Yesterday I went to buy a new Ballarat street directory, as ours is well out of date. I was told they aren't being made any more: not enough people were buying them, thanks to Google and GPS-enabled devices. I still like to plan a trip to the other side of Ballarat the old-fashioned way, with an actual map. I certainly get a better overview of where I'm going than my phone can provide.
Showing posts with label Life and study. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Life and study. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
Thursday, May 25, 2017
PhD graduation
The final act of my PhD in Fine Art at Monash University - the graduation ceremony (held on 24th May).
Saturday, July 23, 2016
My PhD exhibition
It's finally happening!
Where: Monash University Caulfield campus (next to Caulfield station). I am in the MADA Faculty Gallery on the ground floor of Building G (not to be confused with MUMA, which is in Building F).
When: August 10-16. Gallery hours are 10am-5pm Mon-Fri. The gallery will also be open on Saturday 13th August, 10am-12noon.
I expect to be at Caulfield pretty much throughout the duration of the exhibition, including the weekend viewing on the Saturday morning.
Where: Monash University Caulfield campus (next to Caulfield station). I am in the MADA Faculty Gallery on the ground floor of Building G (not to be confused with MUMA, which is in Building F).
When: August 10-16. Gallery hours are 10am-5pm Mon-Fri. The gallery will also be open on Saturday 13th August, 10am-12noon.
I expect to be at Caulfield pretty much throughout the duration of the exhibition, including the weekend viewing on the Saturday morning.
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Bremen, Linz and home
The first purely abstract paintings were exhibited in 1912, just
over 100 years ago. The main reason for my trip to Europe was
to attend the conference 100 Years of Abstract Art at
Jacobs University in Bremen. Jacobs University is a small
private university (under 1500 students), named Jacobs University in
acknowledgement of a very generous grant from the Jacobs Foundation,
which in turn derived its money from Jacobs coffee. The
language of instruction is English, and about two-thirds of the
students are from outside Germany. The buildings were
originally built as a military barracks in the 1930s. There is
a humanities program, and also a Visual Communication research unit,
which involves psychologists as well as artists and designers.
The conference was organised by Professor Isabel Wünsche, assisted by Wiebke Gronemeyer and several students. It was the most concentrated art history endeavour I have encountered. There were over 25 talks, and all but three were by art historians. The other three were by artists: Leo Bronstein from Canada and Wendy Kelly and myself from Australia. The participants were from North America, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and a wide range of countries across Europe, from Britain to Russia and Georgia, as well as three Australians (and another Australian who now works in Scotland.)
There were two keynote addresses, one by Christiane Paul, a curator at the Whitney Museum in New York, on digital abstract art. She covered a range of computer-generated art, from early work by Frieder Nake in 1965 - and Frieder was in the audience! - to what amounts to a parody of abstraction by Cory Arcangel just using Photoshop's gradient tool. The second keynote address was by Eli Bornstein, reflecting on a long career as an abstract sculptor.
A sampling of topics from the paper sessions: the influence of anarchist ideas on Kandinsky and on Kupka, the early photograms of Man Ray and others, the co-option of the forms and colours of abstract art for things like location signage in office buildings, the influence of the surrealists who emigrated to New York on American painting, the political use of art in the Cold War from both the American and the Soviet points of view, the use of abstract art by the fashion industry, "found abstraction" as a motif in contemporary photography (some of which looks like the abstract painting of 40 years ago), and a lot more besides. There was only one stream of talks, so a conversation could develop.
Wendy Kelly talked about contemporary concerns of abstract art in this post-post-modern era, illustrating her talk with a very wide range of current Australian examples. I talked about abstraction and representation in the context of artworks that contain or result from a constructed process, typically a computer program.
I didn't see anything of the city of Bremen, but there were two conference excursions, one to Worpswede, a village just outside Bremen that used to be an artists' colony in the Art Deco era - now it is pretty much a tourist place, but there is an interesting gallery about one of the main protagonists, and a strange round house known as the Käseglocke (cheese bell), after the glass cover placed over a plate of cheese. The other excursion was to Hamburg, to see a big exhibition on Giacometti. In a café in Hamburg there was a wonderful example of both the use of abstract art by fashion and "found abstraction" in photography. I idly picked up a fashion magazine and found in it a lavish spread of swirly abstract photographs by a Japanese photographer (I don't have the name). They turned out to be photographs of a naked dancer, not that one could tell.
A number of people stayed overnight in Hamburg, but I had already booked a train to go to Linz in Austria. My main reason for visiting Linz was to see the Ars Electronica Center. For many years there has been an annual festival in Linz called Ars Electronica, and there is now a permanent museum, a unique hybrid of science museum, electronic and computer art museum, and animation and computer special effects theatre. Jon McCormack, who is my associate supervisor at Monash, recently installed a large work there - 50 prints each one metre square, showing computer-generated imaginary plants derived from oil company logos. Among other works was the subversive Newstweek, a small device that, if plugged into an ordinary power point in an area with an open wireless Internet hotspot, allowed anyone to intercept news feeds from the BBC (for example) and edit them. I was interested to see in the museum a detailed attack on Facebook in the context of privacy law. It appears that Facebook collects and keeps more data than it is allowed to under European privacy laws, and an activist group (Europe versus Facebook) has been attempting to sue Facebook's Irish company. Facebook has improved its privacy behaviour, possibly in response to this action, but there seems to be a considerable way to go.
Linz also has a more conventional contemporary art museum, the Lentos museum, and I visited it too. Naturally there is a focus on Austrian artists, though there are a few works by well-known non-Austrians, including Josef Albers, Roy Lichtenstein, Donald Judd. Certainly worth a visit.
Then back to Frankfurt. I had a day before my flight home, so I visited an exhibition at the Kunstverein (art society) exhibition space, showing current works that deal in one way or another with the weather. The most engaging was the Basteltornado (D.I.Y. tornado) by Klaus Weber, involving a small fog machine, an open cylinder and a vacuum cleaner. When set in motion by a foot pedal it produced a small tornado inside the cylinder, about one metre high. A nice thing to see at the end of my trip.
