Hans New Media Review

The National New Media Art Award GOMA

The National New Media Art Award is a biennial event, and the most noteworthy new media award in the country. There is a substantial first prize of $75,000, is acquisitive and showcases the work of Australian Artists whose work is encompass “New Media. The New Media Art Award is in conjunction with the $25,000 Queensland New Media Scholarship for an emerging Queensland based artist, who is working in the field of new media, to develop their practice through ways like further study or travel. The National New Media Art Award showcased the works of artists such as George Poonkhin Khut (Award Winner) with an interactive Ipad Application “Distillery: Waveforming”, which consisted of several Ipads that viewers could interact with according to their heartbeat, creating movement on the screen that is amusing for the user.

Another Great instillation was a collaboration between Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders, who created the robotic instillation “Zwischenraume”, which at first glance I thought was a wall with holes punched through it and nothing more, but if you sit on the floor and stare through the holes, you will notice there are robots hidden behind the wall, moving about and occasionally peeking back at you through the holes they have made and acknowledging you. They seemed to demonstrate thoughts and know what they were doing, a very thought provoking piece showing the creative and clever capabilities of the Robots.

Even though this was an exhibition of all completely “New Media” I was absolutely amazed with the interest and beauty a lot of It brought me, it was exciting exploring the different pieces by the artist’s to see how they had used “New Media” to create their interesting and interactive pieces, including the Simple instillation “Polarised” by Leah Heiss, with a group of glass balls filled with a small amount of magnetic liquid in each of the balls, that had you standing in awe as a magnet moved beneath and the liquid would move and wave about softly, it really gave me another perspective on the mediums of work you expect to see in a gallery.