In the loop Sept 4: quick picks

DJ Spooky

Curating Cities, NIEA

NIEA will be presenting a forum led by Paul Miller (aka DJ Spooky) as part of the ongoing Curating Cities project, researching how “the arts can generate environmentally beneficial behavioural change” (website). He will be discussing his participation in a sustainable art and music project at the Tanna Center for The Arts in Vanuatu. He will also be joined by Professors Douglas Kahn and Richard Goodwin.
NIEA (National Institute for Experimental Arts): Curating Cities, EG02, E Block, College of Fine Arts (COFA), UNSW, Paddington; 6 September 2013, 2.30-3.30pm; http://www.niea.unsw.edu.au/events/20130823/curating-cities-forum

Bill Viola, I Do Not Know What It Is I Am Like, 1986 Videotape, colour, stereo sound; 89 minutes (still) © Bill Viola

photo Kira Perov

Bill Viola, I Do Not Know What It Is I Am Like, 1986 Videotape, colour, stereo sound; 89 minutes (still) © Bill Viola

ikono On Air Festival

ikono is a German-based organisation with an agenda to broadcast innovative art from across the world, both historic and contemporary. Across September they are presenting an “on air” arts festival viewed via a range of satellite and cable channels across the world, as well as an internet streaming option. The festival will focus on non-narrative and time-base art practices showing an enormous catalogue of works by 120 artists including Bill Viola, Alfredo Jaar, Anthony McCall and Brian Eno. As well as the festival they also produce mini-documentaries taking tours through great museums of the world—check out their website for a cornucopia of trailers and art-bites.
ikono On Air Festival, 6-29 September, http://ikono.org/festival/

Post Life, ICE

Based in Parramatta, Information and Cultural Exchange (ICE) has been running the Screen Transfusion project, a series of film and television production workshops for young people in Western Sydney. Some of these participants have then gone on to be part of the production team making the seven-part web series, Post Life. The ‘dramedy’ (dramatic comedy) follows John—a postal worker recently made redundant—as he tries to find a new path in life. Action is spiced up by Booboo, his daughter’s dog, an old lady sending mysterious packages and a love interest. The series will be launched with a screening at Riverside Theatres and will also be available online from 10 September.
ICE: Post Life, launch Riverside Theatres Parramatta, 10 Sept; http://ice.org.au/2013/08/web-series-trailer-post-life/

Doku Rai, Black Lung Theatre & Whaling C0mpnay, Liurai Fo’er and Galaxy

photo Tony Lewis, courtesy Adelaide Festival 2013

Doku Rai, Black Lung Theatre & Whaling C0mpnay, Liurai Fo’er and Galaxy

2013 Brisbane Festival

Read the small print in the 2013 Brisbane Festival program to find the really intriguing works. RealTime’s picks are, from Cairns, the magical Bonemap’s Terrestrial Nerve (11-14 Sept), their short free work Nerve Engine, (Sept 10, 11) where you help generate art [book online], Cut Snake (10-14 Sept), Insomnia Cat Came to Stay (24-28 Sept), Nicola Gunn’s Hello May Name Is (10-14 Sept) and MKA Theatre’s The Unspoken Word is Joe (10-14 Sept). Also in the program, the wonderful East Timorese-Australian collaboration Doku Rai, China’s Fight the Landlord, I Malvolio from the UK and Australia’s CASUS physical theatre.
Brisbane Festival, 7-28 Sept, http://www.brisbanefestival.com.au/

Akira Akira, Bicycle (a model for making-thinking), 2013, work-in-progress, Allegro Pista bicycle, mixed media

photo Sarah crowEST

Akira Akira, Bicycle (a model for making-thinking), 2013, work-in-progress, Allegro Pista bicycle, mixed media

arte magra: from the opaque, AEAF

Curated by Domenico de Clario and Mary Knights, arte magra: from the opaque exhibits the work/performances of 14 artists/collaborative teams. Arte magre—translated as lean or meagre art—builds on ideas explored by the Art Povera movement which preferenced conceptual pieces using simple, everyday materials. Many of the works will be site specific, such as Akira Akira’s Bicycle (a model for making-thinking), which can be hired from the BikeSA. Akira believes that making and thinking are as conjoined and co-dependent as the left and right leg, thus by riding his bike you experience this physical and conceptual balance. Other pieces include David Cross’s inflatable experiential sculptures; Joan Grounds’ documentation of shared walks with her dog; Jessica Lumb’s self-guided tour of the chewing gum on Hindley Street; and a site-specific performance by dancers Tony Yap and Janette Hoe. There will also be an accompanying symposium on 6 September.
arte magra: from the opaque, AEAF and various sites around Adelaide; 5 Sept-5 Oct, http://www.aeaf.org.au/exhibitions/ArteMagra.html

