Artists who don't necessarily call themselves artists. Extraordinary people who deal with light and sound in unusual and exploratory ways. If this is you I want to see your proposal!
Email a page of ideas to [email protected] or drop something into the Gallery at 419 New Canterbury Rd, Dulwich Hill. Openings are usually on Wednesday nights and exhibitions normally last for ten days (till the following Saturday). The cost for an exhibition just shy of two weeks is a total of $300 (not including drinks and hard copy invites). For this you get the space, media releases and email invites sent to our comprehensive lists, design of a print-ready invite, access to a storeroom full of A/V equipment, installation assistance and the gallery minded for half the time (by arrangement - you mind the other half!). To see a rough schematic of the Gallery CLICK HERE.
Coming Soon...
:the braille box:
Jessica Tyrrell
WHEN: Opening Wednesday November 7, 6pm
Thur November 8-17
:the braille box: by jessica tyrrell is an interactive,
audience-driven installation that uses a touch-driven Braille interface to trigger sound and video, immersing the gallery visitor in the inherent contradictions and poetics of vision and its "absence".
Approaching blindness as both a metaphor and a literal, documented, experience, :the braille box:, interrogates notions of cognition and sensorial perception, and questions our understanding of meaning and the construct of language.
Jessica Tyrrell is a new media artist, documentary filmmaker and poet, whose previous works explore, question and problematise the perceived normallity of experience. Her video art, short films and online documentaries have been included at various festivals in Australia, such Real Life on Film, ACMI and Liquid Architecture.
Previous exhibitions and performances include...
Friction
Eleanor Brickhill and Anne Walton
WHEN: CLOSING EVENT: Saturday November 3, 2007, 6pm
Public access will be from Thursday October 25 to Saturday November 3
Eleanor Brickhill is a dancer and performance artist interested in the exploration of the body. Anne Walton is a video artist who works with site-specific human-scale projections and live presence. Together they will be presenting 'Friction' in October/November at Don't Look Gallery.
Over four weeks Eleanor and Anne will create a dialogue between the very recent past and present by mapping imagery of their live performance in the gallery back on itself, affected and 'acted' upon in slight ways that seem mysterious and intriguing, and at times uncanny. The process of collaboration is a ‘site’ for them, a place to explore personal, material and even social boundaries. Through interrogation of the past by the present, present by the past, their experiences become hyper-sensory, almost raw to the touch.
Unlike traditional work whose end is marked by the beginning of its showing, 'Friction' is cumulative – it will begin with nothing and be created through events that occur in the space over time, and include visitations, overlaps, collisions and rubbings. In place of an opening, a 'closing' will celebrate some ideas explored throughout this time.
Public access will be from Thursday October 25 to Saturday November 3. CLOSING DRINKS: Saturday November 3, 2007, 6pm.
The Little Gallery That Could:
Don't Look's first Birthday!
WHEN: Friday September 14, 6pm
Thur August 6-23 (Thur-Sat 11-5)
We’ve had a reality TV star move his bedroom into our window, created audio-visual monstrosities that have threatened to take over the world, and had grass growing out of our floors and walls. We’ve been mistaken for a Retra-Vision, a brothel, and a shady place for getting your satellite TV hooked up illegally.
In its first year the pint-sized suburban shopfront known as Don’t Look Experimental New Media Gallery has covered a lot of ground. We’ve shown over 43 artists in 21 exhibitions, managing to catch the attention and imagination of many, including those who would not normally be seen dead looking at art.
This month, we’re turning one year old, and on Friday September 14, we intend to celebrate til the sun comes up. Also the Don’t Look Gallery launch of the Marrickville Art Prize, we invite all of the Inner-west (heck, the entire Southern Hemisphere) to do more than just eat cake. There’ll be lucky door prizes, an armchair critic’s award for the public and prizes (donated by local businesses) for artists in the current exhibition.
On Friday September 14, forget London, Paris, New York, Paddington or Newtown – Dulwich Hill is the Place to be seen!
Don't Look would like to thank the following businesses for their amazing support:
Click-A-Printer Australia
877 New Canterbury Rd Hurlstone Park 2193
(02) 9558 0180
Urban Natural Hair & Beauty
Shp1/ 682 New Canterbury Rd Hurlstone Park 2193
(02) 9573 0958
Gladstone Hotel
572 Marrickville Rd Dulwich Hill 2203
(02) 9569 1249
The Sound of Failure
Experimental Music in a Post-digital Era
WHEN/WHERE (TWO VENUES):
Saturday August 25, 6pm:
Petersham Bowling Club (Performances)
77 Brighton St, Petersham, NSW Australia
Hosted by the irrepressible Schappylle Scragg.
