Robotic Arts, Inflatable Aestheticism is a project comprising exhibition, workshop, and presentations by Chico MacMurtrie, one of the world's leading artists using robotic technologies.
Chico MacMurtrie describes his vision: "The work is an ongoing endeavor to uncover the primacy of movement and sound. Each machine is inspired or influenced, both, by modern society, and what I physically experience and sense. The whole of this input informs my ideas and work."

WORKSHOP
The Creation of Robotic Arts

PRESENTATIONS

PUBLICATION

more info here

image credit: Chico MacMurtrie, "Inflatable Aestheticism" installation view, EAF, 2006


Presented in association with the Adelaide Bank Festival of Arts 2006.
The EAF and Chico MacMurtrie are assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and by the South Australian Government through Arts SA's Artist in Residence Program. The EAF is also supported by the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments.

Born in England and studying at Cardiff Art College and the Royal College of Art, Mike Stubbs was in 2003 appointed the Curatorial Manager at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne. Previous to this, he was Senior Research Resident at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee, Scotland, and Director of Hull Time Based Arts, where he established several innovative schemes to encourage production and exhibition of new media art. With cinematographer and producer Roland Denning, Stubbs co-founded Metamedia, a London-based production company specialising in art and music. He has produced installation group "Granular Synthesis" (Venice Biennale, 2002) and curated new media programs for various international festivals.

Stubbs' work encompasses film, video, mixed media installations, performance and curation. He has won more than a dozen major international awards including first prizes at the Oberhausen and Locarno Film Festivals, and in 1999 he was invited to present a video retrospective of his own work at the Tate Gallery, London. A selection of his work was featured at the 2003 Adelaide International Film Festival.

Stubbs has collaborated with performance companies, dancers and musicians in many of his works. He is currently exploring multi-channel cinematic installation, and participating in critical debates about the nature and future of new media art.

For the EAF, Mike will prepare an installation of his video projects in which he combines processes of 'social interference' and media making. The works explore the phenomenon of the branding of cities as a strategy, not only of marketing, but also of regeneration.
more info here http://www.imaging.dundee.ac.uk/people/mstubbs/index.htm

"Stubbs' films are touching and poignant because they reveal the way in which obsessions, enthusiasms and hobbies are used by people to enshrine the aspirations that the bare facts of life can hardly ever live up to. Stubbs' work is marked by an understanding of aspiration, and of the individual's relationship with his/her own dreams. Within this relationship Stubbs articulates the significance of home - a place." - Lizzie Muller
image credits: Mike Stubbs "Jump Jet" 2003, DVD, 6 mins

WORKSHOP 5-9 JUNE 2006
Artists, architects, lecturers, writers and theorists will take part in the workshop which will serve as a theoretical and practical introduction in the creation of virtual worlds and virtual communities. Specifically, the workshop will lead to an understanding of the structure and possibilities of interactive narratives and will provide a means of investigating and questioning conventions of presentation and navigation in contemporary interaction design.

KAREL DUDESEK - CONCEPTUAL GUIDANCE
Karel Dudesek is an ex-performance artist, TV activist, and professor. He is presently Head of Postgraduate Studies at the Ravensbourne College in Kent, UK. He deals with digital, experimental and collaborative projects, working to develop interaction strategies with audiences. He has organised and juried the Web3DArt exhibitions from 1999 and was the founder of Van Gogh TV, www.vangoghtv.org, a media collaborative, which has been active in combining various media with live audiences for television, radio and Internet since the early 1980s.

MARTIN SCHMITZ - VRML
Close collaborator of Karel Dudesek and Technical Director for VanGoghTV, Martin Schmitz is also Senior Lecturer in Postgraduate Studies at the Ravensbourne College of Communication and Design, Kent, UK.

DIRK WALDIK - FLASH 3D
Dirk Waldik is a specialist in Interactive Technologies and has been developing Information and Navigation Systems for the web and interactive media for the past 6 years. He possesses a thorough understanding of community-based websites, having worked on projects such as the innovative online radio Last.fm. This site features a complex mapping system, which learns from the musical tastes of the site's visitors. Dirk Waldik is also a Lecturer at the Ravensbourne College of Communication and Design, Kent, UK.

