Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Dorkbot Adelaide
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, June 3, 2008
Undergrowth
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!
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?
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
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!"
Every 1st Friday of the Month
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Changing faces...
Also, if you know of any interesting sites, artists, groups or organisations it would be great to add links to them. I can add any links to the navigation panels (I'm not sure if everyone has editing control - let me know).
Cheers, and looking forward to hearing from you all!
Lauren.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Do Things Change? If so, are we changing?
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Response to Address by Alfredo & Isabel Aquilizan
Piles. Tower.
Boxes. Stuff.
Room. Doorway.
Clothes. Books.
Sheets. Blankets.
Maxtor Basics
personal Storage.
Toshiba CD/DVD
Player. Reader’s
Digest.
Huckleberry Finn.
The Way.
American Pie.
Spice World The
Movie. All Saints.
Jenny Craig’s 28
Motivational
Moments. Isolated
moment. Making
Life Better –
Brisbane City
Church. Better Life?
CDs. Scottish Artists
Vol 1. Matchbox 20.
Home?
My Documents.
Kan-Tong. So Much.
How much?
Flamenco, 750 pieces.
Shadow Theatres
& Shadow Films.
Sugar. Little Women.
Harpic. Foaming Blue
Block Twins. Raving.
Ace Ventura Pet
Detective. REM –
Everybody Hurts.
Bottle. Fake flower.
Authentic. Real.
Here. CD Player.
Tin. Grandmother.
Bike helmet. Printer.
Clothes. Again.
Xmas tree.
Bookmarked book.
Memories.
Wrapped box.
Secrets. Stuffed
toy bat. Gears. PC
Keyboard. Make
it work. Empty fruit
container. Empty
Room. Multicoloured
drinking straws.
Miniature Chinese cabinet.
Christmas decorations.
Fruit Juices. Gremlins 2.
Black & Decker.
Encyclopaedia of
the World and its
People. Teddy bear
jigsaw. Videos. The
Animated Tales of Hans
Christian Anderson.
Children, but no
children. 6 coasters.
Books. Marry In Taste.
In The Long Dark.
Where Love Has
Gone. Family Circle.
Pledge – Duster Refill.
Knitted mermaid.
Dolly Fiction – What’s
Wrong With Anna?
Overwhelmed. 30 Days
to a more incredible
you! Action-man trapped
in a plastic bucket.
Treasury of Poems.
Tartan. Introduction to
Sociology. Quiet.
Being & Doing. A
Taste worth finding.
Go Maths! Helen’s.
Harry Potter and the
Philosopher’s Stone.
What Katy Did. Boys
On The Side. 500
piece Puzzle.
Australian Tax
Handbook 2007.
Handle With Care /
Store in a cool dry
place. Telefunkin.
Funky. Sharp.
Sliced Pineapple.
The Riddle of the
Rivers. Mallee Root?
Classic Dustbuster.
Not new and
improved. The World
& Australia. Separate.
Together. Elite. The
Fever Peaks. Enough?
Fame Puzzles.
Maggie. Sweet Valley
Twins. The Twelve
Million Dollar Note.
Dealing With Difficult
People. Brad Pitt –
Hollywood Hunk.
90210. Men in Black.
Mirror. Me... Menzies.
Australian and
International Fine Art.
Good art.
A World of Dreams,
Friendship, Fun,
Laughter and more!
Challenging the Men.
Asia through Asian eyes.
H’ITS Awesome ’86!
Diego’s Tennis Ball.
Trafalgor First Aid
Kit. Ultra lite. Baileys.
Family. White Pages.
People everywhere.
Brisbane Injury
Lawyers. Clothes.
Annie Proulx. Mad
Jake. Robinson Crusoe.
Busy days. The Psychic
Circle. Esky. Garlic &
Parsley Mini-Baguettes.
Mmm, Food. Comforting.
Clifford, My Best Friend.
Shenzo’s Electric
Stunt Orchestra!
Fat Burner. New Body.
Australia & World War
One. People from
everywhere. Seas of
Land. Prisoners &
Gaolers. Solid Room.
Built from Memory.
Family. Soothing
smell. It’s all junk.
Nothing. And
Everything. The
Whole World. Really.
Paint-A-Gnome!
Go. Home.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
GETTING TO THE HEART OF THINGS.
1. Everybody gets overrun by egoism and indulgence, and nobody gets anywhere.
2. Something spectacular happens on a truly grand scale.
Although this blog is but a humble beginning I have little doubt that it can be pruned by skilled hands to flourish into something fruitful. I hope that this can be a place of inspiration, exchange, and community - a feeding and breeding ground for creativity and exploration. Or, at the very least, a common ground from whence to test the lingual waters before diving into the publishing pool.
What more can I say but to forth, Adelaide writers, and expose the arteries of Adelaide culture and the beating pulse of the arts!