Pip Stafford June 2010

Pip Stafford
Nobody knows you better than i do
June 2010

Three Minutes in a carpark

6_a inc presents… three minutes in a carpark, a collection of sounds.

Curated by Jordan Marson.
Mastered by James Tulczyn (colvansoundtrack.com).

I joined 6_a inc as a musician, not as an ‘artist’. I play in a couple of bands in Hobart, and I must confess we do alright – touring a bit and making the odd dollar here and there; I’ve recorded songs, some of which I thought they were quite awful, and were thus re-recorded. Ad infinitum. I still consider it a hobby, though I’ve always had that little spark of a dream in the back of my brain of becoming a ‘Professional Musician’ and of ‘Making A Living From Doing What I Love’. Music just seemed to ‘be’, existing through the constant hum of radio, gigs and records. It was normal and part of everyday life.
Art, however, seemed like a whole ‘nother world to me. It was always there, of course, I just wasn’t interested – it seemed like an elitist and cliquey paradox; the customary goon-guzzling chit-chat-chin-stroking of exhibition openings ironically grating against the ultimate question of ‘Authenticity’. Of course this was happening in my music world too, but up until the point of joining the board of an (scoff!) ‘Artist Run Initiative’ I sort of ignored this obvious fact, having the naïve view that art was for artists and music was for everybody else.
Thankfully, 6a pulled me out of this rut. It’s dynamic and exciting, sometimes overwhelming but always rewarding, and from spending time in such an environment I’ve come to the realisation that musicians and visual artists are the same animal, and that both mediums are interchangeable. The evolutionary development of arts practice dictates this: visual artists can play damn fine music and musicians can make damn fine art. Pure creativity and process replace virtuosic skill. The ‘emancipation of dissonance’ and the idea of ‘letting sounds be themselves’ replace traditional musical form and harmony.
Thus, the curtains are drawn and the interdisciplinary relationships revealed. It is through this most valuable straw of wisdom that I can now feel at ease when I call myself an ‘artist’ and my fellow artists ‘musicians’.
three minutes in a carpark features artists and musicians, artistic musicians and musical artists. All have contributed enormously to the success and general well-being of 6a, either through performances at exhibition openings or as part of the 6a Sound Festival, a curated sound and musical extravaganza that was held throughout December 2009, in a carpark. I sincerely thank all of the artists for their contributions and look forward to future music/art partnerships.

-Jordan Marson 2010


Artists involved:
The Breeze (TAS)
Moe Grizzly (TAS)
Christopher Fleeger (USA)
Tom Hall (BRIS)
Oceans (TAS)
Cycle (TAS)
Pumice (NZ)
Chrysalis (TAS)
The Love in (TAS)
Mumble(speak) (TAS)

Supercharger 6a collaborative project @ next wave festival 2010

for a video sneak peek of the entire structural integrity project check out: here
here and here

also amazing pics by Shea Bresnehan here

Following their much-talked-about potato installation in the Fed Square Trench in the 2008 Next Wave Festival, Six_a returned to Melbourne with an equally dynamic and playful proposition for their Structural Integrity pavilion. Super charger partners art with sport, creating an organic landscape structure (think part skate park, part deconstructed velodrome) replete with constructed rises and falls, ramps and obstacles. Audience members control of one of six super-art-mobile-devices – mini artworks powered by the mechanics of radio-controlled cars. Six_a board members Astrid Joyce, Alicia King, Mish Meijers, Peter A Robinson, Amanda Shone and Tricky Walsh have created this arena for public entertainment and participation.

(from the next wave festival 2010 structural integrity media release)

Mike Singe April 2010

Climate change has begun to change the way we think about the “environment”; it is not a localized event, climate change is global. The “environment” has ceased to be a distant landscape under threat; it now surrounds us everywhere we go, in our homes and workplace, influencing our daily decision making and changing the way we live. A number of recent local, national and international ‘climate change themed’ exhibitions, indicate that it is also a growing concern for artists and curators. The challenge for artists is to develop a language to communicate their individual response; a task made more difficult in a world of increasing ‘climate change fatigue’ instigated by global media saturation.

