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Looking forward to you joining us over there.

Kind Regards, The ACMI Team

ACMI first exhibited David Rosetzky’s work ten years ago, when his two-channel video piece Maniac de Luxe (2004) was commissioned by ACMI as part of 2004: Melbourne Culture Now, a large show surveying the Melbourne art scene across ACMI and the National Gallery of Victoria.

In 2008, David was commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery to create a portrait of Cate Blanchett. In this interview, he talks about his relationship to the genre of portraiture, and how his work differs from the traditional idea of trying to capture the essence of an individual.

While video is David’s preferred medium, evidence of his early training as a painter can be seen in his first video portraits that use carefully constructed compositions shot with a single camera in a fixed position. His earlier work also relied heavily on texts spoken by performers. In the last few years, however, David’s compositions have seen him work increasingly with dance as an expressive language. They have also become more cinematic, confidently playing with space and time.

Gaps, now showing in Gallery 2,  continues this progression. David has worked closely with choreographer Stephanie Lake and a cast of two actors and two dancers to incorporate dance, dialogue and movement into his most recent work. It was filmed over a few days in a dance rehearsal room in Fitzroy, and at Chunky Move headquarters in Southbank.

ACMI is co-commisioning Gaps with Carriageworks in Sydney, who will include it in their ongoing series of dance-related works 24 Frames per Second.

David Rosetzky: Gaps is open daily from 10am – 5pm and runs until Sunday 8 February, 2015.

If there’s a single aspect about MIFF that one can recommend, it’s that it provides a ton of opportunities to experience out-of-the-box cinema that you wouldn’t expect on an average trip to the movies. And the more bizarre the film is, the better – it’ll give you a ready-made anecdote at parties or an example to casually slip into conversation when attempting to showcase your screen culture knowledge.

Out 1: Noli me tangere

In this respect, perhaps the screening of Jacques Rivette’s Out 1: Noli Me Tangere is one to catch. Part of a wider retrospective focusing on the work of French New Wave actor Jean-Pierre Léaud, the complete version of Out 1… has only been screened in its full 12-hour glory sporadically over the past four decades. The formidable length of the film has no doubt contributed to this, as well as the fact that intact prints of this relic of La Nouvelle Vague have been difficult to come by. According to the BFI, Out 1… is one of the world’s truly great cinematic epics. Which only makes the fact that MIFF will be screening Out 1… in its entirety all the more special.

In the film, we see two experimental theatre groups rehearsing and improvising avant-garde productions of ancient Greek dramas. As the hours pass, a more sinister conspiracy emerges that plays out in Paris studios, cafes and streets in the aftermath of the May 1968 riots. For lovers of bohemian romance and iconic imagery, and believers in art as a revolutionary force, this is an orgy of visual and conceptual excess that will fuel the spirit.

Don’t panic if the idea of 12 hours trapped in a cinema seems an insurmountable challenge; Out 1… will screen in a more digestible format at ACMI consisting of four sessions across two days.

Failure to attend may result in a lifetime of regret given the rarity of full Out 1: Noli Me Tangere screenings. And don’t forget you stand to gain a badge of honour to wear proudly in any future film-related discussions.

The Melbourne International Film Festival runs from July 31 to August 17 across Melbourne.

For full program details and to book tickets (including to Out 1: Noli Me Tangere), visit miff.com.au.

Anthony Aquino at the event Let There Be Light

Intermix is an exciting program of screenings, artist talks, workshops, live performances and more presented free to young people aged between 15 and 20. For the past two years Intermix has been proudly supported by the Ian Potter Foundation, and we are very excited to now have the strong support of Naomi Milgrom AO, ensuring the continued growth and success of the program for the next few years.

In the video below, we have captured some highlights from the Intermix creative workshops presented by contemporary artists and film makers.

Looking for more information? Here’s a rundown on the events featured in the video.

Pixelated Pop
Pixelated Pop was a three day workshop, where young people produced augmented 3D films using a technique that combined 3D scanning and traditional filmmaking techniques.

Let There be Light
Let There be Light, presented by two of Melbourne’s best cinematographers Ryan Alexander-Lloyd and Giovani Lorusso, was a hands on exploration of the equipment and techniques behind cinematic lighting.

