Unfinished Projects as of June 2011

The Fall of Turkish Pop Group (2004, 2005)
The Song Remains The Same (2005)
Real Ultimate Power (2006)
Mario's Unfinished Symphonies (2006)
"An Unexpected Gift" (2008)
It's All Been Done Before / The Day The Music Died (2008)

[Updated 26/06/2011]

Current pressing questions.

1. Does the Nintendo DS suffer from screen burn?
2. Who in Sydney would one speak to about acquiring a full-body green screen suit?
3. Does Kylie Minogue's performance of "Dancing Queen" at the Closing Ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games have less to do with Australia's fondness for ABBA tunes and more to do with Kylie Minogue positioning herself as an international pop star that cannot be defined by simple notions of geography?

The business of being an Artist.

This Tuesday at Serial Space in Chippendale I have a new performance / installation opening as part of The business of being an Artist, curated by Katherine Byrne. The exhibition is an investigation by several artists of the effects of one's day-job on their artistic practice. Surprisingly this isn't as doom and gloom as it sounds, but obviously the enjoyment factor of an artist's particular line of paid employment has a lot of bearing on such matters. Having spent much of my time since beginning university as member of the retail sector my work, Productive Time Off (don't tell me it's a means to an end) reflects the inherent joys that go with it. With cardboard.

The opening kicks off around 6 (as these things) go. The performance will start at some point soon after, and conclude after I run out of cardboard. This may take a while, so being punctual may not be neccessary in this instance.

***

The Business of being an Artist

Featuring Artists: Ben Byrne, Rene Christen, Cameron Foster, Daniel Green,
Emily Morandini, William Noble, Beth Norling, Alex White

Curated by: Katherine Byrne

Opening: Tuesday 11th November, 2008 6-8pm
Exhibition: 12th-22nd November, 2008
Open: Wednesday - Saturday 12-6pm

Serial Space
33 Wellington St Chippendale

The portrait of the Artist, starving, frozen in his garret, suffering for his art is one of the more well known clichés but for all the dramatisations of the artist's plight, the reality is that the vast majority of practicing artists must balance their artistic life with a paid one. This often means electing to either live in relative comfort with full time paid work and struggle to find the time and energy to keep up their artistic practice. Or, to juggle various part time jobs to create the flexibility and time their art life demands leaving instead a struggle at times to make ends meet. The Business of being an Artist explores this dilemma and the different solutions artists adopt to manage these conflicting areas of their lives.

For this exhibition eight artists have been asked to create works which form the beginning of an exploration of the effects, both bad and good, that this daily balancing act has on their artistic practices. Each work is a self-reflexive exploration of the compromises these artists make each day to allow them to make the art they feel driven to create.

Seventeen... or maybe not.

If you know a man over the age of 80, and have grown tired of listening to them talk about how music was better in their day and that they could teach these young people a thing or two, their ship may be about to come in [for the record I am sorry to fall back on such an ordinary stereotype, but the point will be served I promise].

The Biennale of Sydney, a slightly large international arts festival held, well, every two years, is currently audtioning potential members for a punk band to serve a part of a work by artist Christoph Büchel. The work, titled No Future, will involve said punk band publicly rehearsing and performing the song God Save The Queen by The Sex Pistols every day for the duration of the biennale [which runs from the 18th of June to the 7th of September]. The rationale I assume involves a connection with the band's rehearsal space on Sydney Harbour to Australia's convict past, whilst maintaining a slight sense of memento mori in a group of elderly gentlemen screaming the line "No future / No future / No future for you", but who knows, its art after all.

Whilst the thin connection to Australiana gives way to a work that potentially may be somewhat expolitative, I'm curious to see where this one goes [being someone who is quite interested in durational exercises in boring acts and all]. Should you know of a distinguished gentleman who may be keen to take part, direct them here. Never mind the lyrics; they're included on the site.

Research - 26th of March, 2008.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frets_on_Fire
http://fretsonfire.sourceforge.net/

It's all very simple.

