Artists who don't necessarily call themselves artists. Extraordinary people who deal with light and sound in unusual and exploratory ways. If this is you I want to see your proposal!
Email a page of ideas to dontlookgallery@gmail.com or drop something into the Gallery at 419 New Canterbury Rd, Dulwich Hill. Openings are usually on Wednesday nights and exhibitions normally last for ten days (till the following Saturday). To see a rough schematic of the Gallery CLICK HERE.
Coming soon...
SEE THE DON'T LOOK BLOG ABOVE FOR FUTURE UPDATES!
Previous exhibitions and performances include...
The Don't Look Short Silent Film Festival
WHEN: December 20, 2008 - January 15, 2009
Don't Look will interrupt its regular programming over the silly season to bring you the 'Short Silent Film Festival' in its front windows. This 24 hour a day festival features works by Michael Chahine, David Abello & David Urquhart, Alexis Armytage, Frank Jones Torres & Matthew Emilio Meagher, Greg Shapley, Matt Rochford, Eva Müller.
'Howdy Neighbour!' art exhibition
The people of Dulwich Hill and the Don't Look 2203 collective
WHEN: Opens Thursday 11th of December at 6pm, showing Thursday-Sat (11-5) until Saturday 20th of December
'Howdy Neighbour!' is comprised of raw video footage, photographs and sound recordings of local identities in Dulwich Hill documented by the 2203 collective. Meet George the tailor who sailed here from Greece in 1965 and has run the tailor shop on New Canterbury Rd for the past 20 years. Say hi to Lap, the Vietnamese grocer, Adrian the barista and Neita the Grandmother and retired nurse who has lived in Yule Street Dulwich Hill for the past 54 years.
More than just social documentary, 'Howdy Neighbour!' reveals the complexities of communication; the negotiation that must ensue between individuals for a truly rewarding exchange to occur, as well as the power disparity that comes from holding the camera – how do filmmakers ensure objectivity? Is it possible? These interviews have been edited, leaving a lot of footage in that would normally end up on the cutting room floor so as to pose some of these questions directly to the viewer.
This is Not a Film Premiere
Curated by Heidi Bi, featuring 14 artists
WHEN: Opening (both locations) Wednesday, 5th of November, 6pm, Nov 6-15
Despite all of our cell phones, plasma screens and virtual
sophistication, every now and then we feel the need to believe in something a bit more primordial, visceral and even, supernatural. We need to be shocked, fearful and know there is an unknown.
The centre piece for this curated show is Heidi Bi's new media installation, "That Girl Will Not Be In My Film". Spanning two different venues (Don't Look Gallery in Dulwich Hill and Reverse Garbage in Marrickville) and 'cyberspace', this work invites participants to unleash their pre-lingual selves into the abyss.
The primary purpose of this project is to explore the remains of the primitive human instincts in our increasingly technological controlled world, as well as investigating the spirituality that is, arguably,
still wired into our human psyche. By evoking these reactions in the occupants/ participants, the work creates an irony – despite the people's immediate willingness to believe in the spiritual phenomenon, this project is set up with modern digital technologies and that these
"ghosts" reside within ourselves.
Come and take part in this interactive experience.
The exhibition also showcases a range of works by established and emerging artists - that don't belong in a film premiere:
Norie Neumark (sound artist and UTS MAP associate professor) & Maria Miranda (media artist)
Ian Andrews (sound artist and UTS MAP lecturer)
Nic Hodges (net.artist and creative director of NetX)
Vern Norrgard (photographer)
Hogi Tsai (media artist and UTS DCA candidate)
Pete Franc (photographer)
Sissy Reyes Urquiza (cinematographer)
Stephenie Kanhukamwe (graphic artist)
Shahn Devendran (filmmaker)
Tony Curran (painter and curator)
Toni Zipevski (photographer)
Rahul Prasad (painter)
Nicole Talmacs (photographer)
Location1: DON'T LOOK GALLERY, 419 New Canterbury Rd, Dulwich Hill
Location2: REVERSE GARBAGE, 8/142 Addison Rd, Marrickville
(428 Bus goes to both locations from the City)
There will be intermittent transport to take visitors between the two venues.
VKdK arts installation
David, Violet, Kate and Keri
WHEN: 2-11 October 2008, opening Thursday 2nd of October @ 6pm
VKdK is Don't Look's latest show featuring four new artists from the local area. David Urquart is a photographer and self confessed 'perverter of the image'. His work features his own distinctive face digitised into Nana Mouskourri's image and other ghastly and exciting perversions.
Violet's photographs are a mixture of installation and fantasy while Kate is in to 'tatting'. If you would like to know exactly what that is, come along to the opening as she will be 'tatting' in the front window. Keri simply draws.
Rococo Vortex (as part of the Sound of Failure Festival)
Wade Marynowsky,(dresses by Susan Marynowsky)
WHEN: Opening August 20, 6pm, August 21-30
Rococo Vortex explores 18th century European notions of the automaton, elegance, decadence and how this has filtered down into contemporary Australian kitsch culture. In the gallery shop front are two spinning Rococo styled and robotic crinolines. The robotic stands spin as if they are in continual dance. The spin position coordinates are sent wirelessly to a computer which translates this movement into audio and video.
The work questions Australia's and other countries continuous obsession with identity, antiquity, and bourgeoisie society. If the French decided to behead their Monarchy in 1793 when will it be time for Australia to brake from the common-wealth?
The Sound of Failure festival is supported by Marrickville Council, the Centre for Media Arts Innovation (University of Technology, Sydney), Reverse Garbage, the Factory Theatre and Don't Look Gallery.
'FundsCrazier' fundraiser, a night of film, performance and DJs
Various local artists
WHEN: Saturday August 9, 7pm
'FundsCrazier' is a night of short films, performance pieces and DJs. Featuring the new film 'If I was' by Vanessa Meagher, a documentary from the StopTheIntervention (NT) campaign, shorts by members and yourselves (bring contributions along in DVD or VHS formats or bring a piece to perform). Plus we have music from ex-Vaincherry (Matt and Robbie), DJs Atticus Etiquette and Be the Party. Join the Mix Tape Society and check out David Urquart's new zine.
