Recently Historic

Study for Rage Against The Machine, 2015.

Opening this Thursday at Gaffa in the Sydney CBD is Recently Historic: Australian Electronic Arts in Western Sydney #2, featuring recent work by myself and a whole bunch of people I used to go to university with. While a description like that may read like a reclaiming of one's glory days, the broader context ties into research by the show's curator, Monica Brooks, into the Bachelor of Electronic Arts at the University of Western Sydney. Now for what it's worth, I studied a Bachelor of Fine Arts, but that's a whole other story.

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.

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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.

Spongebob is dying.

Over the last month a new installation of mine has been residing in the Vitrine space at Platform in Melbourne. The work, Spongebob is dying, explores a hypothetical reality where Spongebob Squarepants lies forgotten, ailing and on life-support in a run-down hospital ward. He is occasionally visitor a lone fan, who spends his time talking with Spongebob about adventures that have long passed in the recesses of time.

If for some reason you happen to be in Melbourne this afternoon between 3pm and 7pm, you can come and observe me visiting Spongebob in the final day of the installation. At a further point I'll go into more about the work, but for the immediate you can read the following description for more information:

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Daniel Green
Spongebob is dying.
2008
Performance-based installation

Platform - Vitrine
October 1st - October 30th, 2008

After a long and illustrious career, Spongebob Squarepants lies forgotten and ailing in palliative care. Th e only person willing to hear the tales of his adventures long gone is a fan who keeps vigil by his bedside. Through a television, the pairrevisit various heroics and escapades from Spongebob’s days on Bikini Bottom. His life-support system depends precariously on battery power and as the batteries fade the video begins to glitch. Despite all eff orts to sustain him by his
off sider, once the batteries lose power Spongebob is lost.

Spongebob is dying is a performance-based installation exploring the dialogue between ourselves, the things we use to entertain us, and the unintended plot developments that can result. Spongebob is dying will be performed on the 1st, 10th, 28th, 29th and 30th of October from 3pm.

Daniel Green is a Sydney based artist, performer, curator and terrible musician. He has Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) from the University of Western Sydney.

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.

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.

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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/

Current exercises in productivity #2: A trip to Melbourne

After all the trials of the aforementioned trip to Luna Park, the end result of sitting on a ferris wheel and contemplating one's existence was The Duration Of The Ride Will Be Approximately Eight Minutes. This new work was completed for the group exhbition "Raise High The Roofbeams," which ran at Bus Gallery in Melbourne between the 8th and the 25th of May. The exhibition served as an exchange between Bus and Firstdraft Gallery in Sydney, as well as being part of a larger project called Making Space, which celebrates Melbourne's various [and many] artist-run-initiatives.

After being initally quite unsure as to how the work would turn out in the realm outside of my brain, I was very happy with its final state. It looked great, sounded fine [despite my various attempts to destroy my speaker cables during installation], and was suitably painful to watch. Have to be happy with that. The work isn't hard to imagine; it's eight minutes of me sitting in a carriage on a ferris wheel, filming outwards towards Sydney harbour. The video starts when the ride does, and finishes when it ends. Like most of my work of late, you get the point pretty quick. Yet it never ceases to fascinate me that people will stick with it until it ends, like something truly exciting will happen, and then complain that it doesn't. Admittedly, this is part of the point of undertaking such things, but it makes me laugh nonetheless. I think this is one of the better realised versions of this theme that I've done, but I do wonder how long I can push it for. It's one thing to be repetitive about being obvious, but that all changes when the reverse becomes the norm.

The trip to Melbourne itself was great, as any stretch of being somewhere else tends to be. It's the closest thing I've had to a holiday in a very long time, and it was nice to come back feeling energised about what one does. So much to see there is, and simply not enough time to get through it all.

Might have to go back methinks.