The conference was organised by Professor Isabel Wünsche, assisted by Wiebke Gronemeyer and several students. It was the most concentrated art history endeavour I have encountered. There were over 25 talks, and all but three were by art historians. The other three were by artists: Leo Bronstein from Canada and Wendy Kelly and myself from Australia. The participants were from North America, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and a wide range of countries across Europe, from Britain to Russia and Georgia, as well as three Australians (and another Australian who now works in Scotland.)
There were two keynote addresses, one by Christiane Paul, a curator at the Whitney Museum in New York, on digital abstract art. She covered a range of computer-generated art, from early work by Frieder Nake in 1965 - and Frieder was in the audience! - to what amounts to a parody of abstraction by Cory Arcangel just using Photoshop's gradient tool. The second keynote address was by Eli Bornstein, reflecting on a long career as an abstract sculptor.
A sampling of topics from the paper sessions: the influence of anarchist ideas on Kandinsky and on Kupka, the early photograms of Man Ray and others, the co-option of the forms and colours of abstract art for things like location signage in office buildings, the influence of the surrealists who emigrated to New York on American painting, the political use of art in the Cold War from both the American and the Soviet points of view, the use of abstract art by the fashion industry, "found abstraction" as a motif in contemporary photography (some of which looks like the abstract painting of 40 years ago), and a lot more besides. There was only one stream of talks, so a conversation could develop.
Wendy Kelly talked about contemporary concerns of abstract art in this post-post-modern era, illustrating her talk with a very wide range of current Australian examples. I talked about abstraction and representation in the context of artworks that contain or result from a constructed process, typically a computer program.
I didn't see anything of the city of Bremen, but there were two conference excursions, one to Worpswede, a village just outside Bremen that used to be an artists' colony in the Art Deco era - now it is pretty much a tourist place, but there is an interesting gallery about one of the main protagonists, and a strange round house known as the Käseglocke (cheese bell), after the glass cover placed over a plate of cheese. The other excursion was to Hamburg, to see a big exhibition on Giacometti. In a café in Hamburg there was a wonderful example of both the use of abstract art by fashion and "found abstraction" in photography. I idly picked up a fashion magazine and found in it a lavish spread of swirly abstract photographs by a Japanese photographer (I don't have the name). They turned out to be photographs of a naked dancer, not that one could tell.
A number of people stayed overnight in Hamburg, but I had already booked a train to go to Linz in Austria. My main reason for visiting Linz was to see the Ars Electronica Center. For many years there has been an annual festival in Linz called Ars Electronica, and there is now a permanent museum, a unique hybrid of science museum, electronic and computer art museum, and animation and computer special effects theatre. Jon McCormack, who is my associate supervisor at Monash, recently installed a large work there - 50 prints each one metre square, showing computer-generated imaginary plants derived from oil company logos. Among other works was the subversive Newstweek, a small device that, if plugged into an ordinary power point in an area with an open wireless Internet hotspot, allowed anyone to intercept news feeds from the BBC (for example) and edit them. I was interested to see in the museum a detailed attack on Facebook in the context of privacy law. It appears that Facebook collects and keeps more data than it is allowed to under European privacy laws, and an activist group (Europe versus Facebook) has been attempting to sue Facebook's Irish company. Facebook has improved its privacy behaviour, possibly in response to this action, but there seems to be a considerable way to go.
Linz also has a more conventional contemporary art museum, the Lentos museum, and I visited it too. Naturally there is a focus on Austrian artists, though there are a few works by well-known non-Austrians, including Josef Albers, Roy Lichtenstein, Donald Judd. Certainly worth a visit.
Then back to Frankfurt. I had a day before my flight home, so I visited an exhibition at the Kunstverein (art society) exhibition space, showing current works that deal in one way or another with the weather. The most engaging was the Basteltornado (D.I.Y. tornado) by Klaus Weber, involving a small fog machine, an open cylinder and a vacuum cleaner. When set in motion by a foot pedal it produced a small tornado inside the cylinder, about one metre high. A nice thing to see at the end of my trip.
 |
| Nexus, a small 3D-printed work by Bathsheba Grossman, at the Ars Electronica Center |
 |
| Basteltornado (detail) by Klaus Weber |
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Berlin, Berlin
I had a week in Berlin, before going to my conference in
Bremen. I've really only had a couple of single days to myself
in Berlin before this. This time I wanted to see some of the
collections from antiquity, and I began with the Pergamon Museum,
which is named for the material it has from the ancient Greek altar
of Pergamon, including quite a lot of a large and dramatic frieze in
high relief showing the battle between the Gods and the
Giants. The realism and freedom of the figures is
astonishing. I also saw the gate of Ishtar built by
Nebuchadnezzar, large and impressive, but only a part of a once much
larger structure. Here there is also an interesting collection
of Islamic work, including carved stonework (part of the Mshatta
fort), ceramics, metalwork and carpets. Some highly abstracted
designs, and the remarkable stylised Kufic scripts. Later I
went to the Neues Musem to see the head of Nefertiti and the other
Egyptian antiquities. Nefertiti was a very beautiful woman,
and the sculptor has even shown some slight wrinkles - no
Photoshopping in 1340 BC!
Then I looked for modern and contemporary art, starting with the Museum am Hamburger Bahnhof, which I had visited before - but the works by Anselm Kiefer, Joseph Beuys, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol and more are worth a second look. Also I hadn't previously seen the large room/sculpture of Bruce Nauman called Room with My Soul Left Out, Room That Does Not Care, nor the extraordinary 40 metre long Gartenskulptur (Garden Sculpture) by Dieter Roth. There was also a special exhibition on Martin Kippenberger, a wild man of 1980s German art with a chaotically varied output, who died of "an excessive life" at the age of 44.
For abstract art there were two exhibitions that particularly interested me. One was a large exhibition showing works of Paul Klee and Johannes Itten, with special reference to their use of colour. The two artists knew each other and both worked at the Bauhaus. I had vaguely heard of Itten as a colour theorist, but he was painting fully abstract works by 1915. The works by Klee generally have some figurative reference, but there were a couple of abstract works by Klee in the exhibition. The other "abstract" exhibition was a smaller exhibition of contemporary abstract drawing (not computer-generated), including works of Carsten Nicolai, whose large projection I had seen in Frankfurt. No photographs for these exhibitions, unfortunately.