Saturday/Sunday August 25/26 11am-5pm:
DON'T LOOK Experimental New Media Gallery (Installations)
419 New Canterbury Rd (Near Marrickville Rd), Dulwich Hill,
NSW Australia. Endurance performances at Don’t Look Gallery from 12pm Sunday.
WHO:
PERFORMERS (Petersham Bowling Club):
Est Et Non, Tom Hall (Brisbane), Lecter Macabre, Marquis De Sound, Glen Remington, Starella, Vilhelm the Tortoise & Friends (Belgium), Alex White, Wun Thong
INSTALLATION ARTISTS/ENDURANCE PERFORMERS
(Don’t Look Gallery):
Catfingers, Cleaninglady, Gregory Chatonsky (Canada), The Contingent Ensemble, Wade Marynowsky, Lecter Macabre, Marquis De Sound, Monoperro, Eva Mueller, Vienna Parreno, Cara-Ann Simpson, Subscape Annex (USA)
WEB: http://soundoffailure.com for a complete program.
COST: $10 (Bowling Club), FREE (Gallery)
We live in an era of failure. On the global stage, the President of the most powerful country on earth has overseen thousands of deaths in two failed wars. In the third world the stench of poverty seeps through the pores of humanity in the guise of genocidal skirmishes, starvation and disease. Fundamentalists of all creeds goad each other like contestants on some new deadly reality TV show. And the optimism of the ’90s is washed away in a tide of apathy, indifference and hopelessness.
So where does this leave culture? If art is holding up a mirror to society, how long before the mirror shatters in sympathetic resonance to the horror it beholds?
A couple of months ago Don’t Look Gallery put out an open call to sound artists to propose a piece for an event called the ‘Sound of Failure’. From dozens of responses, 20 artists have been chosen to perform at Petersham Bowling Club on Saturday August 25, or to install works at Don’t Look Gallery, Dulwich Hill over the weekend of August 25/26.
These works generally employ technological failure, both as a euphemism for the state of the world, but also as a way of exposing, exploring and problematising the digital façade. These artists have attempted transcend the small rectangular screens and the latest Microsoft releases, opting instead to look at unintended consequences of technology – when it misbehaves or just gives up the goat.
Some artists use humour. Starella, for instance, juxtaposes ‘instruments’ such as ‘old wine bottles’ with digital technology and lyrics written on the backs of beer coasters. The failure in her musical sound comes from spending her life slipping through the gaps of every system she has known: family; society, and professional systems. In her performances she feels her way through drunken rants and musically attempts to determine what went wrong.
Others employ the literal failure of the technology itself. Tom Hall, a sound artist from Brisbane, uses the degenerate sounds formed from the destruction of flimsy CD media combined with the glitch/skip/malfunction from ageing and damaged CD players. These form the basis of a live performance that combine in a progressive and layered manner, juxtaposing the usual frustration experienced when one strikes this inferior malfunction.
A detailed program is available from http://soundoffailure.com.
Face-off
Red vs. Red
WHEN: Opening Wednesday August 1, 6pm
Thur August 2-11 (Thur-Sat 11-5)
We are all lepers....
As the leper was separated through material and social means, so are we through the performance of new media. We lose parts of our body through these interfaces. Communication is facilitated but it is also distorted, disrupted and finally, thwarted. The daily interaction through screens means that we communicate with each other, yet remain separate, invisible and masked.
Through the use of video projections, duct-tape and performance Red vs. Red will explore the idea of virtual dislocation. Invoking a primitavist physicality they will go through the very real process of wrapping themselves together with duct tape. The audience will be cut off from this sensory experience shared by the performers by the digital paraphernalia that, paradoxically, allows them to eventually experience it.
Roland Barthes referred to the process of taking a photo as a type of death – the moment frozen in the mausoleum that is the medium – fossilised for eternity, the point of immortalisation also signifying a loss of mortality. If this is so, then the vast array of digital media whizzing round the globe is an incessant slaughterhouse, turning every previous moment into an array of fine cuts for easy consumption.
Face-off uses digital media to critique its shortcomings. These ‘fine cuts’ will be on display along with other fossilised remnants of the ritual (including the duct tape ‘shell’ and life size photos). By presenting the ‘dead’ performance to a ‘live’ audience, this work will also explore the oppositional aspects of contemporary communication, of ‘my body versus your body’.
Distance Yourself
16 international artists:
Amber Phelps Bondaroff, Erin Bosenberg, Joy-Loi Chepkoech, Andrew Fisher, Nikolai Gauer, Amanda Griffith, Stefan Hancherow, Bonita Hatcher, Alana Hunt, Ryan Ling, Annie Macmillan, Gavin Maitland, Kristy O'Leary, Shaun O'Reilly, Audrey Wang and Anna Williams.