THE LEAGUE OF SHADOWS: Vol 1
An inter-dimensional shadow puppetry extravaganza!
End of the world
A mad doctor
An evil plot
And… tea time!
Thur-Sat 8pm, Sun 6pm. 24, 25, 26, 27 July
RSVP essential. Limited seating. ONLY $5
0401 504 800 or dash@leagueofshadows.com.au
leagueofshadows.com.au
This project has been funded by YAPA through its Youth Participation Grants Project.
'Cornered' group exhibition
The Don't Look 2203 Collective & local artists
WHEN: Opening Thursday 3rd of July @ 6pm, July 4-19, 2008
In a world in which we increasingly spend time wandering aimlessly throughout the retail mazes of megamalls resembling small cities, worship frequently at the fluoro alters of the suburban convenience store and look more and more to the one stop super-dooper-market shop
for the lot, the 2203 collective ask 'what has become of the humble mixed business, the milkbar, the take-away, the corner shop?'
The 2203 collective and local artists have recreated the old milk bar,incorporating sound and video installations in Don't Look 2203 Gallery in Dulwich Hill. Utilising maps, images of 'disappeared' corner shops and optical illusion, the effect is eerie, mystical even, as the
dusty, antiquated corner store finds new meaning in an age where the Westfield super-mall is king.
Miss Helen's Tea Party
Miss Helen (...and friends)!
WHEN: Friday the 20th of June, 7pm
To celebrate the closing of our latest exhibition, Don't Shop, Miss Helen (one of the amazing artists in Don't Shop) will be hosting 'Miss Helen's Tea Party' @ Don't Look. As well as being able to enjoy Miss Helen's 'The Petite Bakery' installation (consisting mainly of knitted treats), freshly baked cookies and real tea will be on hand! It's almost your last chance to see the current exhibition which will close at 5pm on Saturday the 21st. Come and meet the artists, buy a zine, listen to some original sounds and get down in Dully Hill! All welcome.
'Don't Shop' Zine exhibition
Various Zine Artists
WHEN: Opening: Thursday 5th of June @ 6pm, June 6-21, 2008
This exhibition will showcase some of the great ZINES that are being made by individuals and collectives around Sydney (for the uninitiated, Wikipedia describes a zine as "a small circulation, non-commercial publication of original or appropriated texts and images". They are generally fiercely independent and an antidote to
the mind-numbing mass media).
More than that though, these zines will come alive spreading into the gallery via graph art, video projections, sound and other mediums. Come and have a look at the exhibition and take away a zine in the
process (some are *free* while most just charge to recover printing costs).
Friday Nite LIVE (Dulwich Hill Style)…
Goatman & Friends
Entry by gold coin donation
WHEN: Friday May 23, 6.30pm, 6.30pm
Come watch Goatman load his poetic mind with dynamite, then explode all over the audience! A combination of mutant mumblings, recalcitrant rumblings, prophetic poetry, quixotic questioning, frantic filth and maybe (if your lucky) some poo-bah philosophy. Now in high definition delirium!
Followed by an open mic for the people (even the guys from the tool shop next door!).
This will also be the launch of the zine ‘this page left intentionally blank’ and the new collaborative CD, ‘T’tch T’tch’. DJs & drinks also on tap.
The launch of the 2203 Collective
Entry by gold coin donation
WHEN: Opening Thur May 1, 6.30pm
Fri May 2-24
The 2203 Collective is comprised of an energetic bunch of locals which includes visual artists, poets and multimedia artists. Matt Rochford, artist, 'Nerd FC', and postie, best known for staging a self-installation, living in Don't Look Gallery's window for two weeks in 2007, said "Every month we will interact with our communities with exciting new exhibitions. We hope to really engage with, and challenge, traditional notions of community and creativity."
This exhibition will include works from all the group's members. The 'audience' will also be creators on the night, being invited to contribute to the zine this page left intentionally blank, which will be distributed as both
digital and analogue reproductions. So bring along some text, photos, drawings, etc. and be included in this living document!
Curdle
Zoo
WHEN: Closing April 19, 2008, 6pm
April 10-19
Curdle is an endurance-based installation piece, where the main activity performed is inducing lactation. This is achieved by regular pumping and the ingestion of a variety of herbs including fenugreek, fennel and milk thistle. I have done this before, but not to the same degree, so one of the main focuses will be on seeing how much milk I can produce. The first part of the piece will concentrate on the process of inducing, documenting the changes to my body and what milk I produce. The second part of the piece, once lactation has been achieved, will involve myself and other artists creating a series of milk-based pieces, by using the lactation process and the actual milk itself as inspiration, as material, or both. Already I have photographers, painters, sketchers and musicians taking part, and am open to any other suggestions for collaboration. Artists can just turn up as they wish, but for larger, longer pieces which involve serious input from me it is best to contact me and schedule a time, or at least discuss the nature of the work. The public is invited to visit at any time during opening hours, to record their responses, stories and ideas about the work in the journal provided, to ask questions, to observe the work in progress and engage with it in any respectful way they wish.
The main point of the installation: This is part of a larger body of work that has previously centered on other body fluids and processes, most usually blood and bleeding. It has its roots in body modification practice in that it is concerned with altering the form and functionality of the body. Curdle, and the entire induced lactation project I have undertaken, grapples with questions of how bodies (and more specifically, body fluids) are gendered, how they communicate with other bodies, and what happens when bodies and embodied practices are allowed to drift loose of their traditional boundaries. Clearly, lactation is traditionally the preserve of mothers and their babies (and the odd lucky husband), but breastfeeding is not the only context in which it exists or the only function it performs. Lactation and breast milk can be used to cleanse the body of toxins, to inhibit fertility, to access new ways of thinking, to gain sexual pleasure, to nurse a partner, to comfort oneself and others, to transmit cultural knowledge, to cure or to contaminate. This installation is also largely concerned with investigating milk as language, a text, and the lactating body as producer and conveyor of meaning.
