Poetry Sydney x Gaffa Gallery: Workshops

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DAY Workshop: Machine Assisted Poetry

Featured artist Steven Durbach aka Sid Sledge

Gaffa Gallery, 281 Clarence Street Sydney

Saturday 5 October 2024

1:30 - 3.00 PM
Surrealism poses a philosophical challenge to deconstruct reality to create something new through concepts and processes of play to embrace the daring and unexpected. The Surrealists invented new games and modified old games according to the definition of Surrealism given by the Surrealist writer, André Breton, who challenged the concept of a rule.“I inhabit the character of a scientist as that is what I once was and I am interested in measurement and what ideas and encounters might emerge in the spontaneous act of performance. To this end we set up the novel Non-Indifference Measurement Device (NIMD),” Steven Durbach.The program will culminate in a limited edition printed book which is set to be launched in early December.

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Artist Statement:

‍Steven Durbach

“I inhabit the character of a scientist as that is what I once was and I am interested in measurement and what ideas and encounters might emerge in the spontaneous act of performance. To this end we set up the novel Non-Indifference Measurement Device (NIMD) at historically and culturally significant sites to perform measurements that might later be turned into collaborative cybernetic drawings between the city, its people and the artist… The Machine measures chaotic motion sensitive to the people and environment that interact with it. Constructed from turntables, bicycle parts and old umbrella bones. The resultant drawings will culminate in a compositional assemblage that poses questions of the distinction between art, poetry and science, capturing what was and what is the city in its Everywhen.. holding the vibration; harnessing the motion of the people that interact with the measurement who - in there bodies - hold their past and present.. there is a deep longing in the wirings of The Machine to record and measure the vibrations that like the infinite wave of the first motion, are embedded – agitated - in every oscillation of the city.”

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‍DAY Street performances: Machine Assisted Street Poetry

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12-2pm Wednesday 13 November I Queen Victoria Building

12-2pm Wednesday 20 November I Queen Victoria Building

12-2pm Wednesday 27 November I Queen Victoria Building

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Saturday 7 December 2024

6:30 - 9:00 PM

The program will culminate in a limited edition printed book which is set to be launched in early December.

Submissions will be open to poets from 5 October and close 5pm, 30 November. Criteria and submission terms and conditions will be made available in October.

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Biographies:

Amy-Rose Finch‍

I am a multidisciplinary artist living and working on Dharawal Country. My current practice specialises in Ceramics as clay provides such a grounding connection to earth and our innate humanness. My art process is an act of clairsentience, an inner knowing that a piece is calling to be brought into existence. Working with motifs such as snakes, shells, stars, chilli’s, water, moon and third eye. Often used in folk magic, the use of these symbols is inspired by my rich cultural background and life experiences. Common themes of my work relate to collective consciousness, ancestor worship, human connection, Animism, transformation and healing.

Justin Harvey

Justin lives and works on Gadigal land, with a practice spanning moving image, installation, and virtual reality experience. He nurtures an ongoing fascination with the creative potentials of human machine interaction, embracing experimental methods that seek to exploit digital imaging technologies, including the evolving ‘artificial intelligence’ systems that increasingly drive them, in playful ways. Justin’s solo works have explored web-based video-chat platforms, ‘glitch’ as aesthetic and conceptual movement, shaping digital video feedback, and collaboration with generative diffusion models. His work has been exhibited widely in Sydney and internationally. Justin lectures in media arts at University of Technology Sydney.

Dr Gareth Sion Jenkins

Gareth is a poet, artist and publisher. His creative practice involves assemblage, electronics, video, text-based works and immersive UV-light, sound and sculptural installations. With collaborator Kathryn Cowen, he was a finalist in the North Sydney Art Prize, a feature artist at Cementa24 and has recently created Serendipia, an immersive installation at Yarrila Arts and Museum - Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery. Over the last seven years Gareth has exhibited at Stanley Street Gallery, Grace Cossington Smith gallery, Stella Downer Fine Art gallery, Disorder Gallery, SLOT and Airspace Projects. Gareth’s first poetry collection Recipes for the Disaster, won the national 2019 Anne Elder Award. Gareth’s second book, The Inclination Compass, a multimedia poetic narrative based on an early immerse installation work, was published in 2023 with Puncher and Wattman. Gareth’s doctorate focused on artmakers who experience schizophrenia, and particularly the work of the prolific Australian outlier artist and writer Anthony Mannix. Gareth selected and edited The Toy of the Spirit - the collected works of Mannix which was published in 2019. This was done in close collaboration with Anthony. In 2020 Gareth founded the archive and small press Apothecary Archive where he specialises in editing, designing and publishing books that bring text and image into conversation. Gareth works in community engagement and teaches creative writing at Macquarie University.

Steven Durbach

Steven Durbach, aka Sid Sledge worked as a scientist doing genetic research on bacteria and viruses from 1995-2008 before turning to art full time. Upon emigrating to Australia, he worked as an artist drawing on his knowledge and insights from the study of evolutionary theory to see what story that could tell in the arts. His principal media are drawing; kinetic sculpture and drawing animation. He has recently taken on a more research-based performative approach where during installations, performances and residencies, primarily at science institutions and other non-art spaces, he uses an experimental approach to engage the audience and evolve his work.

Jason Stoneking

Jason is a poet, diarist, and performer originally from the United States, who has made his home in Paris. He has published several collections of poetry and essays, written songs and films, and has been performing his art and writing live for more than 25 years, at venues ranging from the main stage at Lollapalooza to the Pont Neuf in Paris and the rooftops of Cairo. Recently, his practice has concentrated on the creation of handwritten and site-specific texts. For his Bespoke Books series, he writes an entire unique book by hand, in a single draft, for an individual reader, an event, or a residency, then reads it live only a single time. For his Portrait Sittings series, he invites subjects to pose for him as they would for a painter, while he composes their portrait in handwritten words, then presents them with the original manuscript he has drafted during the session. In his newest series, Sky Sketches, he writes impressions of the sky as he travels, reading them aloud at each stop on his tours, so as to create site specific texts for every reading.

‍Angela Stretch

Angela lives on Gadigal land, Sydney. She is a poet, curator and writer from Aotearoa, New Zealand. The artist uses language and poetry through different mediums and has been exhibited and published nationally, and internationally. She is the director of Poetry Sydney and intelligent animal. She produces Arts Friday on Eastside Radio and is an administrator at Arts Law Centre of Australia.

Poetry Sydney

Poetry Sydney nurtures innovation, discovery, and inspiration through the poetry of today. We present established, emerging and early career poets from diverse poetry practices.

Host or Publisher Gaffa Gallery and Rooftop