Electrofringe and Girl Geek Dinners
There have been a couple of recent events that have featured dorkbot cbr.
At Electrofringe we had an exhibition at John Paynter Gallery and Tracey Meziane Benson presented a talk with Pia Van Gelder (Sydney dorkbot overlord) about the year in dorkbot.
On 14 October, Tracey also presented a short talk at the Girl Geek Dinner Canberra about dorkbot cbr at the Burns Club.
Here is a link to the presentation:
Add comment October 14, 2009
Jonah Brucker-Cohen October 2009 Dorkbot meeting
Add comment October 8, 2009
September Dorkbot CBR meeting – Torben Sko
We are very happy to announce that Torben Sko will be presenting his interesting work on portraiture at our next meeting – Tuesday 29 September 6pm at CCAS in the main gallery space.
Torben was a finalist in the 2009 Youth Self Portrait competition and his work is currently on display as part of the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery until September 13.
Torben Sko self portrait
Biography
Driven by both his artistic and technical interests, Torben Sko is currently conducting a PhD into alternative forms of interaction for computer games. His work to date has focused on the use of facial movements as a way to both control and alter the gaming experience, in an effort to increase player enjoyment. Through his work, he has collaborated with several industries partners, including game developers and computer vision specialists.
Prior to conducting his post-graduate work, Torben completed a Bachelor of Software Engineering at the ANU’s School of Computer Science. During this degree, Torben studied computer animation in the Arts faculty. In his final year, Torben combined the two disciplines to create a virtual simulation of the campus. Since then, he’s gone on to publish several papers, which he has presented around the world and has even has some of his PhD work exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery.
Artist Statement
“Combining art and technology this work challenges the nature of portraiture and the way we view it. Embracing the theme of replication, the piece uses a computer game engine to present a vivid virtual version of the National Portrait Gallery inhabited by a three-dimensional incarnation of the artist. Developed specifically for this work, the system uses binary as brushstrokes, which not only
enables rich, realistic visuals but also enables it to break free from traditional art by incorporating movement and even behaviour into the piece. Using facial tracking the portrait takes on the physical behaviour of the viewer, encouraging them to explore, interact and inhabit the work. In doing so, this work invites the viewer to not only look at the artist, but at themselves too.”
Look forward to seeing you there!
Add comment August 26, 2009
July 2009 meeting – Mitchell Whitelaw
Announcing our July meeting in association with Canberra Contemporary Art Space (CCAS), Dorkbot CBR presents Mitchell Whitelaw.
Date: Tuesday, 28 July 2009
Time: 6:00 pm – 7:30pm
Location: The Fireplace Room, Gorman House Arts Centre
Street: Ainslie Ave. Braddon
This month we would like to welcome long standing Canberra dorkbot affiliate Mitchell Whitelaw to talk about a recent project he has been working on with the National Archives of Australia under their Ian Maclean Award.
The Visible Archive is a research project in the visualisation of archival datasets, supported by the National Archives of Australia under their Ian Maclean Award (2008). It explores the potential of interactive visualisation to navigate, interpret and analyse large cultural and historical datasets. In this talk Mitchell will present interactive sketches from the project, visualising the Archives entire collection – made up of some 65,000 Series – and navigating a single Series, A1, containing thousands of pages of digitised records.
http://visiblearchive.blogspot.com
Mitchell Whitelaw is an artist, researcher and writer with interests in data aesthetics and generative systems in art and design. He leads the Master of Digital Design program in the Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Canberra.
Add comment July 21, 2009
Dorkbot CBR June 2009 meeting
Announcing our June meeting in association with Canberra Contemporary Art Space (CCAS), Dorkbot CBR presents Fiona Hooton.
Date: Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Time: 6:00 pm – 7:30pm
Location: The Fireplace Room, Gorman House Arts Centre
Street: Ainslie Ave. Braddon
Fiona’s career has involved employment as an artist, educator and administrator in both state and national collecting institutions. Over this period of time she has acquired an ongoing interest in Australia’s still and moving image heritage. Currently manager of Picture Australia www.pictureaustralia.org
Fiona will talk to us about how artists can utilise/interface with the Picture Australia Collection.
Add comment June 15, 2009
Mitchell Whitelaw talk at National Archives of Australia
Congratualations to Mitchell Whitelaw on winning the 2008 Ian Maclean Award awarded by the National Archives of Australia.
Mitchell is talking at the National Archives about his project “The visible archive” which uses creative visualisation to interpret large sets of archival data.
Time: 12:30 pm
Date: Tuesday 16th June
Place: National Archives of Australia
Corner Queen Victoria Terrace and Kings Avenue, Parkes ACT
Add comment May 31, 2009
Dorkbot CBR May/June Meeting
Dear CBR- Dorks,
As we had a meeting earlier this month presenting Tim Plaisted and his work we will skip this months meeting and reconvene on Tuesday June 30. At this meeting Fiona Hooton is scheduled from the National Library’s Picture Australia project. Fiona will talk to us about how artists can utilise/interface with the Picture Australia Collection.
More details to follow in June.
Best Regards,
Alex
Add comment May 24, 2009
Dorkbot Canberra April/May Meeting
Dear CBR Dorks and friends,
We have held over April’s Dorkbot meeting to host an artist talk by Tim Plaisted on Thurs 7th May in the CCAS gallery.
