Underbelly 2011, Turbine Hall photo Prudence Upton |
The last event was so successful it sold out, bringing 2,200 people across the harbour on a glorious winter’s day to take in experimental and emerging art nestled among the skeletons of heavy industry (RT104). With this success under her belt, Semmler decided that it was a good time to pass the baton and so the 2013 festival is headed by Eliza Sarlos as Artistic Director with Jain Moralee as Executive Director. (Sarlos has been incubating more than the festival program over the last nine months, so will in fact be on maternity leave as the event actually takes place.)
Cockatoo Island photo Catherine McElhone |
Sarlos came on board in 2012 with a background in a range of activities: Executive Director of Music NSW; co-director of Sound Summit one of the then This Is Not Art Festivals; radio broadcaster on both 2SER and FBi (at the latter introducing the first talk-based program); and manager of various alternative bands. When she was invited to apply for the Underbelly position she realised that she’d “never taken pause to reflect and see how the very different things that I’d been involved in all had that one same link—working with artists to make things that I think are pretty incredible happen.”
I asked how she has approached being the first director after the founding mother had moved on. “Imogen had done such an amazing job at building Underbelly that there was so much I didn’t want to change at all. Although it had grown organically at every step of the way I felt like it had been a really considered process.” The main shift Sarlos has introduced is to give artists more preparation time by introducing earlier application rounds. “I think the process of doing that this year means that those artists have had maybe seven or eight months [preparation]. I think for 2015 we’ll try and do that even earlier. It’s worked really well. It has a lot of potential in growing what the works can be and making it easier to realise really ambitious ideas.”
The 2013 program really does offer very large scale dreaming with 30 projects by over 100 artists, many of them quite new names to the art scene. Sarlos refused to play favourites so here’s my sampling.
My Nourooz, Kink Studio |
I Met You In A City That Isn’t On The Map, We Do Not Unhappen photo Lucy Parakhina |
While Sarlos maintains that the open call for applications democratises the curatorial process, her own interest in media art-based integrations gives a slightly more teched-up angle to this year’s festival. In Forms of Thought, media artist Warren Armstrong will use local environmental sensors and weather feeds to generate 3D take-home models of participants’ thoughts. In her future world fight club, Game On, Michaela Davies will be wiring up performers with her electro-muscle stimulation system and handing the controls over to the audience! Mobile Projection Unit will create a multiplayer game experience that turns real bricks into interactive pixels. In an artistic Big Brother format, Greg Pritchard and the husband and wife team The Ronalds will allow viewers on the island to interfere, in realtime, with the creative routines of four artists in distant locations in their project Virtual Reality.
Sarlos’ musical background accounts for some interesting sonic programming as well, such as the Macrophonics team exploring the island’s shipping history in the audiovisual performance Ghost Ships; Soundland by Super Critical Mass who mobilise large ensembles playing the same instrument to create epic, analogue drones; and the Electronic Resonance Korps (ERK), an all laptop orchestra for the ultra-surround sound experience.
Looking at the scope and ambition of these projects I suggested to Sarlos that maybe there’s a new generation of artists who are really not afraid of large scale dreaming. Sarlos says, “I think the applications we received were thinking big and were thinking about how to engage with a space like Cockatoo Island which instantly gives you opportunities that you wouldn’t have if you were in a gallery or a theatre. I think what Underbelly tries to do is create a really supportive environment for artists to take risks…Some of those risks may not pay off. The ones that do I think will be spectacular.”
Underbelly Art, artistic director Eliza Sarlos, executive director Jain Moralee, festival manager Michelle O’Brien, program manager Kate Britton; Lab 24 July-2 Aug; festival days 3-4 Aug; http://underbellyarts.com.au/
Disclaimer: Gail Priest is a card-carrying member of the Electronic Resonance Korps (ERK).
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Adam Jasper inside Underbelly at Carriageworks
RealTime issue #115 June-July 2013 pg. web
© Gail Priest; for permission to reproduce apply to [email protected]