The specific focus of Singe’s current art practice is to discover how the strategic utilization of energy within an art practice can be developed into a language/strategy/methodology capable of actively responding to the anxiety surrounding climate change.

Mike Singe is a current Masters candidate at the Tasmanian School of Art and this exhibition will present a number of sculptural works developed as part of his research. Following on from his recent inclusion in the “Lookout” exhibition at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, “Warm Up” is Singe’s first solo exhibition in Tasmania, having moved to Hobart from Western Australia in late 2008. As with the work in “Lookout” several pieces in this exhibition display Singe’s fascination for capturing the energy (and carbon dioxide) of human breath. Also featured in this exhibition will be wind turbines strategically positioned to test the power of divine intervention, solar cells caught in a perpetual state of surrender and a rather large weather balloon.

Sara Maher and D. Asma Mather March 2010

Hoo is the sound of an outbreath, drawing what is out and what is in. This is a collaborative exhibition contemplating opposites and harmonies: of colour, of time and of space. Hu refers to essence and what is beyond opposition.

On the outside time is narrative, as one travels events unfold. Inside, as in a cave, histories collect as one moment and are timeless.
Form is ephemeral, space contracts and expands time searches for its origin.
This exhibition explores how work comes into being.

Sally Rees and Matt Warren Feb 2010

Of Heaven and Earth
Sally Rees and Matt Warren

Of Heaven and Earth is a collection of works, solo and collaborative, by Hobart artists Sally Rees and Matt Warren, produced or begun whilst on residency in Montreal, Canada in 2008.

Stranded in Montreal for a month after original art-making plans fell through, and feeling like aliens in a strange, but beautiful city in the dead of winter, the pair were inspired to make these works.

The resulting videos, soundworks and installations are both a portrait of the the city and an antidote to the alienation and homesickness sometimes felt whilst there. They portray a desire for an imagined sanctuary, created using the materials available at the time. Comforting snippets of ‘home’(the Australian night sky, the beloved pet rabbits left behind) conspire with signifiers of ‘the other place’ (captive exotica, endless snow, a foreign electrical hum) to speak of the isolation of the alien and the toll of the willing exchange of comfort for adventure.

The original incarnation of the exhibition featured only two installation works, Rees' Snowglobe and Warren's The Lull and was shown in the tiny artspace in the Auberge Alternative in Old Montreal (an alternative hostel/accommodation where the the pair were given refuge), founded and run by Tasmanian native Angela Reeve, whom the pair gratefully acknowledge.

This extended version of the exhibition features re-worked versions of both Snowglobe and The Lull and also includes a collaborative piece The Great Escape that was begun in Montreal in 2008 and completed in Hobart recently. With these works now being shown in their hometown, the artists consider this exhibition to be the closing of a challenging but pivotal chapter.Of Heaven and Earth
Sally Rees and Matt Warren

Of Heaven and Earth is a collection of works, solo and collaborative, by Hobart artists Sally Rees and Matt Warren, produced or begun whilst on residency in Montreal, Canada in 2008.

Stranded in Montreal for a month after original art-making plans fell through, and feeling like aliens in a strange, but beautiful city in the dead of winter, the pair were inspired to make these works.

The resulting videos, soundworks and installations are both a portrait of the the city and an antidote to the alienation and homesickness sometimes felt whilst there. They portray a desire for an imagined sanctuary, created using the materials available at the time. Comforting snippets of ‘home’(the Australian night sky, the beloved pet rabbits left behind) conspire with signifiers of ‘the other place’ (captive exotica, endless snow, a foreign electrical hum) to speak of the isolation of the alien and the toll of the willing exchange of comfort for adventure.

The original incarnation of the exhibition featured only two installation works, Rees' Snowglobe and Warren's The Lull and was shown in the tiny artspace in the Auberge Alternative in Old Montreal (an alternative hostel/accommodation where the the pair were given refuge), founded and run by Tasmanian native Angela Reeve, whom the pair gratefully acknowledge.

This extended version of the exhibition features re-worked versions of both Snowglobe and The Lull and also includes a collaborative piece The Great Escape that was begun in Montreal in 2008 and completed in Hobart recently. With these works now being shown in their hometown, the artists consider this exhibition to be the closing of a challenging but pivotal chapter.