Underbelly Arts is dedicated to supporting emerging and experimental artists to collaborate, develop and present innovative new works to a broad public.

We are currently seeking applications for our 2011 event being planned on Cockatoo Island in July.

Deadline for submissions is Monday 4th April, 2011.

Download the application here

At 2pm we closed the street and opened our doors to the public for Underbelly Arts Festival. Along and around Kensington St we featured performances and installations throughout the afternoon and evening.

Inside Studio 12 at FraserStudios The Ordinary Collective had set up their test pattern which was doubling as a rather groovy living room. While Pie Full of Blackbirds had hung their huge crate nearby with the dancing ballerina in 3D. Next door in Studio 14 you could catch performances by Tom Keily & Bravo Child and Projected From The Elements. Outside on the street, The Umbrella Theatre team had an epic day of performances to 8 people at a time in their amazing little theatre complete with red velvet curtains. Reef Knot’s public artworks were scattered along Kensington St, and All the Best were broadcasting local stories from a verandah. Half way down the street, I Can Draw You A Picture had set up their stall outside selling their newly pressed publication and behind them they had set up a great exhibition of the games lab complete with photos, drawings and all those amazing bridges which everyone built. Next door, Apache Studies showed their dance video on loop and ran a series of artist talks. And Tim Spencer would occasionally drop in to perform Part 2 of his show ‘I Scare My 6 Year Old Self’. In the warehouse at the end of the street angryPixel and Air City had set up their interactive installations, both turning adults into children. Dusk encouraged you to chase the fireflies around on the floor created through clever software. And Air City required shoes off while exploring their playful material cloud. Up the road at Serial Space Applespiel were performing a marathon 6 ‘Snail Piece’ shows, and there were a couple of snail deaths too – it was in the audiences’ hands though! Over the road at the Embassy Theatre, Synarcade presented their first public performance of ‘The Lumiphonic Creature Choir’, where singing faces projected onto a huge sculpture seemed to interact and respond to the band. And finally, at the Clare Hotel, our happy watering hole, we watched as Tim Spencer performed Part 1 of his play sitting atop the bar, while out the back in the pokie room, if you were game enough, you could watch Justin Harvey’s ‘13% Pervert’ video installation as scores of people interacted with an online chat video. It was a bit like looking into someone’s bedroom window!

It was a great day, blessed with winter sun and lots of happy people. Check out the video by Dylan Behan and photos by Lucy Parakhina, Alex Davies and Arunas Klupsas (www.arunasphotography.com.au). Thanks to them all for capturing our event so beautifully.

Underbelly Arts 2010: Video Blog 2 from Dylan Behan on Vimeo.

Tim Spencer performs in The Clare Hotel

The Lumiphonic Creature Choir

Reef Knot's 'Filling In the Cracks'

The Ordinary Collective's Installation

The Ordinary Collective's Installation

'Fragile Contents' by pie full of blackbirds

I Can Draw You A Picture Installation

The Lumiphonic Creature Choir

The Umbrella Theatre

Inside Air City

Applespiel perform 'Snail Piece'

Dusk by angryPixel

Tim Spencer performs Part 2

Tom Keily & Bravo Child

Projected From The Elements

Underbelly Arts Festival

ICDYAP Stall

Air City

Underbelly Arts Festival

Underbelly Arts Festival

Umbrella Theatre

It’s the final day of the Lab and time to shift into Festival gear as artists are busy putting the final touches on their performances and setting up their installations… Ecto-Plasm have spent their Lab days in Studio 10 of FraserStudios developing ‘Air City’ and they have gradually moved over to the warehouse on Outram Street to set up their exhibition space… Check out this transformation…

Before....

After... (Photo by Alex Davies)

And inside... (Photo by Alex Davies)

Pie Full of Blackbirds have been developing their ‘DIY 3D project’, building a 3D video art work inside a hanging cargo box. They believe that 3D technology has been hijacked by big business and therefore access to it as software can become restrictive and limiting. Using mirrors, computer monitors and handy work, they have created their own 3D installation cheaply and it is now hanging from the ceiling ready for an audience.

by Imogen Semmler, Creative Director of Underbelly Arts

GUEST PHOTOGRAPHER: DEE JEFFERSON

Justin Harvey builds a small dark room under the stairs at FraserStudios. He invites the public inside to play Chatroulette. He records the results. What do people do? How do they react? Does it help when you wear a mask? Chatroulette has been a website for around 9 months, and according to a study that Justin read about 13% of people who enter the online video chatroom are perverts… has the website become overrun by voyeurs and exhibitionists or are there still people out there trying to find a meaningful connection with a stranger? Those who played with Justin certainly experience it all!

