"People doing strange things with electricity!"
The international Dorkbot movement has set up a nest in Adelaide!
So what is this Dorkbot thing?
Dorkbot-Adelaide is part of a new worldwide movement of artists, engineers, designers and hackers who meet to explore and discuss strange or new ways to use electricity and technology.
Each dorkbot is different and is driven by the needs and interests of people in the local community. But generally, the main goals of dorkbot are: to create an informal, friendly environment in which people can talk about the work they’re doing and to foster discussion about that work; to help bring together people from different backgrounds who are interested in similar things; to give us all an opportunity to see the strange things our neighbors are doing with electricity. dorkbot isn’t really a forum for formal artist talks or lectures, but rather a chance for diverse people to have friendly conversations about interesting ideas.
When is it?!
The second Dorkbot meeting is upon us! So get your electronic thinking caps out, your coffee cups ready, and come along for some strange inspiration of the electric kind.
Feel free to share your ideas and projects and meet other locals that are doing strange things with electricity, or simply sit back and listen to the presentations and get inspired.
Date: Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Time: 7:00pm - 9:00pm
Location: Schulz Building, Level 5, University of Adelaide
Street: Kintore Avenue
City/Town: Adelaide, Australia
Visit the official website: http://dorkbot.org/dorkobtadelaide
Or join the Facebook page: Dorkbot on Facebook
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Undergrowth
Something strange is afoot in the Blackwood Forest Recreation Park. Saved from the plague of urban sprawl by local residents, this patch of rare earth and its protectors can now get on with its rehabilitation, and with art. Hence the new Seedling Art Space has sprung up, quietly, humbly, almost unnoticeably under the spreading canopy of an old oak tree. Or is the little cottage just sinking back into the soil?
The stone building was once the office of the Woods and Forest Department. With a foot print less than twenty-five square metres, it is like something one may stumble upon in a fairytale clearing.
…Little cottage in the wood, little girl by the window stood…
Annalise Rees is the artist who has spent some months at the window, and Undergrowth is her response to the building and the open air around it. Rees brings to light the understorey, the tale hidden beneath the meta-narrative, the life in the leaf litter. A whole world exists in this tiny realm; a person’s working days were passed in this ‘one little room, an everywhere.’[i] Now the building is a frame and the viewer is held at bay by iron bars, looking, not touching. Invited in yet confounded at the last instance by solid reality. Someone has been inside, drawing on the walls, and we can only wonder.
But walls can breathe, and it seems that stone is permeable after all. The empty window frames allow the transgression of boundaries and the outside comes in. The earth has her memories too. Undergrowth has begun to reclaim this site, making a verdant ruin of the sensible structure.
The walls became a mass of shimmering green and leafy branches arched overhead where the ceiling had been. The desk turned into a rose bush and a man became a tree, his feet taking root in the soil.[ii]
Cut out shadows, like ghosts of interior lives float about the space, coming and going, changing as the weeks slope towards winter. An old mantle clock, ticking above the long-dead fire in the grate. Table and chairs, drifting like an apparition of domesticity, reminders of a simpler time, when an office could exist in a fairy tale cottage on the edge of an orchard. The silhouette of a book case – or could it be the hole left behind where a bookcase once stood? – laden with two-dimensional tomes whose secrets will never be unlocked. Shadows of stories, whispers of histories.
Rees asks, ‘What secrets did the walls contain?’ Now the walls are opening up, as the plants move in and get to work, undoing our own. The ivy comes crawling in at the window and the pioneers sprout between the cracks, silently growing, widening the rifts. All that is built up will be torn down… gently.
Rees is a master of subtlety. She reminds us of this place, of its life and its memory. She reminds us of our place in the world yet hints at the possibility of fairy tales, of parallel worlds where a shadow-puppet clock can chime the hours of the working day and a man can work from nine to five here amongst the undergrowth. Rees takes us to these long ago worlds so we can perhaps see ours more clearly.
