From 31-01-2001 until 12-05-2001

Michele Barker, Kate Beynon, Justine Cooper, Brenda L Croft, Linda Dement, Wade Marynowsky, Tracey Moffatt & Gary Hillberg, Patricia Piccinini, Melinda Rackham, Rea, David Rosetzky, Robyn Stacey

web works:
Mary-Anne Breeze, Zina Kaye, Anita Kocsis, Francesca da Rimini, Gary Zebington

Computer animation:
Faye Maxwell Owen-Greene


In collaboration with the Australian curators Linda Wallace and Josephine Grieve, the Netherlands Media Art Institute has organised the exhibition hybridforms: Australian New Media Art. Most of the Australian artists will be presenting new work which has never previously been seen in Europe.

hybridforms takes the viewer into the lush undergrowth of contemporary Australia: strange confessions, dark memories, hybrids. As has been the case for its flora and fauna, Australia's isolation has had peculiar effects on its artists too. They bring invisible life to the surface in various ways, producing unexpected results. The enormous diversity and vitality of technological growth is central to hybridforms. Like Europe, Australia has been quick to pick up on new developments. Australian artists immediately went in search of the worlds in and behind the computer, reflecting upon and experimenting with the complex distinctions and connections which created a sanctuary for new visions. The artists in the exhibition reflect on both digital media and cultural and social life.

Patricia Piccinini's work The Breathing Room reflects on the tensions which arise as soon as new technological developments (electronics, biochemical and gene technologies) enter everyday life. In The Breathing Room we seen fragments of a body, moving pieces of skin, accompanied by quiet breathing. What we see is recognisable, but not wholly real. Suddenly, without any clear reason, the images appear to be caught up in panic.

In her photo series west/ward/bound Brenda L Croft throws light on how black and white live together in contemporary Australia. In general, the Aboriginal people are portrayed as exotic, alien, other. With her work, Croft makes it personal.
Justine Cooper's installation and videowork Rapt lets us see the inside of the body. Making use of Magnetic Resonance Imaging Cooper scanned her body. She manipulated the results into a poetic vision of a world in which we literally live.

Tracey Moffatt, well known in The Netherlands, acquired wide recognition with her video and film works Night Cries and Heaven. In her new work, Artist, in collaboration with Gary Hillberg she sets before us the Hollywood stereotype of the creative, tortured and suffering artist. Outtakes of artists from classic Hollywood films, documentaries and TV programs, crossing the screen in quick montage, show us the different stages of inspiration, creation, and subsequently the destruction of paintings. In a comic manner, Artist breaks through the romantic aura that Hollywood has created around artists.


After the production of a number of CD-roms, including Cyberflesh Girlmonster and In my Gash, multimedia artist Linda Dement returns to photography with her project Euridyce. Like her CD-roms, her digital photographs exhibit her macabre and immediate manner of working. Seen from a feminist perspective, representatives of 'monstrous femininity' encompass desires, revenge and violence. With Euridyce, Dement demonstrates that photography still has much to offer. This serie of images has been produced in response to Kathy Acker's story Eurydice in the Underworld.

For more information on the artists and all works to be shown, see the websites of the artists involved:

Michele Barker Præternatural (2000) http://www.liquiddna.com
Kate Beynon Li Ji:Warrior Girl (2000)
Mary-Anne Breeze
http://netwurkerz.de/mez/datableed/complet/index.htm
http://www.hotkey.net.au/~netwurker
Justine Cooper Rapt I & II (1998) http://justinecooper.com
Brenda L Croft west/ward/bound(1999) http://139.230.40.45/Imm3330/group08/Brenda/index.html

Linda Dement Eurydice (2000-01) http://sysx.org/dement
Wade Marynowsky There Goes the Neighborhood (2000) http://www.projectroom.com/islacks/
Zina Kaye http://laudanum.net/
http://laudible.net (Mr. Snow Zina Kaye)
http://observatine.net
Anita Kocsis http://www.anat.org.au:80/projects/login/anat_anita/neonverte/
Tracey Moffatt & Gary Hillberg Artist (1999)
Patricia Piccinini The Breathing Room (2000)
Synthetic Organism 2 (2000) http://www.patriciapiccinini.net
Melinda Rackham Empyrean (2000) http://www.subtle.net
Rea Don't Shoot Till You See The Whites Of Their Eyes (1999) http://www.culture.com.au/boomalli/blakkweer/index.html
http://www.nga.gov.au/Retake/Retake.htm
http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/cultural-studies/html/exchanges.html
Francesca da Rimini http://sysx.org/gashgirl
http://www.thing.net/~dollyoko
http://www.thing.net/~dollyoko/LOSDIAS/INDEX.HTML
http://www.thing.net/~dollyoko/ID/TEXT/LN01.HTM
David Rosetzky Summer Blend (2000)
Robyn Stacey Sydney 1886 - 1997 (1999)
Great Big Piece of Turf (1996) Green Room I (1999)
Waratah (2000)
Surface Tension (1998)
Plum Lotus (1999)
Tulip (1999)
http://www.stillsgallery.com.au
Gary Zebington http://murlin.va.com.au/eyespace
http://murlin.va.com.au/eyespace/bodyssey

Thanks to:
This project is assisted by the Australia Council, the Australian Government's arts funding & advisory body, through its Audience and Market Development Division and New Media Arts Fund, and the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds.

catalogue (pdf)