Fish and Bird

Second artsy day at Gallery of NSW. I didn't expect to see this new media exhibition as there was no hint about this special temporary visual art exhibit anywhere in the city. Normally, I always checkout art mag or website or grab postcards from an indie cafe' but as I mentioned in the previous post, these two days were completely impromptu.

We spent half an hour in the first painting exhibit. Most of art works are from late 18th century known as a movement in Romanticism - emphasizing inspiration, subjectivity, and the primacy of the individual. It's one of my most fav period besides French Renaissance and Pop Art.

La villageoise(The village girl) by Jules Goupil (France, b.1839, d.1883); oil on canvas, Purchased 1894

Picked: I was really motivated to do human painting again. Drawing has been being in my vein since my very first memories. I did a lot of human hand drawing when I was in early primary school and started adding some poster color when I was in grade 4. However, there are only 2 things I love the most when it comes to Portrait Paintings - drawing their eyes and coloring their skin/flesh. The 18th cent art that characterized the Enlightenment was inspired me enough to do more practice in painting the softy tone of human skin and find own technique to create blurry and dreamy painting.

And here comes my best-loved exhibition of the month! :

Circle D: Fragile Balances 2008 by MARI VELONAKI

The work continues Mari's obsession with the creation of dual protagonists who are engaged in a delicate yet ambiguous relationship. In Fragile Balances, we affect the state of their relationships the more we interact with them. In the process, we are simultaneously delighted and unsettled by their uncanny responsive behaviours, and, by our own empathetic connection to their individual ‘personalities’.

Fragile Balances' characters are embodied as two luminous cubes, each comprised of four high resolution crystal screens and Bluetooth wireless links. Fragments of personalised messages wrap around each cube, and also flow between the two objects. If abruptly handled by the visitor, the texts become disturbed and barely readable. The visitor must therefore establish a delicate and respectful relationship with the objects in order for them to yield their messages.


The text on these cubes is a sequence of loving notation between 2 virtual characters invented by artist: Fish & Bird, which were inspired by a Greek fairy tale about a fish and a bird who fall in love but cannot be together because of their ‘technical difficulties' - the ill-fated characters.

Each cube is in direct communication with the other. As one cube 'writes', the other one pauses as if waiting to hear back. At the same time you glimpse responses on the second box as a lateral, poetic conversation unfolds. It’s like coming across an expensive Victorian pre-cinematic toy that’s been digitalised. It’s an odd, and again implicating experience, holding an intelligent box as it writes, “If our eyes should meet, what would we have in common?”

The cubes are interactive and can sense when they are handled. The text and sound alters when the visitor picks up the cubes and turns them around. Smooth movements will trigger new message but if you move the cube too quickly, the text will become difficult to read.

This work is fragile and only two can use it at a time.

Video : Meet an the artist and see how it works!