Melbourne Up Close 2001 Catalogue Essay Melbourne Up Close Maggie McCormick & Carolyn Lewens 2001 At the beginning of 2001 an urbanart invitation went out to thirty six emerging photographers from the Photography Studies College, Melbourne. 'Be a 21st century flâneur. Be a stroller, out of step with the fast pace of a modern city and become an observer, a secret spectator, using all your senses to experience the transitory, the fleeting, the flux, collisions and ordered chaos of the city. Experience the city by becoming part of the city, not in the crowd but of the crowd. Observe the familiar in detail and get up close'. The art of flânerie, or strolling through the city, observing with the eye of the poet, was commonplace in 19th Century Paris, but not so in 21st Century Melbourne. Throughout 2001 thirty six almost extinct flâneurs, could be sighted wandering the city streets, camera in hand. Melbourne Up Close looks at this city's public life and distinctive cultural identity through a series of concept themes reflecting the contrasting elements of contemporary urban life - Individual & Society, Distance & Proximity, Difference & Compatibility, Innovation & Tradition, Cooperation & Conflict.

 

Early in the project five thinkers on, and interpreters of, contemporary urban space, were invited to creatively explore these themes in a forum session: Darko Radovic, architect and urbanist; Andy Miller, artist and tram enthusiast; Louise Jennison, artist and designer; Peter Elliott, architect and Gaby Bila-Günther, writer, poet and spoken word performer. Ideas generated at the forum contributed to the personal responses of the photographers to their city. The source of the images is the urban space itself, interpreted through the eye of the camera and the computer, and returned and re located in that space as re interpreted urban fragments.  Placing these photographic responses in tram shelters along the City Circle Tram route, in a series of public exhibitions throughout 2001, created a new viewing opportunity, an opportunity to see the familiarity of the city afresh. The viewer expects to see the visual language of advertising and instead finds the language of the city itself. Waiting for the tram becomes an opportunity to observe an aspect of the city up close. The observer too becomes a flâneur, as they wait and watch. The second viewing position of the car driver or tram traveler introduces the movement of the city into the static image, as the city reflects and flickers across the glass. The fleeting view is one of colour, shape and linked memory. The third viewer is on foot, regularly moving through this familiar space, observing its subtle changes through eyes that glance and minds already located ahead in time creating an accumulation of viewed fragments. Melbourne Up Close has also occupied another public space, web space, with  another audience who is able to view all the images within one space frame as they hit the streets. Regular additions of images have gradually built up the whole picture for this global audience, culminating in a parallel cyber space exhibition.  Collecting these images together in one space, at the Eckersley's Open Space Gallery, creates yet another viewing position. Moved from the public to the gallery space, the images, designed for public viewing, are now under lights with very different expectations by photographer and viewer alike. Each photographer has responded to that challenge with a re interpretation of their image, adding depth and a fuller interpretation of 21st Century Melbourne.

 

Maggie McCormick is an artist, curator and writer. She is a founding member of the artist group, urbanart. Her photo/text installations, curatorial projects and writing reflect her interest in the contemporary urban environment and the relationship of art to cultural identity in public space.  Much of her curatorial work creates linkages between artists and between global urban space. She views the curatorial role as a role of a catalyst and often works in collaboration with the European based artist Claudia-Maria Luenig. Her photo/text installations explore the visual relationship between the language of image and word. Currently she is working collaboratively with the writer Christine Gillespie, on a site specific installation which responds to the essence of a novel in progress. This work will be shown in Vienna in 2002 at Global Fusion which links artists from Australia, Asia and Europe.

Carolyn Lewens is an artist, teacher and curator. In her teaching role at Photography Studies College she is responsible for the art major stream - these are the students in this exhibition. She also teaches photomedia at Monash University and curatorial practice at RMIT. Her art practice applies photography in its broadest sense employing both analog and digital image process and capture techniques. Her current interest is cameraless photography - the photogram. By applying pre-photographic processes to post-photographic concerns she explores the evidential nature of photography through experimentation with objects and light sensitive emulsions. The concerns form the framework for her PhD at Monash University. Carolyn also works collaboratively with Neil Stanyer on Watermarks - an ongoing ecological project of site specific installations that investigates the use of surface water throughout Australia within the current political landscape. Through the creation of immersive environments, Watermarks aims to raise community awareness through aesthetic experience with each Watermarks exhibition addressing a local, regional or urban ecological issue.

Individual & Society + Distance & Proximity + Difference & Compatibility + Innovation & Tradition  + Cooperation & Conflict + Fensham essay + Public Forum