Art Bites - Creative Immersive Environments
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In the cooler months join us at Bunjil Place for Art Bites, a monthly series of art talks exploring creative topics inspired by the Bunjil Place art and screen program. Sample delectable treats, tasty drinks and meet like-minded folks at this relaxed talks series.
In the May edition of Art Bites we explore the theme of Creative Immersive Environments through a panel discussion of highly skilled artists working in this field. Moderated by senior lecturer at RMIT University John Power, we will be joined by immersive artists Kit Webster, Nick Azidis & Rose Staff.
Header image: Rose Staff and Nick Azidis– immersive projection mapping, Psy-Fi Festival, Netherlands, 2019
Kit Webster
Kit Webster is a multidisciplinary artist who specializes in creating immersive experiences and sculptures that combine video, music, and form. His work explores the intersection of the digital and physical world, and he is known for his innovative use of technology in his art.
His works predominantly feature light and video generated through 3D projection-mapping, laser and LED illuminations which are synchronised with musical composition, shaping a fusion of light and sound through rhythm, colour and geometry, illustrating a deconstruction of time and materiality. This mode of experimentation has led to exhibition of his works in festivals, gallery exhibitions, concerts and commercial projects throughout the world.
By combining art and design with technology in this way, Webster looks to invent and define a new audiovisual aesthetic. One that is informed by the ever-increasing potential of advanced technologies and ideas that push the boundaries of new media and experience.
Kit Webster will be creating a new interactive work and exhibiting on the Bunjil Place Outdoor Screen throughout the month of May as part of the Art After Dark program.
Nick Azidis
Nick Azidis is a new media artist and projection illusionist specialising in large scale digital and analog projections and has compiled a diverse body of work over nearly three decades as a producer, content developer/creator and technician. Nick is interested in storytelling and creating eternal memories and changing viewer’s perceptions through his work, through image and light. Nick has delivered projections for the Gertrude Projection Festival, Geelong Christmas program, Melbourne White Night, ANZAC centenary on the NGV, Melbourne International Music Week, Melbourne Biennale, and Australian Open Tennis championships.
Since that time, his artistic investigations with projection have resulted in the creation of more than 1500 projection installations that create distinctive moods, atmospheric transformations, nostalgic and abstract forms. Based in Melbourne, Nick has worked throughout Australia, spanning major cities and also regional and remote areas.
With 28 years of projection experience, Nick Azidis gains his original artistic inspiration from the streets and buildings of Melbourne city itself. Azidis creates aesthetically beautiful pieces that transform a viewer’s perception of their surroundings, with a blanket of luminescent designs.
Rose Staff
Rose Staff is a visual artist and motion graphic designer residing in Melbourne, Australia. Rose has been shortlisted in the Adobe Design Achievement Awards, The Victorian Premier's Design Awards, and the Australian Graphic Design Awards. She works with moving image and live video performance in a range of settings around the world, from contemporary art installations to large-scale vibrant projections at festivals and events.
Her lighting installations and live video performances have been shown at the Geneva Mapping Festival, Glastonbury Festival UK, VIVID Sydney, White Night Melbourne and at some of Australia's largest music festivals including Splendour in the Grass, Stereosonic, Rainbow Serpent, Strawberry Fields and Let Them Eat Cake. Using experimental hybrids of traditional and digital art forms, Rose explores how contemporary phenomena such as communication technologies and audio-visual space influence our perception of the modern world.
In recent times her work has focused on creating immersive projection spaces in digital galleries. She was a Senior Motion Designer and Creative Producer for the company Grande Experiences where she worked on the following globally touring shows: Van Gogh Alive, Street Art Alive, Connection - Songlines from Australia's First Nations People. She was a part of the team to deliver The Lume, Australia's first permanent immersive gallery. This space featured 143 projectors in one seamless display and is the largest gallery of its kind in the southern hemisphere.
BEN JOSEPH ANDREWS & EMMA ROBERTS
Ben Joseph Andrews and Emma Roberts are a producer/director duo based on Wathaurong country in regional Victoria (kayjup/Linton). Their work integrates virtual reality within audience-led installations to create collective experiences that expand perceptions, reawaken curiosity and instill a sense of awe and wonder to the mundane.
The pair have created some of the largest location-based VR installations in Australia, including ALLTHESTARSTHEYBLEEDTOGETHER (2016) and STARLESS (2017) for City of Melbourne. Their most recent work, durational VR artwork GONDWANA (2021), premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2022 and has gone on to show at ACMI, MIT Open Doc Lab (US), Science Gallery Michigan (US), Kunstahl Charlottenborg (Denmark), and Sheffield Doc/Fest (UK) among others. It won Best Interactive/Immersive at the 2022 Australian Directors Guild Awards and the Australian International Documentary Festival awards.
John Power
John Power is an award-winning artist, director and producer working in visualisation projects, VFX, and ambient screen installations. He combines traditional media with generative processes in time-based art. His recent PhD dissertation is entitled Calm Place: Understanding generative ambient screens in public space as encounters with Calm Technology. Power lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne in the Master of Animation, Games and Interactivity (MAGI) and the Bachelor of Digital Design in the School of Design.
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