Background

Since its inception in 1993, Experimenta Media Arts signature journal Mesh has been a leading exponent of artists, writers and theorists working in Australian media arts culture. Mesh has been a critically acclaimed annual flagship of Experimenta's which has not only explored critical, aesthetic and technological issues related to media arts practice and screen culture but has also provided the opportunity for artists, writers and cultural commentators and theorists to increase their profile within Australia and Internationally.

Mesh has documented not only the recent history of Experimenta and its events program, but has been a discursive forum for those working at the forefront of media arts in Australia and abroad. Articles in past editions have dealt with issues central to digital media culture, the ubiquitous Cyberbully and Game Theory, artists involved with Experimenta’s Altered States event, women working in art and technology, reviews of exhibitions and festivals, experimental film practice and much more. The previous edition of Mesh (Mesh 13: Cyberbully) was the first edition be published online.

Editorial Committee

An editorial committee consisting of: Commissioning Editor of Mesh and former Artistic Director of Experimenta, Keely Macarow; Dr Peter Hughes, Lecturer, Media Studies Department, LaTrobe University; Editor, Lisa Gye, Lecturer, Media Studies Department, Swinburne University of Technology and Felicity Colman, Lecturer, New Media Department, Swinburne University of Technology and the Fine Arts Dept, University of Melbourne; commissioned the editorial and refereed content of the publication.

Mesh 14

Mesh 14 explores issues related to globalisation within the context of media arts culture and thus includes issues of major interest to local and international readers/viewers. The 14th edition of Mesh presents a diverse and wide range of critical analysis and overview of Australian and International screen culture and media arts practice in articles, reviews and features on issues, artists and projects which drive media arts culture. This edition was also planned by the organisation to be more of an interactive journal and includes images audio, javascript, animations and dynamic html where appropriate.

Mesh 14 follows on from where Mesh 13: Cyberbully left off. References to the impact of globalisation and the transfer of skills and knowledge between artists in a forever mutating global economy were probed in part in Mesh 13 alongside discussions regarding cyber aggression in the form of the omnipotent cyberbully. For Mesh 14, the theme of Globalisation underpins the content of the journal and the media arts practice and culture that is probed by a diverse range of leading writers based throughout Australia and Internationally. Globalisation and the dominance of global culture over local spheres is shaping up to be one of the major issues of 21st Century culture. The transfer of capital and resources and implementation of global policies by trade bodies and monetary funds such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the International Trade Organisation has led to a global culture whereby nation states are in many respects governed by the economic policies of these chief lending and trading organisations and the richest, most technically developed and resourced nations based in the Northern Hemisphere.

The question is how do media arts practitioners and cultural workers figure in the new global economy? Are the transfer of media arts skills penetrating arts practice on a global scale? Are media artists embracing the tenets of globalisation in their practice, or are they using their practice and networks to disect, resist and re-work the dictates of globalisation and a homogenised global media culture. And how do media artists work in and around cultural institutions in Australia and abroad in this global cultural context. A broad range of features investigating innovative media arts projects in Australia and internationally will be juxtaposed alongside critical discussions about cultural, artistic and technological issues connected to media arts culture.

This edition also sees Mesh develop into a partially referred journal which means that those working in the University system can submit articles to Mesh to be refereed by specialists in the area covered by the article.  

No.2, Summer, 1993  My Memory Your Past:Interview with Moira Corby by Lisa Logan Within the Crystal Palace: City Screens & Metrodome by Steven Ball Little Statues for our Loungeroom: an interview with Arf Arf by Vikki Riley Tracey Moffatt retrospective by Penny Webb

No.3, Autumn, 1994 Pollination by Julie Clarke Facing the 90's:Fringe Film & Video work and it’s avant garde status by Barrett Hodsdon Gamegirls:Women working with new imaging technologies by Jyanni Steffensen Nothing if not Full-On: The S-Thetix of Cyberdada films by David Cox Paula Dawson:The Secret of Happiness by Brecon Walsh QED Choose Film: Cine Bohemio by Steven Ball

No.5, Autumn, 1995 Michael Snow by Peter Mudie The AFC Conference: Narrative & Interactivity by Kevin Murray Linda Dement and Brad Miller by Heather Barton Creative Nation by Barbara Allen

No.6, Winter, 1995 Lets go AIMIA: review of Australasian Interactive Multimedia Industry Association conference by Dave Sag Would you like to make love to a stick figure? Academic & performance artist Dr Sandy Stone by Julie Clarke “look it’s drinking the water!” It’s increasingly difficult to “draw a line” between good & bad digital art these days by Chris Gregory Digital Wombs, Male Phantasms & Female Embodiment by Ross Moore

No. 7, Summer, 1995 The Gardening Program, The Phenomenon of the Electronic Garden by Jane Goodall Paradise Lost? The Avant-Garde & Reprising the “Primitive Movement” of Early Cinema by Barrett Hodsdon Ubu Films’ 30th Anniversary Beginnings of Australian cinema’s avant-garde by Peter Mudie A Virtual Q & A The Virtualities exhibition raises questions on the meaning of the reception for interactive art by Jun-Ann Lam 1995 ISEA Conference by Mike Leggett

