Mad as a March Hare

Lots of stuff happening
the moralof the story - is to Go to Student Run Galleries while they still exist!

this Wednesday Greg Shapley has a show opening at the SCA based NEwpsace Gallery, 680 Darling street Rozelle (near corner of Victoria Road)

A THING OF BEAUTY: AN ACT OF TERROR Explores the infinite possibilities of the finite, planes, statues, and jaywalkers are propelled in this installation by 'transition through repetition'.

Using unique visual generative processes I have assembled a new work that questions perception and perspective. I have taken small visual snippets of everyday life, and treated them as if they were music themes in a minimalist work by Steve Reich or Phillip Glass.

Philosophically I am looking at how a minute fragment, can become a catalyst for hysteria – how we can be manipulated into seeing things that aren't really there.

Using minimalist techniques, the treatment of these visuals (and their accompanying soundtracks) becomes hypnotic and mesmerising. There is a guilty pleasure in watching the footage and hearing the sound play out. There is a certain voyeurism that by now we are all familiar with. September 11 and ensuing TV wars have made sure of this.

I'm notsure what it means either.

KUDOS has the first official Anti VSU Art exhibiton. MONEY MAKEs THE WROLD GO ROUND opened last week and runs till this saturday (yep you can go on Saturday)

In response to the Federal Government's VSU legislation that passed in
the 11th hour of Parliamentary sitting for 2005, the UNSW College of
Fine Arts Students' Association have invited all COFA students, staff
and Alumni to create a piece of work utilising Chinese bank notes in
reference to counterfeit money, for a giant fundraiser opening at Kudos
Gallery next week. All work will be sold under $50 with proceeds going
to Kudos Gallery through the Students' Association in an effort to
establish a fund to help support the future of this student service.

In 2006 Kudos Gallery celebrates it's eight year of thriving under
Universal Student Unionism in a twenty-one year history of student run
initiatives supported and subsidised by the COFA Students' Association.
Kudos Gallery is an autonomous, independent, and professional
exhibition space, run by students for students in St Sophia Hall, a few
minutes away from the College of Fine Arts campus in Paddington.
Established in late 1998 by COFA Students’ Association, Kudos aims to
provide COFA students with an accessible gallery space off campus to
develop an exhibition profile whilst still at University. Kudos plays
host to approximately thirty diverse exhibitions and up to 10,000
visitors to the gallery each year. COFA SA encouraging all students
from first year to PhD level to submit proposals for solo, group or
curated exhibitions.

The implementation of Voluntary Student Unionism in July this year will
not only force many changes to the accessibility of student services,
it will result in a catalogue of lost opportunities for the arts in
this country; lack of exhibition spaces for emerging artists,
publications for emerging writers and journalists, and venues for
emerging performing artists, actors, directors, producers, and
technical crew; extracurricular activity that, after all, defines the
quality of on-campus life. Kudos, like many student galleries, provides
a space for emerging artists, designers and curators to learn and
develop their work and experience in a competitive and expensive
industry.

Under VSU, many student organisations will no longer have the funds to
support these arts and cultural services, facilities, activities and
events. Most of these services, including Kudos Gallery, are not for
profit, and thus are unsustainable under this legislation. A user-pays
system would mean that for many students, access to galleries,
theatres, publications and radio stations will be near impossible for
both artists and their prospective audiences. The result of this
inaccessibility would of course be the demise of these services,
facilities, activities and events. The introduction of VSU is not a
political triumph, it is an artistic catastrophe.

A sales desk will be set up within the gallery during the opening and
throughout the two weeks of exhibition to take deposits and for works
and donations for the gallery. Please forward this invite to your
friends and family and help support Kudos Gallery by buying a piece of
work next week! thank you

ON things political - Cross Arts had a great show opening last week - well it sounds great - but I haven't checked it out yet.

TUNNEL VISION, GREED & STUPIDITY: REVIEWING CONCRETE POLITICS IN SYDNEY

Opens: Thursday 9 March, 6 to 8pm
Talks by: Paul Ashton, historian, University of Technology Sydney and Lee Rhiannon, Greens MLC, lobbyist for the Parliamentary Inquiry into the Cross City Tunnel
Where: The Cross Art Projects
33 Roslyn Street Kings Cross Sydney (opposite St Lukes Hospital gates)
Exhibition continues to: Saturday 25 March 2006
Cross Conversation: Sunday 12 March at 3pm
For more information call 9357 2058 or 0406 537933

Sign the End the Tunnel Funnel Petition: http://www.drag.org.au/

TUNNEL VISION is an exhibition documenting how politicians, businessmen and public servants secretly carved up the inner-city road network in a calculated bid to force drivers into a private toll tunnel. The exhibition is about the venality of selling off public roads, willfully restricting public transport, folly and lies, and the howls of anger from gridlocked traffic. Laugh at funny pictures of people negotiating concrete bollards, watch footage of citizens trying to re-open roads at a Parliamentary Inquiry.
Its a fast ride through public-private partnerships Sydney style.
Curator Jo Holder

ARTISTS
Warren Brown, Jeff Carter, Christopher Dean, Shaun Gladwell, Michael Gormly, Chris Henning, Marius Jastkowiak, Deborah Kelly,
Fiona MacDonald, Alan Moir, Jo Holder and Therese Sweeney, Anne Zahalka

CROSS CONVERSATION: IDEAS FOR A NEW CITY PLAN
Sunday 12 March at 3pm
Where: The Cross Art Projects

SPEAKERS:
Stacey Miers, social planner
Martin Butterworth, movement economy
Chris Stapelton, integrated transport

The shift to a user-pay private toll network has profoundly changed Sydney. It has led to a new focus on public interest and planning. Who is consulted? Who gets heard? Do we want elite enclaves or connected communities?

And Finally THIS THURSDAY Mori Gallery ahs a fundraiser: flicks for freedom - a fundraiser in support of the Villawood Detention Centre Easter COnvergence (Yep - this'll be bigger than the easter bunny).

Thurs 16 March 6.30pm.
Mori Gallery 168 Day St City (left off Bathurst St at
Darling Harbour)

Door: $8/5 for the convergence at Villawood detention
centre over the easter weekend (April 14-17). -

Free finger food, plus cheap beer and wine
Film clips include:
Baxter (Andorra)
Run (COG)
Detention protest footage:
Lombok towed back refugee footage
Baxter_05 doco by Anna Belhalfaoui
'No Lager' (compilation of European detention
protests).
Woomera_02 (SkaTV)
A couple of short films are also being chased up,
including a Tropfest entrant who made a film about
Cronulla.

Cheers

Mayhem