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.

tangles at plug'n'play

this week is pretty crazy with Next Wave Festival opening: lots of shows, performances, launches and gigs to go to.

One that you should all come to is the Plug'n'Play night at Horse Bazaar. After you've been to the Next Wave opening at the Meat Market and then the Festival Club at £1000 Bend, wander up the hill a little and have a chill/dance/looksy at the DJ/VJ stuff going on there. I have a video work there - an extension of the work at Seventh Gallery.

Here's the official blurb:

Anyone who owns a technogadget knows that process of having to disentangle the mess of cords. On a daily basis we unravel our headphone cables, untwist the laptop power cord, separate the printer from the scanner from the ethernet cable from the toaster. It is the modern condition of having to sort out our bloody technology.

Ariadne’s tangled bloody mess reflects this frustrating process, and sets it up as a metaphor for other kinds of disentanglement. It is a slow tracking projection, the unravelling and undoing a knot of red cable. In greek mythology Ariadne gave Theseus a length of red thread to find his way back from the Minotaur’s labyrinth. The term has become a way to describe the methodical process by which we solve problems – a way to talk about logic and order, integral to technology design

And the deets

where: Horse Bazaar
379 Little Lonsdale St
Melbourne

when: Thursday 13th May, from 8:30pm

silent nights

more blatant self-promotion! shock!



light projects have launched their projection night-screen program, silent nights - a series of video works that reflect the medium and process of video/production and my work .... to get a bit of bloody peace... has been included.

it follows the process of a woman sealing a public stairwell in order to create a 'cone of silence' for some sonic solitude and acoustic privacy. those of you who saw my installation at first site will recognise the 'set'. and some of you may also recognise the title - pinched from the words of one miss penny modra, who wrote about Cone of Silence I in the press as "the crazy things we do to get a bit of bloody peace nowadays". she said it was ok. promise.

over the next 10 days, they're running a couple of video works that reflect a rotating theme. clare rae, kate woodcroft and I are part of the action theme. the next two themes are time and narrative, featuring plenty of ace artists.


it's all starting tomorrow night (april 3) and runs until april 12 at 176 high st, northcote. my work will run 3-5 april, so pop over and see it, if you're in town.

you rock!!

this blog isn't really one of those 'here's a cool viral/fashion/trend/design link' kinds of blogs. but sometimes you gotta break tradition.

this guitar hero viral from the awesome kids at Droga 5 simply fucking rocks. no, really, it's the fucking awesomest thing on the interweb i've seen in ages. brilliant. makes me wanna play it right now.*



via stan.

*for the record, guitar hero, tetris, tekken and bobble puzzle are the only computer games in which i rock.