hangin' out crafty in the back alleys of melbourne

for those of you who are in melbourne; and for those of you who perhaps walk down flinders st, perhaps you've seen a little mess hanging off the edge of a building on spark lane. a little discarded knot of cable, or thread? some kind of undealt with complexity left to swing in a dark alley?

well, if you haven't, my work is installed at craft victoria, as an extension of the work in craft cubed, so check it out if you have the chance.

also, there's a closing party for the craft-based festival next week: september 4th.

craft cubed and whitebox

if you had've told me 3 years ago that i would continue to create work that actively includes craft practices in spatial and media arts practice, i would probably have vomited on you. or at least told you that you had the wrong lauren brown.

but, it's true. my short time spent at craft victoria influenced me profoundly and i find myself creating works that relate to fashion, thread, wearability, patterns, measurement and insertion.

craft victoria have reinvented their winter festival program from a single textile-based festival, to one that encompasses a range of craft/making practice and aims to remind everyone that there's more to craft than bloody knitting scarves.

one of the interesting projects is called whitebox - a selection of video works that interact with the ideas, materials or gestures of craft practices. this year they also relate to the festival theme of childhood. and i'm privileged to have a video work in there: ariadne's tangled mess.




it also includes some spanky works by some of my fave peeps: dell stewart, cory archangel and holly mcnaught.



the festival opens tonight at craft victoria and there are a stack of exhibitions, commissioned works, satellite events and online programs to participate in. check out the site for all the deets.

bitchin' stitchin'

this pic doesn't really give you an idea of how awesome it is, but there's an absolutely brilliant show at seventh gallery right now, by georgina cue. two massive three-dimensional tapestries that are interior dioramas/theatre sets.

there's something a little bit agatha christie's mousetrap/cluedo about them - all mysterious, dark and broody colours and set at an angle so as you walk in, you look into the depth of another room.

bewdiful.

fucking amazing.

i discovered this over at radical cross stitch and it's unbelievable. it almost made me want to cry, that's how awesome it is.







and here's noelle mason's site.

EDIT: for those who perhaps don't know, it's a cross stitch. that's a form of tapestry. you know, needle pulling thread.

music and sound and art and craft and technology and stuff and that.

On Friday night i went to the last performance/public program event for Viva La Craft - the Chicks on Speed extravaganza* at Craft Vic and had the best time. In fact, the whole exbhitition has been totally inspiring for me.

The Chicks are amazing artists who combine craft,fashion,art, technology, music, sound, performance in their multi-disciplinary practice. They just make stuff. They're incredibly intelligent, focussed, friendly, political, inclusive and innovative gals. Hella inspiring to just throw of the shackles of image-based insecurity and just get into it. Just make stuff.

On friday night, they collaborated with another inspiration local artist, Dylan Martorell, and made the most amazing combined soundscapes i've heard in ages. Dylan does a pretty hot job of sound/art production as it is - being a maker of musical instruments, technology whizz, creator of whacky plant-based scores and general rad dude - and his work is all about the growth of a space, whether that's through nutty potato forms, or a soundspace, his organic (for want of a much less overused term) process was spot on for this.



Add to that the stuff that the Chicks on Speed make: image and sound repetitions that create rhythm and melody: the images of painted fingernails slapping girls bums, fingernails scraping, stiletto heels scraping, a zip being done up in slow-motion and the occasional distorted scream. Plus they had their own instruments: sampler, these amplified headware contraptions that looked like felt french horns, plus the shoe guitar. All of it was an amazing cacophony of sound and sound-base art production, that was melded into a working rhythm between the 3 artists.

And the images/object surrounding the space were all so amazing - a complete mash-up and intervention into the gallery: Pipes from the ceiling, patchwork on the walls, string and fabric, and light projection and people everywhere. Good stuff.

The whole performance got me completely psyched, as did the exhibition and other performances. Lately i had been a little, well, consumed by my own self-consciousness. I had been retreating into myself a little and playing it a bit safe with my own personal aesthetics. Doing silly things like being concerned more with a flabby tummy than fucking with the stereotypes associated with fashion. Thankfully, i had a good kick-up the pants with this show and am releasing some of those dumb shackles and am inspired again to just 'fuck shit up'.

PS - If you haven't been to see the exhibition, go. For crying out loud, go. It's amazing. Unfortunately the artists left Oz yesterday, but the installation and tapestry theramin, the sewing table and clay lumps are still there. And if you don't check it out, may you be stuck in a rut forever.

*most excellent description lovingly borrowed from miss dell stewart.

image credits: Girl Monster applique wallpiece, Chicks on Speed
Melissa and Alex from Chicks on Speed, by Faythe Levine on flickr.

blatant self-promotion #229

next week i'm in a group show at craft victoria, called making sense.



making sense

here are the deets
thursday 30th oct - saturday 29th nov, 2008
opening night: thursday 6-8pm

artists:
lauren brown (that's me),
cherylene brearley,
ffixxed,
ed janssen and
emma white

at craft victoria
31 flinders lane, melbourne
http://www.craftvic.asn.au

here's the premise
Making Sense explores the intersection between craft process and the everyday, featuring the work of artists who use hand facture to re-cast, re-scale or replicate benign objects and spaces. Why is the everyday thing, whether object, environment or articulated space, a point of departure for contemporary craft practice? Why is the concept and gesture of the 'handmade' increasingly important across a number of artistic disciplines and how is it being used to critique the nuances of everyday life?

and here's a little bit about he work i'm doing for it.
cities can be walked or cycled through as a way to experience them on a personal level. but how do we have a humanist-psychological experience about the places we're in? one of the ways which we can measure space and know it in this way is through touch - through a more craft-based, hands-on approach. once you have traversed a corner, or the north-east wall with your hands, in some way, you know the space intimately and can come to terms with it. you see it as it really is, blemishes, scuffs, bits of plaster coming off where the blu-tack holding up that poster was. this space is personal. and your place within it can be determined through your place within it - not through more stuff, more objects, more resources, more waste, more money.


would love to see you there!