In one of those "it's my birthday but you get the presents" kind of moments, I would like to engage in you, the members of my blog republic, in an experiment. I would like you to send your postal address to the following email account:

an.unexpected.gift@gmail.com

In return, I will send you something in the mail. That's it. Call it a gift really.

And yes, it is my birthday so I can make all the bad puns I like.

Incoming politically themed art show!

My previously mentioned vile act of boredom Four More Years will be showing from this Thursday as a part of The Howard Years, a group show in response to eleven years of John Howard's Australia, being held at At The Vanishing Point in Newtown. These kind of shows usually bring out the worst in a geographic locales artist movement all presenting works that essentially preach to the converted in new and possibly not so interesting ways. I can safely say that my work will probably continue this trend. But if you happen to come along, wander to the back of the gallery and find that for some reason or another you aren't able to shake John Farnham's You're The Voice from your sub-conscious, I'll consider that a minor victory.

Of course it's not about bad art, it's not even about bad art and drinking [although both events are easily achievable if you so desire], it's about showing solidarity at a time when a Australia could do with a few subtle changes. Thanks my excuse any way. Annoying video art is just a bonus.

***

The Howard Years

The ATVP Spring '07 Show of the Season
Artists In Response to John Howard's Term As Prime Minister

Artists include:
Lachlan Anthony, Mick Bales, Gav Barbey, Gustavo Boke, Stan the Bottletop Man, Jenny Brown, CACA - featuring Schappylle Scragg, Pierre Cavalan, The Collective, Michael Davis, Maz Dixon, Seiko Furuse, Alyx Guidi & Bob Cooney, Daniel Green, Thomas Hungerford, Amanda Hunt, Rolf Knudsen, Amanda Le May, Wendy Lowe, The Motel Sisters & John Howard, Peter Moore, Audrey Newton, Jade Oldfield, Jaqueline Olivetti, Brendan Penzer, Georgina Pollard, Tony Priddle, Elizabeth Rankin, Tanya Richards, Che Ritz, Chris Samuel, Holly Schulte, Beau Scott, Wendy Shortland, Kirsten Smith, Megan Sprague, Jasmine Steven.

25 October - 18 November 2007

Opening Launch Thursday 25th October - 6:00pm - 9:00pm

At The Vanishing Point
565 King Street, Newtown.
http://www.atthevanishingpoint.com.au/

Members of the 2007 John Howard retirement campaign, your time is now.

http://www.aec.gov.au/

If you are an Australian citizen aged 18 or over and not on the electoral roll, you have until 8pm on Wednesday the 17th October 2007 to fill out an enrolment form and get it to the Australian Electoral Commission.

If you are on the electoral roll, but need to update your details, you have to do this by 8pm on Tuesday the 23rd of October 2007.

Now for some reason the whole thing about not being able to enrol once the election is called seems to not have come to pass. This is good. Get cracking.

Newcastle migratory season 2007.

The October long weekend means a number of things in New South Wales; like the AFL grand final on Saturday [alright, that might be more of a Victorian thing, but just go with it OK?], the NRL grand final on Sunday, and a day off on Monday to recover from the hang over. For a large group of artists, musicians, writers and other miscreants however, it means trying to find somewhere to sleep in Newcastle [and trying to work why you didn't learn from your mistakes last year and book accomodation earlier this year]. Now in its seventh year, the This Is Not Art Festival provides refuge to a number of oddballs and curiousities over four days and four smaller festivals - Electrofringe, The National Young Writers Festival, Sound Summit and Critical Animals.

I'll be running around town committing a number of acts of mischief in the name of Electrofringe. My video Ducks Should Be Free From Persecution will be showing as part of the Electroprojections screening series. On Thursday night I'll be stalking Newcastle's walls armed with a video projector and a power generator. Next Monday I'll be taking over TIN Radio with Ben Byrne to present two solid hours of something between 20:30 and 22:30 and this Friday I'll be presenting ElectroPopQuiz!, which may well just be my finest hour.

