Thursday February 25
Format started as a faux-literature festival, hence the bland name. I stuck with it for the 2009 festival because I figured it was easier to get money out of literature boards if you had a pretty dull and non-threatening name. On the other hand, whilst it had a ‘Pro' name it has remained essentially a DIY festival. You can tell we've ‘stayed true to our roots' because I still have a pretty entrenched phobia we're going to get shut down within the first couple of days.
This is my last year running Format, and I'd like to thank everyone I've worked with for laughing along as I've negotiated various minor catastrophes. I'd love to hand Format over to someone new. You can change the name if you want.
Yours,
Ianto Ware
Director
Format Festival 2008 - 2010.
Issue 015 - "format takes over"
On the site now (It's updated every day!):
LOOK: 'Mythologies'
LOOK: 'Songs To Dance To / Songs To Die To'
READ: Voiceworks #79 Classic
WATCH: WIN A Single Man
Be our fan on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
RSS HERE!
Cover photo by Joel Catchlove. If you would like to submit a cover shot email daniel@rightanglestudio.com.au
Format Guide
Emergent Urbanism
Peak Twins 'Day After Day'
Just Kids, Patti Smith
Royce for Bachelor of the Year!
Nikki Gabriel's knitting patterns
Hey Convict! mix
Operation titstorm
Best roommate ever
Coco Rocha is NOT FAT
Typography for Lawyers
EVERYTHING
Tell us what's cool
cool@threethousand.com.au
Some car race
Entertainment Centre Domeisms
Twin Peaks, every day
Other art majors
Edward Cullen is right here!
Getting smacked down by a slattern
Pants with dicks
Operation shit signs
Did you pay the Domain bill Trevor?
Roulette is not for cats
Ticket checks for pigeons
Hey, take everything
Tell us what's fool
fool@threethousand.com.au
Neon Pilgrim + Hijack Reality
What:
Neon Pilgrim + Hijack Reality
Who:
Lisa Dempster + Bob and Roberta Smith
Where:
Neon Pilgrim here
This year, there's a couple of books that summarize the whole Format thing:
Neon Pilgrim by Lisa Dempster:
This year I asked Lisa Dempster to run our Academy of Words, which takes the form of a one day mini-festival on March 13th. She wrote a book about the time she was doing that pilgrim's trail in Japan. It is a story of great victories and bitter defeats. The first 50 pages are basically just about her bursting blisters, shitting herself and throwing up a lot. I respect that. I appreciate a writer who has a life first, and produces text second, particularly when that life involves hurling, shitting and walking long distances.
Hijack Reality: A How to Guide to Organize a Really Top Notch Festival by Bob and Roberta Smith:
This is a field guide to running a festival by the people that run Deptford X. Look it up on Google. The best piece of advice is entitled "How To Create an Artist Blacklist". They advise you to throw your lists away regularly "not because people are not bastards, but because list-keeping drives you bonkers".
Format: Book
Genre: Other
Keywords: Format Festival
Format Festival Opening Night
What:
Format Festival Opening Night
Who:
Kitchen's Floor, Batrider, Almost Numan, Terrible Truths
Where:
Format Space, 15 Peel St (off Hindley), City
When:
Sat Feb 27, Formalities 6pm, show starts at 9pm
How Much:
$7
First, a clarification. A couple of weeks ago I suggested that Adelaide indie supergroup Avant Gardeners sounded like the Pixies. In all good conscience I should point out that they do not sound even a bit like the Pixies. Nevertheless, I would wager that every member of the band is a Pixies fan, that every Pixies fan in that crowd thought the show was awesome (in the original sense), and that Avant Gardeners poo all over almost every other gaggle of indie pretenders in this dishwater berg. See? I always tell the truth, even when I lie.
By virtue of similarly rare awesomeness, the following bands avoid Avant Gardener's scornful poo: Brisbane slacker/stoner/lofi-pop sensation Kitchen's Floor; New Zealand smoldering stomp-conjurers Batrider; the gleefully post-punk Terrible Truths (courtesy of former members of Skeletons and All Made of Rubies); and Almost Numan, who'll make all you wet bitches wish you'd never scoffed at the idea of a Gary Numan tribute show reducing a crowd of cynical hipsters to a state of child-like euphoria.
All of the above are playing Opening Night of Format Fest this Saturday. It's all of seven bucks, and there'll be cheap drinks all night.
