Artists

PROJECT: PERFORATION 245

The wall that runs along 245 Wilson Redfern acts as a physical and symbolic barrier between the local residents and the recently opened arts hub Carriageworks. Perforation 245 seeks to disrupt this divide. By using light projections and sound, surveillance technologies and radio frequencies this project creates a dialogue and interface between inside and out, Carriageworks and local residents, past and present.

The project is collaboration between Public Assembly and Team Vespertine. Pinging back and forth between Melbourne and Sydney, their paths have most recently collided and they now share a Sydney headquarters on Wilson St. As residents of the local area and as artists having participated in last year’s Underbelly Lab, they are in a unique position to explore the history and issues of the local area. The lab also presents an opportunity to experiment with new, found and makeshift technologies.

About the Artists
Team Vespertine are Perran Costi, Clare Holland and Edward Horne - three individuals who have gradually come to accept that they are addicted to the concept of the spectacle.
Public Assembly is the creative collaboration between Lynda Roberts and Ceri Hann. Their work establishes robust frameworks (curation, installation, workshops) that encourage a range of temporal engagements within the public realm.

PROJECT: HOT AIR

Reef Knot will be creating a series of suspended, sculptural speech bubbles in the foyer of Carriageworks using a combination of recognisable found objects, traditional sculptural materials and sound. The speech bubbles will morph with the structure of hot-air balloons and reflect the clichéd term ‘hot air' often used to describe mindless conversations or a verbal stream of consciousness. This installation will explore the potential beauty of the very fuzzy boundary between thinking and speaking, non-critical gas-bagging and converting people's hot air into abstract, solid forms. A truly zen by-production of comings and goings. Hot Air will be a work in progress, with further audience interactivity planned for the future.

About the Artists
Reef Knot is a recently created collective formed around two of the founding directors of Knot Gallery - Alasdair Nicol and Michelle McCosker. Focusing on large scale immersive installations Reef Knot chooses to collaborate with a full range of visual artists, sound artists and performers for specific projects. These maintain a strong sensitivity towards subtle beauty, the re-use of everyday materials, audience accessibility and rigorous production values.

Michelle McCosker - Creative Director + visual artists

Alasdair Nicol - Creative consultant + Reef Knot Director

Bianca Calandra - visual artist

Katherine Keefe - visual artist

Kirsten McCosker - visual artist

Michelle Santosa - visual artist and producer

Chris Hancock - sound producer

Howard Higgs - sound artist

A collective of video and audio artists stuck in the past. Hell-bent on reviving the best bits of pop culture from the past 40 years, the crew will spend time in the Lab collecting music, news footage, films, TV shows, commercials, jingles and everything else in their collective memories to present a VJ/DJ gig at the Festival, revisiting our most memorable sights and sounds of days gone by. Ah nostalgia!

About the Artists
VJ: Dave Regos works in film and television and documentaries. He broadcasts on FBi and has DJed at various Sydney film festivals.
VJ: Nat Itzkowic has a background in film, video and sound production.
DJ: Dan Buhagiar is a radio producer and DJ who has dabbled in sound art and doco making.
DJ: James West produces Triple Js current affairs program, Hack. He's also written a book about Chinese youth culture called Beijing Blur while he worked for a year for state-run radio.

PROJECT: SOUND IN MOTION

The physical theatre company Strings Attached and the musical band Assemblage Point are collaborating in the exploration and creation of a complex sonic environment, where performers alter the spatial arrangement of the sound sources to create an ever-changing sensorial experience.

About the Artists
Assemblage Point are a Sydney duo who enjoy being creative with sound and music. Their self-titled debut album is freshly released by Um Records.
Benn DeMole (musician, composer, audio engineer)

Christian Punch (musician, singer, composer)

Strings Attached is a physical theatre company formed in 2006. They have produced 2 major works and performed at many festivals.
Alejandro Rolandi (director, dancer/performer, rigger)
Lee-Anne Litton (dancer/performer, aerialist)
Catriona Davies (dancer/performer)

PROJECT: LEAUGE OF SHADOWS

Performing a twenty-minute excerpt from their upcoming show in its final stages of development. This sneak peek features home-baked shadow puppets and an original soundtrack.

Expect inappropriate amounts of politically incorrect gags, the extremely loud passing of 'shadow' gallstones and high doses of sympathy for the cast of characters, who include: a lab assistant with a heart of gold, a limbless telekinetic whose only wish is to end her miserable existence if only she had wrists to slash, a school of friendly zombies and a mad scientist.

