MAAP Media Bank supports Australian artists Shaun Gladwell and Vernon Ah Kee with equipment at this year's Venice Biennale.

Brisbane based artist Ah Kee will be presenting a new 3 channel video work as part of Once Removed, curated by Felicity Fenner, and alongside artists Ken Yonetani, Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro. Gladwell's work MADDESTMAXIMVS: Planet & Stars Sequence will be exhibited at the Australian Pavilion.

This is the first partnership between the Australia Council and MAAP Media Bank on an international event. We look forward to continuing this relationship in the future.

Image: Vernon Ah Kee, Cant Chant (Wegrewhere) , 2007-2009 The Ludoteca, Castello 53rd International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia Video, painted surfboards and printed text on canvases Dimensions variable Video (DV PAL) Director: Suzanne Howard Photography: Ella Condon Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery

December 2008 saw MAAP present the 5th Bangkok Experimental Film festival at the Judith Wright Centre. Over 100 works from Thai artists and filmmakers were screened in a massive playlist of alternative screen culture, nestled amongst tropical palms and flickering out onto busy Brunswick st.

MAAP supported curator David Teh in Bangkok through our mentorship program funded by the Australia Council and also commissioned emerging curator Rachel O'Reilly to produce a program in the festival that she titled 'Video Ground'.

MAAP invited Danni Zuvella to speak 'in conversation' with David - it was poignantly engaging especially in light of the current political situation in Thailand.

The 5th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival, 2008-2009

MAAP would like to wish you all a very happy new year!

We have a number of exciting projects in the pipeline for 2009 - the first of which is a new website. It will be launched in the coming weeks, and will expand upon the online resources offered on this current site. We have also managed to properly archive the incredible backlog of projects that MAAP has produced since our inception in 1997.

A big thank-you to all who supported the 5th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival. We were very excited to have curator David Teh in conversation with Danni Zuvela - their insights shed much light on the recent political turmoil in Bangkok.

COMING SOON: MAAP presents the 5th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival (BEFF 5). 10th - 13th December

Over 150 works from Thai and international artists and filmmakers will be served simultaneously in a massive playlist of alternative screen culture. MAAP invites you to the Judith Wright Centre's temporary experimental film library, in a media-art-surround-video-post-capitalist shop, where everything is free!

BEFF 5 exposes a rich independent film culture that seeks to give voice to the political and cultural realities of contemporary Thai life. Film, animations and video mash-ups from Thailand and around the world collide together in a radical cross-cultural dialogue. The event brings together artist's films, video art, animation and experimental documentaries for local audiences to sample and engage with.

This year's festival, "The More Things Change...", curated by David Teh, interrogates cycles of contemporary life in Thailand, and considers issues of politics, place and spirituality in a digital age.

Open Wed 10 Dec - Fri 12 Dec: 4.30pm - 8pm Sat 13 Dec: 12 noon - 8pm

Please join us for drinks on Friday 12th December and Saturday 13th 6pm - 8pm, and catch curator David Teh who will be talking with Danni Zuvela on Saturday 13th from 4pm onwards.

Free entry to patrons over 18 years. ID required to gain entry.

The 5th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival, 2008-2009

Brisbane based artist Paul Bai will produce a site specific three channel video projection for the Shop front windows of the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts.

On this occasion, Bai explores the notion of "space" in the format of video projection. The artist utilises parts of the glass windows as the projection screen, leaving other parts to remain clear and untouched, so the viewer could also see through the window space while the projection is playing.

Each of the window screens "presents two visually different spaces at the same time".

The work is visible from 6pm nightly.

1st to 9 September 2008 Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts Shop Front installation 420 Brunswick Street Fortitude Valley, Brisbane

Please come and join us for drinks 6pm - 8pm Friday 5 September.

This project is supported by MAAP Multimedia Art Asia Pacific, The Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts.

The Sky is the Limit, 2008

MAAP is currently working with Melbourne-based design studio Portable Content, on a new web identity and user-friendly website incorporating a great CMS designed by emerging Australian developers, Blueprint.

The site will enable our MAAP community of artists, researchers, and audiences a more direct engagement with MAAP projects, resources, and services to artists, including the MAAP Media Bank. Keep your eye out for the launch!

SYNTHETIC TIMES: Media Art China 2008

Brisbane based MAAP-Multimedia Art Asia Pacific is heading to China this month to collaborate with a consortium of 17 media art specialist organizations including ZKM Centre for Media Art Karlsruhe; FACT Liverpool; V2 Institute for Unstable Media, Rotterdam; Eyebeam New York, MoMA , New York and Tate London .

"SYNTHETIC TIMES: Media Art China 2008' is a Beijing Olympics Cultural Project.

MAAP is supporting the participation of artists from Australia and the SE Asian region. Artists include Stelarc with his interactive intelligent 'Prosthetic Head' and his extrovert 'Walking Head' robot. Brisbane artists Keith Armstrong, Guy Webster and Lisa O'Neill from Transmute Collective will present their work 'Intimate Transactions' in what MAAP director Kim Machan collectively describes as "a survey of some of the most significant media art installations created in this decade". Kim Kichul from South Korea presents the latest configuration of his 'Sound Drawing' series of interactive audio drawings. Paul Lincoln from Singapore has further developed an augmented reality air conditioned installation titled 'Citizen's Comfort'. Over 40 major works will be on display at the National Art Museum of China opening 9 June until 3 July 2008.

MAAP's participation in this project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body; Arts Queensland, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Artists participation was also assisted by the Singapore National Arts Council and the Korea Cultural Foundation

Full exhibition details at www.mediartchina.org

SYNTHETIC TIMES 2008

MAAP presents Video Ground: Recent moving image work from Australia and Aotearoa / New Zealand.

Curated by Rachel O'Reilly.

Practicing on uncertain ground and negotiating diffracted and bi-cultural regimes of representation, media artists from Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand work outside of stable cinematic genres to rethink historical and narrative accounts of place. Stella Brennan reflects on the role of wartime visualization technologies in abstracting South Pacific oceanic space. Government, corporate and migrant takes on suburban belonging are played out ironically through documentary tropes in Peter Alwast’s At the Rotunda. Merilyn Fairskye uses non-synchronous audio and stylized visuals to conjure under-documented operations at the joint US military facilities known as Pine Gap, in Central Australia. Australian indigenous artist Vernon Ah Kee, video artist John Gillies, and Maori new media artist Rachel Rakena engage performance in different ways to explore the legacies of cartography, colonial allegory, and the contemporary Pacific Island diaspora.

Video Ground screens first at the Bangkok Experimental Film Festival March 25-30, and the Chicago Film Studies Center, April 11. Later touring venues will be announced.

Video Ground, 2008-2009

From the MAAP Board and staff we wish to send a very special thank you to the artists and collaborators we have worked with this year and look forward to a very active 2008!

See you next year!

Good Morning! MAAP is calling for applications from artists (in Queensland) that need equipment for production or display. Successful applications will be granted use of the equipment free of charge. Artists are required to arrange transport and adequate security while the equipment is in their care. A range of equipment is available that includes numerous TV monitors, DVD players, speakers, amplifiers, digital video camera, headphones, data projectors and various computer and electrical cabling. There is no closing date, but chances of booking equipment improove with longer lead times. To start your enquiry email info@maap.org.au

MAAP Media Bank