Nick Cave’s new novel The Death of Bunny Munro has arrived at Polyester

National call for mobile phone poetry

RMIT University is calling for poems that will be bluetoothed to peoples’ mobiles during the Melbourne Writers Festival. Poems need to be 140 characters or less, in any style or subject matter. Twitter page to follow from August 22nd, 2009 is #RMIT_Poetry.

Deadline: 5pm, Friday 31 July

For more information, visit

Mobile Textualism

<http://www.rmit.edu.au/news/poetry>

Call out for Environmental Shorts Melbourne

Want to make Shorts about Environmental Education? Seven S Productions are looking for supporting video materials for an innovative, potentially global, environmental education project inspired by the US evolutionary biologist E.O.Wilson. It involves filming experts and participants in various parts of Victoria implementing the project. Finished projects are around 6-10 minutes long.

For more information contact Eugene Schlusser of Seven S Productions at eugenesc@netspace.net.au

Chris Howlett Flashbacks

Opening Wednesday 5 August, 6-9pm, 2009
Balmoral Room, Brisbane, Australia

A multi-disciplinary exhibition combining contemporary art with immersive interactive gameplay, live action documentation and video art works.

Chris Howlett’s new interactive video and sound art exhibition called Flashbacks opens at the Balmoral Room in City Hall coinciding with the Brisbane International Film Festival. The works in this exhibition explore a number of fundamental questions around the way in which new technologies shift cultural and political understandings of our physical and psychological selves. Through combining 3D game play with interactive game mods, video projections, sound works and site-specific installations, these works activate an immersive space from which to critically and creatively consider how reality and simulated environments both construct and reconfigure our ideas about the nature of identity.

Howlett’s work asks us to reflect on how we function as a society in response to these new spaces of interaction, how we might respond to the political dimensions of these expanded sites of inhabitation, and how they might also represent a more troubling scenario for the possibility of dissent or opposition in our media saturated culture.

More from Chris Howlett dot com dot au

Len Lye at ACMI

Discover the art of Len Lye (1901 – 1980), one of the most radical creative minds of the modern age. This unforgettably exuberant exhibition surveys his work across film, sculpture, painting, poetry and more. Exploding with kaleidoscopic colour and pulsing with rhythmic beats, the exhibition is the largest survey of Len Lye’s work ever presented.

New Zealand-born Len Lye is a seminal figure in the history of the moving image. In his early twenties, Lye travelled throughout the South Pacific, and lived for extended periods in Australia and Samoa. Moving to London in the twenties, and then New York in the forties, Len Lye’s career unfolded amidst avant garde modernism on the international stage.

Drawing from the Len Lye Foundation Collection and Archive, the exhibition combines artworks with rarely-seen biographical ephemera, concept drawings and other working materials, many on public display for the first time.

Beginning in the 1930s, Len Lye made films without a camera, applying hand-painted imagery directly to the film strip. Combining these vibrant abstractions with rhythmic Cuban jazz, works such as A Colour Box (1935) and Rainbow Dance (1936) have become touchstones for the medium of film as an artistic expression.

Exhibition runs until Sunday 11 October 2009
Open daily 10am – 6pm
Free admission

ACMI has created a workshop called Scratch it, which demonstrates how Len Lye created abstract films – called ‘direct films’ – by scratching patterns and marks directly onto celluloid.

With about 15 seconds of film stock, you’ll create a short sequence in this workshop that, when spliced together with sections created by other participants, will form a large collaborative and abstract film.

SCRATCH IT (workshop)
Sun 23 Aug 2009, 1pm-4pm
location: Studio 1, ACMI, Fed Square, Melbourne, Australia
admission: Free

Lesbian donors take action over being shunned

College student Li Yu instinctively answered a call last week from the government for blood donation, but it was her honesty that caused authorities to turn her away.

“I don’t understand why and I feel discriminated against,” Li, 20, told China Daily.

Li is a lesbian. Healthcare workers rejected her blood because she declared her sexual orientation on a mandatory health form.

Li is one of the latest lesbians to face such treatment under regulations that bar homosexuals from donating blood because of health concerns.

More from China Daily

Rock Paper Lasers digital laser technology to create paper artworks and sculptures

Don’t F with Lasers!

Trinh Vu, Troy Innocent, Jeff Janet and Joel Zika. Exhibiting amazing paper based artworks.

Opening night Friday July 31st – exhibition runs until the 15th of August, 2009

Check:
www.rockpaperlasers.blogspot.com
www.kickgallery.com

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The four artists in Rock, Paper, Lasers – Troy Innocent, Jeff Janet, Trinh Vu & Joel Zika – have used the latest digital laser technology to create paper artworks and sculptures; some of the works mimic industrial design objects while others are representative of mere folly and experimentation.

