| Aotearoa Digital Arts Cloudland blog |
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Cloudland:
Digital Art from Aotearoa New Zealand
Curated by Su Ballard, Stella Brennan, and Zita Joyce for Aotearoa Digital Arts. A partner exhibition of the International Symposium of Electronic Arts (ISEA) The Substation, 45 Armenian Street, singapore 24 July – 3 August 2008 More Information: Cloudland, Etherradio Live, The Substation, ISEA 2008, The ADA Reader |
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Cloudland Aotearoa Digital Arts presents Cloudland, a showcase of New Zealand artists for ISEA 2008 in Singapore. The exhibition features film, video, installation, and sound works by Len Lye, et al., Stella Brennan, Alex Monteith, Kentaro Yamada, Bruce Russell, PSN Electronic (Peter Stapleton, Su Ballard and Nathan Thompson), and Adam Willetts. Cloudland, curated by Su Ballard, Stella Brennan, and Zita Joyce, is one of only four exhibitions invited for this international event. The works in Cloudland demonstrate the range of electronic art practices in New Zealand, by focusing on the ephemeral nature of both digitality and place. Each of the works imagine and articulate place: in Len Lye’s scratch film Free Radicals (1958/79) the velvety black of celluloid suggests the interatomic void; in Stella Brennan’s South Pacific (2006) the vast ocean is glimpsed by radar, video and ultrasound; Etherradio (2008) reveals unseen atmospheric intensities through the radio-based sound work of Bruce Russell, PSN Electronic (Peter Stapleton, Su Ballard and Nathan Thompson), and Adam Willetts. In Kentaro Yamada’s Listening Heads (2006) the viewer is situated through gaze and the glance in a simulation of human interaction mediated by the screen. Alex Monteith’s four-channel video installation Composition for farmer, three dogs and 120 sheep (2006) choreographs sheep mustering into a meditation on the camera’s framing of time and space. The work reflects on the agrarian archetype that is both keystone and millstone for New Zealand’s self-representation. In et al.’s the social meaning of things (2008) space is distanced and controlled; territory is closed off and subject to constant surveillance. Together these works present a picture of digital arts practice in New Zealand today. Cloudland opens to the public on 24th July at The Substation, the leading experimental gallery in Singapore. Cloudland has received substantial support from Creative New Zealand and the Asia New Zealand Foundation, with additional support from the Len Lye Foundation, AUT University, University of Canterbury, Otago Polytechnic, and the Auckland Art Gallery. Etherradio Live Performance by Adam Willetts and PSN Electronic (Peter Stapleton, Su Ballard, and Nathan Thompson) Substation Theatre, 27 July 2008, 10:30pm Adam Willetts and PSN Electronic will create live improvised versions of their sound works in the Etherradio Series. In performance these works engage with the particularities of the Singaporean radioscape - shaped by a very different combinations of atmospheric, political and geographic conditions than New Zealand’s. The Substation The Substation, a home for the arts, is Singapore's first independent contemporary arts centre. 45 Armenian Street, Singapore ph +65 6337 7535 admin@substation.org Location and map: http://www.substation.org/about_us/contact_us.html ISEA 2008 The International Symposium of Electronic Arts, ISEA, is hosted biennially by a different city. 2008 marks only the second time ISEA has been held in Asia, and Aotearoa Digital Arts is honoured to be chosen to represent New Zealand at this significant moment in the regional and international development of electronic arts. As the premier international electronic arts event, ISEA brings together artists, theorists, historians, curators and researchers of media arts from around the world to present artworks and research, and to discuss the problems and possibilities of media arts globally, this year with a particular focus on the Asia-Pacific region. More information on ISEA, including exhibitions and conference programme: http://www.isea2008singapore.org/ The Aotearoa Digital Arts Reader Launch: Monday 28 July 2008, 12:30-2pm in the Salon Room, Singapore National Museum New Zealand Launch: Friday 15 August 2008, 5:30pm St Paul St Gallery, AUT, Auckland In addition to the presentation of Cloudland, the New Zealand High Commission will host the ISEA 2008 launch of The Aotearoa Digital Arts Reader, a substantial new book on digital arts practice in New Zealand edited by Stella Brennan and Su Ballard, and published by Clouds. A comprehensive anthology, The Aotearoa Digital Arts Reader provides a snapshot of digital art practice in Aotearoa New Zealand. Editors Stella Brennan and Su Ballard present essays, artists’ pageworks and personal accounts that explore the production and reception of digital art. Ranging from research into the preservation of digital artworks to the environmental impact of electronic culture, from discussions of lo-tech aesthetics to home gaming, and from sophisticated data mapping to pre-histories of new media, this book presents a screen grab of digital art in Aotearoa New Zealand. All contributors are members of Aotearoa Digital Arts (ADA), New Zealand’s only digital artists’ network. With its mix of work by artists, theorists and educators, this reader represents some of the best new thinking about digital art practices in Aotearoa New Zealand, reflecting the politics of location, yet highly relevant to the wider contexts of digital media art and culture. More information and purchase details: http://www.clouds.co.nz/ |
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