Warped Perspectives
Warped Perspectives, presented by media artist Zeal, was a workshop dedicated to projection mapping, a technique where video content is mapped to 3D objects in the real world via a combination of traditional animation techniques and powerful contemporary software.

Festival Correspondent
Intermix had the opportunity to team up with Pause Festival for a program that tasked young people with capturing the digital practices that characterised Pause Festival. The Festival Correspondent program is soon to be reignited for Melbourne Music Week.

Music Television
For Music Television, we collaborated with the City of Melbourne’s Signal art studio, where a group of 20 young people designed and shot a video clip for local band Pikelet over a weekend. Here is what Chapter Music’s Guy Blackman thought of the clip.

“We loved what the Signal/ACMI MTV workshop kids did (with help from Isobel Knowles) for Pikelet’s song Combo. It was bright, inventive, engaging and a lot of fun.”

Intermix has many more exciting opportunities planned for the rest of the year, including collaborations with Melbourne Music Week and a workshop dedicated to the Oculus Rift virtual reality platform.

To stay informed email intermix@acmi.net.au or check out the web page at http://www.acmi.net.au/intermix.aspx

This nocturnal evening of events invites Melburnians on an after-dark walk to explore the city’s art spaces. Artist-run initiatives, curated architectural spaces and major museums across the CBD and North Melbourne are simultaneously opening their doors for one-night only on Wednesday 23 July, 2014.

A piece shown in the TV show ‘Public Hangings’

As part of program, ACMI is presenting a special selection of moving image artworks in our Australian Mediatheque from 6pm to 10pm. Pieces have been selected from the ACMI Collection with a focus on the foundations and early work of Australian video artists.

This collection of video works, interviews and experimental collaborations have been picked from a range of sources aiming to reflect the zeitgeist of Australian video practice from 1982 to 2002. Australian video artists were and are innovative, treating video as a fluid medium by which to document, remix, appropriate, animate and explore political and social ideas.

Everything from a strong DIY ethos to video making and distributing, as well as the beginnings of cyber culture in 1990’s, make up this diverse history.

The 43 minute program of moving image artworks for the evening includes:

Dial “T” for Terror [excerpt]
Robert Randall, Frank Bendinelli, 3:55 mins, Australia, 1984

‘Randelli’ is the collective name for two artists, Robert Randall and Frank Bendinelli, who work in close collaboration. The deconstruction of popular culture film and television works is the major theme of Randelli’s work. This excerpt (a re-imagining of Alfred Hitchcock) illustrates the artists “love of the cinema and … television” and how they work to “push video into a new direction using those influences.” (1)

A still from the artwork ‘Dial “T” For Terror’

For Want Of [excerpt]
Jayne Stevenson, 2:17 mins, Australia, Black & White and Colour, 1984

Jayne Stevenson (former member of seminal Melbourne band Tsk Tsk Tsk) has described her work as “a crime romance story that unfolds through various styles of song”. The dark, film noir feel of the piece highlights the ambiguity of the characters desire to catch the unknown protagonist.

Give Me Liberty: Honeysmack [excerpt from Projekt No. 5]
Philip Brophy, 4:50 mins, Australia, Zomba Records, 2002

After a series of experimental mixed-media works exhibited in art and non-art contexts over many years, Philip Brophy has consolidated his interests to produce a range of audiovisual works focussing on his key interests in pop, sex and music. (2)

Jon McCormack [excerpt from Artists in Cyberculture]
Frances McGivern, Jonathan Cohen, Jon McCormack, 3:23 mins, Australia, Ronin Films, Cracked Metal Productions, 1993

An excerpt from Artists in Cyberculture – a short film in which the artists record their work at the Third International Symposium on Electronic Art, Sydney, 1992. Jon McCormack is an Australian-based electronic media artist and researcher in computing. Inspired by the complexity and wonder of a diminishing natural world, his work is concerned with electronic ‘after natures’ – alternate forms of artificial life that may one day replace the biological nature lost through human progress and development.

A still from the film ‘Artists in Cyberculture’

Mind’s Eye
Gregory Godhard, 5:02 mins, Australia, 1998

An experimental animation made with over 1,200 photographs. The film revels in situationist surreality and takes the viewer on a roller-coaster journey through a series of locations.