Tim Plaisted is an artist living in Brisbane working with media art. Plaisted’s work has been exhibited in Australia, Mexico, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, UK, USA and reviewed in Artforum. His current work, Careful Messenger (2008) continues an exploration of realtime 3d and game tools in media art from recent works, River’s End (2007) and Handheld (2006). His earlier work, Surface Browser (2004), was commissioned for the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts UK gallery launch and included in “2004: Australian Culture Now” national survey of contemporary art. Surface Browser as well as networkdposition (1999) and 24Hr Coverage (2000) were included in three MAAP (Multimedia Arts Asia Pacific) Festivals in Australia and Singapore.
Tim is in town to install and open his recent work Careful Messenger in the Cube space at CCAS the show opens on Friday May 8 at 6pm.
“Careful Messenger was inspired by my grandfather Stirling Blacket’s time as a dispatch rider in Gallipoli, relaying and confirming messages from command on his horse. In the two-channel work a horse gallops in the left
panel while in the right panel the horse pants exhausted with closed eyes, turning its head towards the viewer. Here Blacket’s horse appears as a modern day messenger, a search engine working overtime for research. In formally combining these two resonating images, the work suggests that the labour and commitments of research and information delivery, is just as critical to us today as Blacket’s missions and should be approached with the same caution and vigilance. “
Tim’s website is http://www.boxc.net/
Date: Thursday, 7th May 2009
Time: 6:00pm – 7:00pm
Location: Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Gorman House Arts Centre
Street: Ainslie Ave. Braddon
Hope to see you there!
Alex
Add comment April 29, 2009
Dorkbot CBR March Meeting
This month at Dorkbot following on from the opening of Collars at Canberra Contemporary Art Space.
Project artist Alexandra Gillespie will talk about the project beginnings, development and exhibition of the installation in the CCAS gallery amidst the work. Project programmer and electronics maestro Ben Lippmeier will talk about the technical aspects behind the project development.
At the centre of Collars, is the symbolic significance of the collar in its role as an indicator of power, control and social stratification. The artists have collected stories from significant others including friends, family and fellow artists. These stories are implanted in the collars, as it were; computer programmed electroluminescent lamps that project texts through the fabric. Through this multi-layered interconnected display of the technologies of spoken word, written word and symbolism, Gillespie and Langley literally shed light on complex personal narratives through the use of a deceptively simple, yet, loaded object, the collar.
-David Broker CCAS, Director.
Ben Lippmeier is a final year PhD student and occasional lecturer in Computer Science at the ANU and dorkbot cbr regular.
Alexandra Gillespie is a media artist whose work is primarily concerned with responding to particular sites and spatial/temporal experiences. She often utilises projection, sound, and found objects to create installations, video and photographic works. As a hybrid media artist she has worked in a range of contexts including public works, gallery exhibitions, architectural collaborations, performance and festivals.
Her work has been exhibited in Australia, Asia, America and Europe.
Alexandra holds a B.A. in Media Studies from the University of Queensland and a Masters degree in Communication Design from Queensland University of Technology. She is currently a PhD Candidate, School of Art, Photography and Media Arts, ANU. In 2007, Alexandra co-founded the Canberra chapter of dorkbot with Tracey Meziane Benson.
Currently Co-Director of the Electrofringe festival, sound/media artist, Somaya Langley also worked as co-collaborator on the project.
Date: Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Time: 6:00 pm – 7:00pm
Location: CCAS, Gorman House Arts Centre
Street: Ainslie Ave. Braddon
Add comment March 25, 2009
Collars Exhibition at CCAS opens Fri 27th March
Introduced at the 2008 International Symposium of Electronic Art in Singapore, Collars, an immersive media installation by Canberra collaborators Alexandra Gillespie and Somaya Langely, can finally be seen in all its glory at Canberra Contemporary Art Space. With sound, LED text, and lots of imagination, Gillespie and Langley transform the humble neck piece into an installation of floating collars that symbolize power, control and memory.
In the Middlespace gallery CCAS presents a body of new work by painter Dionisia Salas Hammer, entitled 2009 A * C Odyssey. Dionisia is a recent graduate of the ANU School of Art who imagines how the earth’s geological formation might have looked if she were painting at the time of the big bang. Salas Hammer generates the exhilaration of creation itself while asking how the newly born imploding and exploding earth could be envisioned by means of abstraction.
Showing in the Cube gallery is Damaged Goods – a collection of assemblages by Melbourne based artist Mat de Moiser who uses consumer items such as Ikea furniture as the medium for his artwork. On one level it is a tongue in cheek look at the nature of art and consumerism. On a more serious level Damaged Goods reflects de Moisers’s Estonian heritage and memories of refugee grand parents whose first Australian house was built from re-purposed packing crates, with furnishings either donated by friends or salvaged from the local tip.
Collars : Alexandra Gillespie & Somaya Langley
2009 A * C Odyssey : Dionisia Salas Hammer
Damaged Goods : Mat de Moiser
The exhibitions open at CCAS Gorman House 6pm Friday March 27th
the artists will be present at the opening and all are invited to attend
The exhibitions continue until May 2nd
Add comment March 25, 2009