Genre: Other
Release: Live
Keywords: Format Festival, Avant Gardeners, Almost Numan, Kitchen's Floor
Format Zine & DIY Fair
It's noticeable that most of the people who've ended up working on Format over the past three years - Joel Catchlove, Ianto Ware, Sam Rodgers, Simon Loffer - have all been zine publishers. I think there's something inherent to working in a genre that has no pretence of quality or a career path. It teaches you to take the innocuous and irrelevant seriously. One of my favourite ever zines, Weston Willis' classic Junktown, describes it as follows:
"I try to keep in mind the big picture, that only the luckiest of us will be around for the point when, from then on, we can look forward to more funeral announcements than wedding invitations. And, perhaps, in the absence of the possibility of resisting it, the best you can do is spend some time making something, generate something beyond just your presence in the world. Even better if you can make something and share it, regardless of personal gain. I suppose that's what the idea of DIY is really getting at. That we can create our own geeky little culture, apart from the mainstream swill, a dorky share session for each cutesy little flame that is our own lives."
Location: CBD
Product Type: Market
Format Festival Visual Arts Stream
What:
Format Visual Arts Stream, coordinated by Chloe Langford and Brigid Noone.
Where:
Format Venue, 15 Peel St, City
When:
Format opens Sat Feb 27
Runs until Sun Mar 14.
How Much:
Free
Image:
from the Forest Rooms collection
Coordinating the visual arts part of any festival is inevitably challenging. Brigid and I certainly haven't avoided any of the arts sector hazards. You know, the personality quirks of curators and artists alike, the tricky budgeting of dollars. However - we have attempted to put together a program based around the ideas of "accessibility, and the notion of artists embracing multiple entry points to let friends and strangers into their work". It's really not that easy.
Somehow we have got a wide range of stuff going on. There is a live sewing exhibition, a performance and sound show about death and dancing, and something rather questionable called ‘Cock and Balls'. And if you like your art to sit on a wall, there is plenty of painting and photography too.
Some of the not to be missed shows include; ‘Little Weeds' (curated by Lisa Harms), ‘Let Me In' (the flagship show curated by Brigid and myself) and ‘The Weight of my Consumption' (featuring Brooke Randall, winner of both the Helpmann Sculpture Prize and the Constance Gordon).
Gallery Type: Artist-run
Location: CBD
Medium: Mixed
Keywords: Brigid Noone, Chloe Langford, Brooke Randall, Format Festival
Film Nights at Format
Somewhere in between the endless stream of parties, exhibitions, zine fairs and general off-tap times at Format 2010, we figure everyone might just want to nurse an arts-related hangover on a beanbag with a Coopers Green and some films.
First off we have the Visual Arts Film Night. It's billed as showing films dealing with ‘longing, desire and obsession'. Keep your shirts on, please. Some great local, national and international artists are featured including Daniela Swarowsky, Ray Harris, Danielle Freakley and Sam Songailo. Later that night the Human Rights Film Night will give us a taste of what the May 2010 Human Rights Arts and Film Festival will feature. Street Dreams will be screening the 2006 documentary, Beautiful Losers - the account of a group of DIY artists operating since the 1990s on the street and in galleries.
Oh and yes, we really do have beanbags.
Format: Festival
Genre: Other
Keywords: Format Festival
Street Dreams T-Shirt Party
What:
Street Dreams T-Shirt Party
Where:
FORMAT, 15 Peel St, City
When:
Sat Mar 6, 9pm
Contact:
www.format.net.au/
We've got the goods at Format. Well actually we don't. You see, we're doing that whole DIY schtick. What we do have is a T-Shirt Party, coordinated by the beautiful Format member - Simon Loffler. You've probably heard of him - Loffler has coordinated the Format Street Art program for two years running, was the founder of the infamous Ex-A-Sketch, and is just an all round charming guy.
So do it yourself huh? You could just get yourself down to LAX and buy some trendy illustrated shirt. OR - DIY style - you go to Target, find the cheapest white tee (I suggest Bonds, always a flattering cut), come to Peel St, hunt out the complimentary textas, try and be creative... I know. It sounds like way too much work to me too. Whatever happened to good ol' fashioned consumerism?
Nevertheless, you'll be glad to know that this ‘participatory culture' we promote here at Format means:
a) The beers are only four dollars.
b) If you go to the Art Jam beforehand on Union St, you might be a little excited already from the fumes.
c) When you draw on someone else's shirt, you can sort of touch them up.
Location: CBD
Price: Under $10
Product Type: Clothes
Keywords: Bonds, Street Dreams T-Shirt Party
Format Survival
What:
Surviving Format
Where:
Format and surrounds
When:
Until Mar 14
With all the amazing shit that is happening over the two or more weeks of Format driving you to distraction, you might think it hard to maintain the basic necessities fundamental to sustaining life. Yep, food! But we have some good news straight from the highly scientific Format School For Not Eating Only Drinking and Having a Great Time (FSFNEODHGT).
