Has Clelland noticed any trends amongst this year’s submissions? “It’s my first year as Associate Producer so I can’t generalise too broadly,” she answers. “Generally speaking, there’s a reflection of access to technology, with access to the means of production we can record and archive parts of our lives. What we’re seeing is artists expressing themselves across different art forms. We received a compilation from a group of artists on the Art Life Program at the Footscray Community Arts Centre, a ’90s style TV comedy variety show they’ve made which includes animation, theatre, arts, music, and dance and other interesting snippets compiled into one 14 minute block. That’s gotten some positive feedback from our curators.”
Clelland is noticing that artists who may have been involved in other Fringe programs are turning up at Fringe Film, often in collaboration with other artists. “We’re seeing artists collaborating across different art forms. There’s a good representation of independent artists working across different forms: a dancer may have teamed up with a film maker, for example; they will come to us saying ‘I’ve made this dance video.’” Clelland is amazed at how quickly Fringe Film has grown. “The number of submissions has quadrupled, from 12 to 50. The biggest part of that is the integration of the wider Fringe community into the Fringe Film program,” she notes. A number of artists in Fringe Film have been involved in various ways prior to this year. Indie artists work across different art forms and Fringe can accommodate that.”
Clelland tells us about two works that will be screened during the one hour screenings at Federation Square, which will take place each evening between Thursday September 17 – Sunday September 21: One Giant Leap, a doco, and Explicate. “One Giant Leap is about two real people, Diane and Dave, who share the same dream, which is to live on Mars,” she continues. “It’s an eight minute doco which is a beautiful exchange between people living out their lives but with this sci-fi undercurrent. Explicate, by Mark Walker, is a really interesting use of a multi-channel display with a repetitive exhaustive nature; it focuses on decrepit buildings in parts of South East Asia.”
Another outdoor feature at Federation Square is Interactive Life Drawing by the artist Zhen, who draws what she sees around her, the images she creates on her digital tablet stream immediately onto the big screen. “Her artistic process, her practice is documenting the world around her,” notes Clelland. “It’s a good prelude to the hour long screening.”
BY LIZA DEZFOULI
Venue: Fringe Club, 521 Queensberry St, North Melbourne
Date: Sunday September 27
Time: 6pm
Tickets: Free