The last thing I went to was a strange hybrid, partly a collection of art installations and partly an extended ad for Olympus cameras. You received a camera on entry, which of course you had to give back, but you were allowed to keep the memory card. In general the installations were conceptually simple, but effective. There was one from the British group United Visual Artists using lasers to make an illusory perspectival space. Perhaps the most engaging was from the sound artist known as Zimoun, which consisted of a sort of tunnel made of large cardboard boxes. Each box had a ball attached that was agitated by a small motor and drummed on the box. The combined effect was meant to sound like a rainstorm, and it succeeded.
I haven't mentioned everything I saw, but a year in Berlin would not be enough to see everything. I'm pleased with what I did manage to see.
Then I looked for modern and contemporary art, starting with the Museum am Hamburger Bahnhof, which I had visited before - but the works by Anselm Kiefer, Joseph Beuys, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol and more are worth a second look. Also I hadn't previously seen the large room/sculpture of Bruce Nauman called Room with My Soul Left Out, Room That Does Not Care, nor the extraordinary 40 metre long Gartenskulptur (Garden Sculpture) by Dieter Roth. There was also a special exhibition on Martin Kippenberger, a wild man of 1980s German art with a chaotically varied output, who died of "an excessive life" at the age of 44.
For abstract art there were two exhibitions that particularly interested me. One was a large exhibition showing works of Paul Klee and Johannes Itten, with special reference to their use of colour. The two artists knew each other and both worked at the Bauhaus. I had vaguely heard of Itten as a colour theorist, but he was painting fully abstract works by 1915. The works by Klee generally have some figurative reference, but there were a couple of abstract works by Klee in the exhibition. The other "abstract" exhibition was a smaller exhibition of contemporary abstract drawing (not computer-generated), including works of Carsten Nicolai, whose large projection I had seen in Frankfurt. No photographs for these exhibitions, unfortunately.
The last thing I went to was a strange hybrid, partly a collection of art installations and partly an extended ad for Olympus cameras. You received a camera on entry, which of course you had to give back, but you were allowed to keep the memory card. In general the installations were conceptually simple, but effective. There was one from the British group United Visual Artists using lasers to make an illusory perspectival space. Perhaps the most engaging was from the sound artist known as Zimoun, which consisted of a sort of tunnel made of large cardboard boxes. Each box had a ball attached that was agitated by a small motor and drummed on the box. The combined effect was meant to sound like a rainstorm, and it succeeded.
I haven't mentioned everything I saw, but a year in Berlin would not be enough to see everything. I'm pleased with what I did manage to see.
Turkish carpet from around 1500 AD
Zimoun's sound installation
Monday, May 6, 2013
European Media Art Festival - Part 2 of 2
The exhibition for the Festival in Osnabrück mostly took place in the Kunsthalle, an art
exhibition space which is in part a converted Dominican church from
the 13th-15th centuries. I didn't see anything really
ground-breaking, but a number of the pieces were certainly
engaging. Nadal by Paul Destieu (France) consisted of
four machines that threw tennis balls to another in a criss-cross
pattern. The arcs of the balls echoed the shape of the Gothic
ceiling high above. The work 500 by Bianca Patricia
(Poland) showed a large projection of a small baby playing
desultorily with a 500-Euro note (nearly $A700). Scattered
about on the floor were 50,000 1-Euro-cent coins (so 500 Euro
worth). And All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
by Donna Szoke and Ricarda McDonald (Canada) was a simple but
effective installation consisting of a pair of eyes on a screen that
moved to follow visitors, controlled by a Microsoft Kinect.
Disconcertingly, both eyes were right eyes. I talked to Donna
about this, and the idea was to introduce some strangeness to
emphasise that this is a machine.
Kyosei - Coexistence by Lea Nagano (Japan/Germany) was a 360-degree panoramic video based on a view of Tokyo that referred to the earthquake and release of radiation from the Fukushima reactor complex. The artist was in Tokyo when this happened. Vanished Forest by Tviga Vasilyeva and Igor Line (Russia/Finland) showed a large image of a forest. A touch-pad allowed the visitor to select a specific tree, and then sounds recorded from that tree were played. The forest was an old-growth forest, but has been chopped down for its timber.
The most complex was the ambitious installation The Way Things May Go by a consortium of students from several universities, led by staff members. This consisted of 13 fairly small separate devices or installations, each of which could perform an action with at least two outcomes. For example one device agitated ping-pong balls, some of which were yellow, until one jumped into a channel where it passed by a detector which identified it as either white or yellow. Which colour the ball was determined which device would be activated next. The installation was inspired by the video Der Lauf der Dinge by Peter Fischli and David Weiss (also called The Way Things Go - it is 30 mins long - parts of it are on YouTube - check it out). The project was to make a non-deterministic Lauf der Dinge. I thought it didn't quite come off as an installation, as only one device was active at once. The controlling software could have been written to allow say three actions at once.
The two that held my attention most were Versus by David Letellier (France/Germany) and Méchaniques Discursives by Yannik Jacquet and Fred Penelle (Belgium). Versus consisted of two large black flower-like structures, consisting however of triangular and rectangular pieces, that could change configuration via a hydraulic mechanism. They exchanged sounds and movements across the space, and also responded to other sounds in the space. A combination of incomprehensibility and menace, and a certain delicacy. Méchaniques Discursives was a video projection by Jacquet onto a wall with quite a few prints (woodcuts I believe) and drawings by Penelle. The two were designed to work together and did so very well. The imagery was a combination of Dada and Steampunk (or perhaps Victorian electro-punk, as there were references to radio waves, and an anachronistic defibrillator).
And there was a lot more! The Festival was well worth the visit for me.
Kyosei - Coexistence by Lea Nagano (Japan/Germany) was a 360-degree panoramic video based on a view of Tokyo that referred to the earthquake and release of radiation from the Fukushima reactor complex. The artist was in Tokyo when this happened. Vanished Forest by Tviga Vasilyeva and Igor Line (Russia/Finland) showed a large image of a forest. A touch-pad allowed the visitor to select a specific tree, and then sounds recorded from that tree were played. The forest was an old-growth forest, but has been chopped down for its timber.
