Projects

All Around You is a series of workshops and creative collaborations with a community over three years, leading to the development of several youth-led performance and multimedia works, enhanced communications technology infrastructure and a digital arts strategy for culturally engaging with the community for the long-term.

All Around You launched this year at Miller Technology High School in Western Sydney and travelled to the Indigenous community of Roebourne in remote Western Australia in July. It continues in Western Sydney and Roebourne in 2009 alongside another collaboration with the Indigenous community of Purfleet in regional NSW.

Central to the program is its online portal, www.AllAroundYou.net, where communities are invited to share further knowledge, ideas and resources. The website launches publicly in November 2008.

An All Around You “model” is being developed so that any organisation or group of individuals will be able to implement the platform in their own community to the level that they desire. The model will take the form of an online resource kit as well as a physical toolkit, to be launched in early 2010.

In 2008, All Around You is being supported by many different organisations, including Australia Council for the Arts, Vodafone Foundation Australia, Arts NSW and Myer Foundation. Our 2008 partners are Casula Powerhouse, Liverpool City Council and the Refill program under Community Development Network Inc; and Ngarluma Aboriginal Corporation, Yaandina, Roebourne High School and Shire Roebourne.

Some of the results of our research included the creation of: a touch screen interface that triggers images, sounds and movies in real-time; simple circuits that can be embedded into everyday clothing items and can trigger audio or visuals on the basis of your movement; a DIY portable speaker system for $30 - allowing people to turn their backpack or mailbox, for example, into a speaker; a soft drink bottle that can graffiti in light; and a Texta that can mix and post-produce audio and visuals with gestural movements (for example - you move your hand up, and the music you are playing gets louder; you move it down, and the music gets quieter). All of these technologies will be shared in CuriousWorks’ All Around You labs and utilised in our own artistic projects. They will also be made available to the open-source community.

Since the first Kinect lab in April, IR spray cans have been built and used by young people in Miller and Roebourne through the All Around You program; as well as being used by the general public at Underbelly Festival at CarriageWorks in Sydney and at Federation Square during the Melbourne Fringe Festival.

The next Kinect lab will be held in 2009 at the CuriousWorks HQ in Surry Hills, Sydney.

In 2008, Kinect is being funded and supported by many different organisations, including Australia Council for the Arts, Vodafone Foundation Australia, Arts NSW and Myer Foundation. Our partner was Casula Powerhouse.

Documentary footage of the intense process CuriousWorks went through to complete the film punctuates the work with an on-the-ground reality. The result is an unusual and provocative investigation into what makes a city tick.

The project’s current stage is the development of a feature film and interactive DVD, slated for release in the last quarter of 2008.

Explore the project’s history at The Migrant Project website.

The concert takes you through ASI’s journey away from home and to the city inside his head, delivered through a series of songs with live illustrated visuals.

The music a multi-coloured embrace of styles, sounds and atmospheres. Listen to it at the ASI website.

The Waiting launches from 8pm on November 22nd at the CuriousWorks HQ in Surry Hills, Sydney. Get the details.

For Underbelly the work Overgrowth was developed, a re-imaging of the CarriageWorks space as if it had been overtaken by forest. For Federation Square Overflow was developed, a re-imagining of Melbourne’s iconic city centre as if it were submerged, the most disastrous effects of climate change having taken effect.

It is anticipated Cultivate will be complete in late 2009, as a follow-up to ASI’s recently completed debut album The Waiting.

Anandavalli toured Europe and Asia as a child dance prodigy - until she was brought home to Sri Lanka at the height of her career for an arranged marriage. But civil war broke out soon after, and the newlyweds with their newborn child migrated to Australia.

Soon after she arrived in Australia, Anandavalli went through a divorce in which she was left to fend for herself and her small son for the first time in her life. She taught herself to teach dance out of financial necessity and proceeded to develop Australia’s leading, classical Indian dance Company.

Through Anandavalli’s eyes, we learn the beauty of Bharatha Natyam: a dance form that has survived 4,000 years and continues to develop beyond its original borders. The vibrancy of her personality and her dance mix delightfully with the domestic routine of suburban Australia.

As the film spreads to India and its chaos, we gain a sense of the immense culture and history behind her story. We see how Anandavalli drains knowledge and experience out of the hectic landscape of India and allows it to settle in her new home.

Dance is all Anandavalli knows; she is loud, frank, child-like and beautiful.

All That She Knows will be released in early 2009. Find more about Anandavalli at the Lingalayam Dance Company website.

4 emerging artists took part with great ideas but not the skills to get their creative projects off the ground. CuriousWorks skilled up these artists to the point where they not only got their projects off the ground but were able to keep developing them without us. The project was run in partnership with Vibewire’s SquareOne space and the Powerhouse Museum in Ultimo. It was funded by the Community Partnerships Board of the Australia Council for the Arts.

Each person was asked to respond to the notion that Sydney is a city built on a history of migration. The responses were surprising and wildly diverse.

4 shows were staged for The Migrant Project - the most recent of which inhabited the layers of one of Sydney’s oldest surviving buildings, the Hyde Park Barracks Museum.

The project has been funded by the Dance and Theatre Boards of the Australia Council and the Music Board of Arts NSW during its tenure.

The project’s next stage is the development of a feature film and interactive DVD, slated for release in the last quarter of 2008.

Explore the project’s history at The Migrant Project website.

Over weekly workshops for two months, the participants developed a series of graphic novels telling personal stories. An exhibition was held at Kogarah library in June 2007. Images from these workshops were also used in Shopfront’s major show for the year, A City of Shadows and Ice.

The film will become part of an application the community is slowly putting together to get that land back for an Indigenous cultural centre. The project was developed in partnership with Robby Bell, the VillaWood Koori Kids and Woodville Community Centre. It was funded by Foster’s Group through their community grants program.