Reconfiguring the Meme Machine
Bianca Tainsh
27 Mar–13 Apr 2019
Following its 2018 genesis in Berlin, The League for Human Integrity makes its Australian debut at Blindside. Reconfiguring the Meme Machine introduces this meta-movement for ideological reinvention in the age of Mass Consumerism, and constructs a platform for its peculiar activities.
Through this initiation the project will adopt a local vernacular, which will include a series of workshops by Melbourne artists aimed at sabotaging conventional value systems through creative agency.
In Workshops for Ideological Reinvention the movement also invites Melburnians to test their own views of the systems that drive everyday culture, daring them to deprogram from fabricated archetypes and reinvent their own ideologies. By driving this social and personal transmutation, the movement offers a new perspective of being an autonomous, self-expressive individual, who also identifies as a member of the global collective, the worldwide web of humanity.
Within the gallery space are the artefacts of Integrity’s quest to turn the tide on Mass Consumerism. By uncannily appropriating its tools and tactics, the movement fights fire with fire. Creating spectacle and harnessing the Meme as an easily replicated concept that jumps from mind to mind, the project creates its own plethora of customisable trends. The most significant being the movement’s Talis Insignia, a visual representation of its philosophies, which is also a mnemonic symbol and talisman for its members. In this way the project combines both archaic and contemporary archetypes as it explores the transcendent qualities of ritual, the fellowship of sharing a philosophy, and the semiotics of agency in images and words.
Workshops and performances at Blindside and satellite locations
Integrity Ritual
Bianca Tainsh & Integrity participants
28 March, 6.15-6.40pm - Blindside, Level 7/37 Swanston Street, Melbourne
5 April, 7pm - Testing Grounds, 1 City Rd, Southbank
In an urban ritual where colloquial idylls become props to diverge the psychogeography of the city, Integrity members usher in the opening night festivities by manifesting the world wide web of humanity. This is activist art with an occultist twist. Circumvent Mass Consumerism, elevate your consciousness, and connect with the movement.
Workshop for Ideological Reinvention
Bianca Tainsh
27 March, 2-5pm - Blindside, Level 7/37 Swanston Street, Melbourne
3 April, 2.30-5.30pm - Testing Grounds, 1 City Rd, Southbank
11 April, 5.30-8.30pm - Blindside, Level 7/37 Swanston Street, Melbourne
Transcend into a radical workshopping space in a reflective, but light-hearted afternoon of ideological reinvention.
In this workshop we consider the absurdity of commercially generated ideologies, and attempt to retire the myriad of social expectations we encounter throughout everyday life. We’ll explore the concept of collective consciousness in the milieu of global instability, then re-empower by creatively brainstorming a new vision of life, free from the manipulative forces of consumerism. Values, self-identity, nature and life experience will all become a reflective framework for crafting your own Blueprint of Being, a philosophical checklist for meaningful and conscientious living.
This will be a galvanising meeting of art and social exploration held in the BLINDSIDE gallery space, Testing Grounds and the Botanical Gardens. Please note that there is no religious agenda behind these workshops, and they are inclusive to all people.
Sustainable Human Super-tut
Bianca Tainsh
30 March, 12-2pm - Blindside, Level 7/37 Swanston Street, Melbourne
In this self-defining workshop you’ll negotiate your own definition of sustainable human. No self-righteous assholes here, just good ol’ practical advice for everyday life. We’ll learn easy green cleaning, eco grooming that won’t leave you feral, outsmarting the tactics of Mass-consumerism, facilitating a painless breakup with plastic, and how to take the next step up on the ladder of ethical eating. Bring your 100% recycled paper notebook and lots of creative nous.
Empowering Yourself Online
Alrey Batol
30 March, 2.15-4.15pm - Blindside, Level 7/37 Swanston Street, Melbourne
This workshop involves a beginners guide to empowerment in the age of intrusive technology as a countermeasure to our disengaged involvement with these tools.
The workshop will comprise of step-by-step instructions on how to secure your privacy and data using encryption software and apps including VPN, ProtonMail and the TOR web browser used to access the Deep Web.
Alrey’s recent projects have been examining ways that are alternative to capitalistic modes of communication drawing from prefigurative strategy, permaculture practice and DIY culture.
No bookings required, byo smartphone, tablet or laptop.
