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Time

Art and time have much in common including the fact that they are both very hard to pin down. Art seems to have the ability to freeze or stretch time; it is a medium for imagining future scenarios and retrieving the past. Philosophical notions of time such as the non-specific dimension of Aboriginal Dreamtime are explored by Ian McLean and teleportation by Melentie Pandilowski. In a special section commissioned by Ben Eltham, authors investigate microtime, deep time, duration itself as a subject of art, together with things that decay over time or relate to memory or death. Ulanda Blair surveys the Yokohama Triennial and its theme Time Crevasse. A major essay by Laurence Simmons places the moving image 'time slice' work of Daniel Crooks in the context of the 19th Century science which first captured movement on film. Adrian Martin explores the parallel careers of filmmakers Victor Erice (Spain) and Abbas Kiarostami (Iran). Other features include Stephanie Radok on the currency of Aboriginal art, Djon Mundine on ethical dilemmas for prize judges and curators and Lucas Ihlein on Donald Brook's new book The Awful Truth about What Art Is.


Topic list: death, disintegration, electronic culture, globalism, indigenous culture, new technology.

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Articles in vol 29 no 1, 2009

About visual imagery, intuition, and teleportation
Feature by Melentie Pandilowski

Melentie Pandilovski's article is adapted from a paper he gave at the ISEA conference in Singapore in 2008. He writes about interactions between the arts, science and technology through looking at the work of British artist Lei Cox's work Teleportation Experiment. — More »

Atomic Clock: microtime of the molecular and good old-fashioned molar beer
Feature - commissioned by Ben Eltham by Ann Finegan

The responses of digital artists David Haines, Jon Hunter and Pete Newman to the molecular scale on which our world is now micromanaged are contrasted with the work of the late Jon Wah whose work stopped time with a saddhu-like discipline of the will. Jon Wah died in August 2008, aged 27. A posthumous retrospective was held for him at Serial Space, Chippendale, Sydney, 8-18 December 2008. — More »

Crystalline signs of the small and poetic
Feature - commissioned by Ben Eltham by Danni Zuvela

In Audrey Lam's Under Development (2007), two detectives investigating a murder seek answers in an ominous, half-built structure. Close attention to the lush, inky compositions reveals the frozen temporality of a Brisbane landmark: the film records the historic erection of the Gallery of Modern Art. — More »

Daniel Crooks: the future of the past
Feature by Laurence Simmons

An edited version of a lecture by Laurence Simmons, Associate Professor in the Department of Film, Television and Media Studies at the University of Auckland, given in association with Daniel Crooks' exhibition everywhere instantly curated by Justin Paton at the Christchurch Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu in 2008. Simmons links Crooks' work to Walter Benjamin's Angel of History and the experiments of Etienne-Jules Marey, the inventor of chronophotography. — More »

dreamTime
Feature by Ian McLean

An analysis of Aboriginal conceptions of time and its similarity to the ideas of modern physics, science fiction, and those of artists such as Monet, Cézanne, Picasso, Breton, Klein and Richter, and philosophers such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, Benjamin, Deleuze and Derrida. They too have sought to feel and know spacetime in the pressing and intimate way that Aborigines do. — More »

Enduring duration
Feature - commissioned by Ben Eltham by Jo Skinner

Two video artists William Mansfield and William Lamson whose recent works pay homage to the 'poetics of the banal' and the history of durational practice. — More »

Ghost in the backyard
Feature - commissioned by Ben Eltham by Kate Sandford

Using the work of two current Antipodean artists, Amy-Jo Jory and David Pledger, Melbourne-based Kate Sandford explores the place of suburbia in our consciousness and the way that even though real suburbia has changed, some representations of it have stayed the same. — More »

Joe Felber: Moments of time
Feature by Lisa Harms and Stephanie Radok

Joe Felber's art practice is interdisciplinary and acquisitive, absorbing, assembling, composing and de-composing, playing and re-playing elements from a vast collection of fragments collected across the world in cities and art galleries. — More »

Life and times: Eternal wake in three chapters
Feature - commissioned by Ben Eltham by Tai Snaith

Life. Death. Thereafter was at Silvershot Gallery in Melbourne from 16 September – 29 November 2008. Melbourne-based curator Mark Feary produced a relatively new exhibition model, three separate, distinct, but thematically entwined shows, running end to end for eighteen days each showing the work of Kate Just, Steve Carr, Patricia Piccinini, Paolo Canevari, Rob McLeish, Ronnie van Hout, Jesper Just, Jason Greig, Sally Blenheim and Blair Trethowan. — More »

