INVURT

If you’ve been reading us for a while, you would know that we are, at the core of it, pretty massive geeks. So when Supanova, the years largest festival of “pop culture expo” comes around, well, there’s no doubt that we’ll be there.

Covering every base from tv and movies, to toys and comics, scifi and fantasy and everything in between, Supanova is the epitome of creative culture. Just seeing all of the cosplayers and various suited and costumed people showed to us just how much the creative realm is permeating our society, more so than it was even a few years ago. These days, geek is cool, and being creative is even cooler. Supanova is, really just that – a massive celebration of creativity.

The first thing we noticed when we arrived, were the massive lines into the expo – we attended last year, and the crowd this year was definitely larger. The traders had been moved into one of the large exhibition halls, and even that was pretty damn crowded!

So. Many. Toys. And. Cool. Shit.

Again, one of the best parts of the day was checking out everyone dressed up for the event. You just know, that as soon as Supanova is finished, that a lot of the cosplayers are going to be heading home to start work on next years outfit immediately – you can see that much effort in their work.

We went and checked out the last  bit of Edward James Olmos, and then the finals for the cosplay competiton. The Samurai Pizza cats vs the French Revolution. Strangely enough (not really, they had great costumes), the French revolution won and went through to the finals.

We finished the day off by catching Summer Glau (aka Fireflys River Tam aka Sarah Connor Chronicles Terminator) doing her talk – ahh. Fan crush to see Summer Glau in person sated. What a girl.

We met these nice ladies when we went to get supplies from the supermarket – they were pretty curious as to what was going on with all these people dressed up. We gave them some stickers and told them to keep calm and carry on!

Supanova keeps getting bigger and bigger every year. It’s an inspiring day out, and there is so much to see and do – if you want a day that is a little out of the ordinary than your usual fare, this is the place to be. For us, the best part of the day really was watching how much creativity was on display – even if your bag doesn’t run to the scifi or fantasy realms, you should at least experience something like this once in your lifetime. We’re looking forward to next years saga!

Melbourne was just the first show in the run of events, so if you’re in Sydney, Gold Coast, Brisbane, Adelaide or Perth, the Supanova events are coming up, so don’t miss out!

WOW! Always love seeing art which is created from a totally new perspective. Bite Collective are hosting a Group show next week for NZ Music Month, and each of the artworks is actually inspired by NZ music. Lovely and interesting! Some familiar and some faces new to us will be showing their work, and there will be live music performances at the opening by Whitireia.

Artists included in the show are:

• Marty Vreede –  printmaker, paper pioneer, inspirational teacher
• Sheyne Tuffery – visual artist, gallery owner, fine art tutor
• Elliot ‘Askew1′ O’Donnell – graffiti artist, graphic design, illustration, photography
• Matthew McIntyre-Wilson –  jeweler and sculptor
• Basia Smolnicki - printmaker, art tutor
• Nestor Opetaia – painter and musician
• Christine Imlay-McLean – jeweler and creator of ‘Black Agnes’
• Spring Rees – jeweler
• Reweti Arapere – mixed media
• The Bite Collective – Fleur Ruth, Chloe Reweti and Rachael Gannaway –printmaking and 3D

Who: Askew One, Basia Smolnicki, Fleur Ruth, Chloe Rewati, Christine Imlay-Mclean, Marty Vreede, Matthew McIntyre Wilson, Nestor Opetaia, Rachael Gannaway, Reweti Arapere, Sheyne Tuffery and Spring Rees
What: Hear it, See it Group Exhibition
Where: Bottle Creek Gallery, Pataka, Wellington, NZ
When: Show opens Thursday April 19th from 6pm

Check out the Bite Collective website for more info!

What an absolute cracker of a day down at Blender Studios last Saturday for their inaugural artists market. Positioned along both sides of the lane-way and framed with existing murals by local and international street artists (if you haven’t been to Blender Lane before you need to check out Melbourne Street Art Tours), vendors offered a diverse array of art, craft, stationary, zines, clothing, jewellery, cakes, cactii in teapots and much more.

Kick starting the day with a superb "Little Terror" coffee from Four Rascals – a brand-spanking new local coffee crew supplying cafes around Melbourne and popping up at various events (They even roast their own beans!). We then picked up a badge from Happy Maree (website coming soon) who have just released a collection of badges designed by Regan Tamanui (A.K.A. Ha-Ha). Also got some some cards from Baby Guerilla (for my lady) and issue one of Dailies, a collaborative comic art paper put out by Silent Army – classic shit.

