Semi-Permantent and ABC’s FORATV have teamed up to bring some of the speakers talks from the sydney Semi-Permanent event to you. See the full presentations as videos, with images. its like you were really there! so far, 3 videos have been released, and i have embedded them below for you to enjoi.

now, i have to apologise for the lack of updates recently. my computer died, but its back to working now! yay! new site features and content will be coming over the next few days/week.

from FORA:

Ron English on Liberating Billboards -, 08 May 2009 10:00

In an age of mass consumption, everything is marketable. Reacting to this, culture jammers reclaim public spaces and refigure iconic imagery, making us rethink the way we interact with dominant cultural paradigms. American artist Ron English dedicates his time to making illegal billboard ads. With satirical and subversive imagery and sloganeering, English makes people stop and think about how products, personas and ideas are sold to the public. In this very funny presentation at the Semi-Permanent conference, he gives a history of how his art came to be part of the urban cultural landscape.

Ron English is an artist and activist. His paintings were featured in the documentary “Super Size Me”, and his work on billboards and public spaces has appeared in the USA, Europe and The Middle East. He says he hasn’t been to gaol in a long time.

Scott Dadich On Designing Wired Magazine -, 08 May 2009 10:00

WARNING: THIS PROGRAM CONTAINS COARSE LANGUAGE

Many might imagine that the process of designing a cover for a magazine is a case of taking a photo and organising some informative graphics. Not so for the team at Wired magazine, as Creative Director Scott Dadich reveals. Dadich, a self-confessed perfectionist with obsessive attention to details, provides a thorough and fascinating insight into the creative process of Wired magazine, a magazine internationally renowned for its design.

Recently in Australia for the Semi Permanent conference, Scott Dadich takes us frame by frame through the development of a cover and layout of the magazine, as well as the invention of new fonts. It might sound like supreme nerd-dom but even if magazine design isn’t your interest Dadich’s presentation is thought provoking and absorbing. If you’re interested in why details matter, love technology or just appreciate a good looking magazine, then check this out.

Scott Dadich joined Wired magazine as Creative Director in 2006. Previously, he was Creative Director of Texas Monthly. Under his direction, both magazines have won prestigious awards for their design. He has been awarded more than 100 national design and editorial awards. In 2007 Wired was received the National Magazine Award for General Excellence and in 2008 they picked up the National Magazine Award for Design. He is the President of Society of Publication Designers and has recently completed designing his first two books.

Ian Francis on his Artistic Practice -, 19 June 2009 10:00

When he graduated from art school with a degree in illustration, Bristol-based Ian Francis had no particular plans to become a painter. Less than a decade later, however, he has become a successful working and exhibiting painter and multi-media artist. Here at the recent Semi-Permanent conference he shares his creative processes and progress. From the work he was creating, mostly in photoshop, towards the end of his illustration degree, to the powerful, complex, deeply textured works he is creating now. He talks frankly about his artistic development, inspirations and struggles, including the profound effect the war in Iraq and Afghanistan has had on his artistic practice.

Ian Francis completed a Bachelor of Arts with Honours from the University of West England in 2001. Since then he has exhibited in solo and group shows in London, Los Angeles, New York, Newcastle [UK] and Sydney.

see IFE semi-permanent coverage here (just clicker newer entries to go through them)

and for more of ABC’s FORA TV go to – www.abc.net.au/tv/fora

sorry for the delay in posts. i have been sick all week and am finally getting better! yay! more of these all week!

I can honestly say I have never been a big fan of video work, but Danny Yount put on an amazingly professional, clean presentation that really conveyed his love for the work he does. He has an impressive show reel, and worked on some of the biggest film releases over the last year or so, like Iron Man and Rock ‘n’ Rolla.

danny yount - iron man opening sequence

What I liked about Yount’s presentation was the way he kept it fun. Showing random little snippets from the internet, or his analogy of filming a squirrel, and how he will never do it again.

Out of Yount’s work, I am most impressed by his motion typography, from the way the type in the Six Feet Under behaves like ash when the crow flies past it, to the amazing graphic style used in the Rock ‘n’ Rolla opening sequence.

Be sure to go to his personal site to check out the projects he has worked on.

For more information on Danny Yount, follow these links:

Personal site, with great video works – www.dannyyount.com

Great Q&A over at computer arts – www.computerarts.co.uk

Tamara (Dean) and Dean (Sewell) are an incredible photojournalistic duo hailing from Sydney, who are some of the most technically practiced photographers I have ever seen. While I was not too interested in their presentation, it’s hard to not pay attention when the images they are showing have so much depth and emotion; I felt bad even sending a text message.

dean sewell - aceh

Dean Sewell opened the talk with a large portfolio of images taken in Aceh, after the tsunami in 2004. He is believed to be the first, and only international photographer to be in the region at the time, and he fly in under the pretence that he was a tsunami expert, tricking government officials to let him into the area.  It is interesting to note that Sewell shot with film instead of digital, as he believed the tragic events needed to be recorded on a quality medium, and he shot in black and white in order to draw the eye to the extreme scenes that were being represented. For him, colour would have added an overwhelming dimension, and would have distracted from the reality of the events he was capturing.

tamara dean - squatters

Tamara Dean, on the other hand, shoots a lot of scenes from everyday life, and suburbia, using friends and family as the subjects of her photos. While the images she captures are of the everyday, they are far from mundane. Extraordinarily emotions shine through, with a strong focus on femininity, family, and friends. She shared with us her Squatters body of work, entering the world of squatters living in Sydney’s inner west. Again displaying a range of technically brilliant works, perfect exposures, and emotive images.

