marcus westbury

Just how big would the solar system be if you mapped it to scale on the surface of the earth?

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Click on the thumbtacks for planet names and sizes.

The map above was put together after a few too many drinks last new year’s eve. One discussion led to another and before we knew it several of us were half arsedly planning one of the largest guerrilla art projects ever conceived.

Well that’s more or less how i remember it but the memory is a little fuzzy.

The plan was to pile a bunch of us into a van for a long road trip and secretly build a scale model of the solar system across the vast expanse of central Australia. The road that stretches across the Nullarbor plain that connects the east and west coasts of Australia is almost certainly one the few places on earth you could even begin truly see the vastness of the solar system at scale.

The idea at the time was that several of us might do it anonymously but we were thwarted by the logistics of sobering up and realising we would need to build a 240m sun. Somehow.

I’m posting it on the off chance that someone out there might work out how to solve the logistical problems for us. How?

Tags:   Crazy ideas · Public Art7 Comments

I’ve just found out that I’ve failed to secure a Logie nomination for Not Quite Art.

The good folks at ABC TV had apparently put my name forward for the Graham Kennedy award for the “Most Outstanding New Talent.” It is a sign of just how delusional you (ok I!) can quickly become that i’ve managed the full arc of responses from initially thinking “That’s the most ridiculous thing i have ever heard” through to a few variations of “how could i not win? Really?” and even thinking up a few pearler lines for the victory speech. All in the course of about three weeks.

[Read more →]

Tags:   Disapointment · Failure · Logies · Richard Wilkins1 Comment

Following on from previous frustrations, I returned to Newcastle on the weekend.

Returning to Newcastle after any length of time away, the startling thing is just how badly shattered the CBD has actually become. When you live in Newcastle it is easy to become almost blind to the fact that the majority of the two main streets are broken, boarded up, vandalised, empty, derelict and abandoned. You assume that it is normal and inevitable until occasionally some one with fresh eyes sees it and reminds you to look again. Decades of continuing decline has meant that people have become almost oblivious to it.

I spent the weekend doing a little bit of footwork for some future projects that I’m thinking about (more about that below). I walked a loop of the main streets of Newcastle (Hunter and King Streets) and took notes and photos of the buildings that were empty at street level.

The results marked up using Google Maps below paint a devastating picture of the true state of one of Australia’s largest cities.

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Tags:   CBD · Decay · empty spaces · Newcastle · Renewal9 Comments

Apparently not.

I’ve long been advocating a more enlightened approach to liquor licensing in NSW and particularly in my home town of Newcastle. I’m convinced (and convinced i can convince most people) that a more diverse culture (and i mean everything from punk venues to jazz clubs) of drinking, dining, music, art and entertainment is a missing catalyst for the rejuvenation of Newcastle’s CBD. It’s also a big part of the way out of the worst elements of Newcastle’s culture of violent dickheadiness that has been the subject of much debate lately.

Late last year, after years of lobbying and complaining the NSW government finally relented and introduced legislation that allows for smaller cultural bars and performance venues and not just poker machine stuffed binge barns. Both the Raise The Bar campaign and Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore cited an episode of Not Quite Art in their campaign for a saner approach in NSW.

Part of that episode is here.

Now all this meant that I was pretty keen to get something happening. I immediately began doing some groundwork to see if i could put my money where my mouth has been with a plan to get such a place off the ground in Newcastle. After all, it’s not as though it would be hard to find venues with all the vacant real estate.

It turns out that maybe Newcastle is vacant because of the incompetent Real Estate industry?

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Tags:   CBD · empty spaces · Liquor licensing · Newcastle · Not Quite Art · Small bars3 Comments

A new series, Culture Shock, is in the early stages for ABC TV (Australia). All going to plan (which these things rarely do in my limited experience) we should begin filming around around July and the series should air in about October 2008. Yes, I already know that the title is a bad cliché - it was a working title that accidentally stuck.

Below is an extract from a very early draft blurb… [Read more →]

Tags:   ABC TV · ABC1 · Arts · Australia · Culture · Culture Shock · Not Quite Art · TV Series18 Comments

Not Quite Art was my first attempt at writing and presenting a TV series. It was named as one of the best shows on Australian TV in 2007 according to the Sydney Morning Herald and described by The Age as “the freshest, most illuminating, thoughtful and funny locally made arts program in years.”

From the ABC Press Kit:

NOT QUITE ART

The art show that believes there is life outside the galleries.

Host Marcus Westbury, founder of the This is Not Art Festival in Newcastle and the former director of Next Wave Festival in Melbourne takes on a tour of how the art world looks from the other side. [Read more →]

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My contribution to the 2007 Australian Federal Election was to develop and project manage a web site called howshouldivote.com.au. The site allowed each user to enter their postcode and take the same quiz about topical issues as the candidates in their local electorate. The site then compared the users with participating candidates and ranked them in order of preference.

Over half the candidates in the election participated in the survey (despite some incredibly strategically stupid boycotting by the Liberal and National parties). In the two weeks the site was open howshouldivote.com.au generated over 151,000 unique How-To-Vote cards (over 1% of eligible voters in Australia) and over 3 million page impressions on the website.

Howshouldivote.com.au was developed in conjunction with the folks at GetUp! and promoted nationally by Yahoo7.

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In 2006 I directed my second and last Next Wave Festival.

The festival was themed Empire Games and coincided with the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. In parallel Next Wave presented a major Program of Festival Melbourne2006, the cultural program of the Commonwealth Games.

Empire Games, as theme, was both an ironic nod to the Commonwealth Games’ own history and a way to position the festival at the cutting edge of both art form development and contemporary cultural issues. Work for this festival embraced the detail of the city – alleyways, outdoor spaces, bars and more conventional arts settings, as well as new and innovative presentation in regional centres.

For more information about how Next Wave has kicked on without me visit the Next Wave web site.

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In 2004 I took on the gig of Artistic Director and of Melbourne’s Next Wave Festival.

Next Wave is Australia’s leading festival whose brief is to develop the works of young emerging artists and one of Victoria’s handful of major festivals. Next Wave involved coordinating projects involving Australia’s best young artists and most of Victoria’s leading arts institutions.

Theme for the 2004 Festival was Unpopular Culture. The festival consciously moved away from Melbourne’s flashy arts infrastructure and embraced Melbourne’s inner-city laneways, old Dojos and empty buildings. 600 artists participated in 90 projects that attracted massive audiences and showed off the talent of a new generation of Next Wave participants.

For more information about what Next Wave is up to now visit the Next Wave web site.

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Free Play is Australia’s largest independent computer game developer’s event. It took place for the first time in 2004 in a low fi converted former Karate dojo in inner city Melbourne before growing up and moving into the Australian Centre for the Moving Image where it took place again in 2005 and 2007. Free Play caters for independent and DIY game developers, creatively frustrated professionals, game development students, digital artists and new media academics.

Free Play is the game equivalent of hand-held, no budget, lo-fi, 4-track DIY and it’s probably one of the best and most vibrant areas of Australian culture. Free Play began as the result of a shared frustration with Katharine Neil about the inability of independent voices to be taken seriously and gain traction in both the games industry and Australian culture more generally. We put our heads together and came up with the concept of an event that continues to this day.

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