Sympathy for the Devil: the creatures of Julia Robinson

South Australian artist Julia Robinson's striking sculpture draws on the darkness in human culture that has often been represented by goats. Made from fibreglass and snugly covered in fabric they assume strange forms and positions that give them a "reverberating energy".

Published December 2011

Flight of the Cicada: Susan Purdy's insect photograms

The inaugural Watermark Literary Fellow Carolyn Leach-Paholski describes the black and white photograms of Susan Purdy which were made in the course of a long wet winter.

Published December 2011

World Summit on Arts & Culture

Executive Director of NAVA Tamara Winikoff missed the voices of artists at the October 2011 World Summit on Arts & Culture in Melbourne.

Published December 2011

Radical Ethology: Jussi Parikka's Insect Media

In his meditations on the recently published book Insect Media by Jussi Parikka, the New York-based staff writer for Rhizome at the New Museum Jacob Gaboury suggests that the dehumanisation of media technologies may be seen as engaging with the world in a form of non-human affect.

Published December 2011

Caterpillar Country

Alice Springs-based writer Kieran Finnane describes the caterpillar dreaming in the Alice Springs area. She draws attention to changing attitudes over the years towards traditional custodians and the places they care for.

Published December 2011

Chromophobes, Xenophones and Lots of Textas

Kirsten Farrell muses on colourphobia through her life, her Phd and her reading of the book Colourphobia (2000) by David Batchelor

Published December 2011

Insects as Art Lovers: Bees for Van Gogh

Installation artist Julian Walker and insect scientist Lars Chittka collaborated on an experiment to see if bees were art critics, distinguishing between yellows, flowers and artists.

Published December 2011

Cephalopods: Colour on demand

Octopuses come in many colours and they keep changing. Kate Chmiel explores their exceptional use of colour and what it might mean to humans.
As Denis Baylor points out in his 1995 book 'Colour: Art and Science': "The rich colours that we see are inventions of the nervous system rather than properties of light itself."

Published December 2011

The Digital attribution of Colour

Director of Sydney-based New Media Curation Deborah Turnbull explores the way colour choices in a digital environment involve ideological and philosophical dimensions as well as aesthetic ones.

Published December 2011

Impending Encounter

Published December 2011

Transplanting Life: the distributed media of embodied selves. The Body is a big place

Personality psychologist at Macquarie University Doris McIlwain does yoga and throws pots. She writes about new media installation 'The Body is a Big Place' the recent work of Peta Clancy and Helen Pynor which deals with the complexities of organ donation.

Published December 2011

Speaking in Colour

Artist and curator Una Rey writes about the exhibition 'Speaking in colour' that she curated for the Newcastle Gallery from their collection in March-May 2011. Her experience of working with Indigenous artists in Central Australia coloured her choices and her interpretations of them.

Published December 2011