The most complex was the ambitious installation The Way Things May Go by a consortium of students from several universities, led by staff members. This consisted of 13 fairly small separate devices or installations, each of which could perform an action with at least two outcomes. For example one device agitated ping-pong balls, some of which were yellow, until one jumped into a channel where it passed by a detector which identified it as either white or yellow. Which colour the ball was determined which device would be activated next. The installation was inspired by the video Der Lauf der Dinge by Peter Fischli and David Weiss (also called The Way Things Go - it is 30 mins long - parts of it are on YouTube - check it out). The project was to make a non-deterministic Lauf der Dinge. I thought it didn't quite come off as an installation, as only one device was active at once. The controlling software could have been written to allow say three actions at once.
The two that held my attention most were Versus by David Letellier (France/Germany) and Méchaniques Discursives by Yannik Jacquet and Fred Penelle (Belgium). Versus consisted of two large black flower-like structures, consisting however of triangular and rectangular pieces, that could change configuration via a hydraulic mechanism. They exchanged sounds and movements across the space, and also responded to other sounds in the space. A combination of incomprehensibility and menace, and a certain delicacy. Méchaniques Discursives was a video projection by Jacquet onto a wall with quite a few prints (woodcuts I believe) and drawings by Penelle. The two were designed to work together and did so very well. The imagery was a combination of Dada and Steampunk (or perhaps Victorian electro-punk, as there were references to radio waves, and an anachronistic defibrillator).
And there was a lot more! The Festival was well worth the visit for me.
General view of the main space in the Kunsthalle.
Detail of David
Letellier's installation Versus.
Friday, May 3, 2013
European Media Art Festival - Part 1 of 2
I spent four days at the European Media Art Festival
in Osnabrück, Germany (purely as a visitor, not an exhibitor).
The festival takes place here every year, and this was the 26th
Festival, so it has been going for quite a while. There were a
lot of Germans here, naturally, but there was a strong international
contingent, with people who are working in the U.S.A., Canada, and numerous European countries stretching from Russia to
Great Britain. I'm not sure that there was anyone exhibiting
who is currently working in Australia or New Zealand, but I talked
with a New Zealander who had a film in the Festival and currently
works in Norway - this sort of mobility seems pretty common.
Osnabrück itself is a medium-sized city of about 150,000 people in north-western Germany. I was able to stay in the middle of the old part of the city, which was obviously badly damaged in World War II, but there are still quite a few old buildings, including some of the towers that were part of the city's defences. The festival venues were conveniently located close to where I was staying, and some of them made use of the old buildings.
Short films formed the greater part of the Festival, but there was also an extensive exhibition of installations, artist talks, workshops, and some live performances. Within this there was an extensive stream involving University students from the German-speaking countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). Generally there were about four things going on at once.
I was most interested in the exhibition of installations and in a series of showings of short films under the heading "Konstrukt Film oder filmischer Konstructivismus / Film as a construct or filmic constructivism" (most things were in both German and English). There were nearly 40 short films in this series. It started off with early experiments in abstract film from the 1920s-1930s, including pieces by Oskar Fischinger, Lázló Moholy-Nagy and Marcel Duchamp (Anémic Cinéma). Then it went on to post-WWII pieces, mostly from the U.S.A., including pieces by Harry Smith, Len Lye (Free Radicals), Jordan Belson and more. Included were a couple of "flicker films" that were really quite hard to watch. The last session included works from about the last 30 years, including pieces from Larry Cuba and Takashi Ito (Spacy). Apart from the Len Lye and Moholy-Nagy pieces, I hadn't seen any of these before, though I had heard of some of them. Since my own videos arguably fit into a constructivist tradition I really needed to see these.
A film I didn't see, but now wish I had, was the longer film (over an hour) Transcalar Investment Vehicles by Hilary Koob-Sassen (U.S.A./Great Britain). This was awarded the main prize of the Festival, and an extract was shown at the award ceremony. I suspect this film will go down as the outstanding event of the Festival.
Osnabrück itself is a medium-sized city of about 150,000 people in north-western Germany. I was able to stay in the middle of the old part of the city, which was obviously badly damaged in World War II, but there are still quite a few old buildings, including some of the towers that were part of the city's defences. The festival venues were conveniently located close to where I was staying, and some of them made use of the old buildings.
Short films formed the greater part of the Festival, but there was also an extensive exhibition of installations, artist talks, workshops, and some live performances. Within this there was an extensive stream involving University students from the German-speaking countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). Generally there were about four things going on at once.
I was most interested in the exhibition of installations and in a series of showings of short films under the heading "Konstrukt Film oder filmischer Konstructivismus / Film as a construct or filmic constructivism" (most things were in both German and English). There were nearly 40 short films in this series. It started off with early experiments in abstract film from the 1920s-1930s, including pieces by Oskar Fischinger, Lázló Moholy-Nagy and Marcel Duchamp (Anémic Cinéma). Then it went on to post-WWII pieces, mostly from the U.S.A., including pieces by Harry Smith, Len Lye (Free Radicals), Jordan Belson and more. Included were a couple of "flicker films" that were really quite hard to watch. The last session included works from about the last 30 years, including pieces from Larry Cuba and Takashi Ito (Spacy). Apart from the Len Lye and Moholy-Nagy pieces, I hadn't seen any of these before, though I had heard of some of them. Since my own videos arguably fit into a constructivist tradition I really needed to see these.
A film I didn't see, but now wish I had, was the longer film (over an hour) Transcalar Investment Vehicles by Hilary Koob-Sassen (U.S.A./Great Britain). This was awarded the main prize of the Festival, and an extract was shown at the award ceremony. I suspect this film will go down as the outstanding event of the Festival.
The robots Vincent und Emily, by Nikolas Schmid-Pfähler and Carolin Liebl
Performance Special Effect by Peter Burr
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Carsten Nicolai in Frankfurt
I'm in Europe again, two years after my last trip overseas. This one is shorter and almost entirely inside Germany, with a quick detour into Austria. It counts as fieldwork for my studies at Monash, though I am funding it myself (Monash does provide travel insurance).
