Through online networking and discussions, the Cross City Experience #3 highlighted current work from six artists practicing in six different cities. Vegas Spray’s online platform eliminates the structure and ideals of the traditional gallery, with a focus of showcasing and promoting visual artists to a national and international public. This was an opportunity to present the new artists who joined the Vegas Spray collective.
Rachel Marsden (Brisbane)
The project aims to encourage debate about the effect our devices have on our relationships with other people and also with our external environment. I am interested in how this inward, virtual world activity affects our relationship to our environment. We spend a lot less time looking outward into the world with our own eyes and more time looking at it through the lens of a virtual world.
The images are simple, pared back to a basic repeated pose. They can be consumed and discarded quickly yet we see these images everyday and they shape who we are. Just walk down the street and you will see people doing these things. The project also aims to capture a moment in time. They are modern portraits yet how quickly they will change, even now new devices are being invented and released for the consumer market to replace our current ones.
….
“More megaphones don’t equal a better dialogue.
We’ve become slaves to our mobile devices and the
glow of our screens. It used to be much more
simple and, somewhere, simple turned into slow.
We walk the streets with our heads down staring
into 3-inch screens while the world whisks by
doing the same. And yet we’re convinced we are
more connected to each other than ever before.
Multi-tasking has become a badge of honor. I want
to know why.
I don’t have all the answers to these questions but I
find myself thinking about them more and more.
In between tweets, blog posts and facebook
updates.”
Howard Mann
Stefan Popescu (Sydney)
Nude Study #1 Digital still from film 15cms x 8.45cms
Nude Study #2 Digital still from film 15cms x 8.45cms
Nude study #3 Digital still from film 15cms x 8.45cms
Stefan Popescu is a filmmaker, one of the founders and directors of the Sydney Underground Film Festival, a lecturer at Sydney College of the Arts and recently published artist with his book “Material Affects: The Body Language of Film”. Stefan has been producing and directing short films since 1999, which have screened internationally at film festivals, in galleries and on television. In late 2005, Stefan screened a collection of his works at Bangkok’s National Gallery for a month long exhibition with the support of the Australian Embassy in Thailand and at the Bangkok’s 4th Experimental Film Festival. Stefan’s films utilise experimental film techniques to create a more visceral and empathetic form of audio-visual communication. His debut feature film, Rosebery 7470, uses the material potentials of film (such as frame burning and emulsion decay) as a means to invoke the spectator’s somatic intelligence in constructing the film’s narrative. His debut feature film, Rosebery 7470 has won awards, screened at international festivals and was released through the Accent Film Entertainment label in 2008. Stefan has recently produced the XFilm television series for TVS and a short film DVD compilation for Sydney Underground Films. Stefan’s new feature film, Nude Study, was filmed near the Arctic Circle in early 2008 and is currently in post-production.
Website
Satriana Didiek (Solo, Indonesia)
My name is Satriana Didiek Isnanta. Born in Solo, 21 December 1972. Since practice has been concerned with many mediums (painting, installation art and Video Performance). I have exhibited throughout Indonesia, and have been active in performance art at various arts festivals, Makasar Art Forum (Makasar-1999), Cultural Camp (Jepara-2000), Sharing Art and Religiousity (Ubud Bali-2001), Undisclosed Territory (Solo-2007) And Perfurbance # 4 (Jogja-2008). Currently I am teaching at the Art Institute of Indonesia Surakarta.
Satriana Didiek - In Touch - Performance
Satriana Didiek - Light of a clear soul - Performance
Haylee Lee (Busan, South Korea)
a_shy_smile_is_blooming_on_the_twilight_year
a_shy_smile_is_blooming_on_the_twilight_year #6
a_shy_smile_is_blooming_on_the_twilight_year #7
a_shy_smile_is_blooming_on_the_twilight_year #14
Her fine-art photography explores the relationship between the ageing population in South Korea and the growing popular culture of the youth. Her images juxtapose portraits of everyday elderly people fantasized by the frills of society in its consumerist state.
Len Jessome (Ontario, Canada)
My work is based on the human condition, memory — ghosted imagery from the past …ambiguity, morality, mortality bits of information inundate — packaged and sent in bytes and megabytes — my work is an attempt to assimilate and distill.
Website
Kate McCarthy (Hobart)
Website
I do what I do for the sensation of the finished product. I’ve watched so many children’s shows lately that I’m seeing elements of them everywhere- I’m reminded of my childhood through my own children and I’m attempting to capture that in my works. While I used to labour over paintings, I now throw colours and shapes straight onto the canvas, allowing them to trigger something within the audience.