For the record: This is not positioned against maternity or breastfeeding, but rather an attempt to consider what knowledges and experiences lactation and breast milk might offer when allowed to speak freely outside of patriarchal, heterosexual discourses.
Don’t Look Gallery presents two new works by Japanese artist, Sung Nam Han
WHEN: Opening Feb 27, 2008, 6pm
Feb 28-March 8
"Love Image, Lack Imagination"
This work discloses the structure of the transmission of information in order to recover stolen information. TV, music clips, movies, and the net have already entrenched the pacifying delivery of imagery into our daily lives. Discrete nibbles of ‘stimulation’ are force fed to people whose lives lack any real excitement. They live out their fantasies and disappointments through other people’s spectacles, never having to truly face the unexpected.
The media takes relationships, mashing them through a colander of melodrama into a smooth, sickly mush of stereotypes. ‘Love Image, Lack Imagination’ challenges the mundanity of this pacifying stimulation, portraying these sterilised droppings (in videos on stage) with comical irony. This spectacular façade is then critiqued backstage (in a reflective video) by the actors emphasising the fictional and symbolic nature of the performance.
"See <=> Through"
Do you feel sometimes that you are not yourself?
We play various roles in our daily lives. We are shoppers, travellers, we have family roles, we are men, women; sometimes both, sometimes neither. These roles are made compatible by their facades. Through socialisation we know how our current role should react and interact with another’s. The ‘exotic’ or the ‘other’ comes about when we perceive something as being outside this compatible realm; when we don’t know how to act.
This video installation is comprised of a sublime juxtaposition of the everyday and the exotic. Surrounded by thin and fragile translucent screens, you experience a quick glimpse at the ‘other’s’ life, or inversely, your own familiar existence ('deja vu all over again'), overlaid with an uncanny disregard for context.
Seeing yourself between a mosaic of mirror shards and the screens makes you aware of the repetition in daily life, as well as its contradictory fragility (as Joni Mitchell once sang; ‘You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone’). This situation requires us to take on diverse roles as suits the moment as if our very lives depended on it.
Borderlands
Maz Dixon
WHEN: Opening February 13, 2008, 6pm
Feb 14-23
The traditional Australian landscape is a prominent feature of many a domestic setting; living rooms with reproduction Heysen gum trees saturated in golden sunlight, panoramic photographs of Uluru, tea-towels featuring the Three Sisters. Viewed through a complicated series of filters, these landscapes, designated quintessentially Australian, depict a place that is both serene and emblematic, a source of identity, comfort and security.
The ornamentalisation of Nature can be a talismanic act, protecting the viewer from potentially unpleasant realities. This is something that colonising cultures tend to be very good at. As an Australian of European descent Dixon is at home in an Australia colonised by European flora and fauna, where indigenous plants are at once symbols of kitsch domesticity and potentially threatening exotica.
'Persian Rose' and 'Cloudlands' are domestic ornaments in moving form. Persian rugs and decorative mouldings are formed from video footage. Domesticated flora in furnishings leads to a hybridisation where elements are at once familiar and disturbing.
'Atlas' further explores the way that the viewer sees the environment through pre-determined maps and filters. These works on paper take their cue from wallpapers and charts to form new worlds.
Roles to Make or Break
Sari TM Kivinen
WHEN: Opening Feb 1, 2008, 6pm
Feb 2-9
Can reality reproduce perfection? Will perfection shatter at its own reflection?
In her exhibition, "Roles to Make or Break", Sari TM Kivinen challenges the roles that are faced in the mundanity of everyday life; roles that are imposed by gender, family, society.
"Mimic" is a work that centres on the determination to fulfill a role and breaking free from a role through destruction. In this work, Kivinen attempts to mimic perfectly two ceramic faces in one video piece, and in its stark counterpart, destroys them.
"Self Determined" is an intensively created work, developed from two hours of video footage in which the artist, in front of the camera, sat alone, read books, played games, listened to music, watched television and ultimately, drank a bottle of red wine. The final result on film is only the aftermath of this binge, an erratic but intimate episode of self destruction. "Self Determined" explores the pressures of fulfilling roles and the desperation for distraction that ensues, such as alcoholism.
Kivinen practices as a performance artist, but has produced art in various mediums, including many works in the video art medium. Kivinen has previously performed at Don't Look Gallery under one of her three personas that have been the basis for many of her works over four years. Kivinen's exploration of roles and performance in her current exhibition takes a different direction, creating an intimate and confronting experience for those who seek it.
Unfurl
Martina Mrongovius (holographer), Sruli Recht (fashion designer)
WHEN: Opening December 28, 2007, 8pm, til mid January 2008
WHERE: Don't Look Gallery
419 New Canterbury Rd, Dulwich Hill
AND Make A Difference (MAD) Shop and Gallery,
55 Enmore Rd, Newtown
Appearing in two shop-front windows (Don't Look Gallery and Make A Difference, Newtown) over the New Year will be the life-size holograms, ‘Unfurl’. These incredible pieces blend digital and optical technology to present holographic images that stretch beyond reality.
The subtly animated images capture two figures, hesitantly emerging from a digitally generated holographic scene. As you approach they beckon you into their enchanting world, yet remain forever elusive, suspended in light.
Having captivated audiences in Melbourne the Unfurl holograms will be on public display over the New Year, bringing a little magic to the Sydney streets.
Unfurl is the result of a collaboration between holographic artist Martina Mrongovius and garment designer Sruli Recht. The holograms were commissioned by experimenta for the 2005 'Vanishing Point' exhibition and produced with the assistance of Mark Ruff, Ged Wright and Dr John Perry.
Martina Mrongovius (www.holographics.com.au) is one of the world's leading holographers, producing work in Australia, Germany, Korea and the USA. She has exhibited widely including holographic installations at the Center for the Holographic Arts in New York; Museo de Arte Cotempoaneo in Santiago and the HOLOcenter in Seoul. Martina constantly pushes the boundaries of this often misunderstood medium and is currently undertaking a PhD with the Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory at RMIT University.
