ABOUT

ALISON BENNETT: SELECTED CURRICULUM VITAE

My broader practice is situated in ‘expanded photography’ where the boundaries have shifted in the transition to digital media and become diffused into ubiquitous computing. Creative projects have tested the creative and discursive potentials of augmented reality, photogrammetry, 3D scanning, point clouds, virtual reality and webXR as encompassed by the medium and practice of photography.  As a neuroqueer new-media artist, I have explored the performance and technology of gender identity and considered the convergence of biological and digital skin as virtual prosthesis.

My work has been shown at international venues such as Musée du Louvre, Kunstmuseum Bonn, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and featured on ABC TV Australian Story, the New York Times, Mashable, The Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, Motherboard, The Creators Project, ABC TV News, Artlink and The Guardian.

I am a founding member of the QueerTech.io artist collective and have served on a number of development panels for the Midsumma Festival. In 2021 I was a member of the Digital Advisory Group of the Australia Council for the Arts, the Australian Government’s arts funding and advisory body. I work as a senior lecturer in photography at RMIT School of Art where I am the associate dean (photography).

  • Interviewed in 2022 by Alasdair Foster for Talking Pictures, (queering the paradigm) Bennett proposed that “We are shifting from knowing the world through photographs to finding ourselves enmeshed within the architecture of the image.”

TERTIARY QUALIFICATIONS:

  • Creative practice research PhD 2017, Deakin University Motion Lab
  • Master of Fine Art by research 2009, Monash University
  • Graduate Diploma (Information Management) 1993 RMIT
  • Graduate Diploma (Cultural Heritage Management) 1991, University of Canberra
  • Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts) 1989, UNSW College of Fine Arts

CREATIVE PROJECTS

2024 execute_photography [curator]

  • RMIT Gallery 1 Mar – 5 May 2024 for PHOTO 2024

2023 SubMerge, anaglyph video installation

  • ‘sensorial’, Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, 16 Sep – 12 Nov 2023,

2022 VEGETAL/DIGITAL, photogrammetry point-clouds

  • ‘vegetal/digital’, Verge Gallery, University of Sydney, 13 Jan – 4 Feb 2022
  • ‘Conscious Projections’, Artspace at Realm, City of Maroondah, 26 Mar – 22 May 2022
  • ‘vegetal/digital’ curated by the Centre for Projection Art for Yarra City Council’s Garden State Festival. Data-projection visible from Otter Street Collingwood, 29 Apr – 1 May 2022
  • ‘Levels of Life: Photography, Imaging and the Vertical Perspective’, a trans-disciplinary conference and exhibition investigating images on the vertical axis, Photography Program at London College of Communication, The Photographers’ Gallery, and The Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at London South Bank University, 30 Jun – 2 Jul 2022
  • ‘Postworld’, North Australian Festival of Arts, Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts, Townsville Queensland, 15 Jul – 21 Aug 2022
  • ‘vegetal/digital’, MARS Gallery, Melbourne, 31 Aug – 17 Sept 2022. Floor talk 4pm Sat 17 Sept
  • ‘Seed Systems: Speculative Ecologies in XR Art’, SOMA Art Space, Berlin, 9 – 30 Sept 2022 & MUTEK Mexico Nov 2022
  • ‘Unashamed’, The Concourse, 16 Feb – 6 Mar 2023, World Pride Festival, Sydney
  • ‘The strange microcosmic lab of Oumpalous’, Cube Garges, Paris, 1 – 18 May 2023 as part of ISEA2023
  • ‘vegetal/digital’ in Psych.e, organised by 36 degrés and Galerie Charlot, Paris, 6-18 June as part of the International Symposium on Electronic Art 2023
  • ‘Bowness Photography Prize‘, Museum of Australian Photography, 21 Sep – 12 Nov 2023
  • ‘Weather/Whether’, Wyndham Art Gallery, 9 Nov 2023 – 7 Jan 2024

2021, ‘INSIDE ELANDS’, photogrammetry point-clouds

  • ‘Inside Elands’, curated by Dr Una Rey, The Lock Up, Newcastle, 16 Apr – 30 May 2021
  • Review by Keri Glastonbury in Artlink July 2021