Dusk approaches and the shadows lengthen in the fading light. The grown-ups take their kids and dogs and go home. The oak tree shivers and more leaves fall. An acorn cracks open in the warmth of the rotting leaves. The little cottage of the Woods and Forests, dark now, breathes a sigh as a breeze plays through its glassless windows. Its sturdy joists settle into their earthy bed; what magic lurks there, in the undergrowth?
[i] Donne, John, The Good Morrow, The Penguin Poets: John Donne, Penguin, 1967, p.23
[ii] Lewis, C.S., Prince Caspian, The Chronicles of Narnia, Collins, 1998, p. 408
The stone building was once the office of the Woods and Forest Department. With a foot print less than twenty-five square metres, it is like something one may stumble upon in a fairytale clearing.
…Little cottage in the wood, little girl by the window stood…
Annalise Rees is the artist who has spent some months at the window, and Undergrowth is her response to the building and the open air around it. Rees brings to light the understorey, the tale hidden beneath the meta-narrative, the life in the leaf litter. A whole world exists in this tiny realm; a person’s working days were passed in this ‘one little room, an everywhere.’[i] Now the building is a frame and the viewer is held at bay by iron bars, looking, not touching. Invited in yet confounded at the last instance by solid reality. Someone has been inside, drawing on the walls, and we can only wonder.
But walls can breathe, and it seems that stone is permeable after all. The empty window frames allow the transgression of boundaries and the outside comes in. The earth has her memories too. Undergrowth has begun to reclaim this site, making a verdant ruin of the sensible structure.
The walls became a mass of shimmering green and leafy branches arched overhead where the ceiling had been. The desk turned into a rose bush and a man became a tree, his feet taking root in the soil.[ii]
Cut out shadows, like ghosts of interior lives float about the space, coming and going, changing as the weeks slope towards winter. An old mantle clock, ticking above the long-dead fire in the grate. Table and chairs, drifting like an apparition of domesticity, reminders of a simpler time, when an office could exist in a fairy tale cottage on the edge of an orchard. The silhouette of a book case – or could it be the hole left behind where a bookcase once stood? – laden with two-dimensional tomes whose secrets will never be unlocked. Shadows of stories, whispers of histories.
Rees asks, ‘What secrets did the walls contain?’ Now the walls are opening up, as the plants move in and get to work, undoing our own. The ivy comes crawling in at the window and the pioneers sprout between the cracks, silently growing, widening the rifts. All that is built up will be torn down… gently.
Rees is a master of subtlety. She reminds us of this place, of its life and its memory. She reminds us of our place in the world yet hints at the possibility of fairy tales, of parallel worlds where a shadow-puppet clock can chime the hours of the working day and a man can work from nine to five here amongst the undergrowth. Rees takes us to these long ago worlds so we can perhaps see ours more clearly.
Dusk approaches and the shadows lengthen in the fading light. The grown-ups take their kids and dogs and go home. The oak tree shivers and more leaves fall. An acorn cracks open in the warmth of the rotting leaves. The little cottage of the Woods and Forests, dark now, breathes a sigh as a breeze plays through its glassless windows. Its sturdy joists settle into their earthy bed; what magic lurks there, in the undergrowth?
[i] Donne, John, The Good Morrow, The Penguin Poets: John Donne, Penguin, 1967, p.23
[ii] Lewis, C.S., Prince Caspian, The Chronicles of Narnia, Collins, 1998, p. 408
Friday, May 30, 2008
Paperhorse Studios!
Paperhorse Studios are officially open. Situated in the heart of Rundle Mall, I'm humbled to work alongside such a great group of artists and designers. The opening was a great night that saw around 200 people drop by to help us celebrate. We're already planning the next opening party and its shaping up to be another night of good booze, good art, and other random stuff.
B+W Exhibition
Thurs 24th July, from 7pm
Paperhorse Studios
Suite 1, Level 2, 93 Rundle Mall
(above Zu shoes, enter via Lindes Lane)
Artists include:
Lisa King
Stasi Kotaras
Simon Loffler
Ben Moss
Dan McGuiness
Clare Oakes
Maebe Tetlow-Stuart
Danica Wells-Heitmann (Nickas)
Lauren Sutter
Egija Mittenberger
See y'all there!
