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In 2009 MUCKAMUCKS takes the sideshow to a new level at BIG DAY OUT. This year we welcome Russian video greats AES+F with their virtual world video work Last Riot along with the thrilling hands-on mechanical sculptures of HAND OF MAN, CeLL, the return of the SILENT DISCO and more! Stop off at MUCKAMUCKS for some sideshow sensations that you won’t see anywhere else!
LAST RIOT by AES+F group, 2005-2007 (Russia): LAST RIOT is a video artwork by Russian artists AES+F and was the stand out work in the Russian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2007. As their website describes LAST RIOT: The virtual world generated by the real world of the past twentieth century as the organism coming from a test-tube, expands, leaving its borders and grasping new zones, absorbs its founders and mutates in something absolutely new. In this new world the real wars look like a game on
www.americasarmy.com <http://www.americasarmy.com/> , and prison tortures appear sadistic exercises of modern valkyrias. Technologies and materials transform the artificial environment and techniques into a fantasy landscape of the new epos. This paradise also is a mutated world with frozen time where all past epoch the neighbor with the future, where inhabitants lose their sex, and become closer to angels. The world, where any most severe, vague or erotic imagination is natural in the fake unsteady 3D perspective. The heroes of new epos have only one identity, the identity of the rebel of last riot. The last riot, where all are fighting against all and against themselves, where no difference exists any more between victim and aggressor, male and female. This world celebrates the end of ideology, history and ethic. (from
www.aes-group.org)
LAST RIOT will screen in the inflatable dome cinema at all Australian cities.
Many thanks to Dr. Dick Quan for loan of this artwork. For more info on Last Riot and AES+F see
http://www.aes-group.org <http://www.aes-group.org/> (All Shows)
HAND OF MAN by Christian Ristow (USA): Hailing from the desolate deserts of New Mexico, The HAND OF MAN is an enormous and incredibly powerful Hand that YOU control! This 8 metre long forearm and right hand are constructed of steel and powered by hydraulics, and is controllable by anyone by way of an ergonomically accurate "glove". In other words, anyone who wishes to operate this gigantic and powerful Hand need only insert their hand into the glove controller, and any motion they produce from the elbow forward will be accurately and quickly reproduced by the large machine Hand. In practical terms, this allows event-goers to effortlessly lift, crush, or twirl objects weighing thousands of pounds! So step right up, put your hand into the controller and harness the power of steel and hydraulics to do whatever you want! For more info on the HAND OF MAN see
http://www.handofman.blogspot.com/ (All Australian Shows)
SPEAKER SCRIMS ARTWORK BY GEORGE GITTOES: The BIG DAY OUT is excited to host GEORGE GITTOES’ first public reveal of a new series of oil paintings. The NO EXIT trilogy will be reproduced on a massive scale to be featured on the three BIG DAY OUT main stage speaker scrims. NO EXIT reflects the 30 year long GITTOES global journey through hyper reality – which he calls “Night Vision” (also the title of his current mind blowing graphic novel- film- art series work in progress). The three panels Night Vision Soldier, Revelation and Night Vision investigate the unending cycles of war, end of the world apocalyptic dreams and the artist investigator/the soldier terminator. They zoom in, zoom out on our global reality of the moment, our sense of our times, the vast monstrous march of wars, the era of surveillance, times of super technology, chaos & horror, and music as the major voice, and our ‘saved’ moments.
An internationally exhibiting artist, photographer, and writer, GEORGE GITTOES has become something of a comic book style art super hero, prepared to take on guises, enter forbidden zones, face down bad guys, zoom around the globe, and bring back to earth mega messages about our times. His mission: intercepting reality at its most hyper charged state and dropping his ‘heightened reality checks’ into public places!
http://www.gittoes.com/ (All shows)
CeLL by Miles van Dorssen & Nick Wishart (Australia): CeLL is a loud and thumping installation designed to perform a variety of compositions. It can be programmed to play a set repertoire, played live through interfaced electronic instruments or programmed remotely via an internet interface. Through the latter, it is possible for anyone in the world to compose music for CeLL: tunes can be composed or arranged in MIDI for CeLL to perform at the 2009 BDO, and your contributions can be uploaded via the internet. Externally, CeLL could be considered the epitome of minimalist visual sculpture. It is the aural elements that make it special. The mechanisms inside and, of course, the massive sound emanating from this banal-looking steel box, make it an exciting and mysterious anomaly. For more info on CeLL and composing music for it see
http://www.cell.org.au <http://www.cell.org.au/> (All Australian Shows)
The 2009 BIG DAY OUT will see the return of the SILENT DISCO. Premiered in Australia at the BDO in 2006, the Silent Disco returns to the BIG DAY OUT to electrify disco dancers with their mixes of dance, hard house, punk, salsa, twenties swing, alternative, world, electro, hardstyle, gabber and Dixieland, all through the convenience of wireless headphones! In the Double Channel SILENT DISCO, which features new 2-channelled digital headphones, party people can choose from DJ OD & DJ Steven Guts OR the guest DJ at the time and have a good old fashion dance off! (All shows)
BOB AND JACKIE’S BOLD-TIME BALLYHOO! (Australia): Come along and get bowled over in the nanna nook by the sounds of yore as Jack Shit and Robbie Buck wrangle a couple of custom 78rpm turntables with the wackiest collection of beetle excreta this side of Strawberry Hills! Go where the wild flours blow and hear spinning shellac remnants of comedy, early rock, drug songs, rockabilly, blues, gospel, swing and all that jazz! Hawaiians, yodellers, crooners and crones; instructional records, birdsong, whistlers, and moans... Tarry a while in style, with old-school, Big Day Out, vaudevillian variety away from the madding throng, and enjoy a sanctuary of silly and sumptuous sound – all in glorious MONO! Be this a fever dream or the future of indie-dance? Bob & Jackies’ Bold-Time Ballyhoo play at Sydney BDO. (Sydney show)
THE TRONS by Greg Locke (Hamilton, NZ): THE TRONS are a completely self playing robotic junk band! All the members are made from salvaged mechanical bits and old discarded electronics, yet they play garage rock just like a bunch of enthusiastic teenagers. Real guitars, second hand amps, original songs played by motorised limbs and trashed computer brains. Fresh from a quick gig in Paris, THE TRONS originate from New Zealand and have spent the year playing up and down the country at pubs, band venues and festivals. They've been described in the British press as "the most exciting electronic band since Kraftwerk" and their video in their practice room has had over a million hits on Youtube. On seeing them the first time the standard utterance is "what the f***?". You can go right up and yell in their faces - they don't care...they're robots! A true transformation of junk to punk. Get a quick preview at their myspace
www.myspace.com/thtrons <http://www.myspace.com/thtrons> (Auckland show)
You're my only friend, and you don't even like me.