2020, ‘Bowen Street Point Cloud‘, webXR

  • collaboration with Dr Yazid Nilsalam, commissioned by RMIT Creative Student Life

2020, ‘BLOSSOM SPHERES’, photogrammetry point-cloud webXR

  • ‘FastLab Biomes Performance Experiment’, curated by Dr Rewa Wright in Ars Electronica Kepler’s Garden, Austria, 9-13 September 2020
  • ‘A Strange Space’, the Centre for Projection Art and the 2021 Midsumma Festival, Collingwood Yards, Melbourne, 22-25 April 2021

2020, ‘Tinning Street Experiment’, photogrammetry model in webXR

2020, The Image Looks Back

  • exhibition curated by Dr Alison Bennett, Associate Professor Shane Hulbert, Dr Rebecca Najdownski, & Professor Daniel Palmer, RMIT Gallery for PHOTO FESTIVAL

2019, SKIN: neuroqueer entanglement’, moving image loop, commissioned by Melbourne Fringe

  • Federation Square Digital Façade, Melbourne Fringe Festival, 12-29 Sept 2019
  • ‘Epicentre’, curated by systaime & David Quiles Guillo for the wrong new digital art biennale, Centre del Carme Cultura Contemporània Valencia, 1 Nov 2019 – 1 Mar 2020
  • ‘Neuroqueer’ interview for QR Code podcast, 3CR
  • Interview with Fareed Kaviani about the SKIN project, ‘Neuroqueer and tattoos: entangled and disembodied‘, Archer Magazine 12 Nov 2019

2017, ‘I am looking in a room’, four channel video loop data-projection

  • West Projections Festival (commission), Trocadero Gallery Studio Windows, 11 – 27 Aug 2017

2017, ‘muliebrity: the female gaze’, 3d anaglyph video loop, commissioned by Kingston Arts for Midsumma Festival

2016, ‘Reworlding (Elizabeth)’, online interactive collaborative work made by Bennett, Penn, Martino & Royal

2016, Virtual Drag: serving VR realness, virtual reality artwork made with Megan Beckwith & Mark Payne, supported by The Australia Council for the Arts

2014, INVERTO, 24 photographs taken monthly over two years

  • project website inverto.me
  • Featured on ABC TV Australian Story ‘From Daddy’s Tummy’ & international viral media coverage including New York Times. Inverto #19 won the CCP Salon Portraiture prize & was included in the Guardian’s best Australian photographs of 2015.
  • Out is Out, curated by Megan Evans & Caroline Esbenshade for Midsumma Festival, Wyndham Art Gallery, 6 February – 8 March 2020
  • Incinerator Art Award: Art for Social Change award, Incinerator Gallery, 13 Oct – 25 Nov 2018
  • QUEERTECH.IO = ART(URL, IRL); Midsumma Melbourne, Melt Festival, Sydney Gay & Lesbian Festival, & BLINDSIDE Play on FedTV, 15 Jan – 30 Mar 2017
  • muliebrity & other collaborations, Kingston Arts Centre, 20 Jan – 25 Feb 2017 (solo exhibition)
  • Homeostatis Lab, The Wrong New Digital Art Biennale, 1 Nov 2015 – 31 Jan 2016
  • Salon, Centre for Contemporary Photography, portraiture award, Dec 2015
  • Gendered Perspectives: an investigation into contemporary identities, Harman Centre Gallery, Bradley University, Chicago IL USA, 19 Nov – 10 Dec 2015
  • FILE Electronic Language International Festival, Brazil, Jun – Jul 2015
  • Midsumma Testing Grounds, 29 Jan – 8 Feb 2015 (solo exhibition)
  • Forever Now launch, MONA FOMA, http://forevernow.me & broadcast into space, 18 Jan 2015

2013, Shifting Skin, giclee prints with augmented reality overlay.

