Agents of Proximity

Agents of Proximity is a local, artist-run travel service instigated and run by two melbourne based artists, Amy Spiers and Tori Stead. For the past few months the Agents of Proximity have been taking people from Brunswick on travels within their own neighbourhood, creating new encounters between people, and between people and places. An exhibition of photographic/textual works will be shown in a local coin laundry as part of Next Wave.


for more on the project and to see the rest of the postcards in this series go to Agents of Proximity

Paint piano

This video shows French film-maker Michel Gondry (Eternal sunshine of a spotless mind, Science of Sleep) experimenting with paint, motion and sound.
Some really interesting techniques and ideas are explored here. Unfortunately the video is not comprehensive and a little hard to understand, but it is wonderful to see the process of experimentation that has been refined in his films. It is also refreshing seeing people playing with handmade tactile mediums over the computer generated.

Next Wave festival

The biennial emerging arts festival Next Wave opened in Melbourne last night, and runs until the end of May. This years festival, involving nearly 400 artists across 61 different curated projects, is tagged with the theme Closer Together and questions the conditions under which we are encouraged or blocked from coming together.
There are lots of really interesting projects and I encourage you to have a look around on the website, here are a few of my recommendations

Polyphonic: the festivals lecture, forum and workshop series

En Plein Air, a site specific exhibition by Sydney artists Karl Logge, Tessa Rapaport, created through a month long residency in the Botanical Gardens (the images above are from this project, taken from the Makeshift website)

Agents of Proximity, a local artist run travel agency, encouraging new encounters between people and places

2020? an evolving installation lead by artist Ash Keating and a dozen collaborators, making art out of rubbish and investigating environmental issues in arts practice

Launceston by Lomo by Unknown Creator

NEW LIFE BERLIN

NEW LIFE BERLIN is a contemporary art festival dedicated to new modes of moving and existing. 01.-15. June 08 Berlin
This is a participatory arts festival that looks at ways of engaging artists with open ended ideas and with global arts communities.
In contrast to traditional art festivals and biennials, NEW LIFE BERLIN will not represent a set of cultural conclusions, but create a model for a fluid cultural landscape.
New Life Berlin webpage

One of the projects in the festival, The Sandwhich Box, involves sending a metal box to selected groups of artists throughout the world. Inside the box is a "Lysthus” a kind of tent, which artists are free to use for whatever artwork, or situation they might find relevant. The documentation of interacting with objects and interpreting into the context of an artists project becomes the work rather than a traditional outcome.
The experience of the project is considered to be an artistic process in and of itself, therefore it is the experience and hence, the documentation that becomes the artwork, rather than a singular artwork becoming manifest at the end of the project.
The Sandwhich Box

I Wish I Could Show You

I Wish I Could Show You is a database of anonymous video messages sent via mobile phone. These videos are snippets of life: confessions, catharsis, love and hate letters, documentaries, anything you want them to be. They are being collected on a website and presented in a series of interactive screening events, as part of Next Wave festival and then later in the year as part of a national touring exhibition, Come on the Scene, that will take in Tasmanian galleries.

Screenings will run from 15-30 May at Horse Bazaar in Melbourne, for more information go over to Next Wave.
To view videos from the project and for information on uploading your own please go to I Wish I Could Show You.

10 percent pending

10 percent pending is an Artist Run Initiative based in Hobart, it does not operate out of a permanent space, but rather brings art into non-conventional-living-breathing-public spaces. These images are from their "Guerilla Gallery" project.

http://www.10percentpending.blogspot.com/
and you can join the facebook group