Justin Harvey preparing for a session on Chatroulette for his project '13% Pervert'

Justin's guests play Chatroulette for '13% Pervert'

The Ordinary Collective turned up to Underbelly Arts with a slight change to their project, well not slight, a total change. But they were very coy about what it was they were doing. All we knew is that they needed to rig a camera from the roof of the enormous room that was Studio 12 in FraserStudios. Once in place, the camera fed to an old television and gradually over the days the project came to life. Such a simple yet clever idea. It is so much fun watching this project evolve!

Brendan Phelan & Tega Brain from The Ordinary Collective building their living room...

...with lots of colourful carpet and furniture...

...which is captured on a camera in the roof, creating the test pattern which you watch on TV while sitting in the living room!

Bravo Child and Thomas Keily spend their days chatting in a corner, on a couch, around the kettle, writing the script for their new show. Sometimes if you are lucky you might catch them rehearsing in the sunshine on the pavement of Kensington St. Murrie their Director might pop in for a chat, and each time a tour passes by we are treated with a snippet of a heartfelt work in the making which will become ‘Draw Me A Map My Brother’.

Bravo Child chatting to the tour about 'Draw Me A Map My Brother'

Then Thomas Keily & Bravo test out some material to the crowd

GUEST PHOTOGRAPHER: LUCY PARAKHINA

Lucy took a tour of the Lab with Underbelly Arts producer Jenn Blake. A typical tour lasts for about an hour and involves meeting or watching the artists at work. Some projects even require your participation (like an audience session with Applespiel). Coming back for repeated tours is rewarding as you can watch the work evolve and change, we love doing them so come down and visit!

Justin Harvey explains '13% Pervert' to the tour

Tim and Sarina from Projected From the Elements

Ella from Umbrella Theatre tests out her new puppet...

Air City

Jenn takes the tour through FraserStudios

The beginnings of the Air City installation in the warehouse

Lukasz from angryPixel working on Dusk

The mind map of Applespiel

Applespiel and audience

Applespiel

GUEST BLOGGER: EVERYONE ELSE’S BLOG!

A few Underbelly Arts projects are keeping their own blog documenting their creative process during the Lab.

Check them out!

angryPixel http://kodama.angrypixel.org/category/dusk/

Applespiel http://applespiel.blogspot.com/

I Can Draw You A Picture http://icandrawyouapicture.blogspot.com

Reef Knot http://fillinginthecracks.wordpress.com

GUEST BLOGGER: DEE JEFFERSON

Snail Piece gets started. Already feeling sorry for the snail/s, the stage looks barren as a desert.

The argument is posed as a trial, with Simon Binns and Joseph Parro from Applespiel taking opposing sides, and the hammer keeping its own counsel.

Joseph Parro from Applespiel.

Simon Binns from Applespiel.

We wander down Kensington St to the 5pm Public Lab tour. First stop, FraserStudios.

Justin Harvey, from 13% Pervert.

13% pervert : Justin Harvey introduces his peep show project – his exploration of the Chatroulette phenomenon. To read more about the Russian teenager who started CR, check out this profile in the New Yorker.

The ladies from Umbrella Theatre.

Portable puppetry: the ladies from Umbrella Theatre – it’s a theatre under an umbrella, it’s gonna pack-up into this wheelie bin; brilliant.

Tim Spencer

Tim Spencer – (formerly?) of Bambina Borracha – is writing his second solo show, I Scare My Six Year Old Self.  His first one (Words They Make with their Mouths) won the Bank SA people’s choice award at Adelaide Fringe fest earlier this year. Tim’s Dad worked at Carlton United Brewery, before it became the Underbelly arts precinct…

Tully Arnot from Ectoplasm.