Sruli Recht (www.srulirecht.com) is an experimental garment designer who entwines classic tailoring with creative geometry. Having studied and established his made to measure label in Melbourne, Sruli's studio is now based in Iceland. His creations of sculptured lines include one-off winter garments and in 2007 he debuted a collection of footwear that is being shown in New York and Paris.
For media and exhibition enquires contact: Martina Mrongovius 0412 617 866 martina@holographics.com.au, or Greg Shapley 0401 152 434 dontlookgallery@gmail.com
Siamo Ieri ['We Are Yesterday']
Greer and Julia Rochford
WHEN: Opening Dec 5, 6pm
Dec 6-15
‘That is our future; trying to finish our past.’
“'Angelus Novus' [a painting by Paul Klee] shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.” - Walter Benjamin
The headstone has, in the past, been the object that proves that we have both lived and died. Each film and photograph we have been part of can now be read like a headstone. As technology advances, our means of representing history and replacing (replicating, simulating and synthesising) reality advances too. Headstones, as markers of existence, have been abandoned and replaced with a myriad of technological tracings. The days when grieving widows and their children would make regular pilgrimages to graveyards are past, replaced with more 'personal' memorabilia. Old slides, movies, videos, etc. attest to the mundane existences of the dead as seen by them, or through them. It is these that we now use to mourn rather than their physical place of burial.
Our reality becomes one of layers; image upon image, one replacing the next while the other still exists. Personal histories become intertwined with the collective and ‘our story’ becomes increasingly insignificant. This exhibition is a fleshing out of our own personal history, a process of recovery and manipulation of archives; bringing them into the 21st century - into our own era.
Goatman and Friends
Liam Frost
WHEN: Opening Nov 21, 6pm
Nov 22-Dec 1
Don’t Look Gallery’s new exhibition is by fourteen-year old Dulwich Hill Visual Arts High School student, Liam Frost. His first exhibition, ‘Goatman and Friends’, explores a surreal character known as ‘Goatman’ and his daily life. Goatman is just a regular Joe, the epitome of mundanity, living in an surreal world; an Earth destroyed and taken over by the animals.
But he is also the saviour and lord of the world. A following of mysterious rigid cubes that grate against organic earthly remains are his disciples. Together he and the cubes ‘cure’ the world from a dystopia all too realistic for the animals of earth. Hundreds of thousands of years after human civilisation, this exhibition adventures through a world of carnage and death juxtaposed with the beauty of nature and life.
Frost combines his skillful illustrations with poetry, animation, sound and mechanics to produce a spellbinding show.
A daily routine for Goatman
Goatman wakes in the morning,
He makes his bacon and eggs,
He eats his bacon and eggs.
Goes to work,
He’s an accountant in some treetop.
On the weekends he likes to blow up buildings
And play marbles with the world.
A trail of floating cubes follow him
Transform coal into diamond.
Down the red carpet
Of some Melbourne alley,
Through the beating heart of illegality
And morality.
Goatman makes his dinner in the night,
He eats his dinner in the night,
Trades a suit for PJ’s
Then goes to sleep.
:the braille box:
Jessica Tyrrell
WHEN: Opening Wednesday November 7, 6pm
Thur November 8-17
:the braille box: by jessica tyrrell is an interactive,
audience-driven installation that uses a touch-driven Braille interface to trigger sound and video, immersing the gallery visitor in the inherent contradictions and poetics of vision and its "absence".
Approaching blindness as both a metaphor and a literal, documented, experience, :the braille box:, interrogates notions of cognition and sensorial perception, and questions our understanding of meaning and the construct of language.
Jessica Tyrrell is a new media artist, documentary filmmaker and poet, whose previous works explore, question and problematise the perceived normallity of experience. Her video art, short films and online documentaries have been included at various festivals in Australia, such Real Life on Film, ACMI and Liquid Architecture.
Friction
Eleanor Brickhill and Anne Walton
WHEN: CLOSING EVENT: Saturday November 3, 2007, 6pm
Public access will be from Thursday October 25 to Saturday November 3
Eleanor Brickhill is a dancer and performance artist interested in the exploration of the body. Anne Walton is a video artist who works with site-specific human-scale projections and live presence. Together they will be presenting 'Friction' in October/November at Don't Look Gallery.
Over four weeks Eleanor and Anne will create a dialogue between the very recent past and present by mapping imagery of their live performance in the gallery back on itself, affected and 'acted' upon in slight ways that seem mysterious and intriguing, and at times uncanny. The process of collaboration is a ‘site’ for them, a place to explore personal, material and even social boundaries. Through interrogation of the past by the present, present by the past, their experiences become hyper-sensory, almost raw to the touch.
Unlike traditional work whose end is marked by the beginning of its showing, 'Friction' is cumulative – it will begin with nothing and be created through events that occur in the space over time, and include visitations, overlaps, collisions and rubbings. In place of an opening, a 'closing' will celebrate some ideas explored throughout this time.
Public access will be from Thursday October 25 to Saturday November 3. CLOSING DRINKS: Saturday November 3, 2007, 6pm.
The Little Gallery That Could:
Don't Look's first Birthday!
WHEN: Friday September 14, 6pm
Thur August 6-23 (Thur-Sat 11-5)
We’ve had a reality TV star move his bedroom into our window, created audio-visual monstrosities that have threatened to take over the world, and had grass growing out of our floors and walls. We’ve been mistaken for a Retra-Vision, a brothel, and a shady place for getting your satellite TV hooked up illegally.
In its first year the pint-sized suburban shopfront known as Don’t Look Experimental New Media Gallery has covered a lot of ground. We’ve shown over 43 artists in 21 exhibitions, managing to catch the attention and imagination of many, including those who would not normally be seen dead looking at art.
