in the loop – november 8
realtime news and advance word
Junee Train, Rolling Stock
photo courtesy of Wired Lab
Junee Train, Rolling Stock
rollin, rollin, rollin
If you feel like an excursion to the country, or if you live in regional NSW, then you should head to Junee on Saturday November 20 for Rolling Stock, a range of site-specific installations experienced while riding though the countryside on a heritage locomotive. Many of the installations will be the result of a week of residencies in which artists collaborate with the local Junee community and curator Sarah Last has brought together an impressive list of contributors including Alan Lamb, Kate Murphy, Joel Stern, Ross Manning, Garry Bradbury, Justy Phillips and Ryszard Dabek, Dave Noyze and Shannon O’Neill. The special guest is UK artist Chris Watson, ex-Carbaret Voltaire band member turned field-recordist, who will present ‘El Tren Fantasma – The Ghost Train’, reworking field recordings he has made for Rick Stein’s documentary Great Train Journeys, into a surround sound experience on the train. The PVI collective will also be offering their participatory tug-o-war and while you travel you will be entertained by Australia’s own king of country Renny Kodgers. When you alight from the journey, the party continues with a Rockabilly band at the Junee Licorice and Chocolate Factory. Rolling Stock, Nov 20, 12pm–12am, journey starts at Junee Railway Station; www.rolling-stock.org (bookings essential)
Change, 2005, Blair Trethowan
photo courtesy of the Monash University Museum of Art
Change, 2005, Blair Trethowan
muma
New York may have MoMA but Melbourne has a newly reinvigorated MUMA: the Monash University Museum of Art. The new museum, designed by Kerstin Thompson Architects, “combines increased gallery space and capacity, a landscaped sculpture court and a major architecturally-scaled public art installation by artist Callum Morton, titled Silverscreen” (press release). To celebrate, the museum is hosting a new exhibition called Change. Sourced entirely from the extensive Monash University Collection, the inaugural exhibition brings together more than 75 major works by Australian contemporary artists—from painting to photography, installation and performance. Change places work by John Perceval, John Brack, Charles Blackman and Roger Kemp alongside more contemporary work by Mike Parr, Tracey Moffatt, Susan Norrie, Marco Fusinato, Lydia Galbal Gjinabalyi, Raquel Ormella, Daniel von Sturmer and Blair Trethowan. Change, Monash University Museum of Art, Oct 27-Dec 18; www.monash.edu.au/muma/
Byron Perry, Anthony Hamilton, Simon Obarzanek, Ross Coulter, Untrained, Lucy Guerin Inc
photo Untrained Artists
Byron Perry, Anthony Hamilton, Simon Obarzanek, Ross Coulter, Untrained, Lucy Guerin Inc
totally awesome
The phrase may recall the 1980s, but the Awesome International Arts Festival for Bright Young Things is happening here and now, meaning Perth in November 2010. Chief among the attractions is Lucy Guerin’s Untrained, which premiered in Melbourne in 2009 and was reviewed in RT90. Other intriguing performances include Track, a performance in which Vincent de Rooij, Udo Akerman and Daan Mathot (Netherlands) blend film and theatre to create a short film before your very eyes. “Udo’s miniature film studio (which happens to be a sea container) captures the action on camera in real time, using everyday objects as sets and characters, and is streamed live via projection on the opposite end of the sea container” (website).
There is also The Library of Nearly Lost Moments, which is to be installed at the State Library of Western Australia. The audience is invited to “check their pockets and see if there’s anything you can leave behind to preserve a moment in time…a train ticket? A sweet wrapper?” (website). For junior film lovers there is a series of animated films thanks to a partnership with the Los Angeles International Children’s Film Festival. Finally there is the Home Ground installation and exhibition, both of which are the result of a year-long program involving young people from 11 regional and remote communities. Awesome International Arts Festival for Bright Young Things, Perth, Nov 19-28; www.awesomearts.com/festival
Dancing Dreams
photo courtesy of the Brisbane International Film Festival
Dancing Dreams
bring back the biff
If you miss the animated films in Perth then you may be interested in the animation programs at this year’s Brisbane International Film Festival. First up, there’s the International Animation Showcase, which features 13 of the finest short films from the archives of Britain’s Animate Projects, which has spent the past 20 years funding and producing animation. BIFF has also secured Sylvain Chomet’s (The Triplets of Belleville) new animated film The Illusionist, which is based on an unproduced script by French comic Jacques Tati, who wrote it between Mon Oncle and Playtime. But for those who like their bodies “live,” and not animated, perhaps Dancing Dreams will appeal. The documentary focuses on Jo Ann Endicott, an Australian dancer who spent roughly 30 years with Pina Bausch’s company, as she works with a group of Germans to restage Bausch’s Kontakthof. Bausch herself appears throughout the documentary to mentor and encourage the cast—the final footage captured of the choreographer before her death in June last year. Brisbane International Film Festival, Nov 4-14; www.stgeorgebiff.com.au
power to the powerhouse
While in Brisbane you may also like to check out the Brisbane Powerhouse, which is hosting two interesting events over the coming weeks. First, there is the new exhibition Spare Parts, which brings together a diverse range of artists using prosthetic limbs as their canvas. In addition, there is Ten Hands, a new one-hour work from Topology who we’ve previously reviewed in RT93. Ten Hands apparently evolved over an extended period in the rehearsal room where the group recorded their collective improvisations, then notated the best bits which were then used “as basis of the next jam session… This process went on repeatedly, with each member adding their own development and transition ideas until a single, unified, continuous one-hour piece emerged—strong, honed, individual voices intermingled into one sinewy whole, rich in musical thought” (website). Spare Parts, Nov 8-Dec 5, Topology, Nov 14, Brisbane Powerhouse; www.brisbanepowerhouse.org
Gail Priest, Presentiments from the Spider Gardens
listening, moving and launching
We’re famous! Well, sort of. Some RealTime regulars are launching books and CDs this month. First, on November 14, there is the launch of VOICE: Vocal Aesthetics in Digital Arts and Media, edited by Norie Neumark, Ross Gibson and Theo van Leeuwen, all of whom have previously appeared in RealTime in one way or another. (We reviewed Memory Flows, an exhibition that Neumark both curated and contributed to, in RT97; read Gibson’s book The Summer Exercises in RT91; and reported van Leeuwen’s remarks on film education in RT98.) Then on November 16, there is the launch of Erin Brannigan’s Platform Paper, Moving Across Disciplines: Dance in the 21st Century. Founding director of ReelDance and now a lecturer at UNSW, Brannigan has written many articles for us over the years, most recently an introduction to our Archive Highlight on Lucy Guerin and an article on dance infrastructure in NSW (RT91). Finally our very own associate editor Gail Priest has just released her second full length CD, Presentiments from the Spider Garden, courtesy of Endgame Records. The album weaves “field recordings, vocals, instrumental material and extended digital methodologies into a haunting cabinet of curiosities” (press release). VOICE: Vocal Aesthetics in Digital Arts and Media, Ed Norie Neumark, Ross Gibson and Theo van Leeuwen, Gleebooks, Nov 14, rsvp www.gleebooks.com.au; Moving Across Disciplines: Dance in the 21st Century, UNSW, Nov 16 rsvp Jennifer Beale, j.beale@unsw.edu.au; Gail Priest, Presentiments from the Spider Garden, Endgame Records, www.endgame.com.au
RealTime issue #99 Oct-Nov 2010 pg. web
