About AFF EXPAND Lab
The second edition of Adelaide Film Festival’s EXPAND Lab was held from 20 – 27 October 2023. It brought together mid-career and established Australian visual artists, filmmakers, producers, writers, VR/AR creators and other creatives, to collaborate in groups and develop bold new moving image projects.
Of the projects developed in EXPAND Lab, one is selected for the AFF and Samstag $100,000 EXPAND Moving Image Commission to be exhibited at Samstag Museum of Art during Adelaide Film Festival 2025. In addition, two projects are selected for mentoring by Illuminate Adelaide and the Art Gallery of South Australia.
Ten projects were presented on the final day of the 2023 AFF EXPAND Lab and from these five were shortlisted with each group receiving $5,000 for further development of their concepts. The next-stage presentations will be held in February 2024 with the final three projects selected by the AFF EXPAND Lab partnership.
Shortlisted Projects
5 STEPS TO LIVING YOUR MOST OPTIMISED SELF AND MANIFESTING MAXIMUM GAINS WITH ZERO SUGAR
Anna Lindner (SA), Nisa East (NSW), Yasemin Sabuncu (SA)
A satirical, critical reflection on the trends of hyper-masculinity in times of existential crisis. Using dark humour and immersive installation design the work interrogates the trends of the rabidly individualist, billion-dollar wellness industry and the “alpha gurus” who appropriate global healing traditions to fit a capitalism 2.0 ethos: aggressive self-improvement and infinite growth as the key to happiness and wellbeing.
Infinite Terrarium
Chris Luscri (VIC), Tully Arnot (NSW)
A closed biosphere, a space outside of time. Plants, insects, fungi, algae.. cared for by a custodian. An AI that works alone, that waters, burns off, plants anew. Adapting to our absence, our haunting. Forming new mythologies.
LAST CHANCE TO VISIT WORLDWORLD
Jake Bresanello (SA), Conor Mercury (SA), Bryce Kraehenbuehl (SA)
A documentary-style exhibition comprising micro-documentaries focussing on several people’s stories of loss within their time at Worldworld, an imagined theme park. Worldworld is the largest-ever theme park that has recently announced it is closing down due to a number of structural issues.
The Ingress
Kate Vinen (NSW), Marcus Chong (VIC), Chloe de Brito (NSW)
The Ingress is a visceral multi-channel, moving-image work that invites audiences to re-imagine their relationship with the body, nature and mortality. In a series of stylised, ritualistic vignettes, a strange, human-creature amalgam has a transcendent encounter with a nebulous, vertical pond that disrupts their material form and lures them into another realm — unbound by space and time.
Togetherverse
Yandell Walton (VIC), Miles Dunne (SA), Liam Somerville (SA)
An interactive dual-channel art installation exploring posthuman futures presented upon two monolithic LED portals. The work presents two different visions of humanity’s future through the use of smart cameras and real-time rendering software — one following our current trajectory led by tech giants and corporate industry, and the other alternative is a reimagining of the posthuman relationship with nature. Through ‘slow immersion’ viewers must work together to choose which future they want actualised, promoting audience cooperation and conversation about the future of the planet and our species.