One of the intentions of the artists in this exhibition is to deride the mass production of iconography, such as that which is so often seen in ‘home wares’ or ‘lifestyle’ shops, to make a series of more unique works. Other works in the show are intended to exemplify the possibilities of these tools for the creation of contemporary art works. While these artists cast a light on the facelessness of the prefabricated object, at the same time, they choose to revel in the machine’s benefits for more unique creative purposes rather than running from them.

Each of the artists in Rock, Paper, Lasers lecture in Art and Design at Monash University and as a part of their own on-going practice set themselves the task to create this exhibition of two and three dimensional artworks collaboratively.

Troy Innocent is represented by Tolarno Galleries, Boutwell Draper Gallery, and Hugo Michell Gallery. Trinh Vu is represented by Christine Abrahams Gallery (Melbourne), ArtsBank and Chika Gallery (Tokyo). Joel Zika first exhibited at Kick Gallery in 2004 and has regularly exhibited at Kick Gallery in various group exhibitions. Rock, Paper, Lasers has been supported by the Monash University Art & Design Faculty.

Host: Kick Gallery
Opening Night: Friday, July 31, 2009
7:00pm – 9:00pm
Location:  Kick Gallery, 239 High St , Northcote, Melbourne, Australia

Email: info@kickgallery.com

Crowd Sourcing free Melbourne seminar for designers

What will changing innovation processes mean for design practitioners?
Wednesday 5 August, 6-7.30pm | Sensis Theatrette, Melbourne

Presented by AIMIA Victoria in partnership with Swinburne University.

Throughout the creativity sector we are seeing more and more calls to ‘the crowd’ for their design ideas. From Smith’s Crisps offering 1% of sales for new flavour ideas to Dorito’s offering $20,000 to the most innovative and crowd-pleasing advertisement, we are seeing clients seek solutions from the crowd rather than the designer.

This shift in the innovation process can be characterised as either user-driven (where the crowd is asked to respond) or open innovation (where clients are creating new partnerships with their ‘problem solvers’). Exciting as this may be for creatives everywhere, what does it mean for design practitioners? What are the implications of user driven and open innovation of interactive media and digital design practices in particular? This session brings together practitioners and academics to explore what the future of innovation will mean to design practice.

Speakers:
99Designs – Adam Schilling
iSpyStyle – Kate Vandermeer
Professor Lyndon Anderson – Swinburne University

Chair:
Angelina Russo – Swinburne University

Venue:
Sensis Theatrette (Level 3, QV Centre), Cnr Swanston St and Lonsdale St, Melbourne, Australia

The seminar will be followed by networking drinks at Three Degrees.

This is a FREE event
More info from AIMIA

Cinema 2 point 0 plus 3D Big Screen and Participatory Futures

How will the traditionally passive cinema experience change in the next few years. Stereoscopic 3D films are becoming commonplace alongside specialised 3D Imax outings and in the past few months we have experienced Monsters vs Aliens, Up, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Coraline, My Bloody Valentine. Dreamworks have committed to producing all CG films in 3D and there are new releases planned over the next 6 months including Avatar, The Final Destination, re-release of Toy Story 1 & 2. A Christmas Carol & Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. But what about more interactive cinema with games or social applications particularly with YouTube recently delivering a full 3D capability? Where does the future lie for cinemas and other public screen spaces?

Speakers:
- Tim Baier (Animal Logic)
- Paul Nichola (Stereo Supervisor/VFX Supervisor – Cane Toads 2)
- Matt McGinity, UNSW iCinema
- and Peter Giles Director of Digital Division @ AFTRS

Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Time:  5:30pm – 7:00pm
Location:  AFTRS THEATRE
The Entertainment Quarter, Moore Park
Sydney, Australia

Email: info@aftrs.edu.au
Website: lamp.edu.au

Peter Singer Why Go Vegetarian

excerpt: “the idea that ‘humans come first’ is more often used as an excuse for not doing anything about either human or nonhuman animals than as a genuine choice between incompatible alternatives . . . Granted, everyone has a limited amount of time and energy, and time taken in active work for one cause reduces the time available for another cause; but there is nothing to stop those who devote their time and energy to human problems from joining the boycott of the products of agribusiness cruelty. It takes no more time to be a vegetarian than to eat animal flesh. In fact . . . those who claim to care about the well-being of human beings and the preservation of our environment should become vegetarians for that reason alone. They would thereby increase the amount of grain available to feed people elsewhere, reduce pollution, save water and energy, and cease contributing to the clearing of forests; moreover, since a vegetarian diet is cheaper than one based on meat dishes, they would have more money available to devote to famine relief, population control, or whatever social or political cause they thought most urgent. I would not question the sincerity of vegetarians who take little interest in Animal Liberation because they give priority to other causes; but when nonvegetarians say that ‘human problems come first’ I cannot help wondering what exactly it is that they are doing for human beings that compels them to continue to support the wasteful, ruthless exploitation of farm animals.”

More on Peter Singer

The Life You Can Save