At the start I had a day in Frankfurt. I visited the Museum für Moderne Kunst (Museum for Modern Art - http://www.mmk-frankfurt.de/ or http://www.mmk-frankfurt.de/en/home/), which has works by quite a few big names, including Roy Lichtenstein, Joseph Beuys and Nam June Paik. What particularly caught my eye was a large video projection by Carsten Nicolai called unidisplay. For some reason the sound that goes with it has a separate name, uni(psycho)acoustic, though the sound and images are very closely related.
Carsten Nicolai (http://www.carstennicolai.de/) is a distinguished German artist, many of whose works are inspired by geometrical constructions, light and sound.
This is an instant of one of maybe 20 different sections in unidisplay. The room was already big, but mirrors make it look even bigger. Altogether an impressive thing to find on the first day of my trip, which is largely concerned with abstract art.
At the start I had a day in Frankfurt. I visited the Museum für Moderne Kunst (Museum for Modern Art - http://www.mmk-frankfurt.de/ or http://www.mmk-frankfurt.de/en/home/), which has works by quite a few big names, including Roy Lichtenstein, Joseph Beuys and Nam June Paik. What particularly caught my eye was a large video projection by Carsten Nicolai called unidisplay. For some reason the sound that goes with it has a separate name, uni(psycho)acoustic, though the sound and images are very closely related.
Carsten Nicolai (http://www.carstennicolai.de/) is a distinguished German artist, many of whose works are inspired by geometrical constructions, light and sound.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
London and Home
I spent a week in London before heading home. The riots there erupted the night before I left, but not in central London, and I only found out about them from a TV in the airport as I was waiting for my flight to Australia.
In London I spent time at the Tate Modern and Tate Britain, but I also looked at the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum and the British Museum, all wonderful institutions.
The Natural History Museum, as well as having some spectacular displays, is a great research institution and holds hundreds of thousands of so-called type specimens. A type specimen is the first specimen of a species to be described scientifically, and acts as a reference for all subsequent work on that species.
I saw the Lindisfarne Gospels manuscript itself in the British Library (though of course it was only open at one page, which wasn't this one). The manuscript dates from 700 AD or shortly afterwards, so to see it at all was astonishing enough.
So ends my grand art tour.
In London I spent time at the Tate Modern and Tate Britain, but I also looked at the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum and the British Museum, all wonderful institutions.
Ai Weiwei, "Sunflower Seeds" (ceramic), 2010
The Natural History Museum, as well as having some spectacular displays, is a great research institution and holds hundreds of thousands of so-called type specimens. A type specimen is the first specimen of a species to be described scientifically, and acts as a reference for all subsequent work on that species.
And the Science Museum has a range of material from Stephenson's "Rocket" locomotive (1829) to the Apollo 10 command module, that flew round the Moon in 1969.
Diagram in the Science Museum showing the geometric construction of one of the elaborate illustrations from the Lindisfarne Gospels manuscript
I saw the Lindisfarne Gospels manuscript itself in the British Library (though of course it was only open at one page, which wasn't this one). The manuscript dates from 700 AD or shortly afterwards, so to see it at all was astonishing enough.
So ends my grand art tour.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Multi-cultural Paris
My trip is drawing to an end: Rome, Paris, London, home. I'm now in London.
I spent most of my time in Paris in the Pompidou Centre, looking at the wonderful collections of modern art, contemporary art, and new media; also Brancusi's atelier, which is packed full of his sculptures.
The second exhibition was at the Bibliothèque Nationale, of illuminated Islamic manuscripts from the Bibliothèque's collection. The accompanying text pointed out something I certainly hadn't appreciated. Islam spread to cover three main language areas, speaking Arabic, Turkish and Persian. Religious texts generally did not show animals or humans, so there were some wonderful examples of calligraphy and geometric patterning in the religious works. But only in the Arabic-speaking area was the ban on showing animals and humans applied to all (or almost all) texts. Thus there are Turkish and Persian illustrated manuscripts showing warriors and heroes, animals, the constellations represented as people or animals (as the West did also), events from legends or fairy tales, gardens with princes in them, and so on. There was even an anatomical treatise. Sorry, no photographs, but there is an exhibition website at http://expositions.bnf.fr/islam/.
The third exhibition was of Vodun (Voodoo) objects from West Africa, and claimed to be the first exhibition devoted entirely to these objects. These are not primarily artworks, but are considered to have magical properties, to ward off harm or to cause harm to one's enemies. Most of them consisted of a small wooden human-like statue (often with two heads) with additions such as bones, pieces of metal, padlocks and pill bottles, very often bound around with twine. The exhibition was very well laid out (by the Italian designer Enzo Mari) and ended with a funeral chariot placed in a small pond with black water. Again no photographs, but there is a website on this material at http://www.vaudou-vodun.com/.
And finally a non-human culture: I went to an exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo that consisted essentially of a large ants' next, filled with large leaf-cutter ants.
I spent most of my time in Paris in the Pompidou Centre, looking at the wonderful collections of modern art, contemporary art, and new media; also Brancusi's atelier, which is packed full of his sculptures.
František Kupka, "Disques de Newton, Étude pour fugue à deux couleurs" (1911-12)
I also saw three exhibitions from or involving non-Western cultures. The first was a special exhibition at the Pompidou called "Paris-Delhi-Bombay". Work by Indian artists, and by some European artists responding to Indian culture.
Subodh Gupta, "Ali Baba" (installation)
The second exhibition was at the Bibliothèque Nationale, of illuminated Islamic manuscripts from the Bibliothèque's collection. The accompanying text pointed out something I certainly hadn't appreciated. Islam spread to cover three main language areas, speaking Arabic, Turkish and Persian. Religious texts generally did not show animals or humans, so there were some wonderful examples of calligraphy and geometric patterning in the religious works. But only in the Arabic-speaking area was the ban on showing animals and humans applied to all (or almost all) texts. Thus there are Turkish and Persian illustrated manuscripts showing warriors and heroes, animals, the constellations represented as people or animals (as the West did also), events from legends or fairy tales, gardens with princes in them, and so on. There was even an anatomical treatise. Sorry, no photographs, but there is an exhibition website at http://expositions.bnf.fr/islam/.
