New York By Peer Review - Jesse Presley Jones

Irish Artist and current fellow at the Location One artspace, Jesse Presley Jones is another peer of Dan Cass, with whom I reviewed New York City.

As far as I could tell, Dan and Jesse met in Coober Pedy while shooting a film that was an adaptation of a Bertolt Brecht play. I have to admit I hadn't heard of Jesse or her art before but the Whisper Choir she conducted in Bucharest looked intriguing.

Jesse had been in New York for about a week - so not really a Phyllis-type experience but a great one nonetheless. An Irish artist, I met her at her Soho studio in the Location One artspace. As I walked in I was greeted by angry Richard Bell art - which was even more pointy taken out of the Australian context and dropped into NYC. It made Australia feel like a silly (racist) pimply teenager.

Anyways, Jesse and I meandered East over toward Bowery and the New Museum.

There's nothing like a gaudy artspace to help bond with an artist. It was the loudest, screechiest, over-done art gallery space I have ever been to in my whole entire life. Though it did give us something to tak about.

It's a pretty controversial space. Though no-one can doubt that it has been beautifully built, the heavy involvement of curators in the process has made the space feel like a five-year old chucking a tanty in a supermarket. The building screams attention and detracts from the works.

This was most offensive on the top floor where there was some great installation video art. But instead of being able to quietly sit-down and watch and attempt to 'get' it, the bloody door kept screeching open for the endless thoroughfare of people trying to get in and out of the room.

Having given-up, we had a coffee and checked-out the book store (which was by far the highlight of the whole experience) - which was kinda cool, Jesse kept pointing out books made by friends of hers and one where she herself featured. Needless to say, I was super impressed.

We headed-out and cruised the Bric-a-Brac, street art and cemetaries. Jesse gave some insight into how New York (calm and well-behaved) compared to Dublin (angry and a bit mental). It was also really interesting meeting an artist who was completely 'normal'. Not a skinny jean, hipster do, abnoxious iconic t-shirt or word of wank at all - it really made me think how freaking weird and pretentious the Sydney art scene actually is.

Can design help save the world? David Berman

I went along to see Dave Berman speak at the AGDA conference "Can Design Help Change the World", these are some of my favourite quotes from from his somewhat hyperactive, but sensational and thought-provoking presentation.

The whole article will be published on Bindarri in the next couple of days.

“ Right now to 4 billion humans, the Internet is just a rumour. But in the next 10 years the majority of humans will have access. But the experience won’t be on a computer screen it will be on the small screen – the truly mobile screen. When we get there, will we use [small screen interactions] to convince larger and larger populations that they don’t really belong in our societies? That they have to be whiter, or taller or smell nicer? Will we use it to ‘trick’ them into buying more stuff they don’t need or will we use it to share ideas that really deserve to be shared?”

In Ghana, where 20% of pharmaceuticals are fake designers have worked with companies to create a labelling system. A parent of a sick child SMSs the product barcode for verification as to whether or not the product is legitimate – “It’s a beautiful, simple communication idea that saves lives.” says Berman.

“The design profession is an old one and we get to choose what its all about. Hoping that most choose to share the faith the world needs – democracy, telecommunications, hope and justice - it’s the stuff the world really needs, not selling more sugar water to children in Africa.”