my weekend was filled with fun. fun machine to be precise.
i guess when you come from canberra you have to make your own fun. and they do. then promptly injected sydney with it in a direct frontal lobotomy strike. there is no escape. the machine cogs in motion, fun is awfully contagious.
feet tap irrepressibly, smiles expand faces & lighten eyes, arms stretch high up into the hazy rainbow sky. we all share a great cosmic joke together. crowd & band are lubricated as one. aaah, deja vu.
the outdoor winter crowd goes crazy & hop wildly from start to finish like mad tripping frogs. on the bumpy road nee much-loved carpet heated by the lifesaving crucifix-carved 10 gallon drum-fire fueled on gathered wood pallets, dancing torsos mash together emergency blanket style illuminated by to die-for lights.
bec, the sexy singing drummer gets lost in her furiously funked rhythmic vibe.
...leading chris & ramsey on a sequinned love vibe. hot pants, spandex and glitter glam are de rigeur. this is a tropical night for ACTsiders after all.
we've defrosted too. i stay till the end with my darling dry july peeps & later we skip off into the night without the need for an early morning kebab indulgence for a change. no excess alcohol to soak up. strangely good. skipping not staggering or slurring.
with buoyant energy we collectively build on the creative brief we traveled to the warehouse gig with before seeing fun machine live. although we love the EP, the band has surpassed our expectations. we're now engaged to the power of infinity. pretty much. we leave harbouring mini stage crushes.
punk monk propaganda will be heating things up even further when these fun[k]-filled foxes return to sydney for their EP launch on july 13.
rumour has it that we're developing a projected visual stop motion narrative in the form of a film serialisation as well as projecting our poetic eye candy live on the night. we can't wait to see either. good god!
fun machine EP launch -- desert creatures good god small club 55 liverpool street chinatown sydney july 13, 2011
the shiny new punk monk experimental interact projection breakaway faction[ky, nick and yours truly] play shadow puppets on the pine street wall as kate, alex, clare and mel bathe us in liquid light. meanwhile we project back down onto the expansive floor beneath at their feet. it's a projection off!
this quiet little article in city news who covered the opening event on the night pays a little homage atop a well curved and pink covered before and after bum. dirtyland. that's us.
meanwhile i manage to twist not so very hard, salubrious graffiti artist & festival co-director craig bunker AKA bunkwaa to come join us to demonstrate the mechanisations of flipbook & ad hoc paint programs with a well placed projected crab. the kids go wild. especially us.
this lively punk monk collaboration lives on into the smart arts closing night party this friday april 15 at red rattler where punk monk propaganda play with alice spacedoll & the divine knights with freestylin MC UN-1 playing evening MC. look for more light, live animations, a nano fanzine and things to skew/enhance your vision during and after. ALL FREE.
then you'll find us at the closing party on tuesday april 19 for hugely successful jurassic lounge at the australian museum bleeding interactive love onto gemstones by night. dance on & with us. while around the bend, our liquid light alchemists will bathe the museum in trippy coated goodness.
friday april 01: smart arts opened. running a little ragged & behind schedule [i brought my technical problems curse with me] come 18:30 almost on the dot we were ready to rock in the subdued light as we waited for the sun to disappear.
...and the crowds from the art exhibition mocktail queue inside to venture out. we breathed a collective sigh of relief as the show got underway. noone had died from our hair raising stunt set-ups in between. WHEEE!
us punk monks have a fair share of involvement in the fest and are really excited to be involved in such a progressive enterprise promoted & run by the council for the youth of sydney [16 - 25s].
organisers christie torrington & craig bunker have put together an inspiring and action packed programme for the two week duration. we're a very happy & key part of the visual action & vibe.
we projection bombed the space within almost the last inch of itself [although as ky & nick point out we could have fitted at least one more projector].
not only did we flood the floors & walls with light and imagery we combined liquid light alchemy courtesy of kate [taylor], alex [papasavvas], clare [devlin-mahoney] and mel [papasavvas] with a visual mash of film [me, stephen dunstan, steven kastrissios, kate taylor, dan simmonds, angela bishop, tony lawrence], 2 and 3D animations [craig bunkwaa & alison locke] with some onsite live pencil meets flipbook programme [yours truly with ky [-lee menzies] & nick [radford] and guest animator bunkwaa] creating patchworks of interactive imagery using ground zero AKA the basketball court as our canvas.
...and we made dreamcatchers too which hung ghostily from trees and eaves. the amazing silhouette lamps were created in a props workshop by talented artists & volunteers leading up to the fest. small 3D bunkwaa effigies danced in faerie circles in the grass carefully keeping watch. it's all about psychedelic dreamtime texture.
all these photographs were taken by guest punk monk & underground KINO film friend, emerging photographer vaughan allan. aren't they stunning? we love being made to look good.
we're just getting warmed up... want to come to the red rattler on april 15 for closing party to see what happens next?
and then, and then, and then - there's the whole journey in between. check out the programme. and while you're there sign up for my mobile film workshops!
i went solo to promote punk monk propaganda at the smARTarts festival and all i got was this lousy photo... actually the photo's not bad but i'm bummed because my invisible punk monk tribe who are the real liquid light stars didn't get a mention.
so now i'd like to do it posthumously. my ugly mutt may be gracing a few other papers this week as the city council's smARTarts PR machine picks up gears & momentum. we open this friday night, april 01 in conjunction with national youth week [april 01-10].