See, the thing is, Format has pretty much an endless supply of liquids; cheap stubbies, longnecks, wine (ooh la la) from Fox Creek, icy poles and various sugar-hits, and according to medical research, a human can survive without food for about 4-6 weeks.
So, really, there is no problem here. Format runs only for just over two weeks, and eating, as it turns out, isn't vital, as long as you've had you're muesli on the first day of the festival you're gonna be fine. Though, if you do get hungry, head to Jerusalem, try Short Black, Phat Coffee, or get all fancy on Leigh St. Or, if you ask him nicely, Stan might give you some figs.
Location: CBD
Venue Type: Event
Keywords: Format Festival, bear grylls
Street Dreams Walking Tour
What:
Street Dreams Walking Tour
Where:
Starts at Format, 15 Peel St, City
When:
Thurs Mar 4, 6pm
How much:
Free
Bring:
Water
A sly grin slides across my face every time I spy a cleanly buffed wall. It's like a little declaration of war between free art, and the buff. The buff carefully silhouettes the detailed artwork in a subtle shade of beige, being sure to almost but not quite match the tone of the wall, creating the buffs' new art in brutal and chaotic strokes.
But what happens to the lost souls of street art when their beautiful lines are buffed? They're captured in strange little plastic boxes with glass eyes and neck straps.
On Thursday March 4th from 6pm, the Street Dreams crew and their almighty low-emission projector bike plan to unleash the GHOSTS of the streets.
The GHOSTS street art walking tour will take you through the back alleys of Adelaide, retracing the steps of some of the best artists this city has shunned and projecting their lost work onto the cold bare walls.
Ambience: Adventure
Location: Urban
Keywords: Street Dreams, the buff
Format Academy of Words
What:
Format Academy of Words
Where:
Format, 15 Peel St, City
When:
Sat Mar 13, 11am-6pm
Impossible to capture in an 80 word paragraph, here are the session titles (See Format Guide):
- Criticism & Reviewing
- It's All Gone Dave Eggers: The Current State of Literature in Australia
- The Great Zine Explosion
- Mining The Personal
- Non-Paper Publishing
- A Deeper Kind of Anger: The Problems of Metal Music & Culture
- Editorial Agony Aunts
- Literary Activism
- Teen Angst Diary Readings
- Literary Friction
All in one day!
Keywords: Literature, Format
Pash Fights
What:
Pash Fights
Where:
The McKeague Space, Format, 15 Peel St, City
When:
Mon & Tues Mar 1-2
Do you have embarrassingly awkward vanilla sex? Have you ever had a crush on someone for eight years and still never made a move on them? Do you get confused by which way to unravel the condom, EVERY TIME? Then PASH FIGHTS is the sex festival for you. PASH FIGHTS is two nights and two days of awkward people, talking about awkward sex.
Keywords: Format, Pash Fights
Noise Fest
What:
Noise Fest
When:
Thurs Mar 4, 8pm
Where:
Format, 15 Peel St, City
Token Gesture presents a night of noise, drone, electro-acoustic and other exploratory sounds, featuring a swathe of Adelaide's experimental music practitioners performing in solo and group modes. With a veritable smorgasbord of avant artistes playing their wares, it promises to be unlike any other gig on the Festival calendar.
The line-up will feature sets from; Patrick Saracino, Dane Hirsinger, Lenin Simos, Staci Wilson, Daniel Varricchio, InterZone eXpress, Kynan Lawlor & Bitches of Zeus.
Keywords: Format, Noise Fest
This is a DIY and literature fest, so, experience is what we can offer you. After all, experience is arguably more valuable than material possession. Remember that, you'll be happier. This is a two pronged prize.
(1) A date with Stan Mahoney as part of the Pash Fights program on March 1st. If you are lucky you will get to see his totally amazing tattoo. Also, if you are the kind of person who finds being comically insulted romantic you'll find him a doyen of romance. Plus, eventually I'm pretty sure his "entrepreneurial attitude" will make him wildly rich.
(2) Free entry to the show of your choice throughout Format. Although, in return you'll probably have to help us clean up. Given the shows will pretty much certainly sell out, it's worth booking early.
To enter, just answer the following question.
This week's question:
We all love..
(a) Format
(b) Format
(c) Format
(d) (wait for it), Format
Send your answer and mailing address to win@fivethousand.com.au. Winners will be notified by email. Subscriber only entry! Not a subscriber? It's free you willies! Sign up here.
Subscribe to our e-newsletter for weekly updates and exclusive stuff:
Browse our guide to Adelaide by interest
Adelaide Events Calendar
Select a date to see what's on in Adelaide
Browse our guide to Adelaide by keyword
Browse our guide to Adelaide by weekly issue
Working