The Perfect Artist is a video portrait and performance project that explores the creative processes, cultural networks and social personalities of Australian artists, arts administrators and workers. Ultimately, audiences will encounter The Perfect Artist in a gallery or museum context, as a multi-screen projection installation. Consisting of between 100 and 250 individual portraits of creative people ‘performing themselves’, the installation will present audiences with an ever-changing ‘group’ portrait of inter-related individuals.

As part of the development of this project a 'pilot' was shot at HeadQuarters between March 11 and 15, 2009. During the 5 day shoot 24 portraits were created. Many thanks to the participants and those who wanted to participate but couldn't be fitted into the schedule. Rest assured we'll be shooting more portraits soon.

Below is a (very) rough edit of the 12 hours(!) of footage into a 12 min pilot showreel...a longer version is on its way. 

Click here to play

Each participant was sent a list of generic items to bring (an item of personal hygiene, a song, something from the kitchen, an item of clothing/disguise, a travel memento, some reading material etc). None of the items were solicited and none of the ‘performances’ were pre-arranged. Each portrait took 1-2 hours.

This project was originally inspired by experimental documentary maker, Jørgen Leth’s, ‘The Perfect Human’ (1967) which explores the exquisite beauty and banality of everyday activities, from eating and walking through to dancing and sleeping. Entirely scripted and portrayed by ‘actors’ the work operates in a poetic, fictionalised documentary mode. Together with Lars von Trier’s (2003) challenge to Leth to remake his film with ‘Five Obstructions’, these films provide a unique departure point for investigating the role of the director, artistic freedom, creative processes and the tensions between documentary and fictional forms.

In particular they raise questions about authenticity, originality and creativity through the formulation and capitulation to arbitrary and systematic rules.

If you want to check out the Perfect Human, there are several edited 'versions' online - this is a good starting point (even if it is the english language dub).

Many thanks to Josh Burns (DOP/Lighting) for being there every minute of every portrait, Willoh S. Weiland (HeadQuarters) for fleshing out the idea and generally pushing it to happen, Dan Briggs (Clockwork Media) for the super-excellent lighting hire, Mike Hornblow & OpenChannel for the extra P2 cards & reader, and Christie Stott, Bill Buckley and Dario Vacirca for their ongoing support in all my technomotional times.

Amongst numerous interviews, applications, house cleanings, video shoots, and content management system re-developments, we found the time to explode our hearts on the streets of melbourne. It's been a busy start to the year...and a nice return to performance. There's more info about 'after' here, and video coming soon, but in the meantime some mean pics:

Over the past week Brooke Amity Stamp and I have been collaborating on some dance on video experiments. It's been a great opportunity for us both to continue developing our (respective) filmic and movement based language/s. The process has largely been practical and experimental, with an emphasis on developing skills through the creation of content. These are a few stills from yesterdays shoot at Dance House and a very short (and conspicuously silent) test edit of footage shot at Lupa Arts (soon to be Head Quarters) shot last week.

Click here to play

In November last year Kelly Ryall and I premiered our audio-visual performance collaboration at Outpost (Horse Bizarre) and Electundra 2008 (Loop). Previously Kelly and I have worked on theatre show's together, and we thought it would be great to try out some more experimental live performance. Kelly used sounds created throughout the year from both theatre and musical contexts and re-mixed these in Ableton Live. I wrote my first openFrameworks HD VJ application (imMediate for want of a better working title), and used footage shot in Japan on the many train trips I took during my workshop/residency there in September 2008. Here's a little edited video of our performance:

Click here to play

I am currently in Japan to attend a workshop about openFrameworks at the Yamaguchi Center for Art and Media . The workshop will be led by co-developers Zachary Lieberman and Theodore Watson .

openFrameworks is an open source tool kit for creative coding written in C++. openFrameworks is known for being easy to use without knowledge of C++, and it allows the fast and easy processing of image and sound files.

My trip is supported by ANAT (Australian Network for Art and Technology) through the Professional Development Travel Fund. ANAT is assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body