B+W Exhibition
Thurs 24th July, from 7pm
Paperhorse Studios
Suite 1, Level 2, 93 Rundle Mall
(above Zu shoes, enter via Lindes Lane)
Artists include:
Lisa King
Stasi Kotaras
Simon Loffler
Ben Moss
Dan McGuiness
Clare Oakes
Maebe Tetlow-Stuart
Danica Wells-Heitmann (Nickas)
Lauren Sutter
Egija Mittenberger
See y'all there!
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Hey Everybody, what's going down?
Thought it was time I added something here, since the blog has been a bit quiet for a while. Kudos to Polly for the release of the first issue of Point-Blank, and of course to all of you who contributed to it also. I'm looking forward to the next issue, I'm sure it will be in colour! :P
This Friday just gone was the first of the month, though I think most people forgot about the group drinks (and I was at depARTure at AGSA). So if anyone is keen we could do the drinks this Friday, 9th of May at the World's End. Leave a comment here if you plan to come!
Finally, though I haven't been doing much writing, thought I'd link you to some mini, off the cuff reviews I put on my blog recently.
See you all soon!
Reviews - Chalkies, Keating & Game-On
This Friday just gone was the first of the month, though I think most people forgot about the group drinks (and I was at depARTure at AGSA). So if anyone is keen we could do the drinks this Friday, 9th of May at the World's End. Leave a comment here if you plan to come!
Finally, though I haven't been doing much writing, thought I'd link you to some mini, off the cuff reviews I put on my blog recently.
See you all soon!
Reviews - Chalkies, Keating & Game-On
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Home
I often find myself contemplating my journey markers as I traverse a small portion of the Kaurna plains on my way to and from Pitjantjatjara language class - the minor airfield at Parafield, an ever-expanding Mawson Lakes, the conspicuous adult store, obligatory golden arches, historic brickworks...
As I immerse myself in Indigenous culture, varying portrayals of Kathleen Petyarre’s Mountain Devil Lizard Dreaming frequently cross my path. Petyarre’s work illustrates an inspiring story of custodianship and home, through perfect compositions, repetition of iconography and mesmerising dotting technique. I imagine what my world would look like, were it painted in acrylic dots on canvas. I try to think about my connections to place and whether in fact one particular place has had a continuous presence in my life, has shaped who I am, or called me back to it. I consider what my physical landscape would look like, my manta, which essentially is not my own, but one that I regrettably use without permission.
I sit and think about the icons I would include in an aerial view of my life. Which particular places of significance might form the centre point of a single work and which would recur throughout a whole body of work? What have been my places of core necessity? Where have I drawn my life source, or more simply, seasonally come to rest? As a child I believed one of these places to be my Grandmother’s house across town, red brick and semi-detached with a tank stand out the back and the smell of freshly baked pastry wafting through the kitchen window. That disappeared when she did years ago. I struggle to raise an alternative, and sadly suppose that the perpetuity of asphalt and concrete would be an obvious overarching theme in my work.
Clutching for a link to nature, my thoughts pause on the many gum trees that frame my current geographic location. I conclude, however, that the Eucalypts are remnants; strategically reserved in an attempt at aesthetics by the local town planner. As Tea Tree Gully has derived its name from a term coined by explorer Cook and naturalist Banks in response to the myrtaceous shrubs they found in an exploratory voyage to Australia in 1770[1], I am constantly reminded of the settler nation I live in.
I ask myself what colours my canvas would be? I’ve not experienced the spectrum of natural pigment in situ, but I do have a clear impression of what a palette comprising driveway paver hues might look like. The colour of my night is inhibited by street and neon lights, obstructing the natural glow of the stars. And the scent of chlorine, granulated and dirty white, lingers on my hands as I do my best to maintain the English dream of a swimming pool in the backyard.
The composition of my canvas in under construction; perhaps to remain incomplete. For so many reasons I feel disconnected from this land. And whilst solace can be found in faith and family, I feel like a balloon, caught on the wind and drifting far from the earth; an earth that has borne a people, Creation spirit incarnate, for thousands of years.