About the Artists
'Team Awesome!' love shadow-play, imitating Johnny Cash and browsing through YouTube to find people to make fun of. We came together because of the efforts of a couple of perfectionists, a couple of musicians, a couple of theater makers, a stack of emails and one or two romantic as well as unromantic relationships.

Phil J Lesnie, Rani P Lukita, Jacob Craig, Dashiell Hannoush, Mark Pritchard, Mihai Sora and Skye Kunstelj.

www.leagueofshadows.com.au 

PROJECT: KILLING DON: EVOLUTION OF A MEMORY

Killing Don: evolution of a memory is a project in its second stage of development. An investigation into private and public notions of memory and the interplay between personal and collective memories and histories, it explores the way nostalgia of these memories traps people in the past. It is also an exercise in the significance of remembering a time, an event or a moment (whether you were there or not). Fusing digital media with live performance Killing Don examines those visions of nostalgia seen through society’s rose coloured glasses.

About the Artists
Team MESS are a young collective who came together as a performance ensemble during their studies at The University of Wollongong's Faculty of Creative Arts. Interested in the fusion of the performing and visual arts as a means of exploring the 'human condition' in experience and concept Killing Don is their first project together.

Director: Malcolm Whittaker (Marrickville)
Designer/Producer: Georgie Meagher (Surry Hills)
Writer: Sime Knezevic (Campbelltown)
Lighting Designer: Travis Hodgson (Newtown)
Sound Designer/Performer: Amy Wilson (Marrickville)
Video Artist: Dara Gill (Chatswood)
Technical Director/Performer: Frank Mainoo (Punchbowl)

PROJECT: THE EARTH MOVERS

Pitting biology against geology. A heads down, hands on, touchy-feely investigation into the precarious nature of mining, hazardous waste, and the
subterranean rumblings of our own backyard.

About the Artists
Gustavo Böke, Tega Brain, Michaela Davies, Damien Martin &
Sumugan Sivanesan initially came together during "The Ring Of
Fire" the volcano inspired arts science/home science/exhibition/eruption that was part of the Australian – Indonesian exchange Gang Festival 2008 www.gangfestival.com

http://thebowelsoftheearth.blogspot.com

PROJECT: ABLE TO BE DANCED

The brand new collective The Dance Museum presents their first experimental work that celebrates the powerful and seductive effect that music has on the body. They will be documenting how specific bodies respond to music they really love, how a musician responds to the silent footage of these bodies and finally how the viewers perception of the dancing body changes according to what they hear. It investigates that sudden moment when you hear a particular piece of music and realise you want to get up and dance!

About the Artists
The Dance Museum is a collective of Musicians, Dancers, Performance and Film Makers from across Melbourne, Newcastle and Sydney - Cristina de Mello, Paulo Morrison , Tessa Ramsey, Rob McCreddie, Chemine Steel-Prior, Gareth Hudson, Luke Davison, Jon Creenaune

The Whale Chorus will be making a new short theatre work. Set somewhere between a kitchen and a karaoke bar, the performers take over the theatre shifting between performance styles, characters, song and dance. David Lynch meets Sesame street in an experimental work that is half-theatre half-dance and half-musical performance.

About the Artists
Led Janie Gibson, this group comprises of Georgie Read, Alex Grady, Matthew Prest, Phoebe Torzillo and sound artist James Brown. Bursting at the seams with song, dance and spectacle this ensemble takes over the theatre with a raw energy and unique theatrical style. Writing and performing original works of theatre with diverse performance styles, pop culture and raw imagination to make a surreal and fantastical performance where anything could happen.

PROJECT: ELEPHANT

Token Imagination is back and has assembled a new tribe of balloons (Token speak for a new team of artists) to lasso an Elephant in the room. Elephant explores real and imagined spaces by creating an interactive installation for the audience to touch, taste, watch and move through. Elephant continues Token's interest in the dichotomy of Public/Private by exploring the most private spheres of humans - the mind and its imagination - and making them visible with the public. Lets Play!

About the Artists
Token Imagination is a dynamic collection of multidisciplinary artists, whose innovative collaborations create wonderlands for the imagination. For Underbelly 2008 Token Imagination is Louisa Dawson, Jess Cook, Mark Bolotin, Jamie Gerlach, Jesse Cox, Skye Wagner, Kali Reid, James Harney

http://www.tokenimagination.com