This month, we’re turning one year old, and on Friday September 14, we intend to celebrate til the sun comes up. Also the Don’t Look Gallery launch of the Marrickville Art Prize, we invite all of the Inner-west (heck, the entire Southern Hemisphere) to do more than just eat cake. There’ll be lucky door prizes, an armchair critic’s award for the public and prizes (donated by local businesses) for artists in the current exhibition.
On Friday September 14, forget London, Paris, New York, Paddington or Newtown – Dulwich Hill is the Place to be seen!
Don't Look would like to thank the following businesses for their amazing support:
Click-A-Printer Australia
877 New Canterbury Rd Hurlstone Park 2193
(02) 9558 0180
Urban Natural Hair & Beauty
Shp1/ 682 New Canterbury Rd Hurlstone Park 2193
(02) 9573 0958
Gladstone Hotel
572 Marrickville Rd Dulwich Hill 2203
(02) 9569 1249
The Sound of Failure
Experimental Music in a Post-digital Era
WHEN/WHERE (TWO VENUES):
Saturday August 25, 6pm:
Petersham Bowling Club (Performances)
77 Brighton St, Petersham, NSW Australia
Hosted by the irrepressible Schappylle Scragg.
Saturday/Sunday August 25/26 11am-5pm:
DON'T LOOK Experimental New Media Gallery (Installations)
419 New Canterbury Rd (Near Marrickville Rd), Dulwich Hill,
NSW Australia. Endurance performances at Don’t Look Gallery from 12pm Sunday.
WHO:
PERFORMERS (Petersham Bowling Club):
Est Et Non, Tom Hall (Brisbane), Lecter Macabre, Marquis De Sound, Glen Remington, Starella, Vilhelm the Tortoise & Friends (Belgium), Alex White, Wun Thong
INSTALLATION ARTISTS/ENDURANCE PERFORMERS
(Don’t Look Gallery):
Catfingers, Cleaninglady, Gregory Chatonsky (Canada), The Contingent Ensemble, Wade Marynowsky, Lecter Macabre, Marquis De Sound, Monoperro, Eva Mueller, Vienna Parreno, Cara-Ann Simpson, Subscape Annex (USA)
WEB: http://soundoffailure.com for a complete program.
COST: $10 (Bowling Club), FREE (Gallery)
We live in an era of failure. On the global stage, the President of the most powerful country on earth has overseen thousands of deaths in two failed wars. In the third world the stench of poverty seeps through the pores of humanity in the guise of genocidal skirmishes, starvation and disease. Fundamentalists of all creeds goad each other like contestants on some new deadly reality TV show. And the optimism of the ’90s is washed away in a tide of apathy, indifference and hopelessness.
So where does this leave culture? If art is holding up a mirror to society, how long before the mirror shatters in sympathetic resonance to the horror it beholds?
A couple of months ago Don’t Look Gallery put out an open call to sound artists to propose a piece for an event called the ‘Sound of Failure’. From dozens of responses, 20 artists have been chosen to perform at Petersham Bowling Club on Saturday August 25, or to install works at Don’t Look Gallery, Dulwich Hill over the weekend of August 25/26.
These works generally employ technological failure, both as a euphemism for the state of the world, but also as a way of exposing, exploring and problematising the digital façade. These artists have attempted transcend the small rectangular screens and the latest Microsoft releases, opting instead to look at unintended consequences of technology – when it misbehaves or just gives up the goat.
Some artists use humour. Starella, for instance, juxtaposes ‘instruments’ such as ‘old wine bottles’ with digital technology and lyrics written on the backs of beer coasters. The failure in her musical sound comes from spending her life slipping through the gaps of every system she has known: family; society, and professional systems. In her performances she feels her way through drunken rants and musically attempts to determine what went wrong.
Others employ the literal failure of the technology itself. Tom Hall, a sound artist from Brisbane, uses the degenerate sounds formed from the destruction of flimsy CD media combined with the glitch/skip/malfunction from ageing and damaged CD players. These form the basis of a live performance that combine in a progressive and layered manner, juxtaposing the usual frustration experienced when one strikes this inferior malfunction.
A detailed program is available from http://soundoffailure.com.
Face-off
Red vs. Red
WHEN: Opening Wednesday August 1, 6pm
Thur August 2-11 (Thur-Sat 11-5)
We are all lepers....
As the leper was separated through material and social means, so are we through the performance of new media. We lose parts of our body through these interfaces. Communication is facilitated but it is also distorted, disrupted and finally, thwarted. The daily interaction through screens means that we communicate with each other, yet remain separate, invisible and masked.
Through the use of video projections, duct-tape and performance Red vs. Red will explore the idea of virtual dislocation. Invoking a primitavist physicality they will go through the very real process of wrapping themselves together with duct tape. The audience will be cut off from this sensory experience shared by the performers by the digital paraphernalia that, paradoxically, allows them to eventually experience it.
Roland Barthes referred to the process of taking a photo as a type of death – the moment frozen in the mausoleum that is the medium – fossilised for eternity, the point of immortalisation also signifying a loss of mortality. If this is so, then the vast array of digital media whizzing round the globe is an incessant slaughterhouse, turning every previous moment into an array of fine cuts for easy consumption.
Face-off uses digital media to critique its shortcomings. These ‘fine cuts’ will be on display along with other fossilised remnants of the ritual (including the duct tape ‘shell’ and life size photos). By presenting the ‘dead’ performance to a ‘live’ audience, this work will also explore the oppositional aspects of contemporary communication, of ‘my body versus your body’.
Distance Yourself
16 international artists:
Amber Phelps Bondaroff, Erin Bosenberg, Joy-Loi Chepkoech, Andrew Fisher, Nikolai Gauer, Amanda Griffith, Stefan Hancherow, Bonita Hatcher, Alana Hunt, Ryan Ling, Annie Macmillan, Gavin Maitland, Kristy O'Leary, Shaun O'Reilly, Audrey Wang and Anna Williams.
