RGB+: Film and re-enactment events

A curated selection of significant Australian and international abstract colour films will be projected in the Light Source exhibition. Beginning with early orchestrated works by Oskar Fischinger and Mary Ellen Bute; the synesthetic films of Jordan Belson and James Whitney; sonic and chromatic works by Australian’s Dirk de Bruyn, Andrew Pike and the Cantrill’s; the screening crescendos with the psycho active works of Robert Russett and Paul Sharits.   Rarely seen in Australia, these 16mm prints are drawn from the National Film and Sound Archive’s Non-Theatrical Loans Collection, an influential archive for the development of Australian art and film practice over many decades. These films will be introduced and contextualised by the curators of Light Source.

During this event Martyn Jolly and Charles Martin will debut their Dream Tent, a creative reconstruction of an actual mind therapy apparatus all the way from the year 1899. Lie down in the tent and let our chromatic and sonic vibrations enhance your dreams!

Illustration for Dream Tent, St Louis Sunday Post Dispatch, 4 June 1899

Martyn Jolly is co-curator of the current Drill Hall Gallery exhibition Light Source. He is an artist, writer and performer interested in understanding the history of photography and projection media through the methodology of media archaeology. He is an honorary Associate Professor at the ANU School of Art and Design.

Charles Martin is a computer scientist specialising in music technology, musical AI and human-computer interaction. He develops new intelligent instruments, performs new music with them, and brings them to a broad audience of musicians and performers. He is a Senior Lecturer in the ANU School of computing.

Paul Sharits, Razor Blades, 1965–1968. Two 16mm colour films projected side by side. Image courtesy Jedd Bishop, National Film and Sound Archive.