The third exhibition was of Vodun (Voodoo) objects from West Africa, and claimed to be the first exhibition devoted entirely to these objects. These are not primarily artworks, but are considered to have magical properties, to ward off harm or to cause harm to one's enemies. Most of them consisted of a small wooden human-like statue (often with two heads) with additions such as bones, pieces of metal, padlocks and pill bottles, very often bound around with twine. The exhibition was very well laid out (by the Italian designer Enzo Mari) and ended with a funeral chariot placed in a small pond with black water. Again no photographs, but there is a website on this material at http://www.vaudou-vodun.com/.
And finally a non-human culture: I went to an exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo that consisted essentially of a large ants' next, filled with large leaf-cutter ants.
Robin Meier and Ali Momeni, "The Tragedy of the Commons" (detail)
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
MAXXI in Rome
My trip included some days in Rome; I visited several contemporary art galleries, including the newest of them, MAXXI (Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo, or National Museum of the Arts of the 21st Century). It is in a stunning building, designed by Zaha Hadid, based around sweeping parallel curves. When it opened it attracted mixed reviews for its suitability as an art gallery, with one reviewer describing it as "tyrannical", and people I know who have visited it have described it as completely overpowering the art. On my visit I didn't feel this, at least with respect to the main exhibition, a massive retrospective for Michelangelo Pistoletto, about whom I knew nothing. Since there isn't a lot of 21st century art yet, the gallery condescends to show 20th century art, and the Pistoletto retrospective covered the years 1956-1974 (though I think Pistoletto is still active).
One of our lecturers at Prato commented that in Australia we tend to have an Anglo-American-centric view of art after World War 2, and my trip has borne this out: Pistoletto is one of four significant 20th century Italian artists whose work I have encountered in the time I have spent in Italy. The others were Marino Marini in Pistoia and Giorgio Morandi in Bologna, both thanks to the Prato program, and Bice Lazzaro in Rome. I should say that others in the group knew about at least some of these people - I shouldn't generalise too much from my own ignorance!
Pistoletto's work as shown in the MAXXI exhibition covered a wide range: his figurative paintings on mirrors were notable, but he also made works in the 1960s relating to both conceptual and minimal art, was a leader of the Arte Povera movement, made works using industrial materials such as Mylar film, and also had a performing group that held events both in galleries and in public spaces. My favourite "conceptual" work in the show was "A Cubic Metre of Infinity", six mirrors lashed together to form a cube with the mirrored surfaces on the inside. From the outside it is just a grey box, and of course you can't see the inside.
The exhibition contained an interesting timeline showing events in Pistoletto's career in parallel with events in Italian politics, ranging from postwar bitterness and reconstruction (Pistoletto was born in 1933), through to the student unrest in the 1960s and the sabotage and kidnappings carried out by the Red Brigades. The work shown was not political in a sloganeering way, but was certainly related to the spirit of the times. Another lecturer in Prato said that according to an Italian artist friend of his, Florence was the hardest city in the world to be a contemporary artist, and surely Italy must be one of the hardest countries. Pistoletto, who lived in or around the industrial city of Turin rather than the history-of-art-laden tourist magnet of Florence, nonetheless found a way.
One of our lecturers at Prato commented that in Australia we tend to have an Anglo-American-centric view of art after World War 2, and my trip has borne this out: Pistoletto is one of four significant 20th century Italian artists whose work I have encountered in the time I have spent in Italy. The others were Marino Marini in Pistoia and Giorgio Morandi in Bologna, both thanks to the Prato program, and Bice Lazzaro in Rome. I should say that others in the group knew about at least some of these people - I shouldn't generalise too much from my own ignorance!
Pistoletto's work as shown in the MAXXI exhibition covered a wide range: his figurative paintings on mirrors were notable, but he also made works in the 1960s relating to both conceptual and minimal art, was a leader of the Arte Povera movement, made works using industrial materials such as Mylar film, and also had a performing group that held events both in galleries and in public spaces. My favourite "conceptual" work in the show was "A Cubic Metre of Infinity", six mirrors lashed together to form a cube with the mirrored surfaces on the inside. From the outside it is just a grey box, and of course you can't see the inside.
The exhibition contained an interesting timeline showing events in Pistoletto's career in parallel with events in Italian politics, ranging from postwar bitterness and reconstruction (Pistoletto was born in 1933), through to the student unrest in the 1960s and the sabotage and kidnappings carried out by the Red Brigades. The work shown was not political in a sloganeering way, but was certainly related to the spirit of the times. Another lecturer in Prato said that according to an Italian artist friend of his, Florence was the hardest city in the world to be a contemporary artist, and surely Italy must be one of the hardest countries. Pistoletto, who lived in or around the industrial city of Turin rather than the history-of-art-laden tourist magnet of Florence, nonetheless found a way.
No pictures of the works inside, unfortunately, but this is the entrance to MAXXI.
And this is MAXXI's foyer. The building is pretty well unphotographable!
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Leaving Prato
Today is the last day of the program at Monash's outpost in Prato, Italy. There have been numerous highlights. The Venice Biennale was certainly one. I am not going to try to review it - I didn't see all of it, even in the three and a half days I spent looking at it, and there are plenty of reviews on-line. My favourite work was the installation by James Turrell, one of his "Ganzfeld" series. I also enjoyed the Greek pavilion very much, a beautifully quiet space. The official Chinese exhibition was tasteful and restrained, but the less official Chinese work tended to be big and brash; maybe it is the successor in this respect to American art of the post-war era.
Not quite part of the Biennale, the exhibition in the Palazzo Fortuny had an eclectic mix of very interesting works in a wonderful setting. We also visited the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, with numerous significant twentieth-century works. I was interested to see some Italian Futurist work in a separate collection, including a painting by Giacomo Balla representing the transit of Mercury in front of the Sun, from 1914.
On the way to and from Venice we visited Ravenna, to see the Byzantine mosaics, and Padua to see the Giotto cycle in the Scrovegni Chapel. Both of these visits were highlights for me as well.
I have also seen some more things connected with the history of science. I visited the Palazzo Poggi in Bologna which in the 18th century housed a scientific institute and now contains an eclectic museum representing the diverse interests of this institute, ranging from optics to map-making to anatomy to fortifications; there is also a room with remarkable models of sailing ships. Some of the material is from collections going back to the 16th century.