Tully Arnot from Ectoplasm talks about the challenges of constructing a giant inflatable sculpture that’s several times the size of his workshop area. Pretty colours – and each one has a different smell. The finished project will be called Air City.

Thomas Keily & Bravo Child.

Thomas and Bravo are taking their poetic performance from pub corners to the wide open spaces of Frasers – the largest space they’ve worked in, I think. Creating an adventure that fills the space will be the next challenge. Popping, fizzing, sizzling, tripping, hip-hopping…

ICDYAP work space.

I Can Draw You A Picture. I can tell you a story. I can paint, I can paste, I can tape and twist; just please put me in this ziney thing I keep hearing about? Please.

ICDYAP are Alice Gage, Mike Inglis of Jingle Jangle, Esther Chung and Simone Mandl.

Alice Gage from Ampersand Magazine talks about ICDYAP.

Scott Brown from angryPixel.

Dusk: angryPixel

Their building a tree, and oodles of semi-autonomous fireflies, in this warehouse off Kensington Street. It leaks a little, but they seem to have come to some sort of understanding with the roof. To follow more details on the highly technical side, check out http://kodama.angrypixel.org/

Sample test pattern!

The Ordinary Collective: they’re making a test-pattern with a difference. I still don’t understand – but they want to make technology more personal. Nice. They’re creating a living room that is colour-schemed as a test pattern, so you can ‘walk through’ it – making tech lo-fi i guess.

Snail Piece: Public Lab session (July 10)

Final stop is the Applespiel workshop, at Serial Space. The fellas are trying different models of workshop, collecting responses from audience members, to draw conclusions on which they will base the final work: Snail Piece. The workshop i attended involved everyone sitting in a circle, with the Applespiel fellas telling stories about different times each of them had had violent confrontations with spiders, snails, etc  – in order to elicit responses from audience members, who shared similar stories. In other words, it worked! People who killed snails as children (using salt, or throwing them) were unwilling, as adults, to see any snails harmed as part of the Snail Piece project. Actually, it might be hard for them to find people who would consider harming a snail…

LAB SATURDAY

It’s the half way point of the Lab and we celebrated in style with a talks panel and lots of tours!

Thanks to everyone who came down to the Clare Hotel for our talks program and thanks to Jess Cook, Eddie Sharp, Alice Gage and Applespiel for being involved!

The topic was a discussion about the role of the audience in the development and presentation of art. Jess chatted about re:Public by Token Imagination at Underbelly ‘07, a venue which was created by and for the public; Eddie discussed two projects ‘Mad Max The Remix’ and ‘Some Film Museums I Have Known’ and the challenge of presenting a work in progress to an audience; Alice talked about I Can Draw You A Picture and the proces of creating an environment where the audience becomes an artist; and Applespiel thew down the gauntlet and turned the audience into the theatre, as a debate raged over the life of a snail.

Imogen Semmler and Jess Cook

Imogen Semmler, Alice Gage, Eddie Sharp & Jess Cook

GUEST VIDEO BLOGGER Dylan Behan dropped by on Saturday afternoon, took a tour and met with some of the artists. He also visited the I Can Draw You A Picture content creation lab, which was packed full of people!

Thanks to all the artists and to Monk Fly for the music!

Underbelly Arts 2010: Video Blog 1 from Dylan Behan on Vimeo.

GUEST BLOGGER: RACHEL ROBERTS from Applespiel

Applespiel is a very young performance collective. We try to use this to our advantage when applying for new residencies and talking ourselves up: ‘young, emerging collective’, ‘fresh, young artists’, etc. No matter how young and sexy we are, though, we can’t fake experience. Underbelly Arts: Public Lab and Festival is giving us an invaluable opportunity to spend a fortnight in a lab environment where we can experiment and devise for an ever-changing audience and get as much feedback as possible.

The lab portion of Underbelly is the most appealing to me. When I see a new performance, artwork or creation I am usually more interested in the process of how it came into being and how it was pieced together to become the final product. As a relatively new artist I want to learn from the work of others. Plus it’s incredibly interesting and exciting to see something being created. There is no standard recipe for how to create something. There are common methods, like brainstorming and impulse work, but the more serendipitous events are often a mystery. Things happen by accident, through mistakes, collisions and mishap. The process of creating is open to the public in Underbelly Arts and I think everyone could gain something from coming on a lab tour during the week.