PARTICIPANTS NEED:
A basic know-how in 3D authoring tools (eg 3D Studio Max, Maya or something similar with export into VRML) and own laptop (WINXP system) and be able to bring the laptop for use during the workshop. Applications for participation to director@eaf.asn.au with short biography, rational for participation and contact details.

WEB3DART2006 9-17 JUNE
LAUNCH 4PM FRIDAY 9 JUNE
WEB3DART2006, an exhibition aimed at presenting a selection of the best online 3D works for 2006, juried by Prof. Karel Dudesek, Martin Schmitz, Steve Guynup (Web3d artist, USA) and Melentie Pandilovski, EAF Director, will be launched at the EAF's Dark Horsey Bookshop at 4pm Friday 9 June.

PRESENTATION 5-7PM FRIDAY 9 JUNE, MERCURY CINEMA
Karel Dudesek, Martin Schmitz & Dirk Waldik will give a presentation at the Mercury Cinema, Lion Arts Centre, 13 Morphett Street, Adelaide 5-7 pm Friday 9 June 2006. Admission free.

The WEB 3D ART PROJECT has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, it arts funding and advisory body.

"paint that never dries" is an investigation into the notion of surface through the ideas evolving from highly viscous substances and particular characteristics of paint. Through incorporating two distinct phenomena of spillage and tidal wave with the reduced fluidity, continuous malleability and potentiality found in the idea of high viscous paint that never dries, Akira explores ways of expanding the notion of surface and contemplates possible implications of the fluid substances that are 'slow'.
image credits: Akira Akira "Surface Cloud" 2005, Pegasus Print, 20 x 25cm

During the last 12 months Dominic's work has been shown widely, nationally and internationally, including at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne, and in the US, Germany, UK, Tuurkey and Sweden. In July 2003, he travelled to Seoul to take part in 'Parallel', an exchange project involving young Korean and Australian artists, and spent November 2003 to February 2004 as Artist in Residence at the Australia Council Studio in Santa Monica, Los Angeles. In 2005 he travelled to Thailand to undertake a residency in Bangkok where his work was shown as part of the Thailand New Media Arts Festival. Dominic's art practice is informed by his work as a Lecturer in Video at the School of Art at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT).
image credits: DOMINIC REDFERN "OW!"

WILKINS HILL "Sunny" & "Kids are Food"

Wilkins Hill live and work in Brisbane. Their practice is predominantly installation based, incorporating sculpture, photography, video, sound and text. They are exhibiting two works at EAF including the photographic series 'Kids are Food' (2006) and the video installation 'Sunny' (2006).
image credits: Wilkins Hill "Sunny" 2006, DVD projection

Morgan Allender
Andrew Best
Annette Bezor
blotchwoman
Matthew Bradley
Chris Flanagan
Loene Furler
Julie Henderson
Paul Hoban
KAB101
Jacqueline Knight
Marcin Kobilecki
Christian Lock
Alison Main
Rachel McElwee
Peter McKay
Viv Miller
Andy Petrusevics
Mark Siebert
Katrina Simmons
Paul Sloan

Presented in association with South Australian Living Artists Festival

Touring regional South Australia 2007-08

JOSEPHINE STARRS & LEON CMIELEWSKI "Seeker"
25 AUGUST-23 SEPTEMBER

GALLERY TALK 4PM FRIDAY 26 AUGUST

Josephine Starrs and Leon Cmielewski's visual art practice focuses primarily on the relationship between society, the machine and the individual, often using play as a strategy for engaging with the social and political contradictions inherent in contemporary society.
Seeker uses a series of large projected screen based artworks to explore migration, territorial boundaries, conflict commodities and human displacement.

"Seeker not only traces the global movement of people and resources, but also illustrates the ongoing process of translation from the physical to the virtual in the way we perceive the world. Translation implies a desire to communicate; each person who engages with Seeker will be prompted to consider what is lost and what is gained, what is repressed and what is discovered in this process." Fiona Trigg, Contemporary Commonwealth 2006 Catalogue Essay

Formerly from South Australia, the video and new media works of Cmielewski & Starrs have been shown extensively in Australia and internationally. Their collaborative projects include 'Trace' mixed media installation commissioned by the Sydney Records Centre in 2002, 'Dream Kitchen', an interactive stop-motion animation published on CD-ROM and their digital video a.k.a. In 2003 their work 'Bio-tek Kitchen', a computer game modification, was included in the 'House of Tomorrow' exhibition mounted my Experimenta, Melbourne, and was also exhibited in Chicago and Germany. Cmielewski & Starrs also exhibited at ISEA2004 with 'Floating Territories', a site specific mixed media installation, and completed a a residency at the Sarai Centre, India, in 2006.

Leon Cmielewski lectures at the School of Communication, Design & Media, University of Western Sydney, and Josephine Starrs lectures at Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney.

image credits: Josephine Starrs and Leon Cmielewski, Seeker three-screen interactive installation, 2006, detail.

More info here http://lx.sysx.org/

Intertwingularity explores photography as a system of complex connections, processes and technologies. This exhibition presents new modes of making and thinking about photography by linking unconventional/experimental photographic processes with new media technologies.
It highlights photography's interconnectedness with other representational media; and examines the levels of abstraction that accompanies digital translations of photographic information. Intertwingularity not only explores photography's contemporary context, it offers possibilities for photography's future.

Tracy Cornish is currently completing a PhD by Research and lectures in Photography at the University of South Australia. Her exhibitions include Festival Attitude, Magaza Bitola, Macedonia (2005), World Year of Physics Art Prize, Macquarie University, Sydney (2005), National Museum of Australia, Canberra (2004), and Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney (2002).
image credits: Still image from series "pixelation" 2006 (dimensions variable)

"Istanbul: Visual Operative / Crawling Carpets", 2005 is a double screen work made during the artist's stay in Istanbul, a city on the border between West and East, straddling two continents. The artist assumes the persona of an 'operative' gathering data on behalf of the European Union, in this still exotic, but changing city.
His mission is to evaluate the visual environment of Istanbul ahead of Turkey's negotiating process for accession to the EU. Always on the alert for visual irregularities, the operative shows us images of familiar landmarks, Westernised shops, and street bazaars, set to a voiceover which conveys the operative's findings. Boyadjiev is addressing the different cultural expectations and attitudes that lie at the heart of the difficult relationship between Europe and Asia. The artist suggests, with dead-pan irony, that perhaps Turkey should be integrated into the EU in three stages, gradually and progressively extending Europe's standards and systems ever Eastwards.

Luchezar Boyadjiev was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, and trained as an art historian and theorist. He has been working as an artist but started exhibiting only after 1989. He was the founding member of the Sofia Institute of Contemporary Art and has exhibited and lectured internationally, including 'After the Wall' (Moderna, Stockholm), 'Temp-Balkania' (Kiasma, Helsinki), 'Revolting' (Manchester), 'Money/Nations' (Zurich), and 'Hybrid Workspace', documenta X (Kassell). In 2006 he will be exhibiting in the Singapore Biennale.

image credits: Luchezar Boyadjiev "Istanbul: Visual Operative / Crawling Carpets", 2005

Critical to Kreckler's artwork is an ongoing experimentation with form and media to discover the most appropriate vehicle for a given project. He has adopted various forms of electronic media to create works for screen, gallery and live performance. His work creates a resonant experience for the viewer, both emotionally and intellectually.

Trained as a visual artist (sculpture), Kreckler works across the visual, performing and media arts, his practice encompassing installation (audio, video and sculptural), multimedia, performance and theatre. He has exhibited and performed throughout Australia and internationally for more than 20 years. His work has been presented in major international events including the 1982, 1986 and 1990 Sydney Biennales, the 1997 Festival of Perth, at Edge '88: Britains first international festival of experimentation in the arts, in London, as well as exhibitions in India, Korea and the United States. He was awarded a prestigious twelve month residency at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in New York (PS1) and was a participant in the Fire and Life project between India and Australia. His work for radio, "Yurabirong", commissioned by The Listening Room, ABC Radio National, has been broadcast many times, most notably to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the 1967 referendum which (finally) recognised Aboriginal people as citizens of Australia. In 2000 Kreckler was awarded an Australia Council New Media Arts Fellowship and in 2003 was commissioned by the National Gallery of Victoria to produce work for the Clemenger Art Awards. His work features in the collections of the Mitchell Research Library, Sydney, The Wesfarmers Collection, Art Bank and numerous private collections. Derek Kreckler currently lectures in Electronic Arts, Edith Cown University, Perth.
More info here www.derekkreckler.com

image credit: Derk Kreckler "Untitled 2 (WG Coda) Homage to CJ," 2005