Catsidhe

Since my return from China and, as a decidedly non-artistic introduction, a version of my post on visiting the Wuxi supercomputing centre has been published on the Wuxi city website. However, aside from that, my non-work, non-academic time has been almost entirely focused on artistic experiences this week, including one movie, two comedy shows, and three gallery visits. The movie was with Nitul to see "Project Hail Mary", a high-stakes alien-contact film with drama, feel-good vibes, and probably a lot of explanatory lore behind the scenes. It was quite good, but rather overrated. The following evening I spent with Robbie K., and we took the opportunity to go to Hamer Hall to see Daniel Sloss perform his latest show, "Bitter"; and he has good reasons for that sentiment. He certainly delivers insightful content with natural talent, creativity, and sincerity, and that's what makes him a great artist.

Nitul and I caught up again the following night for the opening night of German artist Julius von Bismarck presenting his multimedia and installation pieces with a climatological edge, "This is Not The Storm" partly sponsored by the Goethe-Institut. The place was packed to the rafters, but I did get to talk with my old uni friend and author, Claire Coleman, whom I hadn't seen in twenty years. Today I decided to go back to the exhibition, hoping for a quieter visit, only to discover the artist was giving an explanatory tour of their works. This time, I managed to get a pretty thorough conversation in about climatological issues, Antarctica, and Zurich, and, curiously, I foresee future collaborations.

Further, B is visiting from interstate and last night we went to the comedy festival show, "Nosferatu Looking For Love" at the Motley Wherehouse (reminds me of a place in Sydney I used to frequent), also meeting up with Erica, Chiara, and Susie. The show was delightfully corny, as expected, and there was plentiful engagement with the small audience. I honestly don't care for much comedy, but the two scales of events this week, Rhiannon McCall and Daniel Sloss, were both very enjoyable experiences. Today we caught up again, this time to visit the basement beneath the State Library and to see the current exhibit, Rebel Heart; the latter is certainly worthwhile.

It has all been quite an exciting week, and it furthers my considered assessment that artistry, screening out the lack of context, depends very much on the creativity, talent, and sincerity of the artist, with the latter, the ethical component, often quite overlooked. I would rather discuss this matter a lot more, but alas, I will have to leave that for another day. As others prepare themselves for the rest of the weekend, I have to cloister myself to catch up with various climatological research, which I have fallen behind a little. But that will certainly make the bulk of the next post.