WHEN: Opening Wednesday July 18, 6pm
Thur July 19-28 (Thur-Sat 11-5)
How is it that two people inhabiting the same room can be worlds apart, while those separated by vast oceans can talk like they're sitting at the same table? Was Paul Simon on to something when he sang 'the nearer your destination the more you're slip slidin' away…' or have new amphetamine-laced communication technologies made distance irrelevant through the 'annihilation of space by time' as Karl Marx might have it?
Sixteen international, new-media artists, who last year shared a winter residence together in Halifax, Nova Scotia, have all contributed to this exhibition exploring questions of personal distance.
'When is a cigar, just a cigar?' asks Amber Phelps Bondaroff in her untitled work comprised of photographed dismembered body parts, ambiguous everyday objects and machines. In this work we experience dysmorphia, the feeling of being strangely disconnected from our own bodies, as the limbs in these images relate more to the other, mostly inanimate, photos than anything connected to our own torsoes.
Joy-Loi Chepkoech has constructed a Situationist-style performance that she will never see. Instructions have been flown half way round the world for unsuspecting exhibition attendees. From the moment these instructions left the hands of Chepkoech, they have taken on lives of their own. They will land indiscriminately in the laps of the audience, who will become reluctant performers. How will (cultural, social, political etc. etc.) distance affect these performances? Will any of them be 'true to the letter', or is 'true to the letter' meaningless in the face of such a great divide?
Dulwich Hill DayZZZe
Matt Rochford
WHEN: Opening Wednesday July 4, 6pm
Thur July 5-14
Matt Rochford (AKA 'Rochy' from 'Nerds FC') needs somewhere to live for a couple of weeks. I’ve offered him the gallery window. He will, of course, be furnishing it to his liking; installing his bed, TV, the odd pot plant or two and anything else he can fit into this very modest living area.
The downside to this arrangement is that he will be on constant display. He won’t be able to scratch his butt without the whole street seeing. Further, seeing he’s getting this space rent free, Matt will become my circus animal, my freak show. At least eight hours a day a commentator will provide thrilling updates on Matt’s every move. Every itch, every scratch will be analysed and replayed in slo-mo for the public’s edification.
I will also expect Matt to play to the camera and the transient audience. He will put on little performances to get the attention that he craves. He will try his best to communicate to the passing traffic with hand gestures and scribbled signs. Matt will also have houseguests. Come join the show, have a chat to Matt on his laissez-faire talk show. Have your 15 minutes of fame in Don’t Look’s front window.
Join us for Matt’s house warming on July 4. American Independence Day will mark the end of Matt’s independence for the next couple of weeks.
Misc. Too
Jen Teo
WHEN: Opening Wednesday June 20, 6pm
Thur June 21-30 (Thur-Sat 11-5)
Last year Dave O'Donoghue was invited into Don't Look Gallery and given eight hours to create an interactive audio monster from the stockpile of analogue equipment out the back. He successfully made a fragile, but amazing machine that relied on the interdependence of its components for continued existence.
This year, sound artist Jen Teo http://www.plumindustries.org has been invited to do her interpretation of a sonic Frankenstein. Morphing reel-to-reel tape recorders, fluorescent lights, timers,
record players, movie projectors, old television sets, radios, amps, speakers a variety of circuitry and numerous doo-dads, and wochamacallits, Teo will make a truly awe-inspiring rhizomic creation.
A physical web of circuitry, Teo's monster will encompass the audience, turning passive observers into vital components. Just like O'Donoghue, Teo will be making both a profound statement about obsolescence, and a captivating spectacle that will play on our minds long after the puzzle pieces have been severed from the collective and returned from whence they came.
Dog eat dog eat dog…
Michael Chahine
WHEN: Opening Wednesday June 6, 6pm
Thur May 7-16 (Thur-Sat 11-5)
In April 2004 in Lucknow India, a corrupt police commissioner decided to mark his birthday by giving away 5000 free saris. During this magnanimous gesture thousands of impoverished women stampeded – twenty one women were killed and hundreds injured. Installed in the gallery window, ‘Happy Birthday Commissioner’ is both a tribute to the women who died in this publicity stunt gone horribly wrong, and a comment on the cheap regard with which life is often held by figures of authority. A floating, shrouded, glowing figure (perhaps a ghost, Hindu woman, Muslim woman or Mother Mary) is given a starling image in place of a face; a distraught daughter who is holding her dead mothers baby, crushed in the rush to grab a shred of cloth.
