Jason is currently working on Faceless : Dead & Desirable - a live sound/video work to be premiered at the Australian Experimental Art Foundation between 10-12 March 2010 – as part of the Adelaide Fringe Festival.
Bookings here: http://tix.adelaidefringe.com.au/ticketing/EventDetails.aspx?EventGuid=37bfe314-06ac-47c1-81cd-f936fa3b257b
Feast Festival review: Journeys Made – JO VABOLIS
http://www.independentweekly.com.au/news/local/news/entertainment/feast-festival-review-journeys-made/1682062.aspx
Are you comfortable? Comfortable with who you are, where you’ve come from and where you’re heading? Do you belong to a group, or are you an outsider? Jason Sweeney, Nicola Connor and Daniel Clarke have crafted a beautifully simple but very affecting experience that explores the idea of ‘the other’, and how it feels when what’s normal to you may not necessarily be normal to the rest of the population.
After gathering in the foyer, the audience is guided to enter the installation space as a group. We make our way to the small, sparsely decked out ‘departure lounge’ where white, panelled walls enclose a seating area. Envelopes have been placed randomly on top of a collection of wooden benches. We are invited to open these envelopes, read the contents and, if we wish, to take the letters with us when we leave.
A recorded voice within the electronic soundscape issues instructions, tells us how to behave, asks us to imagine we have ten minutes to describe ourselves in as much detail as possible. Could we do it? A fluctuation in the lighting signals change.
Over the public address system a diverse range of speakers share brief excerpts from personal journeys, and their honesty is immediately engaging. The introductions make us want to hear more, and it’s pleasing when each voice returns again and again to add to the stories. What is it like to be gay in Germany, Russia or the Philippines? How does it feel to be singled out because of ethnicity, or sexual orientation, or to be invisible in your own community?
Hissing, tapping and snatches of piano music augment the spoken words. The mood shifts constantly, as the anecdotes share moments of humour along with painful observations on loss, exclusion and the frustration of having to deal with the inaccurate assumptions of others.
Journey’s Made more than lives up to its blurb, and is an original, innovative installation piece with heart.
Presented by Feast in association with UNIDOS, Waterside Workers Hall until November 19.
This is a sound installation I am working on for the Feast Lesbian & Gay Festival in Adelaide.
This is the blurb: A shared sound experience celebrating diverse cultures. One of South Australia’s most experimental and innovative queer artist, Jason Sweeney, designer, Nicola Connor and director Daniel Clarke have worked with members of the GLTBIQ community from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds to develop a new sound installation piece. Discover what stories were told and hear how these remarkable personal experiences have been captured through sound. A visual and aural adventure.
Presented by Feast in association with UNIDOS
http://www.feast.org.au
Waterside Workers Hall,
11 Nile Street,
Port Adelaide
15, 17-19 Nov
7:00pm & 7:45pm
40 minutes
Pay what you can at the door
Wheelchair Accessible
Myself, and collaborator Fiona Sprott, will be part of a curated residency event – gone in no time gone in no time – at the Experimental Art Foundation (Adelaide) between 03-07 November this year.
Details below…
not a sound only the old breath and the leaves turning and then suddenly this dust whole place suddenly full of dust when you opened your eyes from floor to ceiling nothing only dust and not a sound what was it said come and gone was it something like that come and gone come and gone in no time gone in no time —’That Time’ 1964, Samuel Beckett
gone in no time gone in no time#
15 September – 7 November
15.09 – 26.09 Annette Lawrence \ Jacobus Capone
29.9 – 10.10 Yhonnie Scarce \ Nick Selenitsch
13.10 – 24.10 Margit Brünner \ Danielle Freakley
27.10 – 07.11 Ardi Gunawan \ Katherine Huang
03.11 – 07.11 Jason Sweeney
Curator Domenico de Clario
Signalling a new direction for the eAf, gone in no time gone in no time will activate the gallery space in ways not seen for some time. The project is a series of residencies – sometimes overlapping – in the eAf gallery. The artists will occupy the gallery space (and other areas of eAf) and in various ways open up the process of making work to audience response & feedback.
“The eAf gallery space, like other contemporary art spaces, is normally used to present strategised solutions/answers/responses to particular issues arising in an artist’s individual practice; these responses are mostly prepared in private studios and the unfolding of a particular final form/strategy does not usually include any aspect of an audience interaction.
Consequently the dynamic between artist’s initial inquiry, the formulation of a response strategy and an interaction with audiences cannot manifest before the work is publically viewed.
By this time the form of the artist’s response has necessarily crystallized into its final shape.
Can the gallery space be the site in which the entirety of the process is experienced?
Can the artist’s initial point of enquiry/curiosity, the strategy chosen to address it and the unfolding of his/her response all take place within the gallery, able to be viewed and engaged with at all times by an interested audience?
Beyond being viewed, can the artist extend this interaction further and engage the audience directly, even embodying, if this strategy concurs with the artist’s line of enquiry, aspects of the process within the work itself?
If so then the EXPERIMENTAL ART FOUNDATION then becomes the e x p e r i m e n t a l Art Foundation.” Domenico de Clario, eAf Director
#Dedicated to the memory of Noel Sheridan, eAf inaugural director (1975-1980). Noel Sheridan performed Samuel Beckett’s ‘That Time’ at Spectrum Project Space in Perth on the evening of June 21 2006, for the twenty-four hour live event titled ‘the round ball game’.
The new album Yes To Fear, Yes To Desire has been released on Sensory Projects.
To get a hold of it, go here: sensoryprojects.com.au
Here is a taste of the artwork, featuring the beautiful illustrations by Steve Phillips:
In anticipation of the new and upcoming Panoptique Electrical album Yes To Fear, Yes To Desire on Sensory Projects (release date 8 August), I wanted to announce the five city Australian tour dates:
August 2009
Adelaide – Friday 7 - EMU Space: Adelaide University
Mount Gambier (SA) – Sunday 9 - Varcoe’s Foundry
Melbourne – Thursday 13 – The Curtin Bandroom
Canberra – Wednesday 19 – Front Gallery & Café
Sydney – Sunday 23 - Don’t Look Gallery
Highly recommended for Adelaide audiences is this:
http://delacatessen.wordpress.com/
A series of experimental, exploratory and immersive music performances/concerts at the very beautiful De La Catessen in Adelaide.