An unexpected find was the International Museum and Library of Music in Bologna, providing a connection between art and science in the form of Renaissance tuning theory.
I also visited the Museo Galileo in Florence. Not only do they have the only two telescopes ascribable with certainty to Galileo, they also have relics in the form of some of Galileo's fingerbones! Both the Museo Galileo and the museum of the Palazzo Poggi brought out the connection between geometry and warfare; Galileo had a business making and selling "geometric and military compasses", a multi-purpose instrument designed by him and intended for aiming cannons, among other things.
I have seen one museum of present-day science, the Museum of Planetary Science here in Prato. It is an active centre of research, and has the best collection of meteorites I am ever likely to see.
My next stop is Rome.
Not quite part of the Biennale, the exhibition in the Palazzo Fortuny had an eclectic mix of very interesting works in a wonderful setting. We also visited the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, with numerous significant twentieth-century works. I was interested to see some Italian Futurist work in a separate collection, including a painting by Giacomo Balla representing the transit of Mercury in front of the Sun, from 1914.
On the way to and from Venice we visited Ravenna, to see the Byzantine mosaics, and Padua to see the Giotto cycle in the Scrovegni Chapel. Both of these visits were highlights for me as well.
I have also seen some more things connected with the history of science. I visited the Palazzo Poggi in Bologna which in the 18th century housed a scientific institute and now contains an eclectic museum representing the diverse interests of this institute, ranging from optics to map-making to anatomy to fortifications; there is also a room with remarkable models of sailing ships. Some of the material is from collections going back to the 16th century.
Detail of navigational map of the known world from 1556.
An unexpected find was the International Museum and Library of Music in Bologna, providing a connection between art and science in the form of Renaissance tuning theory.
Keyboard with 31 notes to the octave, from 1606
I also visited the Museo Galileo in Florence. Not only do they have the only two telescopes ascribable with certainty to Galileo, they also have relics in the form of some of Galileo's fingerbones! Both the Museo Galileo and the museum of the Palazzo Poggi brought out the connection between geometry and warfare; Galileo had a business making and selling "geometric and military compasses", a multi-purpose instrument designed by him and intended for aiming cannons, among other things.
I have seen one museum of present-day science, the Museum of Planetary Science here in Prato. It is an active centre of research, and has the best collection of meteorites I am ever likely to see.
A Martian meteorite, ejected from Mars, and found in the Sahara desert in 1997. It weighs two kilograms and is the largest specimen of a Martian meteorite on display in Europe.
My next stop is Rome.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Monash Prato
All those people who post about their wonderful overseas jaunts - now it's my turn! I am taking part in a postgraduate art program at Monash University's outpost in Prato, near Florence. Prato is a town with an attractive mediaeval core and a historic cathedral with frescoes by Fra Filippo Lippi, Uccello, Gaddi and others. We're staying a stone's throw away from the cathedral, and the sounds of bells of the cathedral and other churches are quite prominent.
Prato is a short train ride away from Florence, and we have made several visits there, including a rather strenuous tour of the Uffizi gallery yesterday, which was fairly astonishing: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli.... Perhaps the highlight for me so far was our trip to Siena, but shortly we're off to Venice for several days to visit the Venice Biennale. All this is very exciting, and will take a long time to assimilate.
I've been looking out for things relating to Renaissance science, and was interested to discover that in Florence both the Duomo and Santa Maria Novella have inbuilt astronomical instruments in the form of a small hole high up in the structure to let in a ray of sunlight, and markings on the floor of the church. Among other things they were used to determine the length of the year precisely. I bought a small book explaining all this, but unfortunately it's in Italian.
The cloister behind the cathedral in Prato.
Prato is a short train ride away from Florence, and we have made several visits there, including a rather strenuous tour of the Uffizi gallery yesterday, which was fairly astonishing: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli.... Perhaps the highlight for me so far was our trip to Siena, but shortly we're off to Venice for several days to visit the Venice Biennale. All this is very exciting, and will take a long time to assimilate.
I've been looking out for things relating to Renaissance science, and was interested to discover that in Florence both the Duomo and Santa Maria Novella have inbuilt astronomical instruments in the form of a small hole high up in the structure to let in a ray of sunlight, and markings on the floor of the church. Among other things they were used to determine the length of the year precisely. I bought a small book explaining all this, but unfortunately it's in Italian.
The circle of sunlight on the floor of the Duomo in Florence. It is supposed to coincide with the marble circle at noon on the summer solstice - this photograph was taken a week before the solstice.
Monday, March 16, 2009
The Victorian bushfires
The Victorian bushfire emergency is finally over, more than a month after what is now called "Black Saturday", 7th February. Some fires are still burning, but are "contained" (burning within a perimeter).
Over 200 people killed, around 2000 homes destroyed - Australia's worst natural disaster. It led to extraordinary outpourings of generosity, and the State Government has set up a Bushfire Reconstruction Authority, headed by the just-retired Police Commissioner Christine Nixon. It has also set up a Royal Commission, with very wide terms of reference: "courageous", as Sir Humphrey would say; good to see a Government not trying to control the outcome of an inquiry in advance.
Several people have asked me if we were affected. Fortunately, not. There were only minor fires near Ballarat. The nearest sizeable fire was near Daylesford, about 35 km to the north, as the crow flies (or the bushfire travels). Also, we are near the centre of town, though being in a town doesn't necessarily provide protection in extreme conditions - 50 or more houses were destroyed in Bendigo, a town similar in size to Ballarat and about 100 km north. I remember walking through whole suburbs of Hobart that were wiped out in the fires there in 1967, when about 60 people were killed.
There were a couple of days when we decided not to go anywhere, because of road closures around Daylesford and Trentham, and the generally threatening conditions. On Saturday 7th, Ballarat had its all-time record maximum temperature of 44 degrees (111 degrees Fahrenheit), and this was cooler than much of the State - Melbourne reached 46.4.
The most destructive fires were apparently in the Mountain Ash forests. One writer said that these forests are usually wet, and will only burn after a long drought and in extreme conditions. Then they burn with extreme ferocity. The usual advice about defending one's home, if sufficiently prepared, simply didn't work for Black Saturday.