…Travelling into the gallery and through Brazil, ‘Copa Cao Bana’ illustrates a disturbing reality: The pampered pets of the Brazilian bourgeoisie are treated better (much better) than the majority of the country’s population. Prissy upper and middle-class matrons parade their precious canines obscenely in front of the homeless and destitute. Life size cut-outs reconstruct this scene for us. The terriers and poodles are immaculately groomed – many have had their fur dyed accentuating the owners’ beliefs that these toys dogs are more human than the filth that line the streets. To the artist, this conspicuous wealth is the ultimate insult to all who are unable to share in this extremity.
…Beyond Brazil we face China ’87 where Ronald Reagan is playing with balls. In this work we have a real photo of a billboard featuring a painting of Ronald Reagan (a strong symbol of anti-communist cold war propaganda) advertising Chinese meditation balls and other products. The surrealism of this bizarre juxtaposition is heightened with the inclusion of a stripped box with a protruding mechanical hand that ‘juggles’ two of these balls (a comment on the short surrealist film by Bunuel and Dali entitled ‘Un Chien Andalou’). This piece highlights the artists fascination with the paradoxical and uncanny.
Previous exhibitions and performances include...
Cultural Herdings
Chris Retallack
WHEN: Opening Wednesday May 2, 6pm
Thur May 3-12 (Thur-Sat 11-5)
Chris Retallack is a God. Perhaps not THE God, but definitely a God. As such, he has created minions in his own image (admittedly, though, the resemblance is a tad vague – this God was not wearing his specs on the morning of creation).
Retallack’s spawn line the floor and ceiling of Don’t Look Gallery. These creatures may look the same upon first glance. But their colours vary slightly and they are all, in fact, unique.
There is a question that is, however, troubling our God. Did he create merely to be seen, adored, worshipped and feared by his creations? Further, by breathing life into these hordes, has he given purpose to, indeed ‘created’, himself? If a tree falls in the woods does it make a sound if no one hears it? Are Gods, Gods if they have no ‘creations’ to fawn over them?
Kudos: That which is heard of
Sofie Loizou, Carolyn Teo and Jennifer Teo
WHEN: Opening Wednesday April 11, 6pm
Thur April 12 - Sat March 28 (Thur-Sat 11-5)
Sofie Loizou, Carolyn Teo and Jennifer Teo use interactive sound and light to explore the personal terrain of contemplation, semiotics, female objectification and human interface. This exhibition is about concepts of perspective and differing perspectives. These are three renaissance women who are seeing the world anew – through eyes against the grain.
'Contemplating Space' by Jen Teo is a three dimensional paper pixel installation that explores light through space. As light from the outside passes through the window, the wall of paper curls glows a radiant blue, casting circular shadows on the floor that change as the day passes. Looking through the wall from the inside out, the tangible world outside is viewed in a pixelated form. 'Contemplating Space' is about taking a step back – pixelating what you see in place of focussing.
'Men die. Grass dies. Men are grass' is, according to Greg Bateson the 'logic of schizophrenics, metaphor and living things.' Sofie Loizou explores this fuzzy, but compelling world outlook in 'People are Grass'. Elements of the exhibition are triggered by audience reaction and interaction.
In another work, 'Shimmer' Loizou has created a new experimental sound instrument. The intention of the machine is to create an audio image of the desert mirage. Invoking meditative states through to tumultuous crescendos, the 'Shimmer' is at home in many audio(-visual) environments, from orchestras to installations.
Carolyn Teo's Kudo is an interactive sound game where a score is created by plotting a kudos graph. The graph acts as a forecast for potential relationships based on incidents and interaction between two people. The result is an audio representation of the current status of play and whether the personal investment in the relationship is worth pursuing.
'Blue Ladies' is based on a painting by Vladimir Tretchikoff, entitled "The Chinese Girl" (commonly known as the 'Blue Lady'). This piece by Carolyn Teo is a commentary on how women have been perceived as objects for the male gaze, particularly those of different backgrounds who have been considered "exotic" and sexualised according to race.
Also by Carolyn Teo, 'Almost Obselete' focuses on the sounds of a disappearing era in which analogue warmth is being overtaken by digital convenience. For many of us our first music sound experience was analogue, either vinyl records or cassette tapes. CDs and mp3s are comprised of sound that's more crisp and artificial, the warmer tones of the analogue recording lost to its digital contemporary. For the vinyl enthusiast this has taken away the tactile nature of holding a record - its largeness, cover art and its great plastic feel.
All of these seemingly disparate works have one thing in common; they challenge us to take a conceptual walk around what we think we're seeing and hearing. They are living pieces that are constantly insisting on conversation – incessantly asking 'is this my good side?'
