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The current work at Conical gallery on Rochester St is an installation of metal sheets with an abstract soundtrack of mechanical noise, voices and abrupt changes in tone and volume. It"s confronting and not particularly enjoyable, and would probably be frightening to small children.

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The opening night of the winter exhibitions at CCP on Thursday 4 June was well attended by people with impressive hairstyles. I realise now how jaded I have become about opening nights when I head for the drinks, grab a glass of wine and nearly steal it before realising that at this launch I have to pay for it. I"ve been spoiled at Gorker and Lamington Drive openings with free drinks. I paid and apologised to the confused woman behind the bar so she did not need to wrestle me to the ground.

The best work now showing at CCP is a video triptych called "Folly" by Arlo Mountford. The work is a computer animated re-interpretation of three paintings by sixteenth-century Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder. It shows three scenes of rural life in a pre-industrial setting and is quite beautiful in its naive movement and delicate colouring....Read Full Article»

North Melbourne is a residential, commercial and industrial suburb immediately north-west of central Melbourne. It is often associated with West Melbourne (in which is situated the North Melbourne railway yards), and the boundary between the two is Victoria Street.

In 1842 the first institution of significance erected in the North Melbourne area was a cattle yard at the corner of Elizabeth and Victoria Streets (now the Queen Victoria Market). In 1851 a Benevolent Asylum was built between Abbotsford and Curzon Streets, straddling Victoria Street and thus partly in North Melbourne. The opening of the asylum coincided with the Melbourne Town Council's overtures for a new township to accommodate the gold-rush population influx. A site for the township was found by severance from an open-space reserve of 1,035 ha. that had been approved by the Governor of New South Wales in 1845. The result was a smaller reserve - now Royal Park - and a township called Parkside which now comprises North and West Melbourne. Town allotments were put up for sale in September, 1852....Read Full Article»