Nerina Dunt
[1] E A Weiss in Southwell I & Lowe R 1999 Tea Tree: The Genus Melaleuca, CRC Press.
As I immerse myself in Indigenous culture, varying portrayals of Kathleen Petyarre’s Mountain Devil Lizard Dreaming frequently cross my path. Petyarre’s work illustrates an inspiring story of custodianship and home, through perfect compositions, repetition of iconography and mesmerising dotting technique. I imagine what my world would look like, were it painted in acrylic dots on canvas. I try to think about my connections to place and whether in fact one particular place has had a continuous presence in my life, has shaped who I am, or called me back to it. I consider what my physical landscape would look like, my manta, which essentially is not my own, but one that I regrettably use without permission.
I sit and think about the icons I would include in an aerial view of my life. Which particular places of significance might form the centre point of a single work and which would recur throughout a whole body of work? What have been my places of core necessity? Where have I drawn my life source, or more simply, seasonally come to rest? As a child I believed one of these places to be my Grandmother’s house across town, red brick and semi-detached with a tank stand out the back and the smell of freshly baked pastry wafting through the kitchen window. That disappeared when she did years ago. I struggle to raise an alternative, and sadly suppose that the perpetuity of asphalt and concrete would be an obvious overarching theme in my work.
Clutching for a link to nature, my thoughts pause on the many gum trees that frame my current geographic location. I conclude, however, that the Eucalypts are remnants; strategically reserved in an attempt at aesthetics by the local town planner. As Tea Tree Gully has derived its name from a term coined by explorer Cook and naturalist Banks in response to the myrtaceous shrubs they found in an exploratory voyage to Australia in 1770[1], I am constantly reminded of the settler nation I live in.
I ask myself what colours my canvas would be? I’ve not experienced the spectrum of natural pigment in situ, but I do have a clear impression of what a palette comprising driveway paver hues might look like. The colour of my night is inhibited by street and neon lights, obstructing the natural glow of the stars. And the scent of chlorine, granulated and dirty white, lingers on my hands as I do my best to maintain the English dream of a swimming pool in the backyard.
The composition of my canvas in under construction; perhaps to remain incomplete. For so many reasons I feel disconnected from this land. And whilst solace can be found in faith and family, I feel like a balloon, caught on the wind and drifting far from the earth; an earth that has borne a people, Creation spirit incarnate, for thousands of years.
Nerina Dunt
[1] E A Weiss in Southwell I & Lowe R 1999 Tea Tree: The Genus Melaleuca, CRC Press.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
"Calling for Submissions!"
Point-blank is a student run arts publication and is calling for arts writing submissions NOW!
Who?
This amazing opportunity is open to all those currently studying, working or teaching in any arts industry in South Australia.
What?
Point-blank is looking for interesting innovative and thought provoking writing about art in and around Adelaide at the time of publication. It can be any style of writing (e.g. creative, theoretical, reflective, critical, a recipe, interview, experimental, etc.). We ask that the writing be limited to 200-500 words and be paired with a corresponding image.
When?
The cut-off date for submission is 5pm Monday, April 14th
The first edition of Point-blank will be launched Wednesday, April 30th
How?
Email the text as a WORD rtf. or WORD doc. attachment and the accompanying image as a 'jpeg' attachment.
Where?
Please send your submission/s to:
pointblank@y7mail.com
Direct any questions or enquires to:
pointblank@y7mail.com
I look forward to your involvement.
Thanks and happy writing,
Polly Dance
Editor of Point-blank
Every 1st Friday of the Month
Hello Master crew!
Thanks firstly to those that came to Worldsend on Friday. It was great to see you all again! We decided to make a firm date each month to meet up so that we don't lose contact - that would be very sad indeed.
EVERY 1st FRIDAY OF THE MONTH, @ WORLDSEND, from 5pm onwards.
Make a note of it and look forward to seeing you soon.
Polly
ps- use the blog guys :)
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