Josephine Starrs

Research

Josephine Starrs has two decades of experience as a media artist; researching, managing, creating and exhibiting projects, and speaking at international conferences on the subject of new technologies and culture. In 2003 she curated a major international Dlux Media Arts event in Sydney, Plaything, which focused on current and future trends in the field of digital games featuring key Australian and international game designers, theorists and artists.

Starrs' art practice focuses primarily on the relatinship between society, the machine and the individual, often using play as a strategy for engaging with the social and political contradictions inherent in contemporary life. A recent project, Seeker, was developed in collaboration with Leon Cmielewski during international residencies at the Waag Society for Old and New Media, Amsterdam and Sarai, New Delhi in 2005-2006. Seeker was first exhibited in Contemporary Commonwealth at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, the flagship exhibition for Festival Melbourne 2006.

Significant Exhibitions

Impact By Degrees, Australian Embassy Gallery, Washington DC, 2009

sms Origins, Federation Square Big Screen Project, Melbourne, 2009

Guangzhou Triennial, Guanzhou, China, 2008

Seeker, three-screened interactive video installation, Artspace, Sydney, 2007; the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and the Experimental Art Foundation, 2006

Floating Territories, using computer game culture as a springboard for exploring real and virtual territory, exhibited at 2nd International New Media Exhibition, Beijing, 2005; and ISEA, Helsinki, 2004

Trace, multimedia installation, Sydney Records Centre, 2002

AKA, short video, European Media Arts Festival European tour, 2002-2003; Sydney Film Festival, 2001

Internal Aliens, photographic and video installation, UFO Strategien Oldenburg, Germany, 2000

Bad Code, CD-ROM, Synworld, Vienna, 1999. Created with VNS Matrix and funded by the Australian Film Commission

User Unfriendly Interface, CD-ROM, Transmediale Media Arts Festival, Berlin, 1997

Diagnostic Tools for the New Millennium, multimedia installation, Kunstlerhaus Bethanian, Berlin, 1997

White, video installation, Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney, 1996

All New Gen, multimedia installation created with VNS Matrix, International Symposium of Electronic Art, Helsinki, 1995

Publications

Starrs, J. Finegan, A. & Cmielewski, L. 2009, 'Meaningful data: Seeker's slowtechnology approach.', Computers in Entertainment, vol.7, no.1, ACM New York, NY, USA ISSN: 1544-3574

Awards & Grants

2009 Australia Council for the Arts/Ars Electronica Artist Residency, Linz, Austria
2008 Australia Council for the Arts: New Work Grant
2007 Ars Electronica Award of Distinction for Seeker
2005 Asialink Residency
2004 Australian Research Council Discovery Grant
1999 Australia Council for the Arts: New Media Fellowship
1998 Australia Council for the Arts: New Media Fellowship
1997 Australia Council Studio Residency, Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin
1993 Australia Council Studio Residency, Greene St, New York

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