporary life from objects of fascination to everyday tools has likewise been reflected in current art practices. The past decade has seen memory institutions grapple with and overcome momentous shifts towards increasingly techno-centric modes of creative and intellectual production and output. In the library, archive and academic communities, the response has predominantly focussed on web archiving and digitisation practices for large-scale digital repositories with accompanying online delivery mechanisms. When faced with the overwhelming task of tackling complex born-digital objects – those that assume hybrid forms, employing multiple file formats, contain a combination of custom-designed and constructed software, hardware and wetware – with resultant installations, performances or wearables (interactive or otherwise), momentum rapidly decreases. Tendencies suggest the library community shies away while museums return to traditional documentation practices. Thus far, support for media art in general has largely been situated in the gallery and museum domain, positioned outside of the traditional library sphere. Contributions from both library and museum archival practices are essential for a holistic approach to preservation and sustained access, ensuring longevity of media artworks. When faced with developing systems for archiving a collection of weird and wonderful media artworks, what models and standards are available for managing both the artwork its associated metadata? Navigating through the seemingly endless list of acronyms that include MANS, METS, PREMIS and OAIS, what can be utilised to keep both the work and metadata alive?

Each collection brings along its own idiosyncrasies, so identifying potential assets and issues for preservation models is a necessity. With ‘the only constant is change’ as a basic premise, how do we handle existing materials while maintaining awareness of and the flexibility to manage emerging future forms? While no single specific solution is attainable, presented is a range of considerations intended to stimulate dialogue in this emerging field.

For more info see: www.docam.ca/en

wish i were

2008-06-26T03:16:00.005+10:00

there... but at least my friends take photos and send them to me... thanks nicky

tuning tha city

2008-06-23T11:49:00.002+10:00

will be sound tech-ing for the Tuned City sound art field recordings festival which runs from the 1st 5th July in Berlin

michel waisvisz

2008-06-21T23:42:00.001+10:00

very sad news to hear michel waisvisz, who i only met last year, passed away.

he bought me breakfast and had one of the most soulful and encouraging conversations i've had on this past year of my journey. my heart really goes out to all inc his partner, daughter and the steim community.

more can be found at: http://www.steim.org/michel/