Both Tamara and Dean have works in progress that have already spanned over a decade, with Tamara documenting the girls around her, and their journey to womanhood, and Dean attempting to catch those brief moments of amazing colour in his tricolour series based in Hillsdale, where he grew up in Sydney.

Dean Sewell is a founding member of the photographic collective Oculi, later inviting Tamara Dean to join. Both now work for Fairfax, and continue their amazing work through Oculi.

For more information on Tamara and Dean, follow these links:

Tamara and Dean have extensive portfolios at – www.oculi.com

an interesing interview with Tamara just before Semi-Permanent 09 – www.fourthousand.com.au

Ian Francis is an amazing mixed media artist from Bristol, in the UK. I have been a fan of his ever since I saw his January 2008 interview on FecalFace. His graphic, emotive style really appealed to me, and I was stoked when I found out he was speaking at Semi-Permanent this year. So I bought my ticket and was itching to see his talk.

ian francis - A Complex, Interrelated Problem Advances on a Girl in San Francisco

Ian showed us a lot of his work, from the very early, experimental mixed media works he was doing in college on scrap cardboard and paper. The back catalogue he went through was impressive, and really expounded his development as an artist. The more he painted, the more his skill developed.

He draws his inspiration from the news, magazines and the internet, saying he saves about 100 images a week to use as inspiration for works down the track. He liked to play the superficial absurdity of today’s mass media off the raw footage he has chased down from war torn areas, often ending up with works showing beautiful people in destroyed urban landscapes.  The juxtaposition of these subjects work amazingly well for Ian, especially for his style.

ian francis - A Cheerleader Decides to Shoot Her Friend (This Scene is Real)

Working as a full time artist has really allowed Ian to develop his style, and his skill. He was unsuccessful as an artist for a number of years between the end of his degree, and his first group show in 2007.  To gain more exposure, which eventually led to his inclusion in the show in LA for Blackmarket Gallery, Ian sent his electronic portfolio around to as many online magazines and sites as he could. Sites like Juxtapoz, FecalFace, and Design is Kinky. This is a great way to spread your work and your name, with very little cost.

Ian loves to use Photoshop to comp up his work before actually picking up a paintbrush.  Using the images he collects from the internet and photographs he takes, he puts them into Photoshop, placing and rearranging them to get a layout he is happy with. To add textures, he often scans in old paintings and chops and changes them till he is happy with the composition.  Sometimes these comps can sit dormant for 2 or 3 years before the right image is found to complete it, and that is when the painting can be realized.

ian francis - Untitled

The intricate, delicate figures Ian uses in his works are added using photographic transfer paper. He says that drawing directly onto the canvas is too hard, and often doesn’t work out the way it is planned. From the works Ian has been putting out, it looks like he has honed this technique to near perfection, achieving an almost photo realistic, yet graphic portrayal of the figures in his work.

For more information on Ian Francis, follow these links:

Personal homepage – www.ifrancis.co.uk

The FecalFace interview – www.fecalface.com

Kris Moyes is an amazing director, working mainly with music video and commercials, he is the kind of person who can let his work do his talking. And while his talk at this year’s Semi-Permanent started out very shaky, nervous and read from his notes, it did not detract at all from the impact that his videos make.

moyes on the set of cut copy's going no where

Working with companies like Cadbury to create commercials that engage the viewer, and creating music videos for some of today’s most well respected artists, Moyes has really forged a name for himself as a director that loves a challenge, as well as creating something memorable.

Videos like My People, for The Presets really stand out. It was amazing to see the behind the scenes for this one. After speaking about a scene in the movie Gerry, where the actors are walking together and they keep oscillating in and out of synchronized steps, the idea developed. This is evident at the start of the video, where the band members do that same. Moyes continued to show his full working process, from storyboarding, to motion tests with old stock footage, pitching the idea to the label and the band. It was a great chance for us to see the inner workings of a music video.

While his commercial work what Moyes is best know for, some of his more subversive works mite be just as well known. A few years ago, there was a leaked Wolfmother video, which had live concert footage that had been defaced, with all sorts of imagery drawn over the top in a haphazard, amusing and almost childish way. This was part of his agreement to edit the original video. I honestly prefer the defaced version to the original, and Moyes does too.

Moyes has a curiosity in making videos that show a visual representation of the music, from My People to a video for Softlights, where the inspiration was taken from Disney’s Fantasia, Guitar Hero, and Stefan Sagmeister. It is interesting to note that Moyes reminisced about this scene from Fantasia, saying “…Ever since I was a kid I have loved this moment, and it was awesome when I got a chance to rip it off!” It has been said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. After showing the Fantasia scene, he showed the full video, speaking over it to explain how various aspects of the stop-motion animation were created.

By the end of his talk, Moyes had really warmed up and got into it. In the past I haven’t had much interest in working with video, but after seeing the way in which these works were created, it has really sparked my interest in motion imagery.

For more information on Kris Moyes, follow these links:

Kris Moyes – www.kmoyes.com (very info skint, but great video collection)

Directors Bureau Profile – www.thedirectorsbureau.com

and an interesting interview from Alex Young – www.milieu.alexyoung.org

below are some stills from Moyes’ work, as well as my notes taken during his Semi-Permanent presentation.