Throw Shapes :: Sydney » Watch This Space

Real Perspective :: Get Some

amelia — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 09:26:35 +0000

“Imagine art practices you can’t document with a camera because the artwork requires more visual ability than any camera can offer. You can’t upload the image to facebook because of the limitations of a computer screen. Some painters paint images that a camera can make: Good for them. Many of these artists can promote themselves and their art, make a living and provide stimulating visual media because of the flexibility of their chosen visual language.”

Real Perspective works with this kind of art: new, crazy, multimedia, exciting art that challenges the somewhat “disaffected” art scene with new concepts. Tony Curran, who runs the organisation, helped us with the Throw Shapes launch party and got us interested in what he does.

“It is a unique artistic and curatorial ideology,” says Tony. “It involves new and innovative methods and beliefs in describing the world around us through attempts to develop accessible media which fills the gaps of contemporary visual culture’s representation from a photographic perspective. There is no attack on photography from Real Perspective but there is a strong belief that photographic media is as distorted as any other visual medium. Unlike post-modern discourse, Real Perspective believes that culture can progress to find new and innovative ways to represent what it sees by questioning how it sees.”

Real Perspective’s show at our launch party (for you suckers who didn’t come) involved a multi-sensory input which produced a selection of images as output projected on to a wall. Sure, it didn’t quite go as planned but it still functions as a good example of what Real Perspective is all about. The gallery space, the methods of displaying work and the work all combine to become the artwork itself – a conglomerate of all parts of the art process that were previously seen as peripheral.

The artist and the artwork have often crossed over, as have the artwork and the audience. But for Real Perspective it’s the art space and the art curation that can now be part of the artwork as well. Which leaves not much as Not Art, but that’s OK. “What this means for the art world is a new direction for contemporary art which invigorates new gallery audiences without alienating them from the artistic process, substance, skill and reliability of the artworks integrity,” says Tony. “It does this because the only way to interact with the image is to interact with its physical presence.”

In a way, Real Perspective is hard to document. The very mediums that it shuns tend to be the only way it can be kept track of. But don’t take the blog at face value – the best way to get some Real Perspective is definitely by going to an art event that they are a part of.

Check out WATCH THIS SPACE – a “poly-venue artist run space” and keep your eye out for some Real Perspective shows. Who knows where, when, or what they might be – but we promise they’ll be interesting.

Your Face :: Our Party

amelia and steph — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:45:30 +0000

We were basically 85% sure that no-one was going to come to our party. We figured that everyone had said yes just to be polite but were actually going to go do more important things, like knit a tiny jumper for the tiny cat they knitted for their real cat. So when we got numbers the next day of the ridiculously large amount of people who came, we were pretty surprised. And hugely delighted.

Everyone who came was supportive, attractive, witty, polite and dancefloor-friendly. At one stage we even saw a baby there and what she lacked in dancefloor-friendliness she totally made up for in being A REAL BABY.

And the art! Watch This Space had put together a huge group of talent, and a ridiculously high-tech sensory system. While it’s possible that the two didn’t work together exactly the way they were supposed to, we got treated to the best of both worlds in two different rooms. Win! The team also delighted Amelia right off the bat with conversation about how to turn a projector on (“Sweet talk it? Stroke it gently?”) Double win! The awesome interactive projection performance by Luke Tipene kept way more people upstairs for way longer than we anticipated, credit for which also goes to the fantastic DJ skillz of Greedy Hen and We Buy Your Kids. They kept everyone happily distracted while one of our projectors kind of exploded, and didn’t play a small amount of Paul Simon in the meantime.

And then came the bands. Steph’s totally amazing at booking bands. (Steph wrote that.) We were actually a little bit dorky and overwhelmed by Danimals, standing at the front and doing that look-around-at-everyone-like-”Woah-Are-These-Guys-For-Realz” kind of thing. Then we found out it was one of their first ever shows as a full band, and we almost started a label.

Megastick Fanfare were next. These guys are basically a consistent wow, but are actually somehow getting better and better every time we see them. So they’re playing tonight again, after midnight at a late night party called “Witching Hour” at OAF. We’ll be the ones right up the front with the happy dancey shoes on.

And unfortunately for him, Spod knows how to make a party that we don’t ever want to end. We secretly dragged the stage manager into a locked vault while Spod played, which (whoops!) trapped him in front of the decks for way longer than we agreed on. We wanted to keep dancing, and we’re sorry. (Not really sorry. It was worth it.)

Thanks so SO much to everyone who came, played, arted and danced. Thanks so much to the Wall and to the World Bar too. We love all of you. And your baby as well.

Ears Vs Eyes :: And You’re Invited Too

steph — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 06:41:14 +0000

We’re having a party this Wednesday night to launch this here blog. It’s another Ears Vs Eyes shindig – the first was a fundraiser art auction last year, where we nabbed $3000+ for Heaps Decent by selling art from people like EAMO, Beastman, We Buy Your Kids, Greedy Hen, and Simon Degroot. This one is a digital techy audiovisual extravaganza, because blogs are for nerds. That’s right, we’re calling you names already.

Anyway, the party is being held at our BFF’s house. Our BFF is The Wall, every Wednesday at the World Bar. For all you arty farty party types, the Wall let you exhibit your work for free in a delightful room upstairs, while a party happens around you and below you. They don’t take commission, they help you promote it, and goddamn do they know how to party.

But this Wednesday it’s all about us, because It’s Our Birthday – and you’re invited too.

For the EARS: Electronichaotic party band MEGASTICK FANFARE are headlining the night with the beeps and beats of super-hyped superman D’ANIMALS and his live band in support, and SPOD on the decks bringing us home. In a tag-team DJ battle fandango artist duos WE BUY YOUR KIDS Vs GREEDY HEN will show their ears work as well as their eyes, plus SLEATER BROCKMAN, the Gold Coasts’ walking house party THE SURECUT KIDS and all the Wall’s favourite regulars doing their party thing until the wee hours of the morn’.

For the EYES: Arts innovators WATCH THIS SPACE present INFORMAL DIALOGUE’s latest project “Pulse.” Supported by anarchi.org, Pulse will perform the atmosphere of the venue in an automated real-time digital projection. Works by local emerging artists like TONY CURRAN, SONYA GEE, MATT HUYNH, STEPHENIE KANHUKAMWE, LUCIA FISCHER, REBECCA MURPHY, LUKE TIPENE, MEL BLIGH, JAMES BROWN and more to be announced will reflect and re-shape the social landscape of the venue by communicating back to the audience atmospheric factors detected on the night by heat, humidity, noise and beat sensors.

And on top of all that, there’s no cover charge – although we will be jumping on the bandwagon and raising some funds for FBi radio – please bring along a gold coin to throw in a bucket.

Ears Vs Eyes. Who will win… Who will win……. (No one will win, it’s not actually a real battle. Settle down, you guys. Seriously. Settle down.)