• Temporize
• Web log
  2009
• 05/01/09

Form the 15th until the 31st of May, the Next Wave festival will once be taking place in Melbourne. To find out whats on and where, head over the website, which was built by Barking Sparrows in conjunction with Chase & Galley, who came up with this years amazing festival identity.

The Narrows gallery on Flinders Lane in Melbourne has a great show opening tonight, showcasing a range of posters for exhibitions from the Museum Für Gestaltung (Museum of Design) in Zürich. The show is running until the 1st of March, so be sure to check it out before then.

The Rise & Fall gallery, located in the lift of the Curtin House building in Melbourne, is the latest venture by Chris Barton (Now Now) and David McDonald. The gallery opens this Wednesday with an exhibition by Al Stark titled Text Me. For more info, head over to the website.

Experimenta is Australia’s leading contemporary arts organisation dedicated to commissioning, exhibiting and promoting media art. This years show ‘Playground‘, which is on display at the Art Center, is comprised of a fantastic collection of interactive artworks (one of which I helped out on), video installations and short films. I was really excited to see Philip Worthington’s Shadow Monsters included in the show this year, as I’ve read a lot about it but didn’t actually think I’d ever have an opportunity to see it … If you are in Melbourne before the 23rd of September, I’d definitely recommend checking out the show.

One of Australia’s most collectable contemporary artists, Giles Ryder, currently has a solo show running at Block Projects Gallery, located on Block Place in the Melbourne CBD. Founder and director of Peleton Gallery in Sydney, Ryder’s work is represented in some of Australia’s most prestigious private and public collections including the Monash University Collection & Artbank. The exhibitions runs from the 20th July till the 18th August.

Since its premiere in March this year, Gary Hustwit’s documentary Helvetica has been traveling the globe, and has so far screened around 40 times at various museums, universities and film festivals internationally. Next month will see the Australian premiere of the film at ACMI in Melbourne as part of the design forum Character.

Ironically, Character is organised and run by Melbourne designer Stephen Banham, who in 2003 ran a campaign against the font Helvetica, and in 2004 went so far as to publish a book denouncing the san serif typeface. He even released a series of “Death to Helvetica” and “Helvetica Thin: Just Say No” T-Shirts.

It will be interesting to see if this is brought up in the forum following the screening of the film.

For the last four years I have eagerly awaited the arrival of Resfest in Melbourne. I usually always get a full pass and gorge myself on 4 solid days of short films, video clips and motion graphic goodness. But this year, for some unexplained reason, it never showed up. The site shows a scheduled visit to Melbourne for March, which came and went without event, and all event details after the end of March are still TBD … Lets hope that it will get here eventually, and that the team haven’t tried to spread themselves to thin …

The Melbourne Design Festival is fast approaching, and although entries for the Australian Poster Annual have now closed, if you’re still looking for a competition for some creative outlet, there is still another month until the Lightcycle competition closes!