interview by Simon Sellars Originally published on ballardian.com, 7 October 2005. Isabelle Jenniches, originally from Germany, is a multimedia artist now based in California. With collaborator Stefan Kunzmann she staged a theatre adaptation of JG Ballard’s novel Concrete Island at the Theater de Balie, Amsterdam, in 2002. The performance incorporated aspects of Butoh as well [...]

Allan and Kevin. Photo courtesy Age newspaper. In 2006 SBS television produced a documentary series based on the Age newspaper’s ‘Two of Us’ column. I was very flattered that my contribution, below, was the only Melbourne story to be filmed. Interviews by Simon Sellars ‘The Two of Us: Kevin Brophy and Allan Martin’. Originally published [...]

by Simon Sellars ‘Free Radicals’. Originally published in The Big Issue, #228, May 2005. It was quite a sight to watch sibling activists Jeff and Jill Sparrow launch their latest book recently. I wanted to chat to Jeff after his rousing speech but the path was blocked by a massed wedge of grannies, groovers, suits [...]

interview by Simon Sellars Originally published on Sleepy Brain, 25 October 2004. Newton Armstrong is a composer/performer, ex of Melbourne, now ensconced in research at Princeton University in the US. His recent project for kids, SPACE MONKEYS, focused on interaction design and performance. It involves rethinking and reconfiguring generic game controllers as tools for facilitating [...]

photo: Michael Shaw interview by Simon Sellars Originally published on Sleepy Brain, 5 September 2004. Melanie Chilianis, a Melbourne flautist, has sallied forth in recent times with a successful union between the instrument she made her name with, the flute, and technological mixes, patches and crunchy electronic treatments. Melanie has an honours degree in music [...]

Jonathan Nix, ‘Hello’ by Simon Sellars ‘The Intricate Making of Animators’. Originally published in RealTime magazine, Aug-Sep 2004. Australian animators are a hardy mob. Working in an industry that’s noticeably cramped, they are largely under resourced and mostly undervalued. I recently talked to a range of animators from around the country who have had one [...]

Lawrence English & Philip Samartzis, LA4, 2003 by Simon Sellars ‘Watching While You Sleep’ by Simon Sellars. Originally published on the Liquid Architecture website, July 2004. Melbourne’s festival of sound art, Liquid Architecture, originated in 2000 at RMIT University, when RMIT’s Union Arts offered the ((tRansMIT)) student sound collective the chance to stage a festival [...]

by Simon Sellars ‘The Making of a Tasmanian Film Industry’. Originally published in RealTime magazine #61, Jun-Jul 2004. In RT58, I interviewed a group of Melbourne directors and producers about the environmental factors that influence their films. Besides the weather, the main aspect cited was Melbourne’s distance from Sydney: geographically and financially (most of the [...]

interview by Simon Sellars Originally published on Sleepy Brain, 11 May 2004. Recently I was in Amsterdam on a writing assignment. I hadn’t been there for years and I had the usual backpacker’s memory of the place: hash, beer, Red Light District, canals…all the old cliches. This time around, however, I gained a deeper understanding [...]