Over 200 people killed, around 2000 homes destroyed - Australia's worst natural disaster. It led to extraordinary outpourings of generosity, and the State Government has set up a Bushfire Reconstruction Authority, headed by the just-retired Police Commissioner Christine Nixon. It has also set up a Royal Commission, with very wide terms of reference: "courageous", as Sir Humphrey would say; good to see a Government not trying to control the outcome of an inquiry in advance.
Several people have asked me if we were affected. Fortunately, not. There were only minor fires near Ballarat. The nearest sizeable fire was near Daylesford, about 35 km to the north, as the crow flies (or the bushfire travels). Also, we are near the centre of town, though being in a town doesn't necessarily provide protection in extreme conditions - 50 or more houses were destroyed in Bendigo, a town similar in size to Ballarat and about 100 km north. I remember walking through whole suburbs of Hobart that were wiped out in the fires there in 1967, when about 60 people were killed.
There were a couple of days when we decided not to go anywhere, because of road closures around Daylesford and Trentham, and the generally threatening conditions. On Saturday 7th, Ballarat had its all-time record maximum temperature of 44 degrees (111 degrees Fahrenheit), and this was cooler than much of the State - Melbourne reached 46.4.
The most destructive fires were apparently in the Mountain Ash forests. One writer said that these forests are usually wet, and will only burn after a long drought and in extreme conditions. Then they burn with extreme ferocity. The usual advice about defending one's home, if sufficiently prepared, simply didn't work for Black Saturday.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Show and Tell at Monash
On 10th and 11th December the Fine Art Department at Monash University organised a postgraduate colloquium, a sort of big show-and-tell. It wasn't a public exhibition, but each student had some space to set up work and we each got a slot to talk about what we had done, and answer questions in a discussion led by a staff member. About 50 students were involved, so there were typically three or four parallel sessions.
We also had two lectures by Professor Andrew Benjamin, who has the title of Professor of Critical Theory and Philosophical Aesthetics at Monash. Professor Benjamin then attended quite a few of the student presentations, including mine, and asked probing questions.
The whole event was a great success, and an excellent way both to get feedback on one's own work and to find out what other students were up to over a wide range of practices: painting, drawing, sculpture, digital imagery, video and various types of installation. This is the first time the colloquium has been held; I hope it becomes a regular event.
We also had two lectures by Professor Andrew Benjamin, who has the title of Professor of Critical Theory and Philosophical Aesthetics at Monash. Professor Benjamin then attended quite a few of the student presentations, including mine, and asked probing questions.
The whole event was a great success, and an excellent way both to get feedback on one's own work and to find out what other students were up to over a wide range of practices: painting, drawing, sculpture, digital imagery, video and various types of installation. This is the first time the colloquium has been held; I hope it becomes a regular event.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Master of Music
I submitted my portfolio and essay for the Master of Music (Composition) at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music last year ('07). It is now all corrected, bound, and sent off to the University library. Under the rules in force when I started, the essay was to not to be about my own work, so not an exegesis, but was instead to be about a topic related in some way to my work. I wrote on "The Concept of Emergence in Generative Art". The essay is here.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Studying at Monash
I have just started a PhD (part-time) in the Faculty of Art and Design at Monash University, Melbourne. My PhD will be practice-based, i.e. largely by portfolio; I will be making generative artworks. Art and Design describe the desired outcome as a contribution that has "substantial cultural significance", which is a much better approach than trying to fit a practice-based research degree into the usual framework of a "substantial contribution to knowledge".
I knew that moving from a conservatorium of music to an art and design school would be a substantial cultural shift, but it is an even bigger change than I expected, and I'm not confident that I have really grasped the differences yet.
There are a huge number of higher degree students around in Art and Design, I think upwards of 150. There is a lot going on, and the Faculty are making an effort to overcome the isolation often felt by research students. Monash is a multi-campus university these days; I will largely be at the Caulfield campus, where most of the Art and Design people and facilities are.
So far I feel confused but exhilarated!
I knew that moving from a conservatorium of music to an art and design school would be a substantial cultural shift, but it is an even bigger change than I expected, and I'm not confident that I have really grasped the differences yet.
There are a huge number of higher degree students around in Art and Design, I think upwards of 150. There is a lot going on, and the Faculty are making an effort to overcome the isolation often felt by research students. Monash is a multi-campus university these days; I will largely be at the Caulfield campus, where most of the Art and Design people and facilities are.
So far I feel confused but exhilarated!
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Moving to Ballarat
This blog will be mostly about algorithmic and generative art, but this first post is more personal. Recently my wife Jane and I moved from Gosford (80 km north of Sydney) to Ballarat in Victoria.
Why Ballarat?
We had to move house, since Jane has retired, and the house we were in was tied to her job. We have become used to living out of the big city, but not too far away, and Ballarat is just 80 minutes by train from the centre of Melbourne. Ballarat's climate suits us better than Gosford's, being colder and less humid. Ballarat is a compact city, with many things within walking distance, but it is large enough to have comprehensive facilities, important as we get older. Ballarat has an interesting history and a strong identity as a city; it also has a tradition of interest in the arts. We could afford a nice house here. And, importantly, the place has a positive feel and people seem to like living here.
We are not total strangers to Victoria, as we both went to high school and University in Melbourne, and Jane lived in Geelong for a while. Moving to Ballarat is an adventure for us, but we hope not a foolhardy one.
Why Ballarat?
We had to move house, since Jane has retired, and the house we were in was tied to her job. We have become used to living out of the big city, but not too far away, and Ballarat is just 80 minutes by train from the centre of Melbourne. Ballarat's climate suits us better than Gosford's, being colder and less humid. Ballarat is a compact city, with many things within walking distance, but it is large enough to have comprehensive facilities, important as we get older. Ballarat has an interesting history and a strong identity as a city; it also has a tradition of interest in the arts. We could afford a nice house here. And, importantly, the place has a positive feel and people seem to like living here.
We are not total strangers to Victoria, as we both went to high school and University in Melbourne, and Jane lived in Geelong for a while. Moving to Ballarat is an adventure for us, but we hope not a foolhardy one.
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