punk monk propaganda will be heavily embedded in the realised dreamspace injecting the scene with our usual vibe and ethos in juxtaposition with the award winning youth orchestra [soon with reverb]. with various wall projections to be spilt featuring the analogue courtesy of our now trademark painting with colour with organic elements the specialty of alchemists: kate taylor, alexander papasavvas and clare devlin-mahoney. we're also adding a liquid light station for those punters who want to get their hands wet and dirty.
cut to IR [infra red] graffiti ground zero bombing [that'll be ky-lee menzies & yours truly aided and abetted by wonder bridge nick radford & hipster-in-denial: sometime punk monk dermot mcguire from eight filters].
our IR stuff is experimental & interactive so if you want the opportunity to launch graffiti all over a basketball court, be part of video game reality slip stream without official recriminations, come down! we make our own IR pens. maybe you can help drive this organic entity as we evolve it together.
other stuff to expect is photographer darling of the film underground, our very own paparazzi [hello @vornstar], youthcentric art exhibition, sculptural installations [dreamcatchers, 3D animations, surreal glowing couldbe lamp entities, all made on site and random performers so you too can make a dream and follow it through to the end of this participatory hands-on fest, where we'll end with a kaleidescopic finale.
and it's all FREE! there may be some other random easter eggs... come treasure hunt us down:
so the punk monks picnicked at peats. after a fashion. we sweated, kicked sand in our own face, painted with light & distorted soundwaves, curated a 360 degree film installation, & bled from our ears in the sweet stickiness of the heat & good vibes which oozed like an impenetrable aura around the festival-sphere.
we made love to the geodesic dome & paid homage to the rejenr8 & figure eight tribes who held court there. visions of the phantom menace battle scene pervade except there were much less special effects. for the most part, excluding the dome, the few days there were really rather deliciously analogue/lo fi. as orgies usually are.
there'll be a more complete wrap later, once we've collated footage, images, etc and all sat together for a new year pow wow/debrief. however the ABC just did a story on the expansiveness of the art experience which is peats & profiled us [punk monk propaganda] featuring a much sleep deprived interview with me on the home strait of editing "15Mb of FAME" our crowd sourced film festival initiative. somewhere in the life-saving air-conditioned shadows, steven patiently waits.
so this is all about puff & ponce on the back of the wonderful punk monks collaborative efforts and muchos hard work as i run out the door to escape the urban swell and heat. time to mix up the scenery before chewing mammothian chunks into the year.
kudos to the peat's ridge punk monks & family. they are:
it really was a supreme team effort. life at some points may not have gone on without a well placed gin & sparkling pink grapefruit juice. and this is one of our results: 15Mb of FAME. the culmination of 48 hours or so of crowd sourced punk monk driven lurve. power to peats ridge festival [waves at victoria johnstone] for having the vision to let us play in such a wonderful playground. we're looking forward to hitting rinse repeat again next year.
been a bit busy to wrap out the end of year dogged by a myriad of deadlines with films to deliver, some for kicks, for art's sake, others for money, which still ended up being fun despite the challenges & sleep deprivation involved.
still hoping to make it out of town & head to the hills tonight for a couple of days with my fellow waghorn chick fam, raen miro & gina to slowly inhale oxygen before jumping back into the incense-filled fiery fray... one lunch is not enough, like shrinking hours in the day.
today while chasing music files [we lovingly fucked up the xanadu soundtrack - thanks to liam O then added a hijacked new york broadway composer (alexander)to feed back live into it on his amped up violin], bind content for our psychedelic state peats ridge curated DVD loops [we squeezed in some sydney KINO films] this xmas eve instead of gift wrapping & chase time with eager vengeance, i want to pimp our punk monk propaganda film festival: 15MB of FAME.
15MB of FAME is our new baby. in addition to our star alchemists: kate, alex & clare painting the dome in liquid light we're collaborating with the dome team at rejenr8 this NYE in glenworth valley for this exciting project while we dwell in the land of hopeless utopians. 360 degrees of visual love created by the people for the people. it all seems rather che doesn't it?
if you are one of the thousands of people coming to peats ridge sustainable arts & music festival this year, you can not only see our finished film on NYE, you can be part of it. it's crowd-sourcing baybee! because our universal perspective is unique & everyone's festival experience isn't the same. let's share your 15MB worth & celebrate the differences to bring the new year in with a feel good bang.
friday evening last. the hopetoun. kate & alex bring the wonder of the punk monk propaganda psychochemical experience as first experienced at their curated ALGAE RHYTHM 0:02 in the final days of the warehouse.
the first of many future collaborations with sydney band, hailer & the launch of the liquid light show event calendar outside of the confines of our own studio run walls... needless to say it was a huge alchemic success.
fellow punk monks; clare, felix & michael were there to soak up the iridescent matmos & record the experience for all posterity long after i disappeared into the night.
creative dysfunctional colour child + renegade fringe dweller of possible worlds. a bonafide cinephile + lover of magic. founder of punk monk propaganda: an active mutating experimental film tribe + socio-political art collective spawned from sydney's industrial fringe.
all images/content copyleft punk monk propaganda 2005-2012 unless otherwise stated. if you wish to repost or use anything from this website please credit me & pass on with love/respect. creative commons is the future. thanks!
