The first two projects from a new series of digital commissions has launched this week via ACCA’s new artonline platform, ACCA Open.
Announced in April, ACCA Open was conceived as a way for ACCA to continue to support contemporary artists and engage with online audiences during COVID-19-related gallery closures. Australian artists from all backgrounds, career levels and practices were invited to submit ideas for projects that could be presented through digital platforms. Six projects were selected from a pool of over 340 submissions, the first two of which will be launched this week, including:
How much time do we have?
An ever-evolving, live-generated audiovisual piece of breaks, flows, segments, junctures and shifts made during the timeless state of the present evernow, How much time do we have? by artists Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey is a site-specific and time-based work made in the midst of a global pandemic.
Broadcast precariously from a single computer located at the artists’ studio, the work will eventually fade from view when Stage 4 Restrictions are lifted in Melbourne. This real time event provides a finite – if unpredictable – duration for a work that creates space for audiences to experience both alone, and in connection with others, in a virtual sphere, at a time when our physical worlds are limited.
Neighbour
Neighbour is a collaboration between artist and choreographer Amrita Hepi and writer, neuroscientist and psychiatrist Sam Lieblich. Deploying language, movement and neuroscience to consider the increasing prevalence of algorithmic subjectivity, Neighbour – an AI chatbot posing on ACCA’s website as a virtual assistant, is available for conversations about human-ness and the current global crisis, and is accumulating knowledge from these interactions in an attempt to locate the enigmatic ‘it’ that we, as humans, are.
“We’re pleased to launch the first two projects for ACCA Open,” said Max Delany, Artistic Director & CEO of ACCA. “One of the intentions of the series was to support artists to develop their practice in new ways while galleries across the country were closed.”
“Traversing the fields of artificial intelligence, sound, animation, video and archives, each of the six new commissions speak to the breadth of possibility for artists working in the digital realm, whilst also responding to the unusual times and cultural conditions in which they are produced.”
“With the launch of our new artonline platform, we are also pleased to continue to develop and extend ACCA programs beyond the gallery walls, offering audiences and viewers multiple ways to engage with contemporary art,” said Delany.
Four further projects for ACCA Open will be launched in coming months including:
- Melbourne interdisciplinary artist Archie Barry’s Multiply and Samoan-Australian artist, curator and researcher Dr Léuli Eshraghi’s AOAULI on 30 September 2020; and
- Melbourne artist Sean Peoples’ OFFWORLD and NSW artist and filmmaker Zanny Begg’s The Magic Mountain on 28 October.
For further ACCA updates, including the opening of NIRIN NAARM – the Melbourne satellite exhibition of selected works from NIRIN, the landmark 22nd Biennale of Sydney, curated by Brook Andrew, are available online at www.acca.melbourne
Image: Sean Peoples, OFFWORLD, 2020 (production still) – courtesy of the artist and STATION, Melbourne and Sydney