Particularly beneficial to a young collective of artists/performers is the space and time to make mistakes. My fellow Applespielers and I have decided that considering our experience and the nature of our project, Snail Piece, total honesty between ourselves and our audience (whether in person, in performance or on our blog, www.applespiel.blogspot.com) is for the best – no use in trying to cover up our mistakes during the lab. If we trial a new idea and it doesn’t work out, great! As long as we can pick it apart and figure out why, document that process and then build upon it, that mistake have worth to us. For the first week of Underbelly Arts, we tried a few different approaches to Snail Piece – gansta rap, forums, mock trial, gallery-style experiences and sharing circles. Some worked better than others – some aimed for different things. Some ended up going in completely the opposite direction to the one we expected. Snail Piece originated from a small performance in a garage in Wollongong, with Joe Parro informing us of the mating habits of snails to the music of The Notorious B.I.G. and then asking us to complete his performance for him by deciding whether or not he should smash his snail with a hammer. The arguments that ensued became our focal point for out Underbelly work – group decision making processes and audience debate. During the next week of Underbelly we’ll be trialing several other methods of presenting the snail dilemma before the Festival on Saturday.

Applespiel, along with several other projects in this year’s Underbelly crowd, rely on audience participation and interaction to develop their works, so we really value every audience member who comes along to a lab tour to see the ‘behind-the-scenes’ process. A big thank you to everyone who has supported and continues to support this fantastic arts festival, and a special thank you to the team working at Underbelly Arts for all the hard work. We hope dealing with Arts Law for us (are we allowed to kill the snail yet?) hasn’t been too bad.

GUEST BLOGGER: ALICE GAGE from I Can Draw You A Picture

ICDYAP is a live publishing installation. Public Lab participants come in to the space, lend their hand at one, some or all of the nine art stations, and their work is curated into a magazine on the spot. We go to print and have the publication ready to go on the Festival weekend.

At 11am yesterday morning there were two very small boys (and a very enthusiastic dad) knocking on our door to join the games. This was totally unexpected. We weren’t ready. While this was the hour we were officially opening, we didn’t think real humans would actually come. But these guys were potentially the most excited people we would ever get, and they were too short to be classified as real humans, so we promptly gave them a number and a pen.

This was one joy of many that is the experience of being an artists’ collective in Underbelly Arts. The lads’ dad had seen an Underbelly poster in a café, and he had brought them down to check it out. Such response is testament to the Underbelly team’s dexterous reach-out and ability to capture imaginations in a way that no other festival can: this is a festival that is about giving young artists the time of day, not a celebrity rollcall, not the remounting of international successes in the antipodes three years after the fact, not the vociferous and vacuous cheering of prêt-a-porter art. If you were pissed off by the fact that a superstar who hasn’t done anything decent since the 70s was asked to curate one of this city’s biggest festivals last month, and wondered if anyone had the foresight to quit lickin’ ass and actually do something brave with its own pool of talent, Underbelly Arts is the answer.

And I wasn’t sure what exactly to write in this blog but I think, now, I just want to piss in their pocket.

I Can Draw You A Picture is a concept that Simone Mandl and Esther Chung (two of our four co-directors, with the others being Mikie Inglis and myself) gave birth to some three years ago. The two ladies did a test and had limited success, and the idea was shelved. Until the opportunity to apply to Underbelly came around. Now, the project has been given a space to come together, the opportunity to expand, access to the numbers of participants it requires, financial support – everything it needs for a good, solid, first whack to test whether this is something we can continue, grow and tour.

I’m driving the express train to Overdoingit now, so I’ll lay on the throttle (I know nothing about throttle or torque or anything so that may make no sense but you get what I mean) and say that I think Underbelly Arts is the most important festival in Australia. It proves our chutzpah.

Come down and join in I Can Draw You A Picture at 44 Kensington St, and help us create a collective portrait and souvenir of the whole kit’n’kaboodle.

ICDYAP Set-Up @ Underbelly Arts 2010 from ICDYAP on Vimeo.