Exhibitions

The spaces we inhabit are becoming progressively more legible through ubiquitous access to Google Maps and GPS navigation, introducing new types of travel story and new types of space. Emerging Topologies explores the shifting landscape of a city experienced through mobile mapping technology, and sketches out its own improbable paths through the shadows.

Informed by his research degree in Computer Science, Josh Harle has created a series of software tools to map, scan, and visualise the city in contingent, poetic ways, in spite of the rationalising imperative of geo-locative technology. The works tell tales: compiling unreadable maps of journeys through strange cities, and taking playful, winding trips across the smudged face of the reference map.

John Maughan has a Master of Art from COFA. Plein Air landscape in the area around Central Tilba, Far South Coast NSW is part of a series of works that Maughan has created, exploring the far south coast of NSW.

Brenda L Croft is a senior research fellow at the National Institute for Experimental Arts (NIEA), COFA.

Works from four of her major series The big deal is Black, In My Father’s House, Strange fruit and Conference call are on display at the Art Gallery of NSW.

Brenda works closely with her family, friends and Indigenous community members to create images that explore some of the issues faced by Aboriginal people today.

Brenda will reflect on her practice and discuss the importance of working closely with her family, friends and Indigenous community members to create to her images on Wed, May 22 from 5.30-6pm.

Some Other Place is an experimental group exhibition featuring the work of five artists who live and work in Blacktown.

COFA students and graduates Luping Zeng (Master of Fine Arts), Alex Cyreszko ( Bachelor of Art Education), Mehr Javed (MFA) and Abdullah M. I. Syed (PhD Fine Arts) were commissioned to create new artworks for the exhibition.

The artworks in the exhibition explore both real and imagined spaces, often recalling memories of other physical or mental places with a personal and social connection.

Petra Gemeinboeck, senior lecturer in COFA’s School of Media Arts has collaborated with Rob Saunders, lecturer in Design Computing at the University of Sydney on the exhibition Accomplice.

Both artists have combined their research and practices to create a colony of curious, autonomous robots hidden within the gallery walls.

Each robot is equipped with a motorised punch, a camera, and a microphone to assist in a complete transformation of the gallery. Collectively, these robots produce holes and patterns that mark the evolution of their social development.

Mari Velonaki is an Associate Professor and Director of the Creative Robotics Lab at the National Institute for Experimental Arts (NIEA), COFA.

The Woman and the Snowman joins a humanoid robot created by Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University and a projection depicting a snowman.

Functioning as an ‘honest’ representation of a fictional being, the snowman becomes seemingly more real than the humanoid woman robot as the artwork unfolds. The exhibition is an investigation into the boundaries of reality and comments on the influence technological advancements have had upon mediating relationships.

Peter Sharp is a lecturer in COFA’s School of Art. Sticks and Stones features painting, drawing and sculpture inspired by his annual journeys to Fowler’s Gap.

Sharp created small sculptures of found objects and drew abstractions of their forms. He used these as a starting point to create larger oil and acrylic paintings that capture the elements of the desert.

Peter Sharp will be holding an artist talk at the gallery from 3pm on Sat, May 11.

Nicole Welch has a Master of Fine Arts from COFA.

Her solo exhibition Illumination features site specific plein-air photographs of installations in the Australian landscape.

It explores the artists personal connection to Bathurst, the broader history of the region and the European idealism projected upon its landscape.

Patrick Hartigan has a Master of Fine Arts from COFA.

His solo exhibition Reclining and so on is a result of an interest in the photographer Eadweard Muybridge’s depiction of the figure and its movement, and his influence on those that painted it.

The intersection of photography and painting historically frames the works in this exhibition, with the figure lying at the centre.

Sally Clarke, lecturer in COFA’s School of Art took up a residency in December 2012 at Redgate’s Beigao-based studios on the periphery of Beijing.

Her attention was drawn to the culture of recycling, in particular, the possibilities of this process functioning as an analogy for the way power and value flow from one agent to the next.

Breakdown features objects that are broken down and their remains reconfigured into new ‘in transit’ formats located within the gallery space.

Three COFA students and graduates are exhibiting work in the group exhibition Home and Hosed, curated by Liz Nowell.

It features work by John A Douglas (Master of Fine Arts), Lynda Draper (Master of Art) and Gemma Messih (Bachelor of Fine Arts).

