un Projects is based on the unceded sovereign land and waters of the Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation; we pay our respects to their Elders, past, present and emerging.
un Projects

Kym Maxwell

Experience and perceptions of ‘children’s research’ and the educational turn

The child is a born researcher. —Loris Malaguzzi The term ‘educational turn’ is gaining momentum in contemporary arts theory. Artworks within the definition seek to transmit or create knowledge from and between an artwork and its participants, the knowledge often stems from other disciplines such as sociology, science, history and psychology. This desire to learn, […]

Dan Arps

Towards a positive cynicism

The late Giovanni Intra once wrote an article in the journal Art & Text about the contemporary Los Angeles sculptor Evan Holloway, telling a story about how the artist locked custom-made steel boxes over parking meters in the street outside his studio, with the title When Bad Attitude Becomes Form. The phrase has always struck […]

Aodan Madden & Beth Rose Caird

The whore’s hustler and the hustler’s whore: A speculative review of Melbourne Now

I feel I’m in a beautiful private garden, in the middle of the city. I look up and see all the buildings and the beautiful sculptures. On Tuesdays, when the gallery is closed, it really does become our private space. It’s that sense of privacy in a public environment that I enjoy.[^1] —Isobel Crombie Throughout […]

Matthew Shannon

Cloth of the world

The Mappa Mundi: an example from history of another internet. Although revolutionary in scope, the internet’s quest to amass knowledge into one repository isn’t a new idea. There is a lineage of both libraries and encyclopaedias stretching back to ancient times, for example the great library of Alexandria and Pliny’s Naturalis Historia, written in AD77. […]

Anya Henis

Funny or serious? Not necessarily light material

Much of what I find funny in life emerges from the exhibitions I go to, so when the art’s humourless, I tend to feel a bit deflated. If work doesn’t have an element of humour in it, it’s hard for me to imagine the artist having any fun creating it, thus making it hard for […]

Sophie Knezic

Doctor Doctor: The emergence of the practice-led PhD

The amalgamation of art schools into university frameworks over the past decade has meant a new development in advanced degrees; the birth of the studio-based Doctor of Philosophy (PhD). In many ways this was an inevitability, part of the increasing tertiary accreditation of visual arts/studio arts courses over the late twentieth century. In Australia, initially […]

Lisa Radford

Information management: << . >> post-script: BORING BORING

1. Sampling I originally tried starting this with a quote from Kenneth Goldsmith quoting Douglas Huebler but, as you pointed out, we ended up trying to start at a dead-end. Misquoting it, re-opens it: the world is full of objects, more or less interesting.[^1] An updated notion of genius would have to centre around one’s […]

Helen Grogan, Eugenia Lim & Elvis Richardson

Visible actions

Our conversation took place on Thursday 25 April 2013. Present were Elvis Richardson (artist, former director of Death Be Kind and editor of online blog CoUNTess), Helen Grogan (artist, curator, co-director of art space and curatorial project Open Archive) and Eugenia Lim (artist, co-director of Channels video art festival). The trio discussed tactics for negotiating […]

Harriet Kate Morgan

Conversation with a Head, Severed

Tom Ellard is a ‘musician’—a term he describes as ‘an old descriptor for a sound/video/interactive artist’. While it is hard to establish all aspects of his work briefly, Ellard is best known as founding member of electronic and industrial band Severed Heads (officially active from 1979 to 2008). For those wondering, think tape loops, discordant […]

Dan Rule

Ghost in the speakers: Interview with Philip Jeck

Mentioned in the same breath as anyone from Christian Marclay to David Shea and Grandmaster Flash, British avant-garde turntablist Philip Jeck has built an oeuvre via the act of pillaging, appropriating and manipulating a record collection that traverses a vast span of music history. But Jeck’s approach to records—and the devices he uses to extract […]

Pedro de Almeida

Everything Falls Apart

Everything Falls ApartPart I: Alessandro Balteo Yazbeck & Media Farzin, Jem Cohen, Phil Collins, Sarah Goffman, Sarah MorrisPart II: Vernon Ah Kee, Zanny Begg & Oliver Ressler, Jem Cohen, Tony Garifalakis, Merata MitaCurated by Blair French and Mark FearyArtspace, SydneyPart I: 27 June – 5 August 2012Part II: 10 August – 16 September 2012 After […]

Daniel Stephen Miller

Uncommon Room

Uncommon RoomJessie Bullivant, Heidi Holmes, Isabelle Sully and Isadora VaughanCurated by Isabelle SullyRear View, Melbourne5–25 May 2012* These artists have made the job of a reviewer pretty easy. I can think of no better metaphor for their outsized ambitions and inflated egos than the two giant beach balls that dominate the front space at Rear […]