Ian McGrath, Peter Shepherd and David Vance in rehearsal, 1990, School of Creative Arts, University of Wollongong

30 years celebrations, Creative Arts, University of Wollongong

Congratulations to the School of Creative Arts, Wollongong University which is celebrating its 30th birthday. It’s no mean feat for a creative arts school to survive economic rationalism and the department will celebrate with a cocktail party, public performances, artist presentations and an exhibition, Transitions, featuring works by the staff, curated by Jelle Van De Berg.
Creative Arts Wollongong 30th Anniversary; Sept 9-11, http://lha.uow.edu.au/crearts/news/30thanniversary/index.html

Dance of Reality, Alejandro Jodorowsky

Sydney Underground Film Festival

The Sydney Underground Film Festival is on again presenting over 30 of “the year’s most subversive, underground and cult films from around the world” (press release). The festival opens with Dance of Reality, the first film in 23 years by Chilean auteur Alejandro Jodorowsky—a psycho-magical interpretation of his life. Bookending the event is The Canyons written by Bret Easton Ellis, directed by Paul Schrader and starring Lindsay Lohan. In between, as well as other features, are shorts programs with titles such as LSD Factory, Lovesick, Reality Bites, Free Radicals and Ozploit.
Sydney Underground Film Festival, Factory Theatre, Marrickville, 5-9 Sept; http://suff.com.au

Clocked Out Duo

Melbourne Recital Centre

Diverse offerings at the Recital Centre this week. Clocked Out Duo perform Time Crystals (4 Sept) which premiered at Tura’s 25th birthday celebrations last year and of which Sam Gillies wrote, “The musical ground covered by the work is impressive. From the contemporary classical motifs of the opener, “Time Crystals,” to the jazz-like “Quantum Harmonics” and the rock-and-roll feel of “X-Ray Diffraction,” each work manages to balance its more distinctive sonic elements with cohesive structures that develop the work in exciting and unpredictable directions” (RT113).

On the same evening is Conversations with Ghosts, a collaboration between singer/songwriter Paul Kelly, composer James Ledger and recorder player Genevieve Lacy presented by the Australian National Academy of Music. The song cycle will feature texts by Kelly, Yeats, Tennyson, Judith Wright, Les Murray and Kenneth Slessor (4 Sept). Then riding high after his Festival of Slow Music (see last weeks in the loop), Adam Simmonds will perform with Wang Zheng Ting, master of the sheng, a Chinese mouth organ (7 Sept).
Various 4-7 Sept, Melbourne Recital Centre; http://www.melbournerecital.com.au/

The boat goes over the mountain, Happy Dagger Theatre

To make his film Fitzcarraldo, Werner Herzog faithfully recreated the titular rubber baron’s attempt to pull a steamship over a mountain in Peru. This new work, written and performed by Andrew Hale, pits his own experiences in Peru against Herzog’s, adding terrifying doses of the hallucinogen ayahuasca (yagé) used in shamanic rituals.
Happy Dagger Theatre, The Boat Goes Over the Mountain, Perth, 10-28 Sept, http://blueroom.org.au/events/the-boat-goes-over-the-mountain/

Still in the loop

Windows to the Sacred, S.H. Ervin Gallery
presented in association with Buratti Fine Art; 30 Aug-29 Sept
http://www.shervingallery.com.au/

Moogahlin Performing Arts, This Fella, My Memory
Carriageworks, 4-7 Sept
http://www.carriageworks.com.au/

Malthouse’s Helium
Little Ones Theatre, Salomé, 30 Aug-14 Sept
Smack! Bang, City of Shadows, Rachael Dease, 21 Sept-5 Oct
http://www.malthousetheatre.com.au/helium-2013/

In Confidence: Reorientations in Recent Art, PICA
31 Aug-13 Oct
http://www.pica.org.au

RealTime issue #116 Aug-Sept 2013 pg. web

4 September 2013