Diane's Dollhouse
By Rochford, Nouveau & Kivinen
WHEN: 2 Performances: Saturday March 31, 7:30pm
Thursday April 5, 9pm
Decadence, elegance, light, dark...
Your host, Carolina, cordially invites you to experience an alternate world, a night in which ritual magic and burlesque theatre meld in a unique, playful performance by Rochford and Nouveau. Burlesque has a long and varied history, its earliest appearances in Victorian music
hall and vaudeville performances. Audiences were entertained by everything from slapstick comedy to satire, but this variety of theatre has now become synonymous with the sensual and the exotic.
Burlesque today combines the glamorous with the forbidden, but, unlike your average strip show, burlesque is not just about what the audience wants to see, it is an experience based on what the performer allows them to see.
Through the ritual performance of magic spells, 'Diane's Dollhouse' tells a narrative of fantasy, delving into the desire to be loved. Enter a world of musical, physical theatre in which Nouveau's teasing, titillating and captivating vocals soar above Rochford's bed of other-worldly eclectic soundscopia.
The night's host, Carolina, is played by Sari Kivinen, a
character-based performance artist, who will also be exorcising her own neurosis during the course of the show.
Paper Waltz
By Laura McLean and Andrew Newman
WHEN: Opening Wednesday March 14, 6pm
Thur March 15 - Sat March 24 (Thur-Sat 11-5)
If 'the first casualty of war is truth' then is it also the case that this truth lies somewhere between the extremities; between right and wrong, good and bad, between being 'with us' or 'against us'?
'Paper Waltz' explores the binaries that are foisted upon us in times of conflict; how we are forced to make decisions 'one way or the other'. The middle ground is gone, swept away in the polarisation of fear and suspicion. The 'sensible option' becomes an uninhabitable 'no man's land' and desperation seeps into all areas of life, including personal relationships.
The young boyfriend-girlfriend inhabitants of pre-war playgrounds are turned by the insecurity of the battlefield into husband-wife (the stark noir-ness of WWII movies echo these rushed consummations). This 'war-time' is accelerated and exaggerated; it is, by its very nature, sentimental. Reminiscences of these moments therefore become hyper-sentimentalised.
McLean and Newman portray this hyper-sentimentality with a series of black and white figures -- cutouts that dance like clockwork, on clockwork. They move jerkily to the binary tick-tock of timepieces that count down their impending separation. But this dance never ends,
because it never really began. It is a figment of our collective imaginations that is invented in times of dire consequence to humanise these experiences. These apparitions stick in our minds and in our throats, marking the only bearable moments in otherwise inconceivable
circumstances.
The Adventures of Sprite
By Tanya Richards
WHEN: Opening Wednesday February 28, 6pm
Thur Mar 1 - Sat Mar 10 (Thur-Sat 11-5)
Why is it that clowns are at home both at children’s parties and in nightmares?
In a creative exploration of the Jungian concept of Persona, Tanya Richards invokes her alter ego, a slightly deranged clown called Sprite.
Sprite, through video, sound and performance, explores the tension between conformity and the individual in the construction of self. We all wear ‘masks’ to cope with everyday life. We act differently, depending on who we’re talking to, and what we’re doing. ‘Masks’ help us put up with the mundane and tedious, as well as the unexpected and shocking, but at what cost?
In this exhibition, Sprite challenges the distraction, boredom, fantasy and psychotic behaviour that often lurk behind the acceptance of repetitious everyday experiences. By revealing the moral constructs behind fairy tales and rhymes (the keepers of much modern-day morality), Sprite smashes the spectacle laying bare the forced facades of modern existence.
Practically, she does this by weaving herself into the well-trodden paths of staid childhood stories and verse. By rupturing tales that should run ‘automatically’, she forces us to sit up and take notice – to ‘think’ about what we’re seeing and hearing instead of humming along to some mystical hermetically-sealed mantra.
TechnoToxic: New lives of e-waste
By Graham Chalcroft
WHEN: Opening Thursday February 15, 6pm
Fri Feb 16 - Sat Feb 24 (Thur-Sat 11-5)
Heavy metal menaces are rising from the dumps and sewers and terrorizing our neighbourhoods. This amalgam of wires, printed circuit boards and computer parts are not, however, as alien as they seem.Look close enough at these e-waste enigmas and you see a human face…
[Often seen discarded in back lanes or stacked up next to charity bins, e-waste – comprising outdated computers, blown monitors and the like – is laced with lead, mercury and other toxins. Disposal (or preferably, reuse) of electronic components is one of the greatest challenges we face in the 21st century.]
