A Response by a Fringe Dweller
Debates about what is mainstream, whether in global or national terms, seem to perennial. Some have claimed Aboriginal art is now mainstream. Stephanie Radok takes this notion apart.
More from this Issue
Fakery and Fabrication in Photomedia
A series of photographs, still images from Monika Tichaceks 2002 video/performance work Lineage of the Divine, were exhibited in Japan in Supernatural Artificial, an exhibition of nine contemporary Australian photomedia artists. Tichacek exploits a heightened intimacy between viewer and work to construct complex and ambiguous scenarios that simultaneously delight, unsettle and confound.
Towards Ubuntu: The Way of the South
Melbourne is the host city of the South Project, a project designed to celebrate the creative energies of people living in the southern hemisphere and create south-south dialogue between artists of the countries of the south. South 1 encouraged all kinds of responses: philosophical and whimsical, creative and conceptual, contesting and renewing ideas, in the first gathering of its kind.
The New Cosmopolitans
During his visit to Melbourne in April this year, Bombay-born, Oxford-educated, Harvard professor, Homi Bhabha spoke of Vernacular Cosmopolitanism, the global citizenry of refugees, economic migrants and minorities within cultures who must learn about translation because you survive that way.
Shifting Gears: Asian Traffic
Asian Traffic was, outside the Asia-Pacific Triennial (APT), one of the most ambitious efforts undertaken in Australia aimed at exploring the multifarious nature of new Asian art and its complex intersection with contemporary Australian culture. Visitors were forced to join the Asian Traffic coming and going from the Asia-Australia Centre in Chinatown, Sydney, and in its ever-changing guises and fluid shifts in direction, the project successfully circumvented any traffic jams.
The City of Light: Video Projection and Public Art in Adelaide
The recent initiative of the Adelaide City Councils Public Art Program Luminosity has seen the commissioning and exhibition of five temporal public art projections between June and December of 2004. The objectives of the initiative aim to foster the Citys image as a centre of creativity and innovation, supporting established and emerging artists through the encouragement of quality new media art, thus making a contribution to the social and cultural substance of the city space.
'Aboriginalism' in Europe: On the Way Out?
Subsequent to Nicholls three month residency in several European regions, she has been examining some of the ways in which Australian Aboriginal art is currently being perceived, received and curated in this part of the world. As she states, the Salzburger Kunstvereins programme, juxtaposing photographic works and video installations by Destiny Deacon and Lisl Ponger was the only one of the four European Indigenous art exhibitions she saw that made any serious and genuine effort to address the postcolonial legacy of Anglo-European colonialism.
SenseSurround: Empathy Between Human and Machine
The artists featured in ACMIs latest exhibition of new media work, SenseSurround, both use and develop cutting edge audio/visual technology to enhance sensorial experience for the spectator. The idea was to use the film soundtrack to trigger massively boosted low frequency signals, below the audible threshold, in the theatres. This would cause vibrations of the ear-drum and the body of the spectator and provide the sensation of earth tremors.
Virtuous Networks
While many art institutions are just coming to terms with incorporating networked media into their exhibition programs, the genres have been exponentially expanding and mutating. In recognition of the newly hatched species that is networked media art, the ISEA2004 (the nomadic biennial festival held in Finland, Estonia and onboard a Baltic cruise ship) and the Australian ARS ELECTRONICA, dedicated a stream of their conference and exhibition programs to networked themes.
SameDifference: 04 Biennale of Electronic Arts, Perth (BEAP)
SameDifference 04 Biennale of Electronic Arts, Perth (BEAP). Director: Paul Thomas www.beap.org DistributedDifference: Cultures of Conflict The Bank, Midland, Perth, 10 Sept -12 Nov. Curator: Jeremy Blank. SonicDifference: Resounding the World The Moores Building Contemporary Art Gallery, Fremantle, 9 Sept 10 Oct. Curator: Nigel Helyer. Drift Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, 26 Aug -26 Sept. Curator: Bec Dean.