Ace Wagstaff

Tony Garifalakis & Tully Moore’s Denimism

Tony Garifalakis and Tully MooreDenimismWest Space, Melbourne27 July – 18 August 2012 These days anyone can resist, but, in a world of global capital, it’s very difficult not to be unintentionally hypocritical: you sign a petition online, whilst buying shoes made by children in sweatshops, while Occupy protestors fight back against the one per cent […]

Materialism

There’s materialism and there’s materialism. Some documents.[^1] It’s as though this writer is speaking to and on behalf of a public that thinks not-knowing about Adorno, St John of the Cross, Derrida or Lacan is a responsible ignorance. As though to know that double messages could displace and even replace an image or thing is […]

Alexandra Johnson

Pretty Air and Useful Things

Pretty Air and Useful ThingsDan Bell, Sanné Mestrom, Alex VivianCurated by Rosemary FordeMonash University Museum of Art, Melbourne19 July – 22 September 2012 In the changing consideration of the artistic ‘object’ beyond it’s physicality alone, many artists and critics have sought to contemporise the practice of sculpture by emphasising its broader social context as being […]

Hugh Nichols

The Scaffolded Artist: Professionalisation in the supported studio

Few artists are independent. Almost all rely on or seek support of some kind. There are, however, certain artists that require particular types of support. In 2010 I became involved in a project called the Supported Studios Network (SSN). The working group that maintains the project consists mostly of artists who work within visual arts […]

Lisa Radford and Liang Luscombe

Are we in a cone of silence?: A letter between two artists, who are editors (for now)

Hi Liang, Let’s make the most of this letter-as-trope-for-talking thing that we started. The irony of pitching an issue on work and unprofessionalism hasn’t been lost on us, especially considering that we ambitiously wanted more content, we wanted to know what others thought and if there was something actually to be said. This is why […]

Amy Clare McCarthy

Parallel Universes: 1970–1985

Parallel Universes: 1970–1985 Mike Parr, Bruce Nauman, Keigo Yamamoto, Norio Imai, Joan Jonas, David Perry, Stephen Jones, Bush Video, Nam June Paik, Akira Kurosaki, Shinsuke Ina, Peter Kennedy, John Hughes, Gary Hill, Peter Callas, Bill Viola, Randelli Nobuhiro, Dara Birnbaum, Ko Nakajima Curated by Matthew Perkins, Dr Mark Pennings, Lubi Thomas and Rachael ParsonsThe Block, […]

Brad Haylock

Interview with Christopher L G Hill

Brad : So, Chris, let’s talk about anarchy. Or, more precisely: I was wondering if you could tell me about the ways in which anarchist or syndicalist principles inform your practice? Christopher : I’m not approaching it from a hard-line political position, but anarcho-syndicalism is definitely something I align my work with. I’m not a […]

Giles Fielke

Jean Rouch: Trance memory

What are these films, what outlandish name distinguishes them from the rest? Do they exist? I have no idea as yet, but I do know that there are certain very rare occasions when, without the aide of a single subtitle, the spectator suddenly understands an unknown tongue, takes part in strange ceremonies, wanders in towns […]

Andrew Purvis

Jacob Ogden Smith’s Hovea Pottery Ale

Jacob Ogden SmithHovea Pottery Ale: quite a few bottles, some large pots and a videoOK Gallery, Perth2 August – 2 September 2012 Jacob Ogden Smith’s brew is a fruity dark ale, robust but with a subtle complexity of flavour that reveals itself slowly over the course of sustained consumption. Its faint floral notes are underscored […]

Helen Johnson

It seems like everyone knows everyone already so let’s get to work

1 It is in the social that painting finds criticality. Painting’s particular set of constraints, its two-dimensionality, its ‘faciality’, its frontal, pictorial flatness, do not detract from this function. Painting by its nature sits apart. In this way it is predisposed to make comment. At the recent Paul Taylor symposium,[^1] someone — I think it […]

Amelia Wallin

In Pursuit of Philanthropy

Two years ago, the word ‘philanthropy’ would have meant very little to many artists, particularly to those with emergent or experimental practices, however the way that we now think and talk about philanthropy has shifted. A combination of the recent rise of online crowdfunding platforms, high-profile philanthropic donations to public art institutions, such as the […]

Chloe Geoghegan

Louise Menzies’ Local Edition

Louise MenziesLocal Edition 25.07.12Published by DDMMYY and The Physics Room, ChristchurchProduced and designed by Kelvin Soh with Sam Wieck For a long time, the newspaper has been an icon of mass culture, a patriotic symbol of the mighty modern world and what it is capable of achieving. Today, that is the job of the Internet. […]

Advertisement
Advertise with un