…Graham Chalcroft, public artist and arts educator, has captured a number of these monsters and put them on display in Don't Look Gallery. Using a dizzying array of electronic paraphernalia combined with mannequin torsos and other (sub)human parts, Chalcroft has created a field of inhuman electro-zombies rising from a human-created quagmire. It is a metaphor, but it is also a stunning allusion – a sci-fi vision more terrifying than any big-budget blockbuster.
Teen Dream
By Jack Dunbar
WHEN: Opening Wednesday January 31, 6pm
Thurs Feb 1 - Sat Feb 10
The rise of the middle classes, compulsory schooling and the outlawing of child labour all gave rise to the phenomenon of the 'teen'. This 'in-between' period has generated an industry that exists between childhood innocence and raunch culture – between teddy bears and girly mags.
Jack Dunbar has constructed a personal response to the social construction of the male teen using evocative imagery projected from lightboxes installed in the ceiling. Like oil and water these constellation-like projections contrast uneasily with our teen's bedroom below. There is something voyeuristic about this scene. We are viewing a boy's private world – one that is becoming a bit too
comfortable and a little outgrown. At the same time we are privy to his media-constructed fantasia – the supposed ideal construction of beauty – of womanhood. This 'ideal world' however, is beyond his reach and quite terrifying to the adolescent.
Dunbar has created a rare opportunity to gaze into the
hormonally-charged world of a teenage boy. Filled with memories, expectations and fears, we see beyond the usual PR opportunities for 'teen' marketers into a more nuanced topography.
A Book for No Good Reason
by Pickafight Books (a williams with special guests Jordan Woods and Bernard)
WHEN: Opening Wednesday January 17, 6pm
Thurs Jan 18 - Sat Jan 27 (Thur-Sat 11-5)
To say that a williams makes books is like saying that an actor merely reads lines. a williams is a maker of artist's books. He stiches and binds, but he does much more than that. a williams 'performs' books - the narrative, or content is focused around the performance of making
the book.
Thus his books are much more than just words on a page (in fact, they aren't 'words on a page' at all), they are sculptural objects. For instance, in his upcoming exhibition at Don't Look Gallery, we see a video of the artist at work.
In creating 'IncendDIARY', a williams (and co-collaborator Jordan Woods) fill the insides of books with sparklers, then blow the living daylights out of them. This destructive, but spectacular, act evokes the destruction of knowledge through the glorification of war, perhaps illustrating the old adage that, 'the first casualty of war is truth'. The charred remains of these books are exhibited like evidence at a murder trial.
Most of his books don't meet such violent ends, however, but all of them have 'lived' - they have all survived performance, and as a result, can be read as texts (despite having no printed words).
The 'Information Bomb' is the result of a performance of a character. This character believes that if he or she combines a book (a container for information) with some ink (the revealer of information), an aerial (the transmitter of information) and a switch (to make the thing work), that they will be able to make a successful book - perhaps a book that is more technologically advanced than others.
He describes this work as a 'prototype that never got through the patent office, made by an inbred savant who grew up in a caravan park on the Gold Coast' (a description that a williams thinks is a little too close to his own for comfort).
Another work, entitled 'Preservation', is comprised of a book that has been preserved in alcohol in the hope the book will 'last for future generations' - yet ironically it has been ruined in the process. The way it has been preserved denies access to that which it is trying to
preserve. The object itself has been confused with the knowledge it contains and the book has been preserved at the cost of that which it holds.
To a williams it is the lived experience of a book that matters. In the words of the artist; "It's not what's in a book, who wrote it or what it's about; but what you DO TO IT that really counts..."
a williams wishes to thank the Haswell and Macleay Museums at the University of Sydney, Marrickville Council and Southern Cross University for their assistance and support of this project.
tXt:> tranSmission
by Matthew Rochford & Greer Rochford
WHEN: Opening Thursday December 7, 6pm
Thurs ..hur-Sat 11-5)
To what extent have technologies become part of us? Or, inversely, have we become part of our technologies? Where do we end and they begin? How would most of us feel without the simple technology of clothing for instance -- exposed, cold, incomplete perhaps?
How many of us now feel exposed, cold and incomplete without more sophisticated technologies such as the internet and mobile phones?
Brother/sister team Matt and Greer Rochford are Cyborgs. Technology consumes their existence. It mediates and mitigates the flow of thought and feeling between them, and between them and the rest of the world. Theirs is a world of the cyber-polis.
For a year, separated by vast distances, their main communication was the prudent text message. Every truncated word has been logged, providing ample raw material for this exploration of long distance communication in the age of instant, electronic, satisfaction.