WHEN: Opening Wednesday July 18, 6pm
Thur July 19-28 (Thur-Sat 11-5)
How is it that two people inhabiting the same room can be worlds apart, while those separated by vast oceans can talk like they're sitting at the same table? Was Paul Simon on to something when he sang 'the nearer your destination the more you're slip slidin' away…' or have new amphetamine-laced communication technologies made distance irrelevant through the 'annihilation of space by time' as Karl Marx might have it?
Sixteen international, new-media artists, who last year shared a winter residence together in Halifax, Nova Scotia, have all contributed to this exhibition exploring questions of personal distance.
'When is a cigar, just a cigar?' asks Amber Phelps Bondaroff in her untitled work comprised of photographed dismembered body parts, ambiguous everyday objects and machines. In this work we experience dysmorphia, the feeling of being strangely disconnected from our own bodies, as the limbs in these images relate more to the other, mostly inanimate, photos than anything connected to our own torsoes.
Joy-Loi Chepkoech has constructed a Situationist-style performance that she will never see. Instructions have been flown half way round the world for unsuspecting exhibition attendees. From the moment these instructions left the hands of Chepkoech, they have taken on lives of their own. They will land indiscriminately in the laps of the audience, who will become reluctant performers. How will (cultural, social, political etc. etc.) distance affect these performances? Will any of them be 'true to the letter', or is 'true to the letter' meaningless in the face of such a great divide?
Performance by Xavier Querel (from Cellule D'Intervention Metakine - France)
WHEN: Jul 17, 8pm
Querel is a third of the internationally renowned audio-visual improvisation group Cellule D'Intervention Metakine, and is in Australia for a short time having just played at Liquid Architecture 8. We are extremely fortunate to have him playing at Don't Look
Gallery. The group has received rave reviews around the world for their innovative use of 16mm film and sound. Quoting from the Liquid Architecture 8 program "Through the magic of mirrors, multiple projectors and highly ingenious live on stage editing, Metamkine produces and directs a new film with each of their performances...
[they] have succeeded in pushing the boundaries of film and soundtrack into the realm of live performance — Utterly unique" This event is FREE
Dulwich Hill DayZZZe
Matt Rochford
WHEN: Opening Wednesday July 4, 6pm
Thur July 5-14
Matt Rochford (AKA 'Rochy' from 'Nerds FC') needs somewhere to live for a couple of weeks. I’ve offered him the gallery window. He will, of course, be furnishing it to his liking; installing his bed, TV, the odd pot plant or two and anything else he can fit into this very modest living area.
The downside to this arrangement is that he will be on constant display. He won’t be able to scratch his butt without the whole street seeing. Further, seeing he’s getting this space rent free, Matt will become my circus animal, my freak show. At least eight hours a day a commentator will provide thrilling updates on Matt’s every move. Every itch, every scratch will be analysed and replayed in slo-mo for the public’s edification.
I will also expect Matt to play to the camera and the transient audience. He will put on little performances to get the attention that he craves. He will try his best to communicate to the passing traffic with hand gestures and scribbled signs. Matt will also have houseguests. Come join the show, have a chat to Matt on his laissez-faire talk show. Have your 15 minutes of fame in Don’t Look’s front window.
Join us for Matt’s house warming on July 4. American Independence Day will mark the end of Matt’s independence for the next couple of weeks.
Misc. Too
Jen Teo
WHEN: Opening Wednesday June 20, 6pm
Thur June 21-30 (Thur-Sat 11-5)
Last year Dave O'Donoghue was invited into Don't Look Gallery and given eight hours to create an interactive audio monster from the stockpile of analogue equipment out the back. He successfully made a fragile, but amazing machine that relied on the interdependence of its components for continued existence.
This year, sound artist Jen Teo http://www.plumindustries.org has been invited to do her interpretation of a sonic Frankenstein. Morphing reel-to-reel tape recorders, fluorescent lights, timers,
record players, movie projectors, old television sets, radios, amps, speakers a variety of circuitry and numerous doo-dads, and wochamacallits, Teo will make a truly awe-inspiring rhizomic creation.
A physical web of circuitry, Teo's monster will encompass the audience, turning passive observers into vital components. Just like O'Donoghue, Teo will be making both a profound statement about obsolescence, and a captivating spectacle that will play on our minds long after the puzzle pieces have been severed from the collective and returned from whence they came.
Dog eat dog eat dog…
Michael Chahine
WHEN: Opening Wednesday June 6, 6pm
Thur May 7-16 (Thur-Sat 11-5)
In April 2004 in Lucknow India, a corrupt police commissioner decided to mark his birthday by giving away 5000 free saris. During this magnanimous gesture thousands of impoverished women stampeded – twenty one women were killed and hundreds injured. Installed in the gallery window, ‘Happy Birthday Commissioner’ is both a tribute to the women who died in this publicity stunt gone horribly wrong, and a comment on the cheap regard with which life is often held by figures of authority. A floating, shrouded, glowing figure (perhaps a ghost, Hindu woman, Muslim woman or Mother Mary) is given a starling image in place of a face; a distraught daughter who is holding her dead mothers baby, crushed in the rush to grab a shred of cloth.
…Travelling into the gallery and through Brazil, ‘Copa Cao Bana’ illustrates a disturbing reality: The pampered pets of the Brazilian bourgeoisie are treated better (much better) than the majority of the country’s population. Prissy upper and middle-class matrons parade their precious canines obscenely in front of the homeless and destitute. Life size cut-outs reconstruct this scene for us. The terriers and poodles are immaculately groomed – many have had their fur dyed accentuating the owners’ beliefs that these toys dogs are more human than the filth that line the streets. To the artist, this conspicuous wealth is the ultimate insult to all who are unable to share in this extremity.
…Beyond Brazil we face China ’87 where Ronald Reagan is playing with balls. In this work we have a real photo of a billboard featuring a painting of Ronald Reagan (a strong symbol of anti-communist cold war propaganda) advertising Chinese meditation balls and other products. The surrealism of this bizarre juxtaposition is heightened with the inclusion of a stripped box with a protruding mechanical hand that ‘juggles’ two of these balls (a comment on the short surrealist film by Bunuel and Dali entitled ‘Un Chien Andalou’). This piece highlights the artists fascination with the paradoxical and uncanny.