No.8/9, Autumn/Winter 1996, Special issue, “Robotica” Microscope Phakometre/ Epanaphorascope Phlatergometre by Peter Morse The Information Processing Unit: Robots & Artifcal Intelligence by Ann Morrisson Prosthetic Aesthetics: performing the cyborg body by Laura Mc Gough New Roborts Cyborgs, Softbots & Avatars by Kathy Cleland Mapping the Code Artists Concieving Data-Bodies by Zara Stanhope Fembots Sexy Home Appliances by Jyanni Steffensen Making Robots: An Interview with Ron Newson from Showtronix by Kathy Cleland and David Cranswick Marion Harper: Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne by Helen Stuckey Joy Saunders: First Draft, Sydney by Alex Gawronski Patricia Piccinini- Alison Main: Contemporary Art Centre Adelaide by Suzanne Triester Stelarc: Artspace, Sydney by Brecon Walsh Digital Primate: Stop 22, Melbourne by Anna Clabburn Nothing Natural: Basement Gallery, Melbourne by Anna Clabburn Digital Aesthetics One: Ivan Dogherty, Sydney by Cindy Lee Urban Exile: Online Gallery by Werner Hammerstingl Cybercultures: The Performance Space, Sydney by Ann Morrisson I.C.U by Peter Hennessy: The Basement Gallery, Melbourne by Rosemary Burn

No. 10, 1996, fifth experimenta media arts festival issue Your Place of Mine? by Darren Tofts MESH interviews Peter Handsaker by the director of experimenta media arts festival 1996 Strangled by an Intestine a general prolegomenon on Guy Maddin by Darren Wershler-Henry Silver Delirium/Crimes & Confessions by Marie Craven Stan Brakhage Retrospective by Peter Mudie To See Through Soiled Eyes; Richard Kern by Lance Sinclair CD-ROM the 21st Century Bronze by Mike Leggett Listening as Performance The Reflective Space by Lawrence Harvey women@art.technology.au supplement Australian Women Artists and New Media Technologies by Kathy Cleland Interactivity, Intersubjectivity and the Artwork/Network by Zoë Sofoulis Sound, Electricity & Women by Deborah Durie Domestic Disturbance by Shiralee Saul Martine Corompt’s Cute Machines by Helen Stuckey Jun-Ann Lam’s North East South West- The Yellow Peril Virus by Lisa Daniel Alison Main’s Techno-Grammer by Bala Starr Sarah Waterson’s Mapping E~Motion by Zoë Sofoulis The Body Remembers by Zara Stanhope Re-possessing the Body by Josephine Grieve

No. 11, 1997, “altered states” Psychotic Reactions: Why we are not Sirius by Helen Stuckey Transcendence in Cyberspace: Of virtual and other realities by Deborah Drurie. Troy Innocent: Memespace by Darren Tofts Tim Gruchy: Synthing by Shiralee Saul Lindsay Colborne: Serendipity and the road to happiness by Emily Clarke Consciousness Reframed: Art and consciousness in the post-biological era by Taylor Nuttall The Digital Mirror Stage: Or the pixelated gaze by Kurt Brereton Altered States: Metamorphosis and cyberbole by Shiralee Saul Jon McCormack: Turbulence an interactive museum of unnatural history Tina Gonsalvas: Process of becoming by Jane Leonard Rebecca Young: Are you happy yet? by Christine Adams When Meme Meets Gene: Mindflux, mutagen and the virtual replicators by Belinda Barnet Techno-utopianism in Video Art and the Digital New Media: from the ‘psychedelic’ Sixties to the ‘cyberdelic’ Nineties by John Conomos The Art of Dance by Benjamin Brady Norie Neumark’s Shock in the Ear by Mike Leggett Psy Harmonic’s Psy Visions by Jackie Cooper Drome by Helen Stuckey Dorian Dowse: OmTipi Off the Rails: Introduction to a speculative history of mental imagery in cinema by Adrian Martin Browsing MOO-Media by Ann Morrison Towards a Mass Psychology of the Net by Geert Lovink From the Inside Out:Isabelle Delmottes’s Epileptograph: the Internal Journey by Kathy Cleland Naomi Herzog: Playing in Mined Feelds by Amanda King pH7.2 - Watchtower by Peter Hennessey Christopher Langton: PVC satire by Chris Gregory The Art of Speed by D.J Huppatz Foreword: Writing in, writing on (a work in progress) by Adrian Miles Bad Mojo by Ian Haig Escape Velocity: Company in Space by Sophie Hansen Mark Dundon: U-boats, aeroplanes and cruel seas by Helen Stuckey Trick or Treat: An installation by Martine Corompt, Ian Haig & Phillip Samartzis by Dominic Redfern William Yang & the North by Tracey Benson Cyber Cultures by Ann Morrison Trophies of Sickness: An installation by Emily Clarke by Suzy Morton Big Banana Time Inc.: Tracey Benson’s Uncanny Australia by Kimberly Miller

No.12, 1998/99, Game TheoryEmergent Culture by Paul Brown Un Autre Coup de Des. Multimedia and the Game Paradigm by Darren Tofts Audience Participation by Ian Haig Whose Game by Dirk de Bruyn Slots of Fun by Laurens Tan Up the snakes and down the ladders by Steven Ball Art Scratchy: Spend the rest of your life by Kurt Brereton Eye Fly Triangular by Paul Rodgers The Prize is Right by Amanda King The New Abstraction by David Cox Anagrammatology by Lisa Gye Body Status by Julie Clarke The Y2K Problem: Donna Haraway and the modest witness by DX Raiden & Dominic Pettmen Reviews: ISEA97 by Norie Neumark Self Remembering- Home by Werner Hammerstingl Macbeth Project by Dr Edward Scheer