Inspired by George Bataille’s Histoire de l’oeil, Marlena Rosenthal demonstrates a metaphor and metonymy of vitality through eggs, testes, milk, and blood in Eggs Quarantined. All but blood is white, and each is an object pertaining to the external and internal. Life contained in the egg, the testes, encased by white walls. Milk leaves the mammalian body only to be ingested back in. Blood— internal life force— becomes abject and macabre once external. In Eggs Quarantine, helium balloons are eggs and testes encased in a glass box dressed in soft whiteness. Throughout the performance Marlena reveals the life encapsulated in the objects through their entering and exiting her body and making the white box bleed red.
Marlena Rosenthal has performed and showcased films in galleries, theaters, and venues throughout Los Angeles and Sydney, including a residency at The Hive Gallery (LA). She was recently featured in the short film Toxic Tropical (dir. Turk Lees) at Sydney Underground Film Festival. She has an MSA in Sculpture, Installation and Performance from Sydney College of the Arts and a BA in Film Production from Loyola Marymount University (LA).
Through two performances over two nights, the collaborative duo ARTITS will be using provocative and tongue-in-cheek techniques to explore concepts of gender and sexuality. Playing up stereotypes and predisposed notions of sexuality, their two performances “Cock Fight” and “What a Girl Wants, What a Girl Needs” examine sexual expectations within western culture, and what role gender plays in these expectations. This eccentric duo are interested in how wants and needs differ between men, women, and the individual; how they manifest themselves socially and in a commercial context through attitudes and products that simultaneously free and compartmentalize our sexuality.
Phillippa Griffin and Mali Strachan–Brown, who make up ARTITS have collectively and individually exhibited throughout various shows and performances around Australia Strachan–Brown is currently undertaking her Bachelor of Visual Arts majoring in Sculpture, Installation and Performance at the College of Fine Arts, whilst Free Fall’s own curator/facilitator, Griffin presently studies her Masters in Art Curatorship and Art History at the University of Sydney. Griffin has also completed her undergrad in Visual Arts from Sydney College of the Arts. Both Griffin and Strachan–Brown aim to open up perceptions and raise titillating questions that leave the audience wondering. ARTITS are two ladies you won’t want to miss in action.
So many people have a Tom in their lives, so here we give you just two of an estimated world population of 503,751. Two Toms in a glass case! For your pleasure! You may be surprised, but scientific experiments have shown that if you select any two Toms from any two places on earth and put them in an empty vessel for an extended period of time they will naturally bond over an activity or pastime. Never in human history has there been recorded conflict between two Toms in close proximity to each other. This process is called ʻtetheringʼ, and it is this process that underwrites the Theory of Universal Tom. In short, it is the process by which one Tom can be tethered to another Tom by biological and (some research suggests) a naturally occurring and proximity-based psychochemical connection. Over two nights in the Free Fall glass cube, the Toms will attempt to replicate this experiment.
The two guinea-Toms to be placed in the glass viewing room are separate varieties; the migratory Web-Toed Tom Thorby-Lister, a native species of Britain, is identifiable by its golden crest and noisy mating call, and also the Common-Brown Tom Glenn, an isolated native species found only
in certain caves, which is identifiable by its longer wing and leg length and its brown crest. We have provided the laboratory-Toms with some sticky tape, pens and some paper to give them something to communicate over during this public experiment, but have otherwise given them no
introduction as to why they are in the case or what they should do there. We only told them to ‘show’ their experiences to the audience however they wish and find to be most Tomish. (Tomish behaviour between Toms generally displays a level of underhanded cheekiness, scheming, and/or
acts that adjust the environment to better suit the lifestyle of the Tom.)
Watch to see what the Toms do and if they can publically confirm the Theory of Universal Tom.
“What do you do in the bath?”
When exactly did the bathing and the body become a shameful thing when viewed upon by others? Or more importantly why? Sydney Based emerging artist Sam Winters could not hold back his curiosity on the relationship between bathing and privatization. Over the two nights Sam will be attempting to understand the general public reactions to public bathing. Using the Free Fall Cube as the platform, the artist will have “a nice long bath” exposing himself to the audience but also taunting the audience by allowing them to see him in “a private
moment.”
