The A-gender of Cute Capital

One the one hand the notion of the cute is seemingly universal and yet it is marked by specific cultural indices and contextual factors. The possible modes of employing the cute is evidenced by the practices of Australian artists Martine Corompt and Kate Beynon. Both artists have a strong interest in character culture (ie. comics, cartoons) and their associated vernaculars; in turn they explore and outline different types of cute landscapes. Both artists use ambiguity in the case of gender representation and utilise aspects of eastern and western contexts and character traits to create works which reinforce and subvert the constructions of gender, class and culture within the universal graphic language.

More from this Issue

Australian New Media: An Active Circuit

Through a process of active lobbying by various people around the country in the mid-eighties, the funding and institutional support for art and technology practice in Australia began to materialise. Some key figures in this push were Stephanie Britton, Louise Dauth and Gary Warner who saw the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) come into existence. The progress of the Australian new media arts scene is here documented from these early years and the various initiatives and supportive programs and events through to what is now the fundamental arts and cultural practice of the twentieth century. Artists Maria Miranda, Norie Neumark and Mari Velonaki are featured.

Julianne Pierce

Rosella Namok: mepla sarbie paint

Andrew Baker Art Dealer Brisbane 8 June - 4 July 2001

Janice Peacock

Out of Australia: International Exposure

This article poses the question of what new media art exhibitions, as international exports, can offer to us as a nation, as a new media community and as individual artists, and of how they can function in terms of the transmission and propagation of certain ideas and images into what might be called the world brain. To discuss this Wallace looks at the structure and outcomes of PROBE, the first large-scale exhibition of contemporary, new media art ever held in Beijing which featured the work of Patricia Piccinini, Justine Cooper, Leon Cmielewski/Josephine Starrs, Brenda L. Croft, Zen Yipu and Jen Seevink, as well as including a range of internet sites.

Linda Wallace

Hossein Valamanesh: a survey

Art Gallery of South Australia Adelaide 29 June - 26 August 2001

Ken Orchard

Inframedia Audio: Glitches and Tape Hiss

This article focuses on that which is known as sound art, new media art or if a label is required the best might be simply audio. It is not so much a sound as a transparent substrate for organised expression but rather sound being mediated, synthesised, generated, collaged. Furthermore this article looks at the in-between sounds - the glitches, clicks, pops, and CD-skips - with many artists drawing on these entropic internal workings of audio processing systems. Artists include Nam June Paik, Minit, David Haines, Vicky Browne, Andrew Gadow and Netochka Nezvanova.

Mitchell Whitelaw

No access, Terry Summers Head-on, Kim Demuth Full stop, Sam Sexton

Soapbox Gallery, Brisbane 1-27 June 2001

David Broker

Digital Drawing: The Same But Different

Drawing - the use of line and tone - is at the other end of a technology timeline currently unravelling in the digital age of information. The theory and practice of drawing ranges from a tool for honing perceptual disciplines to one that permits the free-flow of the obsessive-compulsive component of our personalities. Leggett looks at the works of artists Paul Thomas, Maria Miranda, Harriet Birks, Alyssa Rothwell, Mr Snow, Peter Callas, Simon Biggs and Damien Everett and the various digital tools they employ to assist in the documenting and drawing out of their individual ideas.

Mike Leggett

Yorga Moorntuk/Joyce Winsley 1938-2001

Yorga Moorntuk/Joyce Winsley 1938 - 2001

Nalda Searles and Vivonne Thwaites

Jon McCormack's Evolving Ethics

Most readers would probably have noticed that talk about A-life technology (or any technology for that matter) has a definite shelf life. Liminal Product [LP] quizzed internationally acclaimed computer artist Jon McCormack, whose paper [Re]Designing Nature given at dLux media arts FutureScreen symposium on Artificial Life in October 2000, and recent piece, Eden exhibited at Cyber Cultures, Casula Powerhouse, in the same year, articulate many of the concerns about A-Life that Australian artists grapple with.

Liminal Product

Stephen Wickham/Stefan Weisz: Photographs

Stephen McLaughlan Gallery Melbourne 6 - 30 June 2001

Christopher Heathcote

The E-volution of New Media Art

Kathy Cleland

Fresh Portals for the Caravanserai: art and new media in India and Australia

In Delhi early in 2001, a new media research and development program Sarai: The New Media Initiative was launched carrying the energy and quality of intellectual exchange embedded within the history of the caravanserai, translated through the colourful codes, cants and images of public urban life within India's cities. Sarai is a bold initiative facilitating formal and informal partnerships within India and internationally between the likes of hackers, philosophers, artists, media theorists, graphic designers, anthropologists, filmmakers and software developers. Some of the names which appear in this article include Meena Nanji, Rehan Ansari, Graham Harwood, Monica Narula, Sarah Neville, Mari Velonaki and Mukhul Kesevan.

Samara Mitchell

View all articles in this issue