In the nineteenth century, time became measurable; in the twentieth, time became money. Now time is data -- gigahertz and bits-per-second. We measure the worth of technology by how fast it can transfer data around the world; by how precisely space is annihilated by time. It is this speed of digital communication that warps and recreates our perceptions of intimacy and immediacy.
Matt and Greer Rochford use a variety of media; photography, computer manipulated text, and transmission static and interference to convey this communication -- this bridging (or perhaps erasure) of distance. In this exhibition they explore the volatility of communication and interpretation through the use of degraded signals, mixed messages, illusion and allusion.
Greer Rochford is a photographic artist who experiments with a variety of mediums, pushing the boundaries of traditional photography. She deals with ideas such as surveillance, technoscience and alienation.
Her kid brother, Matt, explodes myths and storms social barricades. He is continually searching for the point where he ends and the rest of the world begins.
It's Time for a Climate Change
by Brendan Penzer
WHEN: Opening Wednesday November 22, 6pm
Thurs Nov 23 – Fri ..hur-Sat 11-5)
Come and get your Climate Change Christmas, birthday and wedding gifts, or, something special for that impending baby shower at DON'T LOOK GALLERY from 22 Nov - 3 Dec 2006.
Are you waiting in eager anticipation for climatic shifts ahead? Can't wait for that rising tide of apathy to wash us out to sea? Neither can Brendan Penzer.
Penzer, artist and social ecologist, has set-up shop in the Experimental New Media Gallery for a two-week clearance sale; mementos, knickknacks and a range of life's essential contemporary survival items - it's all got to go! Come and celebrate our present social, political and environmental climate by spending your swelling mortgage payments on things that 'really' matter.
Direct from Cronulla we have white picket fences that have been ripped from their moorings. These 'self-de-fence pickets' make great paddles for when tides start to rise, make bonza spades to dig holes in which to stick our heads, and (when all else fails) we can come out swinging against anyone who looks different or talks funny.
Also on sale, some lovely (soon to be) relics, including bottles of water from our once great flowing rivers and some rare clean air samples from last century (including an exquisite 1988 bi-centenary vintage). 'What an investment!' Don't wait to pay $$$ on ebay!
Still want more ...? You won't be disappointed with our great selection of fashion items. We have some very stylish red-neck rashies; guaranteed to ward off both skin cancer, and undesirables. Or there's the 'Bible Belt'. This most essential of items will offer the support you require (homosexuals, women, Muslims and green's voters excepted).
But that's not all! Everything comes with a free set of mis-steak knives! And how much would you expect to pay for all of this stupidity? Don't pay the earth... ...well, yes, actually, the earth will do very nicely...
So get on down to DON'T LOOK for the It's Time for a Climate Change sale.
How Are You, Hotel Waterloo?
by Andrew Newman
WHEN: Opening Wednesday November 8, 6pm
Thurs Nov 9 – Fri Nov 19 (Thur-Sat 11-5)
A young woman sits by a window at the Hotel Waterloo writing love letters to her husband who just left for the war. A young man at a microphone sings love songs for an audience of waiting women that sit by a gramophone.
The modern era began with this separation, a separation that has characterised the last century. The conscious from the unconscious. The intimate from the remote.
The reconciliation was mediated, then, by our microphones, where we whispered I love you above the hum of a whole orchestra. (These twentieth-century schisms were almost always 'repaired' by proxy with technology; from the telegraph to email).
"On the wall is a fresh-looking print of a girl skiing, against a bright blue sky. It suits the room. We are going up into the hills to watch you in the hope that we may see you steam out. I'm waiting for the others just now.
I have so much I want to say to you and yet I am torn with the desire to be on the wharf to catch another glimpse of your dear face to treasure in my heart."
This stunning work by Andrew Newman uses love letters written to, and from, the Hotel Waterloo as material for a war-time crooner. There is, however, something disconcerting about real material being used in place of (much-needed) escapist fluff. Here the crooner is revealed as an automaton of sorts, surreally oozing whatever is required.
Meeting Points
by Jasmine Avril
WHEN: Opening Wednesday October 25, 6pm
Thurs Oct 26 - Sun Nov 5 (Thur-Sun 11-5)
The exhibition 'Meeting Points' plays with notions of travel, longing, miscommunication, and unintended consequences. Using fleets of paper planes (symbols capable of inferring everything from childhood innocence to terrorism), Avril conveys a desire to escape; escape from
the drudgery of everyday life, as well as our current dire world politic. Tied to helium balloons, however, this way out may lie cruelly just beyond our reach.
