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:

Dorkbot Cbr

View more presentations from bytetime.

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!

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

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

Opening Tonight of Restless Habitat by Lucie Verhelst, Alistair Riddell and Belinda Jessup.

Restless Habitat
by Lucie Verhelst, Alistair Riddell and Belinda Jessup.
A kinetic textile installation exploring the
concept of home through a fusion of nomadic
culture and western suburbia.
The exhibition will be opened by
Wendy Teakel, Head of Sculpture, ANU School of Art
When: 6pm, 11 February 2009
Where: ANCA Gallery
1 Rosevear Place
Dickson ACT

Dorkbot CBR February Meeting

This month at Dorkbot Canberra we welcome Tim Brook.

From Tim’s web site:

Most of the photographs that I use display a basic technical competence, but not all of them. Photographers often ask me why I show photographs that are overexposed or badly composed. The answer, of course, is that I am not showing photographs, I am showing transitions between photographs. It is the relationship between the images that interests me. As individual photographs they may or may not be well composed. I remain fascinated by the subtlety and complexity of spatial relationships when they are juxtaposed in time. A slide-tape piece invites a viewer to make new connections. (http://hingstonbrook.com/01av/tb0101.htm)

Biography

Tim is an independent audio-visual artist—among other things, he makes slide-tape works. He blends colour slides on a screen one after the other to produce a sequence of slowly changing images. He describes each slide-tape work as ‘an invitation to make connections’. He’s been making them since 1980, working with composers, performers, theatrical directors and with other visual artists. Once he worked with a reggae band and once with a Nigerian Rastafarian and four drummers. Now he works mainly with recorded sound and commissioned music.

As a photographer, Tim was originally known for documenting the work of visual and performing artists. Since 1994, most of his work has been a close study of surfaces—their textures, patterns and colours. His corrugated iron series is one result of this study. More recently he has been photographing reflections.

Tim has undertaken researched into online and onscreen communication. He has identified features of new form of language for education online, a language growing out of spoken and written language but going beyond them. Some of these developments involved word usage but many more involved the use of non-verbal elements to make meaning, for example the systematic layering of information in metaphoric learning environments.

Currently, Tim is a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University School of Art and a member of the board of PhotoAccess.

Tuesday Feb 24 at 6.00pm in the Fireplace Room, Gorman House.

Be there and be square!

Tracey

Reminder Dorkbot Drinks this Eve

For all of you not on the e-list and those that are a reminder that
if your in town tonight Thursday 18th December we hope you can join us for
a dorkie christmas drink at Trinity Bar, Dickson (28 Challis St.) from 7:00pm.
We are planning to splurge our exhibition catalog proceedings on some pizza too.

Hope to see you there,

Alex and Tracey

Dorkbot Canberra Exhibition Documentation

More photos from the fabulously successful recent Dorkbot Canberra Exhibition can be found on my Flickr site

see : http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexandragillespie

Dorkbot CBR Exhibition Opens Nov 6th

MEDIA RELEASE

Dorkbot CBR : Exhibition
Fri 7th – Sat 15th Nov @ CCAS Manuka

ACT Dorks show their stuff !

Dorkbot Canberra (CBR) is one of around 76 chapters in an international ‘collective’ of  like-minded groups bound by the catchy bi-line “people who do strange things with electricity”.

While electricity might be the common denominator for Dorkbot’s global pursuits it doesn’t account for the many technologies used by its members or the diversity of ideas that flourish under its lo-to-hi tech canopy.

Prepare to be astonished by ’speaking’ collars, artworks that produce and destroy themselves, recycled organisms, teenage memories ignited by science, interactive deception, drawing without beginning or end and The Bible … as you have never seen it.

There is a genuine and passionate interest amongst Dorkbot members, in the ways their colleagues explore and employ a diversity of media. As the work of each artist unfolds it is clear that no technology is too old to explore or too new to confront. No idea too bizarre to consider or too strange to discuss.

They are not afraid to experiment !

Hybrid media and cocktails of ideas lay the foundations for artworks that incorporate a common interest in the speed of changing methods and techniques for the artists of the future.

Dorkbot CBR was founded by media artists Alexandra Gillespie and Tracey Meziane Benson in December 2007 and they celebrate their first year with a group exhibition at Canberra Contemporary Art Space.

The highly skilled and experienced group of exhibiting innovators are Clem Baker- Finch, Benjamin Forster, Alexandra Gillespie, Michael Honey, Tracey Meziane Benson, Nathan Mc Ginness, Miles Thorogood, Mitchell Whitelaw and Josh Wodak.

Exhibition Opens Thurs Nov 6th, 6pm, 19 Furneaux St. Forrest and continues
Fri 7th – Sun 9th and Wed 12th – Sat 15th 11- 5pm.

Sound performances by Dick Sun and Queazel on opening night.

More info on Dorkbot Canberra can be found at http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotcbr.

Dorkbot CBR is supported by Canberra Contemporary Art Space (http://www.ccas.com.au/) and the  International Dorkbot group (http://dorkbot.org/).

For further information, images and interviews with Dorkbot CBR artists, please contact Alexandra Gillespie.
MOB: 0438 747 595   E: alex@alexandragillespie.net

Erica Seccombe’s Talk

Thanks so much to Erica Seccombe, who came and spoke about her very interesting project ‘Nanoplastica’, which is now showing at the Canberra Contemporary Art Space. Erica’s talk covered how the work developed whilst undertaking an artist-in-residence supported by an artsACT new work grant at the ANU’s Department of Applied Mathematics.

We look forward to seeing Erica at our regular meetings.