On Sacred Land [excerpt]
Peter Kennedy, John Hughes, 5:20 mins, Australia, Black & White and Colour, 1983

On Sacred Land is the moving image component of an installation work designed by Peter Kennedy and featuring a large ‘history painting’ (On Sacred Land, 1983-86, oil on canvas, 270 x 840 cm, 1983-86). This work critically engages representations of ‘Aboriginality’ in a context alert to the 1980s contestation of land rights and indigenous self-determination. (3)

Repeat Performance
Robert Rooney, 3:05 mins, Australia, Silent, 1982

Robert Rooney has been one of the most significant names in Australian conceptual art since the late 1960s. Working across a range of media – from paint on canvas to still and moving image works – Rooney’s work is featured in the collections of major Australian art institutions. This hypnotic study of a human body in rhythmic movement uses repetition and changing light to create a mesmerising study of ceaseless motion.

Swell [excerpt from Projekt No. 2]
Laresa Kosloff, 2:37 mins, Australia, Silent, 2002

Laresa Kosloff makes performative videos, Super 8 films, hand drawn animations, sculpture, installations and live performance works. Her practice examines various representational strategies, each one linked by an interest in the body and its agency within the everyday. (4)

Our Potential Allies
Peter Callas, 5:41 mins, Australia, 1999

Our Potential Allies is an intuitive and ironic critique of Eurocentric belief-systems founded upon the dichotomy of self (the West) and the Other. Callas appears on the left monitor in black and white facial paint – the so-called ‘mask of primitivism’ – while compressed news imagery appears upon the right. (5)

A still from the piece, ‘Our Potential Allies’

Uplands Gallery [excerpt from Public Hangings – Series 1. Episode 8]
Steven Honegger, Daniel Von Sturmer and Meri Blazevski, Matthew Griffin and Anthony Hunt, 6:02 mins, Australia, 2003

Public Hangings was a local television program on the arts produced for and broadcast on community television (Channel 31) in Melbourne, Australia from 2002. Enjoying a cult following, the program – produced by Irish art critic and London gallery director, Andrew MacKenzie – roamed the streets of Melbourne in search of opening nights and visual vox pops. The program’s style made the avant garde accessible and provided an insight into a vibrant underground city culture.

This collection is fascinating viewing, so don’t miss out on your chance to stay up late in our Mediatheque and watch this specially curated program for Nite Art!

Nite Art 2014 at ACMI runs from 6pm to 10pm. Wednesday 23 July, 2014.

Sources:

(1) Source: 2001, KE Software, Griffith University Art Collection. Viewed 15/07/2014 [artworkscatalogue.griffith.edu.au]
(2) Source: Philip Brophy [website]. Viewed 14/07/2014 [www.philipbrophy.com]
(3) Source: Art Gallery of New South Wales. Viewed 14/07/2014 [www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au]
(4) Source: Laresa Kosloff. Viewed 15/07/2014 [www.laresakosloff.com]
(5) Notes by Rachel Kent, reprinted courtesy of the author and d/Lux Media Arts

Bill Damaschke (Chief Creative Officer), Kendal Cronkhite (Production Designer), Christophe Lautrette (Production Designer), Jason Schleifer (Head of Character Animation) and Doug Cooper (Visual Effects Supervisor) discussed not only their work, but how the animation and artwork has evolved over the history of the studio’s many hit titles.

Maquettes and artwork inside ‘DreamWorks Animation: The Exhibition’

In this excerpt from the evening’s talk, Bill invites his colleagues to recall how they arrived at DreamWorks Animation.

Kendal began as an editorial illustrator (and had no intention of doing animation), but was wooed into the animation industry by an opportunity to work with Tim Burton.  Jason confesses that although he “didn’t have very good drafting skills” when he started out he jumped at the chance to intern for a 3D animation software company. Doug scored his first role in the industry when he was around 16 as a computer production artist colourising black-and-white films, while Christophe grew up making his own stop-motion films before landing a role at Disney.

DreamWorks Animation: The Exhibition runs until Sunday 5 October 2014.

Check out the full program of events and don’t forget to visit our ACMI DreamWorks Online Hub for exclusive behind-the-scenes videos, concept art, articles and insight into the world’s largest animation studio.