National New Media Awards at GOMA by Sam Rohweder

With a significant first prize of $75,000 and acquisition by the Queensland Art Gallery as well as an opportunity to exhibit your work at the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, The National New Media Award has been a prestigious and coveted accolade for Queensland Artists.  The National New Media Award began its three phase Biennial program in 2008, culminating in this year’s final exhibition. Over the past 4 years has highlighted  24 talented artists working with a diverse range of new technologies including animation, robotics, interactive media, sound and light.

From a short list of eight, this year George Poonkhin Khut took out the award with his interactive iPad app “Distillery”. The work uses the viewers own heart beat to make a unique and interesting experience. This work teeters on a fine line between its role as an aspect of entertainment and a medical tool to assist children maintain a relaxed heartbeat while in hospital. While interesting, the fact that the general populace is overloaded with new apps daily may diminish some of its impact.

Ian Haig presents an horrific sculpture titled  “Some thing” that appears to draw breath, squelch fluids internally and move ever so slightly, like a raw organ struggling to hold onto life. The artist claims he is exploring the boundaries of attraction and repulsion, and getting viewers to come to terms with disease associated with aging and death. The sculpture itself is beautifully crafted with great attention to the details. However “Some thing” may look far more at home on the set of a science fiction horror movie than in a gallery.

With its use of Artificial Intelligence hidden behind the wall Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders’ “The Space in between” caught everyone’s attention.  Viewers standing before the wall can hear the robots moving about as they explore their space within and can occasionally get a glimpse as one robotic lens peeks out from the holes they have made in the plaster to explore the world beyond. Emulating a degree of consciousness and thought, and occasionally acknowledging a viewer, these robots give  a similar experience to monkeys being observed at the zoo.  While highly entertaining the work also raises questions about the degree to which science fiction is becoming a reality and about what might come next.

Ross Manning’s “Spectra II” is next up with a twofold experience. Projecting light onto a white wall on one side and using three holes like a camera obscura onto a black wall on the other side in contrast.  An exploration of how additive colour work, when red green and blue are in equal amounts it will produce clean white light, but as the balance is shifted the light will produce a rainbow of colour that moves differently on each wall. This work is a very interesting display to watch and interact with. As a consequence a wonderful educational visual on how the light spectrum works.

Karen Casey “Dream zones” is a hypnotic cinematic creation involving using her brain waves to create a Kaleidoscopic tessellated image of her artworks through the use of a software program. Exploring the inter-connectiveness of art science and society.

Robin Fox’s installation “Homage to Leon Theremin” integrates old technologies from the 1950’s with Theremin’s theories from the 1930’s to create an installation for the new millennia. Inviting the viewer to create a cacophony of light and sound by moving around an installation of CRT monitors hooked up to movement detectors. It has that “instant gratification” requirement that is becoming more and more prevalent in today’s society.

Kristy Boyle’s installation entitled “Tree Ceremony” amalgamates old world Japanese puppetry traditions with modern mechanics to reenact another Japanese tradition the tree ceremony. “Suki”, the Japanese puppet created by Kristy under the guidance of her Japanese tutor, is dressed in a traditional kimono for her robotic performance juxtaposing the manufactured with the naturalness of the real bonsai tree she dances for.

The winner for me was Leah Heiss’s installation “Polarised”.  A cluster of delicate glass balls stand in silent vigil on a plinth. The lighting was used to highlight the small amount of magnetic liquid called ferrofluid contained within each ball and covered over with clear water. Each is brought to life as a magnet passes beneath each sphere and makes the fluid dance within. The whole installation has an ethereal sense of wonder, a beautiful merge of old technology and new medium to produce a fascinating artwork.