In another room a number of television sets will conduct a kind of awkward conversation in mispronounced languages. This 'league of stations' will use typical lines from language phrase books, spoken by an anglo-centric computer voice. The outcome is a series of incessant, systematic soliloquies.
But What is the Question?
by Greg Shapley
WHEN: Opening Wednesday October 4, 6pm
Thurs Oct 4 – Fri Oct 20 (Thur-Sat 11-5)
"I was handsome I was strong,
I knew the words of every song.
Did my singing please you?
No, the words you sang were wrong."
(from 'Teachers' by Leonard Cohen)
In this video work, I ask a question. The public answer -- try to answer -- fail to answer.
But what is the question?
We see people thinking, talking, being silent staring at the camera, dumbfounded like deer in headlights. Why do they stand there? Why don't they just walk away. What has entrapped them? They look awkward -- we can't help but feel sorry for them and empathise with their stage fright (we've all been there, surely).
But what is the question? They may be able to answer the question, but their answers do not answer the question, 'what is the question?'
So, what is the question?...
This is an exercise in media manipulation, in human frailty, and perhaps even in cruelty. Everyone who sees this work will wonder why they didn't just tell me to bugger off and give me a bloody nose. Perhaps someone will see fit to oblige during opening night…
Miscellanea: Stuff comes alive
by David O'Donoghue (curated by Greg Shapley)
WHEN: Opening Wednesday September 20
Thurs Sept 21 - Sun Oct 1 (Thur-Sun 11-5)
Artist, David O'Donoghue, and curator, Greg Shapley, have been spring cleaning at Don't Look Gallery. In 'Miscellanea', stuff that would normally stay covered in dust on an unreachable shelf will be brought into the gallery, given purpose, and 'networked' with other 'useless' devices.
The forgotten, the obsolete, the broken will be resurrected into an incessantly whirring rhizome. Reel-to-reel tape recorders, fluorescent lights, record players, timers, old speakers, film projectors, etc. etc. etc. will be rigged up into a machine that is both entertaining and terrifying, fragile yet relentless.
'Miscellanea' is both a profound statement about obsolescence, and a captivating spectacle - lights, cameras and action - all rewired into a chorus line of mechanical zombies.
This 'Borgian' creation will be an act of inspiration from a moment of electrified passion, and as such will be entirely constructed within the constraints of a typical working day. O'Donoghue will have eight hours from when he clocks on to the launch of the exhibition to spawn
his irrepressible child.
David O'Donoghue is a Sydney based Artist; who crosses territories of installation, sound design, video, object making, drawing, and contemporary bricolage. He has an interest in post-cultural mythology, micro-philosophy, and self-propelled propaganda mechanisms. His most recent exhibition was The Nerve Metre at the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, February 2006.
Grand opening of the DON'T LOOK Experimental New Media Gallery and launch of the inaugural exhibition:
"The Good, the Bad and the TEE VEE"
by Pete McCarron, Andrew Newman, Greg Shapley, Kurt Sorensen
WHEN: Opening Wednesday September 6, 2006, 6pm
September 7-17 (Thur-Sun 11am-5pm)
On Wednesday September 6 artist, Greg Shapley, will open a conceptual art gallery at 419 New Canterbury Rd, Dulwich Hill (near Marrickville Rd) called DON'T LOOK Experimental New Media Gallery.
This compact gallery will showcase exciting new works often ignored by other galleries because of their ephemeral and uncommodifiable nature: "I want to be able to show artists who make unsaleable pieces - works that are entertaining, thought provoking and experimental, but cannot be gift wrapped or flogged off on Ebay," Shapley said.
"High gallery rents resulting from exorbitant real estate prices have meant that art making has become an oppressive production line for many artists. You can't experiment, have fun or be daring when the investment is so large. I hope that by offering a gallery at a more reasonable price, artists will be able to do what artists should do - challenge conventional wisdoms."
Shapley sees the inner-west location as a plus: "It is part of the challenge to the stagnant art institutions of Paddington and the inner-city. The population of Sydney is moving further west and many really good artists live around the Marrickville LGA and beyond. Fresh, independent spaces, such as mine, will thrive in such an environment."
The first exhibition will be a collaborative show entitled "The Good, the Bad and the Tee Vee," comprising work from four artists; Pete McCarron, Andrew Newman, Kurt Sorensen and Shapley himself.
TV takes the best and worst bits of 'life' and distils them into a nonsensical, overstimulating bombardment; a glutinous feast for the senses that eventually dulls the senses with indifference. TV forgets history but dwells on sentiment.
The artists in this exhibition use the aesthetic of this medium to question its very substance. TV is turned in on itself. Although entertaining and alluring, these artists add uncanny twists to familiar, televisual, themes.