2006 Gwangju Biennale, Korea - 3
More first-hand accounts from Chris Welsby about the joys and tortures of participating in an international Biennale, and the part the data from the CCS weatherstation had to play:
“Aussie weather really stole the show! It was quite spectacular on the opening day in particular. It felt like the whole room was going to disintegrate and blow away! We had never seen how it performed with those wind strengths. The turbulence was terrific and turned the whole room into a high speed montage. It really showed the work performing at it’s best. Very dynamic and totally fascinating to emerge ones self and watch everything happening. The feed back was very positive, both from the curators and from the other artists. ... The public and press showed up in huge numbers, there were anywhere from ten to forty or so people at any one time in my space nearly all weekend, lord knows what they thought of it, they were so overwhelmingly enthusiastic it was very hard to get a sense.
I am very pleased to report that, thanks to Mark [Vancouver-based programmer], the software worked like a dream. It does everything it should and more, and it never falters! Bing Huey [Australian-based curator selecting for the Biennale] seemed very pleased. I also met Nick [Tsoutas, Artistic Director, Powerhouse, Casula; ex Artspace director] who was very friendly and loved the work though he got the wrong end of the stick by thinking that it was he who was affecting the system! It was good to see him though. Your University credits were on the wall tag, they were also in the working catalogue and will be entered in full in the final full colour catalogue due out by mid month. I have taken some DV footage which I will edit and send on DVD.
Installing the work was a really hard four day slog. It was a very ambitious program with 500 artists and the infrastructure left much to be desired. ...[details supplied for those who need to know]... But in the end it was a very strong show. ... Thanks for the wonderful weather!!”