OK with my decay: Encounters with chronology
Feature - commissioned by Ben Eltham by Simon Gregg

Susan Milne, Izabela Pluta, Annie Hogan and Hannah Bertram work with the idea of the theatre of decline set within the grounds of the domestic environment. — More »

On talking walls Full article available
Feature - commissioned by Ben Eltham by Philip Watkins

Recent sound and electronic media work by two Tasmanian artists Scot Cotterell and Matt Warren remaster images and sounds from older technology to make a past-present present. — More »

Planning for deep time: Nuclear monuments and Aboriginal art Full article available
Feature - commissioned by Ben Eltham by Darren Jorgensen

Darren Jorgensen tackles the topic of nuclear waste and the possible plan to make Australia the dump site. If this were to occur the affect it would have on the Australian land as well as the Aboriginal communities that inhabit it would be quiet destructive and detrimental. Jorgensen explains the situation whereby foreign countries seek to dump their nuclear waste in Australian land by bribing its inhabitants for the right to do so. In addition to this Jorgensen also explains the nature of monuments and its significance towards portraying an indexical symbol of, in this situation, danger by exploring the involvement of aboriginal artists in relation to the creation of such monuments. — More »

Time and motion studies: Twin strategies
Feature - commissioned by Ben Eltham by Anna Bagshaw

Gabriella and Silvana Mangano undertake their art as a shared style of communication between siblings. Now showing at MUMA (Monash University Museum of Art) their collaborative work embraces intimacy and repetition in performance, drawing, video, sound and installation. — More »

Avoiding myth and message: Australian artists and the literary world Full article available
Preview by Artlink

avoiding myth and message: Australia artist and the literary world, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney 7 April – 12 July 2009, curator: Glenn Barkley. — More »

Jeffrey Smart: The question of portraiture
Preview by Artlink

Jeffrey Smart: the question of portraiture, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, 4 March - 13 April, 2009. — More »

Better Places Full article available
Review by Gregory Pryor

Better Places Curator: Melissa Keys Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) 4 December 2008 – 1 February 2009 — More »

Contemporary Australia: Optimism Full article available
Review by Sally Butler

Contemporary Australia: Optimism Curatorial Manager: Julie Ewington Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), Brisbane 15 November 2008 – 22 February 2009 — More »

Discord: Art from MONA Full article available
Review by Lucy Hawthorne

Discord: Art from MONA Curator: Nicole Durling 9 January – 1 February 2009 Salamanca Arts Centre and various locations — More »

Girls, Girls, Girls Full article available
Review by Emily Cormack

Girls, Girls, Girls Carlton Hotel, Melbourne Curators: Lyndal Walker, Nat Thomas 23 October – 8 November 2008 — More »

Gooch's Utopia: collected works from the Central Desert Full article available
Review by Janet Maughan

Gooch's Utopia: collected works from the Central Desert Curator: Fiona Salmon Flinders University Art Museum 3 October – 23 November 2008 Riddoch Art Gallery 5 December 2008 – 8 February 2009 — More »

Lockhart River 'Old Girls' Full article available
Review by Timothy Morrell

Lockhart River 'Old Girls' Andrew Baker Art Dealer, Brisbane 26 November – 20 December 2008 — More »

Open Air: Portraits in the landscape Full article available
Review by Jenny McFarlane

Open Air: Portraits in the landscape Curators: Wally Caruana, Michael Desmond, Andrew Sayers National Portrait Gallery (NPG) 4 December 2008 – 1 March 2009 — More »

Passage Full article available
Review by Jane Stewart

Passage Sara Maher Moonah Arts Centre, Hobart 10 – 23 December 2008 — More »

Patricia Piccinini: Related Individuals Full article available
Review by Sarah Hetherington

Patricia Piccinini: Related Individuals Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney 12 November – 6 December 2008 — More »

Rosalie Gascoigne Full article available
Review by Juliette Peers

Rosalie Gascoigne The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia 19 December 2008 – 15 March 2009 Curator: Kelly Gelatly — More »

Silver Artrage 25 Full article available
Review by Thelma John

Silver Artrage 25 Curators: Andrew Gaynor, Marcus Canning Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) 18 October – 21 November 2008 — More »

The Christmas Tree Bucket: Trent Parke's Family Album Full article available
Review by Margaret Farmer

The Christmas Tree Bucket: Trent Parke's Family Album Australian Centre for Photography 21 November 2008 – 24 January 2009 — More »

Trades Full article available
Review by Emma Bitmead

Trades JamFactory Contemporary Craft and Design 24 October – 7 December 2008 — More »



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