Participants
Tully Arnot (NSW) – Visual Artist, Media Artist, XR/VR Creator
Max Brading (SA) – Visual Artist, Media Artist, XR/VR Creator
Jake Bresanello (SA) – Visual Artist, Media Artist, Filmmaker
Thom Buchanan (SA) – Visual Artist
Linda Chen (ACT) – Writer, Performer
Marcus Chong (VIC) – Visual Artist, Filmmaker
Chloe de Brito (NSW) – Visual Artist, Filmmaker
Miles Dunne (SA) – Visual Artist, Media Artist
Nisa East (NSW) – Filmmaker, Cinematographer
Deborah Kelly (NSW) – Visual Artist
Bryce Kraehenbuehl (SA) – Visual Artist, Filmmaker, Videographer
Anna Lindner (SA) – Visual Artist, Filmmaker, Writer
Liang Xia Luscombe (VIC) – Visual Artist, Media Artist, Filmmaker
Chris Luscri (VIC) – Filmmaker
Charlotte Mars (NSW) – Filmmaker
Orlando Mee (SA) – Visual Artist, Media Artist, XR/VR Creator, Games Creative
Conor Mercury (SA) – Filmmaker
Kim Munro (SA) – Media Artist, Filmmaker
Yasemin Sabuncu (SA) – Visual Artist, Media Artist, Videographer, Games Creative
Ryan Sahb (SA) – Visual Artist, Media Artist, Filmmaker, Videographer
Cynthia Schwertsik (SA) – Visual Artist, Performance
Liam Somerville (SA) – Media Artist, Filmmaker, XR/VR Creator, Games Creative
Van Sowerwine (VIC) – Visual Artist, Media Artist, Filmmaker, XR/VR Creator
Will Spartalis (SA) – Visual Artist, Media Artist, Filmmaker, Composer
Kate Vinen (NSW) – Filmmaker
Yandell Walton (VIC) – Visual Artist, Media Artist, XR/VR Creator
Raymond Zada (SA) – Visual Artist, Media Artist, XR/VR Creator
Emile Zile (VIC) – Visual Artist, Media Artist, Filmmaker
Mentors
The mentors for AFF EXPAND Lab are time-bending digital artist Daniel Crooks, theatre maker and media artist Robert Walton, and highly-respected moving image and film producer Bridget Ikin. In addition, video artist and filmmaker Amos Gebhardt joins as a mentor for the first part of the lab.
The mentors will provide insight into their practice and work with you to generate new ideas!
Daniel Crooks
Daniel Crooks has spent his career crafting a distinct visual language unique to his practice. Working predominantly in video, photography and sculpture, Crooks is preoccupied with time and motion in an altered state. He breaks time down, frame by frame. The resulting works expand our sense of temporality by manipulating digital ‘time slices’ that are normally imperceptible to the human eye.
Amos Gebhardt
Amos Gebhardt brings a cinematic force to large scale moving image installations and photography, collaborating with performers, choreographers and sound artists. Gebhardt’s sustained practice of visually rich work is epitomised by a courageous commitment to agitating dominant narratives around marginality, representation, queerness and more than human ecologies. In 2022 Gebhardt was awarded the William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize, MGA. In the same year, they were a finalist in both the National Photography Prize, MAMA and the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award, HOTA. In 2021, a selection of video and photographic work from over a period of six years was shown for PHOTO2021 at The Substation in a major solo show, Spooky action at a distance.
Bridget Ikin
Bridget Ikin has been a producer of award-winning feature films (including Look Both Ways, An Angel At My Table), short films (Kitchen Sink), multi-screen moving image installations (by Hossein Valamanesh, Angelica Mesiti), television series (Art + Soul) and feature documentaries (Sherpa) for about 40 years. She’s been consistently committed to innovation, and to telling stories by and for women. She’s also been a curator for Sydney Film Festival’s experimental strand FLUX art+film (which she initiated), has run SBS Independent for several years, been a long-serving board member of the SAFC, holds an honorary doctorate from AFTRS, and is currently a member of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.
Robert Walton
Robert Walton is an artist and director recognised with multiple awards for his work in theatre, screen, installation, writing, interactive art, and research. An Australian immigrant from the United Kingdom, born in England but of Welsh, Scottish and Manx ancestry living and working in Naarm, he currently serves as the Dean’s Research Fellow at The University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Fine Arts and Music. In this role, he leads the development of performances and artworks that explore the creative potential of ancient and emerging technologies. Major artworks include Alma Mater, Vanitas (Webby Award nominated), and The Heart at Melbourne Connect. Child of Now, his project with Claire G. Coleman, received Honorary Mention from the S+T+Arts Prize 2023, the grand prize of the European Commission for innovation in technology, industry and society stimulated by the arts. Robert Walton was a participant in 2022 EXPAND Lab and will bring his experience of the lab to this mentorship role.
Contact
Julianne Pierce
Special Initiatives Manager – AFF EXPAND Lab & Publications
[email protected]
AFF EXPAND Lab is an initiative of Adelaide Film Festival with Principal Partner The Balnaves Foundation, and the Government of South Australia, Samstag Museum of Art, Art Gallery of South Australia and Illuminate Adelaide.