Exhibition in Ararat

I have an exhibition of videos in the Ararat Regional Art Gallery, to complement a touring exhibition from the Museum of Contemprary Art in Sydney of moving image work by Daniel Crooks, Tracey Moffatt, Patricia Piccini and more, company I'm very happy to be in!

For my show there won't be a formal opening, but there will be a closing event on Sunday 14th April.

Arart Regional Art Gallery: Corner Vincent Street and the Western Highway, Ararat, in the Town Hall building.
Tel: (03) 5352 2836
Web: http://arts-events-tourism.ararat.vic.gov.au/ararat-regional-art-gallery
Hours: Mon - Fri: 10am - 4.30pm; Sat, Sun, public holidays: 12 - 4pm.

Exhibition dates: 14th March to 14th April 2013.

Closing event: On Sunday 14 April 2013 at 3pm. I will be presenting an illustrated talk on Generative Art, followed by celebratory drinks at 4pm.

Video in Ballarat Art Gallery "Project Window"

My video Dissonant Particles is scheduled for the "Project Window" of the Art Gallery of Ballarat, in January 2012. The Project Window is a projection window, part of the front of the Gallery on Lydiard Street, and the projections run in the evenings.  The Project Window opened in 2011 and has shown works by some high-profile people, including Daniel Crooks and Jill Orr.

Where: Ballarat Art Gallery, 40 Lydiard St (North), Ballarat VIC 3350. Tel: 03 5320 5858.
When: 5th - 27th January 2012.
Info: http://www.balgal.com/ and http://www.gommog.com/video/diss_part_video.html.

Visual Music Marathon reprise

In 2007 Dennis Miller organised a Visual Music Marathon in Boston as part of the Boston Cyberarts Festival. Now the whole Marathon is on again in New York, at the Visual Arts Theatre, 333 West 23rd Street, New York City, on April 11th, 2009, form 10am to 10pm. My piece Dissonant Particles is included, in the first hour. Details of the Marathon are at http://www.2009vmm.neu.edu/.

2007 Asian Art Biennial

Recently I received a catalogue from the 2007 Asian Art Biennial, which opened in October 2007 at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. It closes on February 24. My connection with the event is through my piece Dissonant Particles; it is on the DVD Video by Numbers from the Melbourne-based group Tape Projects, and this DVD was shown at the Biennial. Unfortunately I didn’t get to visit the Biennial.

I found the catalogue (in Chinese and English) impressive, and I imagine that actually being there would have been overwhelming. Judging from the catalogue, there was a mixture of old and new media and also a mixture of old and new influences. Some of the works refer to traditional Chinese or Korean art (and one to Da Vinci’s Last Supper), others to globalisation, the proliferation of digital technology, and in particular urbanisation. Australia has long had only a minority of its population in rural areas (41% in 1901, dropping to just 12% in 1996, according to one set of figures). For Asia the big movement off the land is happening now: the landmark where more than half the world’s population lives in cities has either just been reached or is just about to be, according to various estimates.

According to the catalogue, most of the artists in the Biennial were from Taiwan, mainland China or Korea, with a sprinkling from other countries, including a small group from Australia. Apart from the Video by Numbers DVD, there was an interactive installation entitled Split Reel by Jason Bond, Benjamin Ducroz, Michael Prior and Tarwin Stroh-Spijer, and a performance (I think, not just a DVD playing) by Robin Fox. Robin is the man of the moment in Australian sound-and-image art, and appears on the Synchresis DVD commented on here. Australian ambivalence as to how much we are part of Asia will no doubt continue, but links like those through the Biennial can only be good.