Good vibes, funky live tunes filling the air and sunshine pouring down from the sky – can’t think of many better ways to kick off a long weekend in Melbourne.

We’re looking forward to the next one!

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Photos: Mick Rafferty (aka Drunk Monkeys) and Lachlan Curtin-Corr.

Studio artists in photos: ADi & James  Bonnici

We got this last week, but we got a bit delayed in putting it up – it’s about time we saw a market down at Blender, though! You should all be familiar with this bastion of Melbourne street art and other underground creativity in the CBD , Blender Studios by now, and this market will be a great day out

"Introducing the ‘Blender Ln Artists Market’, a new city market located in one of Melbourne’s most iconic street-art covered lane ways. For more info on the space please visit the website.

Stall Criteria: Art and Design
Stall Dimensions: About 1 by 3 metres.

The market starts at 11am and closes 4pm. Setting up begins as early as 9.00am if you need it so please allow yourselves enough time to set up.

Parking: There is parking available across the road at Wilson Parking with a flat rate of $7 on Saturdays. Street parking is also available, if your lucky :)

Stall Price: $20 (First time special)."

If you are an artist or artisan and want to sell some of your wares, get in contact with them – it’s cheap, and, honestly, the laneway itself is an amazing work of art – what better place in the city to sell some of your stuff? Here’s hoping that this continues on as a regular event (it sounds like that’s what they have planned) – we’re even thinking of setting up a stall there in the future ourselves … we also love that its supported by the Charles St Artists Markets – those guys are rad and do a great job!

For those of you wanting to head down and check it out, there are some really cool artists putting their work on display for sale!

Who: Melbourne creative artists and artisans!
What: Blender Lane Artists Markets
Where: Blender Lane, 110 Franklin St, CBD, Melbourne
When: Saturday 10th March 2012, 11am to 4pm

Check out the Blender Studios website as well as the facebook event page for more info, and get down on Saturday to check it all out!

Mick Rafferty was a busy boy last night, and he also headed over to Footscray for the Steamscape show at Post Industrial Design!

So much alternate history and visionary goodness, absolutely and utterly grand – in the truest sense of the word! We love this shit!

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… then there are those weeks when videos are thin on the ground – it feels like everyone is squirreled away getting ready for something big; this perhaps? That said, what’s out this week is nothing but quality.

Speaking of Outpost Project, we’ll be starting our coverage of the event next week – we will be up there for a fair bit of the 5 week festival, live blogging, reporting, interviewing, videoing, snapping and possibly drinking a beer or two along the way – heres a preview of the whole shebang.

Adnate had a show "Point Of View" in Berlin recently, and heres the video from it – looks like the man pulled off something pretty damn cool.

ADNATE – ‘Point of View’ Berlin from AWOL Crew on Vimeo.

Wow – Beastman designed a watch? This is one damn funky time piece!

Tasty Street Art Festival was on in Cairns last week, and heres a really coo timelapse and feature on the wall that was done – Sofles, Phibs, Pudl … nice, FNQ!

Art Battles Semi Final #2 was on recently, this one was The Dirt vs Benjamin!

That’s all we have for this weeks Transmissions – stay tuned, listeners, big things coming over the next few weeks!

Check out the tenmoregirls Collective for more details.

How refreshing it is to have such obviously stunning folk art at such close reach. With works by twenty four Australian and Australiasian artists biding the ties between traditional folk and contemporary art, we find ourselves surrounded by their beautifully rich tapestry of aesthetics.

“Artists express and explore their relationships with the Asian folk culture, against a backdrop of the Australian cultural landscape.”

Using every sensory enveloping medium at their disposal; installation, sculpture, video, painting, and even involving jewellery and ‘“Asian folk-related fabrics”, the works on show will perfectly capture and convey the stories and ideas intended.

“When the minimalists are crying out Less is More, we are saying The More the Merrier! Lights! Colours! Actions! After all, this exhibition is dedicated to the art of the AustraliAsian people and their cultural traditions in the name of intercultural modernity!”

Some familiar names in this list – here, here, we say! Head down to this grandly diverse and inspiring show, expand your knowledge, and your art collection!

