The Lab: Day 10 0
To celebrate the last day of The Lab, we’ve got a special guest blog post from Sabrina Sokalik!
‘Or take a stroll through that tunnel over there and see who you find on the other side…’
If a mysterious woman offers you two options; either go back the way you came or take the road less travelled, you have to choose the tunnel, right?
Having emerged from the underground passageway into the blinding light of the afternoon, I felt disorientated and confused. Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more. I remember the ferry ride over, the wind, the water, the lunatic, the bustle of the people, wait, what was I doing? Right, the Underbelly Arts Festival, it’s the last day to take a tour around the Lab, shit, I’m running late.
I noticed the congregation of eager visitors beginning to move and I quickly realised the error of my ways in wearing red high heels as I ungracefully jogged over. Imogen, the artistic director was talking and I began to relax but still felt that my encounter with J Dark had tipped the balance in an unprecedented way; Un-reality – 1 Reality – 0. Looking around at the industrial wonder-scape I considered how many lions, tigers, or bears were lurking about the place (after all I hear that there’s a pretty fearsome cat living here) and more importantly, how many more great characters, flights of fancy and art making was still to come.
The tour started with a visit to the Book Bar which will function as the main watering hole on festival day. Here Applespiel were working on their multidisciplinary piece ‘Awful Literature is Still Literature I Guess’. Although the collective where pretty mysterious about some of the smaller details of the work (and we were left wondering what will happen to the drowned books and unskillful dance moves) seeing dozens of, sadly familiar, books practically levitating in the air was a visual feast and an exciting taste of what we could look forward to.
Our next stop was to see Brad Miller’s video installation piece ‘Data_Shadow‘. Here Brad spoke about some of the technology behind the work’s interactive components as we were given an opportunity to walk around and play with his memories.
From here we took a look at ‘Complicit‘; the result of the collaboration between the seemingly strange bedfellows; Petra Gemeinboeck, Liz Williamson and Rob Saunders. This interactive installation intelligently plays with possibly allegorical or literal, but undoubtedly old tensions. Between technology and nature, man and woman, man and machine, the young and the old, the possible future and the past. Or on second thoughts it could just be about a bored robot.
Next down the yellow brick road was a visit to Mandy Francis, Milos and Momcilo Obradovic’s ‘C-Art’. Here the artists spoke about the form and functions of the paradoxically futuristic looking (despite its revivalist VHS aesthetic) portable art centre.
We then dropped in on the Sexy Tales Comedy Collective who were busily making costumes, writing musical numbers and wondering how to move their beast of keyboard around the island for the premier of their roaming performance ‘100 Years of Lizards‘. Good luck guys!
Soon after, we came across Murasaki Penguin. The softly spoken duo told us about their interdisciplinary site-specific work; ‘Shima’. Anna also passed around an example of the hand made flowers that will inexplicably grow from the crumbling site of this performance.
We stopped briefly to observe Spanish artist Younes Bachir and the emerging theatre company Strings Attached who were hard at work at their large-scale physical theatre piece ‘Ojo’. This promises to be a completely immersive, interactive and truly spectacular experience!
The final stop in our journey was to see ‘Case Study’. Rome wasn’t built in a day but if it had been it would look something like this; busy, chaotic and exciting.
Although this and many of the works that we had the exceptional privilege to see were by no means near completion, visiting the Lab was an invaluable opportunity. Without sounding too much like an David Attenborough doco, to observe each artist and collective in their element, working under such welcoming, malleable and open-minded conditions is a real credit to what this festival hopes to achieve.
After a full-on day in the city I retrieved back to my house in the suburbs thinking ‘there’s no place like home’ but hell I am excited about Saturday!
- Sabrina Sokalik
More photos Max Milne
And some more photos from Imogen Semmler:
