IDEAS

Occupied territory

Artistic director Brett Sheehy says the theme of the Melbourne International Arts Festival’s visual arts program celebrates one of the things he loves most about Melbourne: the built environment. “I settled on the spaces we occupy,” he says. “Interiors, dwellings, shelters and homes.” Here are five highlights of the line-up. »

Running from the razor gangs

Roaming the streets of Darlinghurst on a desperate search for booze sounds like something we might all have done at some stage. This time around, however, there's help at hand from infamous locals of the 1920s via a video GPS device. »

Heads up – five diary dates for Sydney Design 09

While the Sydney Design 09 festival (1–16 August) is still more than a month away,here are five important dates to consider for your diary. »

Prick up your ears for Liquid Architecture

Sydney’s cavalcade of festivals just keeps on coming. Hot on the heels of the Sydney Writers’ Festival, the Sydney Film Festival, the inaugural Creative Sydney and Brian Eno’s Luminous festival comes Liquid Architecture, a four-day event devoted to sound. Now in its 10th year, Liquid Architecture brings together music, sound art, noise and other listening... »

Two ideas that will change the way we read

Two new pieces of technology are about to change the way readers can have words delivered to them. The first was demonstrated during Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference keynote address this morning. The Iceberg Reader, by ScrollMotion, brings an experience similar to Amazon’s Kindle reader to users of the Apple iPhone and iPod touch, with the... »

A year away: The Beauty of Distance

Cai Guo-Qiang The exhibition concept for next year’s Sydney Biennale was announced today: “The Beauty of Distance: Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age”. Artistic director David Elliot explains: “Distance allows us to be ourselves despite the many capacities we share. We are all the same, yet different, and it is our differences that make us... »