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Category Archives: Art and Design
Electronic Excitement
Book your flights, ladies and gentlemen, because the 9th annual Decibel International Festival of Electronic Music Performance, Visual Art and New Media is back!
(Seriously though, early ticket purchases will be discounted by 25%)
Headlining the most anticipated festival in Seattle is New Zealand’s very own musical gem Kimbra, who will be coming home in July for a one night only performance at Auckland’s Vector Arena before kicking off the Decibel Festival on September 26.
Kimbra will be in talented company at Decibel with acts such as Fennesz, Carl Craig, Dragonette and the Baths. The final musical lineup is expected to be announced today, with the final educational, film festival, after party and boat party programs released on July 11.
The festival expects over 30,000 attendees this year with over 170 artists. Decibel will hit Seattle with its sound waves for 5 days at over 14 different venues, and encompasses 34 audio/visual showcases, an outdoor event, a three-day conference, and a film festival.
Founded in 2003, Decibel’s mission was to redefine underground electronic music and visual art as a unified performance medium by balancing “technology and creativity; innovation and nostalgia; popularity and obscurity”.
2012 will be their most ambitious and diverse program yet. With representation from 19 countries around the world and a record 25% female artist lineup, the festival has truly defined what it means to be progressive for electronic music.
Website: dbfestival.com/
2012 Preview Video: www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=pWKWrtZQqVc
Windows to Another World : VSA exhibition
Looking for something to do in Auckland this weekend? Then make your way to The Australis Room located on 36 Custom street and check out the current show entitled Windows to Another World (Volunteer Service Abroad exhibition). On till this Sunday, the show features an exhibition of documentation taken by mostly VSA members. From working life and education to food and play, these photographs takes us into the often over-shadowed, forgotten lifestyles and living conditions that the majority of the population experiences daily. With photographs taken as early as the 1960′s, one can understand the love, kindness and dedication of these volunteers, it is evident through their photographs that their nurturing does not go to waste. As you walk through photo-bearing columns all you will see are pictures of normal people working with nature, their hard work and productivity, their stories and smiles.
So come check out the show this weekend before it all ends, remember to give your self at least 40mins to go through everything, though it is a small show it isn’t a light read. Each featured photograph has a description and a story, although a photograph may say a thousand words a story behind an image can open up hidden meanings.
Windows to Another World
Monday 18 June-Sunday 24 June 2012
The Australis Room, Australis House
36 Customs Street East, Britomart
Monday-Friday 9am-5pm
Saturday-Sunday 10am-4.30pm
Entry is free with a gold coin donation
The Spark, the Fire, and the Dark
Faerie Tales, part of the Auckland Festival of Photography Fringe Programme is quite a different sort of exhibition in that it is as diverse in the mediums used as it is in the topics that it explores.
Joe Macdonald explains in his essay entitled The Spark, the Fire, and the Dark that “Faerie Tales, as an eclectic whole, shifts the focus from singular identities to relationships and connections between embodied beings.” and further elaborates that “Faerie Tales refuses to cement meanings of bodies or identities, encourages interpretation by context, centres on the interactions between humans.”
The curator of this “provocative” exhibition Rebecca Swan features an interactive photographic installation exploring queer narratives. Rebecca sums up on her blog that “The viewer is privy to the making and un-making of moments, the spark, the fire, and the dark.”
Other artists include composer Charlotte Rose, photographers Katy Jo Carter and Melanie Church, comic artist Sam Orchard and painters Eli Orzessek and Kestin Stewart. With tantalising performances starting at 9pm on opening night.
Faerie Tales Exhibition: 5th- 18th June
Snake Pit Gallery 33 High Street, Auckland CBD
Opening night June 5th 6pm – 9.30pm with performances from 9pm- 9.30pm
Gallery hours Tuesday- Friday 11am-5pm, Saturday noon- 5pm
“Faeries Tales” is part of the Auckland Festival of Photography Fringe Programme.