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 Art InstallationsStay tuned for the amazing and wonderful art installations and events we have lined up for the 2008 shows... in the meantime, check out what we had last year...Muck-a-mucks touring artworks
The Flaming Lotus Girls are a large egalitarian group of designers, sculptors, fabricators, technicians and fire artists. Hatched in the fire arts community of San Francisco & Burning Man, this female driven collective collaborate to produce both delicate and super scale works of sculpted flame. They present here for the Big Day Out the 'Hand of God', a 4 metre copper sculpture of a woman's left hand that shoots fire out of every fingertip. You will feel the heat. The Flaming Lotus Girls' Hand of God is a truly awesome display of power. Not only expressive of the natural energy available from buried fossil fuel treasures, it is also reflective on the very mysteries of life & energy in a holistic context. Fossil fuels are the condensed remnants of ancient and long deceased plant life. To extract these seemingly dead resources from deep within the underworld and then burn them, in all manner of ways to power our modern civilization, humankind unleashes a spiritual force into the atmosphere. This energy manifests a distinct environmental change upon our planet - a carbon dioxide rich and warmer atmosphere - perfect conditions for the long gone plant life to thrive again. It is as though the spirits of these extinct life forms have been released into our atmosphere by combustion, just as many people believe cremation of the physical body releases the human spirit. These ancient plant spirits are creating an environment where they can physically thrive once more and it certainly makes one ponder the mysterious ways of our universe. It is no wonder that our planet responds to the mass liberation of these ethereal forces of the underworld. Billions of litres of fuel are burnt daily, concealed within the engines of our transport vehicles. However, the Hand of God also uses fuel from renewable energy sources, evident in vibrant coloured flames, reflecting the bright optimism for the use of such energies in our future. The 'Hand of God' displays a spectacularly blatant combustion of fossil fuel and renewable energy whilst forming a potent reminder that the condition of planet earth is in our hands, our hands of god. Miles van Dorssen, 2006 Appearing at Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide (sorry Perth)
It all started at the kindergarten. I remember doing magic tricks for the class wearing my mothers black dress with little mirrors in it because it was the closest thing to a magician suit. At high school i found my vocation: the making of bombs. Every year i provoked the town by exposing my newest experiment with flashlight, thunder, shock-wave and smoke to a growing public. Because of my obsessive way of working on every next explosive experiment i got the nickname Addict. I still have this name as-well as the hobby, the only difference is that my experiments have electrical wires instead of fuses. After high school i had a shopping trolley full of liquid slide projectors which i transported by train. Looking for challenges i cooked up open stages in the park, psychedelic tea times, and space travels. At the university i met Piebe, a software magician, who got a masters in artificial cognitive intelligence. Big Jim is a big guy made out of nothing, it's just some mental effect of software and laser reflexions on dust particles. And YOU, wearing some silly suit to control his movements. DANCE! Appearing at Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth in or near the Boiler Room.
 Camera Obscura Being a darkened chamber with an aperture through which images of outside objects are projected onto a viewing surface. The pinhole camera obscura phenomenon was observed and recorded as long ago as the fifth century BC in China. No real changes were made until the thirteenth century when a lens replaced the hole making the resultant image brighter and sharper. Until the nineteenth century Camera Obscura were used mainly by scientists, artists or as playthings of the rich. At this time however they began to proliferate and appear on seafronts, areas of natural beauty and so forth. Today however the number has dwindled until, especially amongst the youth, few have experienced the wonder that is the Camera Obscura. Willett & Patteson’s Amazing Camera Obscura faithfully reproduces the effects that marvelled and amazed past generations. www.amazingcameraobscura.co.uk Appearing Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide & Perth
CeLL is an industrial strength music box making use of the voluminous acoustic boom that a 6m shipping container can offer. CeLL operates as a self-generating symphony, converting digital data into spontaneous rhythmic sequences. At times a raucous cacophony emits from the open doors, at others a rhythmical pounding evokes the universal urge to dance. Painted with motifs of clouds and sky, the box is closed off by bars running across its front, a frustrating prohibition between bodies and the thunderous machinery inside. As loud as CeLL is at its peak, there is something about the quality of this loudness that presses you to want to get right inside of it, so its rhythms can really vibrate your bones. The comic element to CeLL is in the unexpected shifts and clashes of tempo, in the way it becomes an organism with its own pulsing personality, oscillating curiously between mechanized factory and shantytown one-man band- minus the one man. Machine artist Miles van Dorssen & composer Nick Wishart present CeLL. Appearing Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth at one of the show entrances.
Founded in 1983, Berlin, Dead Chickens, in the fashion of a sideshow's mirror cabinet, refect the dark and demonically ambivalent. Balancing above an abyss of madness, Dead Chickens have mobilised 'Der Seelenchor', one of a myriad of monsters in their cabinet for a tour of the Big Day Out. Thematically focused on aspects of creation, manipulation, sexus, power and oppression, decadence and apocalypse, this groups' most remarkable output is manifest in their building of mechanical creatures with highly organic appearences, that are bought to life by the use of complex industrial and electronic devices. In the western world beauty and youthfullness are being peddled as values. Opposed to this, monsters, chimera and deformations populate the Dead Chickens world. Beauty and ugliness have one thing in common: they stray from the "normal". The otherlike, the strange, projects a mulitude of possibilities. As it is discussed in numerous myths and fairy tales, underneath beauty, ugliness often lurks, and vice versa. The Dead Chickens' fantastic work is aimed beyond the surface of normal reality. The inner visions of individual artists amalgamate into a unified artistic output. Playful search and tryout combined with latest technologies and media generate complex artforms. Mechanical computer-controlled beings simulate life in an artificial world. The pneumo-kinetic mutation finds a way into our reality. The mechanical is alienated by coming to life - life is alienated by the stifled automation. Some of the monstrous machines have giant eyes, giving the impression that soulful beings are incorporated into the metal frame, fragile, helpless and vulnerable as any flesh-and-blood-creature, creating antagonistic reactions: curiosity, fascination, fright, compassion. The Dead Chickens' timeless monster machines are an expression and projection screen for human aspiration and fear, and also play with the absurd. They invite liberating laughter. Hannes Heiner Appearing Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. |
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The Flaming Lotus Girls - Hand of God
Big Jim
Miles van Dorssen & Nick Wishart - CeLL
Dead Chickens - Der Seelenchor
