Last week I headed to Merredin for a community arts residency, supported by the shire council I spent 6 days collaborating with the people of Merredin to create some awesome temporary artworks over their buildings. Using my projector, laptops and portable power we digitally repainted the buildings with light. Although I was only there for a short time, we still managed to create some great transformations, literally turning the town into a open air digital art gallery. It was great to see locals reacting and thinking differently about there surroundings! By being on the street we where able to reach people that community art usually bypasses, there was plenty of questions and lots of people having a go. The Merredin Police even had a go at laser tag
Merredin is a regional centre approximately 260km east of perth, Its situated in the central wheatbelt, a large wheat farming area in Western Australia. The town has lots of great historic buildings from the goldrush days including the beautiful heritage listed Cummins Theatre built in 1897 and rebuilt in Merredin in 1928. Big thanks to Jane Bandurski for organising the residency and for her creative input into the project.
Its been a busy October of Projector Bombing! ARTRAGE asked me to bring the gear to some of their art events, the first two being the opening of the Silver Art Exhibition at PICA (Perth Institute of Contemporary Art) in Perth’s Cultural District and Reka One’s Exhibition “Against the Grain” at Wasteland in Kings Street, Perth. On King Street we had the coolest mobile rig yet, a nice bright n clean cardboard recycling dumpster, it kept the gear nice an dry when rain threatened as well as creating some nice deep bass from my speakers.
Tuesday 14th October 2008
Another successful night of projector bombing in Perth. I once again invited all to come and resurface a building with light. This time we where out on a full moon and the projector held up quite well under the extra light. Fellow VJ’s Kat and Jasper from VJzoo came down and joined us as well, treating us to some of their newest visuals. Those who stayed late would of also seen me do a quick little AV jam with old 80’s cartoons.
I’ve Finally found the time to get together a Video of some of the Electronic Street Art I got involved with during my Video Art residency on Christmas Island.
There is actually a bit of uneasiness amongst locals over their future on the island (especially the economy and employment prospects). Digital Graffiti enabled the younger generation to really show some ownership and belonging on this beautiful Island they call home.
In July this year fellow artist Louise Snook and I traveled to Mullewa (5 hour drive from Perth). There we engaged the local kids in art activities based around the theme “FEAST” and food art as part of Awesome Arts ongoing creative challenge project for kids in rural WA.
Making art out of food is alot messier than electronic art! but it can be just as much fun!
Being a community artist is great! the Mullewa community where great… immediately accepting us. We where invited to local farms growing vegie’s and shearing wool, watched latin dancing at the rec centre and went to Saturday night Karaoke at one of the two pubs… After singing a few songs we where described as “Solid” by more than one of the locals.
The language spoken here is also unique with the kids coming up with some hilarious sayings… We even found a new word to rival the festivals theme “feast”… in Mullewa it seems “blockin” means eating, as in blockin your hole (covering your mouth with food).
I dont however think they would be too keen on changing the title to “Blockin 2008″.
