Sunday Arts Magazine

9 Apr 2017

Tosca, Pattern Recognition, House of Mirrors, Marvellous Melb

Arts, Music, Performing Arts, Technology, TV & Film, Visual Arts

David and Brendan chat about Melbourne’s food and its street art. Brendan reviews a film from the Spanish Film Festival called Summer 1993, about an orphaned young girl growing up with her extended family.  It is a challenging and involving film and Brendan highly recommends it–4.5 stars!! Next he talks about Penelope Cruz and an upcoming movie she stars in, at the festival, called The Queen of Spain. Neil talks about his experience of a river cruise (sponsored by JOY) where there was a preview of the Eurovision Song Contest finalist songs. There were 47 of them and Neil sat through all of them. He and our hosts then discuss Eurovision. Brendan later waxes lyrical about a Comedy Festival show he saw featuring Kirsty Webeck.  Kirsty is also a presenter at JOY, doing Monday Drive with Kimberley.

There are 4 interviews this week and our guests talk about their own journey to where they are now as well as a current event, show or exhibition. Along with inside stories, interesting anecdotes and descriptions.

Special guests this week include:

15:28 to 25:05–Opera Director Julie Edwardson and singer Antoniette D’Andrea are here to talk about an upcoming opera-fusion performance  presented by Emotionworks – Cut Opera. This is Tosca bound in blues, soul and R&B and is on from 22 April to 7 May at Pentridge Prison Coburg. Julie talks about her career journey from jazz singer to opera singer to Opera Stage Director and then she and our hosts discuss how the former Pentridge Prison is being developed at present, its suitability as a venue, and the creepy ‘feeling’ of the place at night.  Julie’s Company is Emotionworks – Cut Opera–an Opera fusion company where they take traditional operas and cut them down to 90 minutes and fuse in different music genres– which fit in the particular opera e.g. for Carmen they included Latin music.  Also they do ‘reality opera’ where performances  are held in interesting ‘real life’ spaces such as Pentridge, a football oval or Spanish club–even the Men’s Gallery strip club! Antoniette is not a professional musician but music is a substantial part of her life. She is very excited about being a part of this opera.  She is a contemporary singer and plays one of the prison warden ghosts. The ghosts sing blues numbers interweaved throughout the story. Antoniette beautifully sings the song The Thrill Is Gone live onair.

27:39 to 44:24 mins–Artist Troy Innocent is here to talk about his artwork and also his Exhibition Pattern Recognition on until 29 April at the Anna Pappas Gallery in Prahran.  He has another exhibition also called Urban Code on at C3 Contemporary Art Space from 12 April to 7 May. He talks about the importance of understanding technology as it shapes our culture and lives and has had a huge impact in the last 20 years. He feels artists can help a great deal in that understanding by deconstructing and recontextualising things we take for granted or things we don’t realise have an effect. Troy’s creative practice is based around the idea of City Games or Playable Cities which is about wayfinding or how do you find your own way of being in the city. He explains this.  In Pattern Recognition, Troy has created another city and another language and has art objects which are artistic but which also have machine-readable patterns & codes in them (software with Troy’s artistic system in it). When you point your google cardboard glasses at them they create other artworks in 3D which are unique to each individual. Troy talks more about his practice–how he uses computer software and game engines to realise his ideas. Troy has got a thing about Techno identity–i.e. all the possibilities of different ways of being in the world.  Urban code is the flipside of Pattern Recognition. PR is all new work whereas UC is more a retrospective of urban codes.

45:39 to 1:07:15 mins–Artist Christian Wagstaff is here to talk about his amazing installation (with Keith Courtney) House Of Mirrors showing at Bendigo Art Gallery in Rosalind Park in Bendigo from 7 to 30 April. Christian learnt practical trade type skills and art at school and then performing art skills at TAFE including  dance and set design.  In the end he chose to be a designer and artist. He designed sets for Channel 9, La Mama and was Creative Director at Crown Casino. House Of Mirrors was originally commissioned for Dark Mofo in Hobart.  It is a traditional mirror maze based on a patented concept from the 1800s and has a very Victorian look with old timber that creaks when you walk on it. It has one entrance and one exit! It’s a travelling structure of great scale that they pack up into 8 shipping containers and move from city to city. It’s been to festivals in Brisbane, Sydney and Adelaide and is now in Bendigo. 100,000 people have walked through it and all have loved it. Christian regards it as a sculpture which is both beautiful and ominous at the same time with a rundown ‘sideshow’ look externally and glistening mirrors inside. There is no roof but each panel is 4 metres tall. The optics are extraordinary due to the quality and positioning of the mirrors and there is no digital technology. He describes a couple of amazing visual effects and also the process of creating the structure.

1:08:13 to 1:28:01 mins–Artist/Painter Chris Seater’s work is featured in Marvellous Melbourne – Its Art and Soul at Hilton Melbourne South Wharf in the foyer–2 Convention Centre Place– on from 6 March to 25 May. It’s open 24 hours as there is always a concierge there.  There are paintings, drawing, photos and prints all about Melbourne. Chris was always interested in art and drawing and design.  He got a degree in design, did artwork and illustration for books, got into graphic design (which was much more hands-on work then) and then started painting more seriously. His artwork was abstract expressionism at the time and he loved every little thing about painting. He’s done portraits too and has entered the Archibald Prize for the last 11 years. He talks about some of his subjects and his painting style. Chris’ subject for Marvellous Melbourne is the Brighton Baths!  He sees it as a magical place with the sectioned off bit in the water to protect from sharks. His paintings are abstract but it’s still obvious what it is. Chris talks about the wonderful curator Jacqueline Taylor OAM who does so much for the arts. Chris also has a gallery called the Ministry of Art at 238 St Kilda Rd, St Kilda.  He talks about how it originated and how he and his 2 partners run it to most benefit artists. At present there is an exhibition there called Hidden–displaying the work of  3 Serbian artists who ‘explore the perceived world’.

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