Who: Anna Glynn, Aramas Ridge, Ashlea Bechaz, Ayaka Mikata, Belinda Joynes, Ben Lopez, Sarah Hickey, Ellen Stapleton, Hilde Thomsen, Jessica Singh, Josef Peeters, Josh Roelink, Julia Chau, Juliet D Collins, Kaitlin Beckett, Levene Wong, Mal Wass, Mia Taninaka, Min Zhang, Nani Puspasari, Shannon Keane, Sue Codee, Violet Chan, Yuki Nakano
What: Asian Folk Art| Fine Art – Group Show
Where: Brunswick Street Gallery – 322 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, VIC
When: Opening night Friday, August 26th at 6:00pm. Exhibition runs til September 8th 2011

Not so long ago, we saw an event that really piqued our interest – we’re always on the look out for creative individuals doing something different and stepping into unfamiliar territory with their craft, as well as cool collaborations, and Creepy Cute had (has, the show is still on in Adelaide until the end of July!) both of those in spades.

Cohen Gum is an illustrator of the weird, wonderful, and, yes, cute. Working by day, and drawing up a virtual cornucopia of creatures  by night, he teamed up with the blissfully talented Minette Michael, an Adelaide jeweller and creative metal worker, to produce a show of subversionally cool wearable art.

With such an intriguing collaborative effort, there was no doubt in ours minds that we wanted to ask both Adelaidians all about it – and, wonderfully, they more than happy to tell us all about their ever so slightly, but mostly cute,  creations …

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It’s not traditional fare for us, but lately we’ve been reading about a whole bunch of talented jewellers doing rad things (this is a great excuse to plug our friends at Corky St Clair, who do mad cute cool stuff), and as far as we’re concerned any kind of combination of amazing low brow artists and the wondrous world of wearable art  is great in our eyes. So, when we saw this show over at Stupidkrap, we couldn’t help but want to pimp it – its a pretty innovative idea for a jewellery collection – mashups rule.

“Over the last 4 months the talented creatives at Macro Micro/Alchemical Designer jewellery have been collaborating with a number of our favourite artists, to come up with a new range of stunningly intricate pieces that will be displayed at the Art Gallery of NSW.  Using the concept of ‘macro meets micro’, each artist was asked to come up with a concept that related to their work, that could applied to the medium of jewellery.

The results express not only the dedication and ability of the designers, but the inner-most desires an expressions of each of the artists.”

The artist line up looks great, the pieces look gorgeous – if you’re in Sydney on Wednesday, go have a look.

Who: Macro Micro, Alchemical, Ben Frost, Sebastian Moody, RJ Williams, Bennett, Bridge Stehli, Chris Cuseo, Kate Elsworth, Christian Lomas, Posh the Prince + More
What: Macro Micro Jewellery Collaboration show
Where: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW
When: Show opens 6pm, runs til 9pm – check the flyer for talks and other details.

Check out the facebook event page and the Macro Micro website for more details on the show, on this Wednesday.

Well, it does look ever so slightly creepy, but we’re pretty sure that the cute wins out in this upcoming exhibition in Adelaide from Cohen Gum and Minnette Michael. Creepy Cute is a little different, as the show is a combination of illustration and jewellery. We love artists pushing in different directions,  and collaborating, as that’s what its all about – and this sure does look cool.

“Creepy Cute explores the beautifully strange and delightful artistry of Cohen Gum & Minnette Michael. Minnette a maker of exquisitely cute, handmade jewelry and Cohen an outlandish illustrator fascinated by fictional characters and glorious colours.

This exhibition includes the latest collection of Cohen’s illustrations of happy, colourful and quirky little creatures that are often just a little bit creepy. Using detailed line work and a deliriously vibrant colour scheme, Cohen has created an original and memorable set of characters that leave you in a delightedly confused stupor. “Cartoons like Invader Zim, Rocko’s Modern Life and Aaahh!!! Real Monsters have always been a huge influence on my style of work,” Cohen says. “There is something wonderful about creepy little characters that can snap almost instantly into an enraged psychotic frenzy … I just love that element of surprise and the sheer zany nature of it.”

Inspired by Cohen’s illustrations (and her love of nanna crafts), Minnette has created an adorable new range of jewellery including rings bangles and cufflinks. “For Creepy Cute, I have taken a different approach to designing and making these pieces,” Minnette explains. “In addition to using materials that I haven’t worked with before such as brass, rubber, wool and glass, I have also employed a variety of processes that are new to me; some jewellery, some craft and some industry.”

Radtastic cool.

Who: Cohen Gum and Minnette Michael
What: Creepy Cute duo show
Where: Urban Cow Studio, 11 Frome Street, Adelaide, South Australia
When: Show opens Wedneday 6th July, 6pm til 8pm and runs til the 31s July.

Check out the creepy cute website, their facebook page and the Urban Cow Studios site.