The Daedalus Project is an ambitious multi-venue art event held across four galleries (plus one symposium venue) over two weeks within the Lively Maylands cultural precinct, beginning Friday 3 February. The exhibition showcases new and challenging work from eight Hellenic Australian artists, all working with a broad range of technology-enabled mediums through performance, robotics, Aerogel sculptures, sound installation, video, photography and textiles.
Stelarc, a recipient of the prestigious Ars Electronica award, makes work that uses cutting-edge technologies to create robotic exoskeletons that augment the body, turning it into a post-human cyborg that questions the very foundations of our relationship and role with technology. Stelarc is also known for his controversial techno-biological art, having an electronically-enabled third ear grafted to his arm. Once this ear becomes internet enabled, the whole world will be able to hear through Stelarc’s ear live.
Ioannis Michaloudis is the first artist to work with a stardust-catching substance called aerogel, with his work chosen by NASA to feature in the first permanent man-made sculpture on the moon’s surface.
The theme of The Daedalus Project interweaves through a timeless concept, drawn from a symbiotic relationship between art, technology and science, that is often erroneously considered an exclusively modern concept. Looking into the cyclic nature of myth in its role in this relationship, as well as ancient Greek perspectives into the role of technology in art, the artists venture into an investigation of the past in the hope that it may also reveal some insights into the future.
The name of the project itself comes from the myth of the first Greek sculpture and inventor Daedalus. Daedalus, who is better known for his invention of mechanical wings and the plight of his son Icarus, is symbolic of the symbiotic nature of art and technology prevalent in the ethos of Greek myth and culture.
The symposium has been made possible with the support of the City of Bayswater and Maylands council, in collaboration with The Hellenic Ēkhōs initiative, founded by Petros Vouris in 2015.
Hellenic Ēkhōs is a not-for-profit organisation that seeks to inform and challenge predisposed ideas of Hellenic culture and art −beyond cultural clichés and racial caricatures. It sees culture as a constantly evolving entity that needs its artists and storytellers for its survival beyond the dusty shelves of antiquarian institutionalism. For Hellenic Ēkhōs, artistic expression is independent of borders and race and finds the legacy of a cross-cultural dialogue as principal to the advancement of Hellenic culture.
Stelarc & Petros Vouris present the world premiere of the Stick Man. When performed, this pneumatic-limbed robotic exoskeleton augments its host’s body while generating and conducting the movement of sound through the positioning and movement of its limbs in space. When exhibited it acts as an automaton that articulates movements in space that create a whirlpool of sound across a multitude of speakers.
A 360° interactive video of the opening night’s performance will also allow the visitor to view the performance through the eyes of the Stick Man. The work will be an intensive workshop collaboration with engineering by Tim Jewell, interactive software by Steve Berrick, video by Steven Aaron Hughes and audio programming and engineering by Alwyn Nixon-Lloyd.
For more go to www.stelarc.org and www.petrosvouris.com
Dr Ioannis Michalou(di)s Being the first artist to work with a stardust-catching substance called aerogel, Ioannis’ work has been chosen by NASA to feature in the first man-made sculpture to be permanently displayed on the moon’s surface. Though, for us earthlings, Dr Michaloudis will place the sky in our hands − shrinking the infinite realm of space into a minuscule aerogel sky − he traps a tiny cloud and tempts you in to touch it, while the world watches outside.
Victoria Holessis unveils an innate Hellenic rhizome that informs artificial ‘autonomy’ within technology − an exploration that forges the self in order to rupture the anthropocentric construct that believes autonomy solely exists within an organic paradigm. This new work uses artifices and synthetic processing (darkroom printing/analogue media) to thaw out such notions.
Christopher Cobilis will send you down an Archimedes screw of twisted media snippets and soundbites − the culture memes are out there, but is anyone listening? The stories are fragmented, displaced and recycled.
To find out more head to www.chriscobilis.com
Renee Doropoulos
In her work, stars give gaze to the platitude of wonder, the light flickers through her lens and captures an iridescent nature – It is framed as if it was the night’s sky – boundless. Through ‘In Conversations With My Ancestors’, Renee Doropoulos explores the meaning of Greek cultural superstitions through a series of still photographs that have motion.
Check out her work at www.reneedoropoulos.com
Masonik
The acclaimed rebetika band will present Altar’d Lament Exodus, a work dedicated to those Greeks who escaped Smyrna’s flames in 1922 and sought refuge from what was once their home. Their rebetika music is all that is left of their home − not even a ruin, just the flames and their lamentations. This is Masonik’s multi-media sequel of Altar’d Lament, its many small shrines each have an important story to tell.
For more go to www.masonik.org
Steve Paraskos
A work for multichannel speakers, video mapping and sculpture, Paraskos reveals to the initiated Akousmatikoi, an obelisk encased in light encircled by tectonic walls of shifting sound. In Paraskos’ own words: “What to the senses, perceived and imagined, is a chiliagon (a thousand-sided figure) to a myriagon (a figure of ten thousand sides) but confused representation. The schisms between pure intellection and imagination exploded by sensory bombardment and at times unified in the conflux of large-scale art and technology.”
Venues
Ferguson Foundry − 281 Guildford Rd, Maylands
www.studio281.com.au/ferguson-foundry
Chrissie Parrot Arts − 4 Sussex St, Maylands
www.chrissieparrottarts.com
Johnny Ma Studios − 305A Railway Parade, Maylands
www.facebook.com/johnnymastudios
Henry On Eighth – 49 Eighth Ave, Maylands
www.facebook.com/henryon8th
Exhibition times for all spaces except Henry On Eighth:
Monday: Closed
Tuesday−Thursday: 10.00 am-5.00 pm
Friday: 5.00 pm-9.00 pm
Saturday & Sunday: 10.00 am -3.00 pm
Henry on Eighth:
Monday: 7.00 am-10.00 pm
Tuesday: Closed
Wednesday−Thursday: 7.00 am-10.00 pm
Friday: 7.00 am-11.00 pm
Saturday: 8.00 am-11.00 pm
Sunday: 8.00 am-10.00 pm
The Daedalus Project Symposium: Daedalus Reanimated
Daedalus Reanimated is a symposium that answers a lot of the questions that the exhibition and its themes provoke.
Held over the course of an evening, the symposium will embrace the tradition of a Greek symposium, creating a philosophic dialogue on art and science, man and technology, and whether the ancient Greek artists and philosophers had any answers to these topics that may be relevant to us today.
There will also be an additional topic on Hellenic Australian artists and how growing up in Australia as a Greek has affected or informed their work.
All proceeds go towards the making of the Daedalus Project.
The four Key speakers of the Symposium are:
Oron Catts (SymbioticA, UWA Researcher )
Guy Ben-Ary (SymbioticA, UWA – Artist)
Dr Ioannis Michalou(di)s (Charles Darwin University- Contemporary artist )
Dr John Yiannakis (Curtin University – Hellenic Historian)
Dr Neil O’Sullivan (UWA – Classics & Ancient History)
Live music performance by Greek rebetiko band Masonik and Steve Paraskos.
When: 15 February 2017, 6.00 pm-9.00 pm
Where: The RISE, 28 Eighth Ave, Maylands
Tickets: $15 + BF