More projects, exhibitions and events HERE

REVIEWS/WORDS/PRESENTATIONS:

GRANTS & AWARDS

  • Bennett, A 2018, ‘Lain’, shortlisted for Bowness Photography Prize, Monash Gallery of Art, 29 Sep – 18 Nov 2018
  • Bennett, A 2014, ‘Inverto’, shortlisted for Incinerator Art Award: Art for Social Change, Incinerator Gallery, 13 Oct – 25 Nov 2018
  • Bennett, A et al 2016, ‘Reworlding (Elizabeth)’, online interactive collaborative work, Salon, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, 25 Nov – 17 Dec 2016, Innovative Use of Digital Media award, < http://reworlding.xyz/ >.
  • Bennett, A 2016, ‘Orb’ [virtual reality headset & online], finalist in Australia Post Art Prize, 69 Smith Street Gallery, Jan 2016.
  • Bennett, A & Kearns, AJ 2015, ‘Inverto #19’ [photographic print], winner of the Centre for Contemporary Photography Salon portraiture prize, 27 Nov – 19 Dec 2015.
  • Bennett, Beckwith & Payne 2015, ‘Virtual Drag’, funded by Australia Council for the Arts Emerging & Experimental Art Panel.
  • Bennett, A & McCormick, J 20012, ‘Borrowed Body’, finalist in Pause Festival Connect Competition.
  • Bennett, A 2012, Australian Post Graduate Award for PhD research.
  • Bennett, A 2008, ‘Caving In’ [aka ‘Cavity’], funded by Arts Victoria Arts Development grant.
  • Bennett, A 2008, Artists-in-Schools project, Arts Victoria.
  • Bennett, A 2007, [photographic print], runner up in Julie Millowick Acquisitive Photographic Prize, Castlemaine Festival.
  • Bennett, A 1997, Hong Kong Asialink Arts Residency. Research published as ‘Hong Kong report’ Art Asia Pacific, issue 19, 1998, pp.36-37; ‘One Country, Two Systems? A 1997 Asialink residency’, Museum National, vol.6 no.4 May 1998, pp.19-20.

COLLECTIONS

  • Deakin University Art Gallery – a university collection
  • National Museum of Australia (commission) – a national public collection
  • Historic Houses Trust of NSW – a state public collection
  • City of Greater Geelong – a regional public collection
  • Private collections

EMPLOYMENT

  • Lecturer in photography, RMIT University, April 2017 – present
  • Lecturer (history & theory of photography), Deakin College, 2015 – present.
  • PhD Creative Practice Researcher, Deakin University Motion Lab 2012-2016, undertaking creative practice PhD.
  • ERA Officer, Faculty of Arts & Education, Deakin University, facilitating the faculty Excellence in Research for Australia submission to the Australian Research Council Nov 2011 – Mar 2012.
  • Unit Coordinator & Tutor, ACM202 Advanced Digital Imaging, Deakin University 2012-2016. Unit focus on workflow, non-destructive editing, emphasize core concepts over ‘recipes’, particular focus on the implications of internet based visual culture, content extension blog in addition to maintaining unit content on Cloud Deakin. “Being able to learn from and work with people like Alison Bennett was incredible. Her photography is amazing, and her exhibition at the Deakin Gallery was incredible.”
  • Associate Lecturer in Photography, Deakin University 2010-2011 (contract covering maternity leave). Unit Chair of ACM102: Pixel to Print. Substantially updated unit to include DSLR, RAW files and non-destructive editing; and introduced a required reading list covering technical, historical and theoretical contexts. Designed new second year advanced digital photography unit ACM202, including assignment briefs, tutorial program, required reading and lecture content.
  • Tutor & guest lecturer in digital images and screen culture: Australian Academy of Design, Deakin University and NMIT 2009.
  • Visitor Services, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, 2005-2010.
  • Curator of Frames of Reference: photographing Hill End, Bathurst Regional Art Gallery 2005.
  • Manager of NPWS volunteer guides, Craigmoor House, Hill End NSW 2003.
  • Cultural Planner, City of Bathurst, 2002.
  • Acting Visual Arts program manager, Asialink, 2000.
  • Contract curator for the Victorian Centre for the Conservation of Cultural Materials, 1999-2001.
  • Asialink residency, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1997.
  • Program Officer / Program Manager, Craft Victoria, 1993-1998.
  • Intern, Art Museums Association of Australia, with Susan Abasa & Louise Pether. Co-author ‘The Money & The Means’, 1992.
  • Intern, National Gallery of Australia, working with Helen Ennis & Michael Brand, 1991.