Previous exhibitions and performances include...
Cultural Herdings
Chris Retallack
WHEN: Opening Wednesday May 2, 6pm
Thur May 3-12 (Thur-Sat 11-5)
Chris Retallack is a God. Perhaps not THE God, but definitely a God. As such, he has created minions in his own image (admittedly, though, the resemblance is a tad vague – this God was not wearing his specs on the morning of creation).
Retallack’s spawn line the floor and ceiling of Don’t Look Gallery. These creatures may look the same upon first glance. But their colours vary slightly and they are all, in fact, unique.
There is a question that is, however, troubling our God. Did he create merely to be seen, adored, worshipped and feared by his creations? Further, by breathing life into these hordes, has he given purpose to, indeed ‘created’, himself? If a tree falls in the woods does it make a sound if no one hears it? Are Gods, Gods if they have no ‘creations’ to fawn over them?
Kudos: That which is heard of
Sofie Loizou, Carolyn Teo and Jennifer Teo
WHEN: Opening Wednesday April 11, 6pm
Thur April 12 - Sat March 28 (Thur-Sat 11-5)
Sofie Loizou, Carolyn Teo and Jennifer Teo use interactive sound and light to explore the personal terrain of contemplation, semiotics, female objectification and human interface. This exhibition is about concepts of perspective and differing perspectives. These are three renaissance women who are seeing the world anew – through eyes against the grain.
'Contemplating Space' by Jen Teo is a three dimensional paper pixel installation that explores light through space. As light from the outside passes through the window, the wall of paper curls glows a radiant blue, casting circular shadows on the floor that change as the day passes. Looking through the wall from the inside out, the tangible world outside is viewed in a pixelated form. 'Contemplating Space' is about taking a step back – pixelating what you see in place of focussing.
'Men die. Grass dies. Men are grass' is, according to Greg Bateson the 'logic of schizophrenics, metaphor and living things.' Sofie Loizou explores this fuzzy, but compelling world outlook in 'People are Grass'. Elements of the exhibition are triggered by audience reaction and interaction.
In another work, 'Shimmer' Loizou has created a new experimental sound instrument. The intention of the machine is to create an audio image of the desert mirage. Invoking meditative states through to tumultuous crescendos, the 'Shimmer' is at home in many audio(-visual) environments, from orchestras to installations.
Carolyn Teo's Kudo is an interactive sound game where a score is created by plotting a kudos graph. The graph acts as a forecast for potential relationships based on incidents and interaction between two people. The result is an audio representation of the current status of play and whether the personal investment in the relationship is worth pursuing.
'Blue Ladies' is based on a painting by Vladimir Tretchikoff, entitled "The Chinese Girl" (commonly known as the 'Blue Lady'). This piece by Carolyn Teo is a commentary on how women have been perceived as objects for the male gaze, particularly those of different backgrounds who have been considered "exotic" and sexualised according to race.
Also by Carolyn Teo, 'Almost Obselete' focuses on the sounds of a disappearing era in which analogue warmth is being overtaken by digital convenience. For many of us our first music sound experience was analogue, either vinyl records or cassette tapes. CDs and mp3s are comprised of sound that's more crisp and artificial, the warmer tones of the analogue recording lost to its digital contemporary. For the vinyl enthusiast this has taken away the tactile nature of holding a record - its largeness, cover art and its great plastic feel.
All of these seemingly disparate works have one thing in common; they challenge us to take a conceptual walk around what we think we're seeing and hearing. They are living pieces that are constantly insisting on conversation – incessantly asking 'is this my good side?'
Diane's Dollhouse
By Rochford, Nouveau & Kivinen
WHEN: 2 Performances: Saturday March 31, 7:30pm
Thursday April 5, 9pm
Decadence, elegance, light, dark...
Your host, Carolina, cordially invites you to experience an alternate world, a night in which ritual magic and burlesque theatre meld in a unique, playful performance by Rochford and Nouveau. Burlesque has a long and varied history, its earliest appearances in Victorian music
hall and vaudeville performances. Audiences were entertained by everything from slapstick comedy to satire, but this variety of theatre has now become synonymous with the sensual and the exotic.
Burlesque today combines the glamorous with the forbidden, but, unlike your average strip show, burlesque is not just about what the audience wants to see, it is an experience based on what the performer allows them to see.
Through the ritual performance of magic spells, 'Diane's Dollhouse' tells a narrative of fantasy, delving into the desire to be loved. Enter a world of musical, physical theatre in which Nouveau's teasing, titillating and captivating vocals soar above Rochford's bed of other-worldly eclectic soundscopia.
The night's host, Carolina, is played by Sari Kivinen, a
character-based performance artist, who will also be exorcising her own neurosis during the course of the show.
Paper Waltz
By Laura McLean and Andrew Newman
WHEN: Opening Wednesday March 14, 6pm
Thur March 15 - Sat March 24 (Thur-Sat 11-5)
If 'the first casualty of war is truth' then is it also the case that this truth lies somewhere between the extremities; between right and wrong, good and bad, between being 'with us' or 'against us'?
'Paper Waltz' explores the binaries that are foisted upon us in times of conflict; how we are forced to make decisions 'one way or the other'. The middle ground is gone, swept away in the polarisation of fear and suspicion. The 'sensible option' becomes an uninhabitable 'no man's land' and desperation seeps into all areas of life, including personal relationships.
The young boyfriend-girlfriend inhabitants of pre-war playgrounds are turned by the insecurity of the battlefield into husband-wife (the stark noir-ness of WWII movies echo these rushed consummations). This 'war-time' is accelerated and exaggerated; it is, by its very nature, sentimental. Reminiscences of these moments therefore become hyper-sentimentalised.