Beyond Zero Point - cognitive dissonance and the new mass
Ceri Hann
30 March, 4.30-6.30pm - Blindside, Level 7/37 Swanston Street, Melbourne
Gather around the altered states of consciousness made available through embodied metaphor and professionally induced by a performative lecture administered by Dr Ceri Hann where a future of division will be articulated through a follow up participatory workshop based on the psychodynamics of cognitive dissonance. Evade capture by groupthink, exceed expectations by dreaming awake; to become unpredictable is to become human. Tear out the last page and book in!
Backyard Cob Rocket-stove Building from Scratch
Alrey Batol
12 April, 1-3pm - Testing Grounds, 1 City Rd, Southbank
Join Melbourne artist Alrey Batol as he shows how to construct a portable wood fuelled rocket-stove out of cob, an eco-friendly building material consisting mostly of backyard soil and natural fibres. This rocket-stove is mainly used for cooking and only requires tinder or kindling, which is usually found in abundance.
Sustainable DIY concrete for creatives
Daniella Ruffino
12 April, 3.30-5.30pm - Testing Grounds, 1 City Rd, Southbank
In this creative workshop artist, Daniella Ruffino will demonstrate how to transform waste products into a versatile, sculptural material. Daniella’s re-use of waste products as the main ingredients for making her concrete is akin to an experimental practice called the closed-loop material cycle (CLMC). Daniella will take participants through the process of making homemade concrete from scratch.
This program takes place on the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. We recognise that sovereignty was never ceded - this land is stolen land. We pay respects to Wurundjeri Elders, past, present and emerging, to the Elders from other communities and to any other Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders who might encounter or participate in the program.
Bianca Tainsh is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her methodology is fundamentally conceptual. The direction of her enquiries and the mode of production chosen are always directed by the core concept of a project. This conceptual approach involves a process of dedicated research to accumulate a body of knowledge and imagery that then becomes the impetus to form ideas, and explore new modes of making. This research is also the pursuit for links between the many different contemporary paradigms that make the world what it is today - culture, science, consumerism, history, the Internet, the natural world - seeking connections and phenomena that inspire reflection on existential dilemmas, and content to construct a meaningful and multifaceted discussion around the conceptual topics of Bianca’s research.
Thursday 28 March, 6.15-6.40pm
Integrity Ritual - Bianca Tainsh, Integrity participants and live screen performance by American composer and interactive media artist James Perley
Alrey Batol’s practice looks into questioning the banality and purpose of material culture. This project focuses on finding ways to reinvigorate an ethics of material culture by drawing from prefigurative strategy, permaculture practice and DIY culture.
Born 1980, Philippines. Now based in Melbourne, Australia. Alrey is a multi-disciplinary artist with a Bachelor of Communication Design from Queensland University of Technology and a Bachelor of Fine Art from Queensland College Of Art with First Class Honours from RMIT.
Alrey has exhibited nationally in Australia and has held three solo exhibitions in Brisbane was awarded the studio residency/award at Media Arts Asia Pacific in 2016.
Ceri Hann is a multidisciplinary arts practitioner who develops participatory art forms intended to enhance the conditions for collective idea generation. This approach to practice often avoids categorisation, as the outcomes are intentionally defused in the wonder/wander of everyday life.
The gifting of metaphorical objects to instigate philosophical discourse stems from Ceri’s recently completed PhD research at RMIT, The Making of a Knowledge Casino (2016). The creation of low tech props for treating the urban condition as a 3D movie set were used to enable mutually inspired activities for people that may not consider themselves artists, but may become script writers of their own way to play.
James Perley is an American composer and interactive media artist who lives and works in San Francisco, California, and Berlin, Germany. James’ music compositions examine “Non-strategic Strategies,” an analysis of improvisational techniques in composition and performance while implementing custom-made electronic instruments and controllers.
James has a BA in Audio Arts and Acoustics from Columbia College Chicago, an MFA in Design and Technology from San Francisco Art Institute, and an MFA in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College in Oakland, California. He has studied and collaborated with several distinguished artists and composers including Maggi Payne, Kate Short, Les Stuck, Roscoe Mitchell, John Bischoff, and Maya Smira (Participant in Empire II, Veniza Biennial, 2017).
Daniella Ruffino’s work draws on the urban environment’s impact on the discarded, the broken, the noxious and the ornamental. Recently, Daniella has been exploring the material properties behind the veneer of the urban sprawl culminating in experiments creating homemade concrete out of waste products.
Daniella lives and works in Narrm (Melbourne). Daniella studied Sculpture at the VCA and currently works as a community programs librarian. Daniella's focus is in developing programs and art works that nurture the articulation and communication of creative ideas, which contribute to action in environmental protection, sustainable futures and empower marginalised voices.
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