The artists and curator will discuss their works PechaKucha style in Something to Write Home About on Wed, Jun 12, 6pm. PechaKucha is a simple, energised and informal presentation format in which speakers discuss 20 images for 20 seconds each. RSVP for this event here.

COFA Master of Fine Arts graduates Angelica Mesiti and Kate Mitchell are finalists in the 2013 Anne Landa Award for video and new media arts exhibition.

The space between us features both live and documented performances from seven artists that explore performance and the viewer’s role as an active participant.

Angelica Mesiti presents a four-screen video that shows performers who maintain ties with their birthplace through rhythm, sound and music. Kate Mitchell’s new video installation shows her smashing through coloured glass panes.

COFA Master of Fine Arts graduate Shoufay Derz is exhibiting work in group exhibition Pigeon Auction.

The artists in the exhibition explore a variety of subcultures in very different ways, exposing what lies beneath the surface in our seemingly sleepy suburban streets.

Krystal Seigerman has a Graduate Diploma in Art Administration from COFA.

Everything Must Go is a series of documentary photographs that explore the decline of small businesses on a stretch of Parramatta Road in Sydney’s inner west.

The images show beauty in a road that is famously noisy, ugly and abrasive, yet full of history. The exhibition is part of Head On Photo Festival.

This exhibition of works by Mark Visione supports an investigation into the clear gender based preferences found in the drawings of children, which may indicate fundamental differences between females and males in their vision of the world, their art making and beyond.

Even though the questioning nature of art makes the use and manipulation of a ‘gender toolbox’ subjective and vague, recognition and use of these differences may allow the mature artist of either gender to suggest an emphasis towards masculinity or femininity in their own work.

Starting with etchings and collagraphs based on childhood drawings, Visione applies the understanding gained to his preoccupations with human relationships seen in the context of culture.

Point of View explores the boundaries between real and virtual space and the relationship between the observer and the observed.

Featuring work by COFA staff Volker Kuchelmeister, Josh Harle and Chris Henschke, the exhibition utilises electronic media to explore the boundaries of the cinematic image and investigate the limitations traditional ocular optics put on our perception of mediated imagery.

This exhibition is presented by COFA + ISEA2013.

PhD Fine Arts candidate Dawn-Joy Leong is exhibiting work in the Haptic InterFace Pop-Up Exhibition as part of Vivid Sydney.

The exhibition features experimental user interface prototypes that were developed in the Wearables Lab, an innovative trans-disciplinary laboratory at the Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University.

Dawn-Joy’s work developed from her research in the area of autism. She created the ‘Haptic HugShrug’ in response to research that reveals deep pressure stimulation relaxes the panic symptoms and sensory alarm common in autism.

The shrug provides the sensation of deep pressure and the softness of the Merino wool serves as supportive comfort to the wearer, who can adjust the intensity of the ‘hug’.

COFA Bachelor of Fine Arts student Alexandra Hirst and the COFA ToolRoom are exhibiting work in the Art2Public Travelling Exhibition.

They were among five artists who received the inaugural Art2Public Exhibition Award for their excellent presentation at Sculpture on the Greens 2013. Their work will be exhibited in Wollombi, Chatswood and Newcastle.

On May 25 the exhibition will be opened with a curators talk and an art and wine appreciation workshop. Book here.

In Running the City , international and Australian artists use cities such as Sydney, Rotterdam, Hong Kong and Berlin as their raw material.

Marnix de Nijs (the Netherlands), MAP Office (Hong Kong), Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba (Vietnam) and Richard Goodwin, Russell Lowe, Volker Kuchelmeister, Brad Miller and Ian McArthur (Australia) create experimental and interactive electronic art works which subvert the role of the city as a commercial hub with clear boundaries, transforming it into a site of infinite potential where real and virtual spaces collide.

Run Motherfucker Run, by Marnix de Nijs is the centrepiece of Running the City. In this massive immersive installation, seen for the first time in the Southern hemisphere, gallery visitors must literally run in order to traverse a nocturnal, often menacing cityscape. The images you experience, both filmic and three dimensional, are determined by the choices you make. The eerie soundscape creates a tense atmosphere, begging the question “who are you running from?”

Running the City is part of the Curating Cities research project at NIEA and is curated by Felicity Fenner. It is is one of several projects COFA is proud to present as part of the official International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA2013) program