Taking place at the TINA Festival Club between 17:30 and 18:30, ElectroPopQuiz! will be your opporunity to flex your intellectual muscle over a range of topics that potentially you and most likely far less actually care about. Think of it as Wednesday night pub trivia hosted by your high school electronics club. It'll be sensational, I guarantee. And there's prizes too. All the trimmings.

If you're planning on entering, I suggest you bring a nerd along for back up. You have been warned.

Avoid the cold with Kork Chork!

My friend Anastasia has put together an evening of frivolity in order to raise some pennies for a school in Camboida where she volunteered earlier this year. You should come, it'll be quite the thing. You should bring other people too. That'd be swell. If you're keen you can click on the above image or read below for more information. It's tonight, you should probably know that. Sorry about the late notice, but face it you had nothing better to do anyway.

***

Kork Chork

Wednesday 20th of June, 6pm
$6 and $8 entry
Pact Theatre, 107 Railway Parade, Erskineville

Cameron Foster, Suzan Liu, Miri Wheen, Pip Johnson, Anastasia Freeman, Daniel Green, Monika Brooks, Alice Amsel, T.R. Carter, Louise Dibben, Emily Morandini, Anna Chase, Jade Oldfield, William Noble.

A night of experimental sound, video and performance
A fundraiser for the volunteer development poverty children school in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

In association with Quarterbred and Pact Theatre.

Current exercises in productivity #3: A trip to Carriageworks

Through no fault of my own, I'm opening the Sydney leg of the 8th edition of Liquid Architecture, the national sound arts festival. This will be my second attempt at "The Daniel Green Tribute Show," which I did for the first time at the zine fair stage at last year's This Is Not Art festival in Newcastle. All I'm telling anyone is that I'm performing songs from musicals. If you want to know more, you're just going to have to come aren't you? It's going to be quite the thing.

***
SYDNEY
Performance Space at Carriageworks
Thursday June 28 – Saturday June 30

Thursday June 28 from 8pm – Gala Opening!
$10/$8
WINNER
TONY MASON-COX WITH ANN ONYMOUS
THE DANIEL GREEN TRIBUTE SHOW
+ Very Special Guests!

Friday June 29 from 8pm – Main Concert One
$15/$12
RUNZELSTIRN & GURGELSTOCK (SWITZERLAND)
DAVE PHILLIPS (SWITZERLAND)
NATASHA ANDERSON (MELBOURNE)
THOMAS KNOX ARNOLD

Saturday June 30 from 8pm – Main Concert Two
$15/$12
CELLULE D’INTERVENTION METAMKINE (FRANCE)
LLOYD BARRETT (BRISBANE)
ABJECT LEADER (BRISBANE)
KAMUSTA
PETER NEWMAN

+ ‘TERMINAL’ Exhibition
Artists Include:
NATASHA ANDERSON
JASPER STREIT
RIK RUE
WADE MARYNOWSKY

Season Passes - $30/$25

Current exercises in productivity #1: A trip to Luna Park

On the 29th of April myself and a comrade took a trip to Luna Park in Milson's Point with the noble intention of standing in a queue for the dodgem cars and filming the experience [well, at least I was going to stand in the queue for the dodgem cars and film the experience, said friend needed the distraction on a Sunday afternoon]. This was all in aid of a video work I've been planning on doing for quite some time, which surprisingly was to feature footage of myself standing in the queue for the dodgem cars at Luna Park, shot from my perspecitve. This was all well and good until I realised that going to a theme park at 4pm on a Sunday afternoon isn't exactly the optimum point of the day, and that subsequently there might not be as many people standing in queues as one might hope. When this turned out to be the reality of the situation, it seemed my own folly had cost me the opportunity to do the work. At least for this particular weekend anyway. Pacing through the fun fair, all seemed very lost. Then my counterpart brought the ferrris wheel to my attention. A great, hulking, steel testament to life in stasis. Better than a queue, and far less exciting than the dodgem cars, it all seemed a little too perfect really.

And so children of the modern world, contemporary art lives to fight another day. May this be a timely lesson for us all; when there is no hope, there is always a ferris wheel.