Predominately an illustrator and printmaker Sam has been exploring performance art, as he believes it is a way to amplify ideas to the audience. Sam is currently studying print-media at Sydney College of the Arts.
Introduced in 2011, Free Fall transformed the glass cube of Oxford Art Factory into a series of live art installations. These installations, performed between the glass of the multi-roomed live music venue are interactive with the giggoers and audience members and incorporate the use of colour, endurance, movement and other experimental processes.
The third phase of Free Fall 2012 introduces the curatorial vision of performance artist Sari TM Kivinen (Aus/ Fi), who is now ready to announce her selection of artists. Commencing on Friday November 2, this arm of Free Fall presents a varied selection of work by a combination of local and international contemporary artists.
After a show-stopping season of local established artists curated by John A. Douglas, and a series of cube transformations by a budding group of multifaceted local artists curated by Phillippa Griffin, the next series of Free Fall consists of innovative art-makers who are internationally active and working across disciplines of performance, installation and technology. Sari TM Kivinen has previously worked alongside John A. Douglas (founder of Free Fall) and with Oxford Art Factory as part of the Exquisite Corpse program in 2008. Her approach to curating this phase of Free Fall has been to build on connections with peers whose work she has a previous relationship to or a curiosity of.
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Vulvas Dei meaning God’s Vagina presents multifarious elements from rituals and spells spreading across cultures and history to exemplify the fascination and fear of nature, the cosmos, the womb (women), death, creation and transformation. Marlena Rosenthal unveils the power of the spiritual and ritualistic, particularly in relation to the feminine, as a nude woman/creature performing her original incantations inspired by the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Tibetan Buddhism, Shinto, and Druidism. She simultaneously pokes fun at the salaciousness of the occult with gaudy skulls and Satanic iconography.
Marlena Rosenthal has a MSA in Sculpture, Installation and Performance from Sydney College of the Arts and a BA in Film Production from Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles).
Franco’s practice is distinctive in its position within contemporary Australian video art. He combines the Nauman-esque dictum ”If I was an artist and I was in the studio, then whatever I was doing in the studio must be art” with slapstick, comedic Australiana self-mockery, Dada-like absurdist humour, Constructivist sound experimentation and a 21st century ‘youtube’ video-consciousness. Heath Franco is represented by Galerie Pompom, Sydney
Naomi Oliver took on the mythical persona of Arachne and interpreted the monotonous weaving of her web through materials and performance installation. Douglas, encased in a red body suit, became her hapless victim as he was trapped by the enmeshed form of her threads. The work is a metaphorical interpretation of Douglas kidney disease that he has lived with since 2004 and explores themes around suffering and entrapment, body degeneration, illness and death.
SandS through the hourglass create dynamic, movement based, highly visual arrangements of dramatic scenarios. Bodily fluids, cross-dressing and a canon of monsters and creatures are used to subvert audience expectation and excite with the unspeakable and taboo. Having recently returned from the Festival of International New Drama in Berlin, SandS are thrilled to back in the cube creating their unique brand of mayhem.
As a general guide, the live performances will take place on either Friday or Saturday nights between 10pm and 1am. Even if you miss the live action, do come in and view the completed installation for that weekend.
FRI 3RD - free entry via the Gallery Bar
SAT 4TH - free entry via the Gallery Bar
FRI 10TH - free entry via the Gallery Bar
SAT 11TH - free entry via the Gallery Bar
FRI 17TH - free entry via the Main Room
SAT 18TH - closed
FRI 24TH - closed
SAT 25TH - free entry via the Gallery Bar
FRI 31ST - free entry via the Gallery Bar
SAT 1ST (SEPT) - free entry via the Gallery Bar
A trained go-go dancer she performs regularly and as a member of dance troupe The Go-Gettes and her fourth solo exhibition, King’s Cross Affair, held at Alaska Projects paid homage to the forgotten go-go dancers of Sydney’s Kings Cross. Fusing 60s psychedelia and Catholic iconography with a touch of red light sleaze her project for Free Fall 2012 will bring the spirit of late 60s Kings Cross to 2012 Darlinghurst, transforming the OAF cube with a shrine-like installation and live go-go dancing performances.
