Today I filled in for Lia’s show, ‘Sewn to the Sky’ – it was a particularly important show to fill in on because 2ser is currently in the middle of their annual subscriber drive!
This is my third year as a volunteer at 2ser but I haven’t yet hosted a subscriber drive show (I started just after 2009′s and was sick though out last year) so it felt really good to finally be a part of it. Subscribing to alternative media is such an important thing, the benefits 2ser give the community are so broad and far reaching. There’s still time to subscribe, starting at $35 you can jump on board the band wagon, feel good about yourself and join the 2ser family, just ring 9514 9500 (there’s also some cool prizes going all the time and it makes you eligible to win the feature CD each week).
This week I launched an ABC Pool project around the theme New Beginnings.Pool is a fantastic community where members from anywhere in the country (or world) can submit various forms of media including text, audio, video and photos. Projects help focus ideas and promote collaboration between members. Anyone can start a project but ABC producers that start projects have the ability to collate work around an idea, promote through radio national and produce a piece for broadcast. To launch the project I made a short promo video. I made it to give (hopefully) an approachable face to the project so people could feel like I was an approachable source for bouncing ideas and helping with content.
As part of the combined 30 Days of Creativity project and ABC POOL project myself and fellow poolie, Anna Bolton got together to draw a sea creature or object every day for the month of June. The end goal was to then take these images and turn it into a stop motion video finale (watch it above!).
This video will then be mixed together with some other #30days content and shown on the big screen at Federation Square in Melbourne throughout July.
In my final year of university I took a subject called ‘Modernism and Postmodernism’, I don’t know why.
Anyway I ended up really enjoying it. It was great to learn what these terms, we hear so often, actually mean. For our final assessment we could write an essay or create some sort of postmodern project (art work or anything you could dream up).
I chose the second option and combined my previous knowledge of audio with what I’d learnt throughout the course to create a postmodern sound installation.
Installation art by nature is postmodern, it sits in places where people would not normally expect to see art, that is, they usually happen in places other than a conventional gallery. The best ones are site specific and interact with the space chosen, they are inspired by the environment.
Installations can use a mish-mash of mediums and often involve digital technology to express ideas.
Probably the most significant attribute to an installation is it that it constantly changes and can mutate giving each person who views the work an individual experience. A good installation is like a river that no one swims in twice.
With these things in mind I created the Y3A Odyssey.
The entrance to the Macquarie Arts faculty (formerly the AFTRS building) is quite odd; a frosted glass box with sliding glass doors and black, angular metal beams with fluroesenct lights attached to them. It really is an interesting design and this was where I decided to make my sound installation. The entrance reminded me of something from space, like the cockpit of a space ship.
I made three CD’s: space sound effects, space atmosphere and space dialogue (from sci-fi movies and original recorded). I then put three CD players in the room for each CD, masking tape down the outside life a runway and cut out black cardboard and stuck it to the roof.
Long ago some people in charge made a list of books that were banned, not to be read, censored. Most of these books went on to become best sellers.
This election censorship is a hot item but instead of a bunch of books, they’re proposing a list of prohibited internet sites but would it really work.
History suggests it doesn’t stand a chance, curiosity is a part of human nature and people will naturally want to see what they’re not supposed to. Oh, and then there’s the rights debate and question over whether it’s logistically possible.
But what does Barbara Streisand have to do with it?
In the movies people would do anything for someone they loved, including running onto the tarmac to dramatically stop the plane.
19 year old Brad never went to the airport to stop the plane but sometimes he wishes he had…
30% of Macquarie Uni students are internationals so chances are pretty high you’re going to hit it off with someone from another country… but what happens when end of semester rolls around and they have to go home?
Gamble Everything is a docu-drama, written and produced by Mike Williams, broadcast on 2ser April 2009