McLean and Newman portray this hyper-sentimentality with a series of black and white figures -- cutouts that dance like clockwork, on clockwork. They move jerkily to the binary tick-tock of timepieces that count down their impending separation. But this dance never ends,
because it never really began. It is a figment of our collective imaginations that is invented in times of dire consequence to humanise these experiences. These apparitions stick in our minds and in our throats, marking the only bearable moments in otherwise inconceivable
circumstances.
The Adventures of Sprite
By Tanya Richards
WHEN: Opening Wednesday February 28, 6pm
Thur Mar 1 - Sat Mar 10 (Thur-Sat 11-5)
Why is it that clowns are at home both at children’s parties and in nightmares?
In a creative exploration of the Jungian concept of Persona, Tanya Richards invokes her alter ego, a slightly deranged clown called Sprite.
Sprite, through video, sound and performance, explores the tension between conformity and the individual in the construction of self. We all wear ‘masks’ to cope with everyday life. We act differently, depending on who we’re talking to, and what we’re doing. ‘Masks’ help us put up with the mundane and tedious, as well as the unexpected and shocking, but at what cost?
In this exhibition, Sprite challenges the distraction, boredom, fantasy and psychotic behaviour that often lurk behind the acceptance of repetitious everyday experiences. By revealing the moral constructs behind fairy tales and rhymes (the keepers of much modern-day morality), Sprite smashes the spectacle laying bare the forced facades of modern existence.
Practically, she does this by weaving herself into the well-trodden paths of staid childhood stories and verse. By rupturing tales that should run ‘automatically’, she forces us to sit up and take notice – to ‘think’ about what we’re seeing and hearing instead of humming along to some mystical hermetically-sealed mantra.
TechnoToxic: New lives of e-waste
By Graham Chalcroft
WHEN: Opening Thursday February 15, 6pm
Fri Feb 16 - Sat Feb 24 (Thur-Sat 11-5)
Heavy metal menaces are rising from the dumps and sewers and terrorizing our neighbourhoods. This amalgam of wires, printed circuit boards and computer parts are not, however, as alien as they seem.Look close enough at these e-waste enigmas and you see a human face…
[Often seen discarded in back lanes or stacked up next to charity bins, e-waste – comprising outdated computers, blown monitors and the like – is laced with lead, mercury and other toxins. Disposal (or preferably, reuse) of electronic components is one of the greatest challenges we face in the 21st century.]
…Graham Chalcroft, public artist and arts educator, has captured a number of these monsters and put them on display in Don't Look Gallery. Using a dizzying array of electronic paraphernalia combined with mannequin torsos and other (sub)human parts, Chalcroft has created a field of inhuman electro-zombies rising from a human-created quagmire. It is a metaphor, but it is also a stunning allusion – a sci-fi vision more terrifying than any big-budget blockbuster.
Teen Dream
By Jack Dunbar
WHEN: Opening Wednesday January 31, 6pm
Thurs Feb 1 - Sat Feb 10
The rise of the middle classes, compulsory schooling and the outlawing of child labour all gave rise to the phenomenon of the 'teen'. This 'in-between' period has generated an industry that exists between childhood innocence and raunch culture – between teddy bears and girly mags.
Jack Dunbar has constructed a personal response to the social construction of the male teen using evocative imagery projected from lightboxes installed in the ceiling. Like oil and water these constellation-like projections contrast uneasily with our teen's bedroom below. There is something voyeuristic about this scene. We are viewing a boy's private world – one that is becoming a bit too
comfortable and a little outgrown. At the same time we are privy to his media-constructed fantasia – the supposed ideal construction of beauty – of womanhood. This 'ideal world' however, is beyond his reach and quite terrifying to the adolescent.
Dunbar has created a rare opportunity to gaze into the
hormonally-charged world of a teenage boy. Filled with memories, expectations and fears, we see beyond the usual PR opportunities for 'teen' marketers into a more nuanced topography.
A Book for No Good Reason
by Pickafight Books (a williams with special guests Jordan Woods and Bernard)
WHEN: Opening Wednesday January 17, 6pm
Thurs Jan 18 - Sat Jan 27 (Thur-Sat 11-5)
To say that a williams makes books is like saying that an actor merely reads lines. a williams is a maker of artist's books. He stiches and binds, but he does much more than that. a williams 'performs' books - the narrative, or content is focused around the performance of making
the book.
Thus his books are much more than just words on a page (in fact, they aren't 'words on a page' at all), they are sculptural objects. For instance, in his upcoming exhibition at Don't Look Gallery, we see a video of the artist at work.
In creating 'IncendDIARY', a williams (and co-collaborator Jordan Woods) fill the insides of books with sparklers, then blow the living daylights out of them. This destructive, but spectacular, act evokes the destruction of knowledge through the glorification of war, perhaps illustrating the old adage that, 'the first casualty of war is truth'. The charred remains of these books are exhibited like evidence at a murder trial.
Most of his books don't meet such violent ends, however, but all of them have 'lived' - they have all survived performance, and as a result, can be read as texts (despite having no printed words).
The 'Information Bomb' is the result of a performance of a character. This character believes that if he or she combines a book (a container for information) with some ink (the revealer of information), an aerial (the transmitter of information) and a switch (to make the thing work), that they will be able to make a successful book - perhaps a book that is more technologically advanced than others.
He describes this work as a 'prototype that never got through the patent office, made by an inbred savant who grew up in a caravan park on the Gold Coast' (a description that a williams thinks is a little too close to his own for comfort).
Another work, entitled 'Preservation', is comprised of a book that has been preserved in alcohol in the hope the book will 'last for future generations' - yet ironically it has been ruined in the process. The way it has been preserved denies access to that which it is trying to
preserve. The object itself has been confused with the knowledge it contains and the book has been preserved at the cost of that which it holds.
To a williams it is the lived experience of a book that matters. In the words of the artist; "It's not what's in a book, who wrote it or what it's about; but what you DO TO IT that really counts..."
a williams wishes to thank the Haswell and Macleay Museums at the University of Sydney, Marrickville Council and Southern Cross University for their assistance and support of this project.
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