From Andrew Frost…
The three shows under the one roof of the Powerhouse Museum, a sizeable part of ISEA2013, makes the rather steep $12 entry fee seem like chump change.
Speak to Me presented by Experimenta at the Powerhouse is the Sydney venue for the traveling 5th International Biennial of Media Art, a selection of curated and commissioned media artworks that covers videos such as Soda_Jerk’s meta-meme collection The Popular Front and Kate Murphy’s The Appointment, a virtual visit to a shrink, installations such as Katie Turnbull’s Modern Vanitas, that reboots 19th century tech into a contemporary phenakiscope, and robotic artworks such as Wade Marynowsky’s The Acconci Robot, a wandering packing crate that mimics a visitor’s movements.
Meanwhile, Symbiotica’s Semipermeable (+) looks “…at the membrane as a site, metaphor and platform for a series of artistic interventions and projects” and features works by artist and scientists collaborators such as Verena Friedrich’s Cellular Performance, a time lapse microscopy of manipulated human/animal skin cells, and Donna Franklin’s stunning Fibre Reactive, a dress that is a mix of silk organza and living orange bracket fungi. Australian Network for Art & Technology’s Synapse is a selection of works their residency program that provides a snapshot of the research created by participating artists and scientists.
Until August 21
Powerhouse Museum, Ultimo.
Pic: Katie Turnbull (Australia), Modern Vanitas, 2012. Animation installation and single-channel projection, dimensions variable. Commissioned by Experimenta.
