Leon Cmielewski

Leon Cmielewski's professional and artistic development has progressed through several stages; beginning with cartography moving to graphic design for print, then broadcast design before working as a new media artist exploring animation, computer and web-based installations, video and interactive media.

Leon has established himself as one of Australia's leading new media arts practitioners exhibiting extensively both in Australia and internationally. He has been collaborating off and on for the past decade with artist Josephine Starrs, creating new media work, video and animation. Leon's work comments, in an often playful way, on the relationship society has with technology.

This has taken the form of playful booth-like installations, which allow an individual visitor to experience the work in a public setting but in a private way. For instance in the User Unfriendly Interface and the Paranoid Interface visitors were protected from other viewers watching their use of screen based interactives by housing the screen in sculptural elements that only allowed a single viewer. This permitted more honest (or outrageous) responses. The work itself is often created through the accumulation of responses by multiple participants. For instance in Fuzzy Love people voluntarily photographed themselves and answered questions as a kind of entry fee to access the database of previous respondents, the Poetry Generator collected peoples fears and used them to generate paranoid haiku.

In other work Leon makes direct use of commercial game culture by hacking 3D 'shoot'emup' games. Bio-Tek Kitchen is a game where players are armed with egg flippers and damp dishcloths to defend themselves against genetically modified mutant vegetables.

Leon has always embraced a playful philosophy in his art, positioning the work at a level where interesting issues might be approached in an engaging and unpretentious way. Although commercial games are often portrayed as a negative force in society through their blatant stereotyping and depiction of violence, Leon believes that there is a great deal of room for alternatives which can build on the established language and standards of games to present serious issues in an engaging art form.

Leonwill use his Fellowship to realise his practice in terms of the research and development of a large-scale project. Leon comments:

'I feel the creative process has a cyclical nature and there is a need to reflect and be still as well as act and produce. The Fellowship offers the luxury (or necessity) of the time to do this. It also offers the opportunity to seek out nurturing situations for the work as it develops and allows the work to be subjected to critical opinions from people with varying perspectives'

Leon has been interested in combining his various areas of endeavor into a single project covering animation, cartography, interactive design and information databases. During his Fellowship Leon proposes to make a work that uses these elements to create a series of animated data visualisations of the geographical movements of people around the globe. The visualisations will enable an analysis of the flow of people worldwide, both currently and historically. The ability to manipulate time will be a key feature of the visualisations.

Most large scale movements of humans are triggered by specific events such as coups, revolutions, famines or wars. Leon is interested in comparing these more recent events to the larger historical picture, for example the Javanese transmigration program in the context of the historical waves of invasions that have swept down through the Indonesian archipelago. Or comparing the number of refugees taken by various nations, cross-referenced with those same nations' total population or wealth.

The visualistions will address conceptual, technical and aesthetic challenges, by being both statistically rigorous and aesthetically pleasing, without falling into the common trap of 'eye candy' where the aesthetic impetus overwhelms the information value of the data. Although this activity is potentially a mammoth task, Leon will be using the basis of this concept as a starting point for the work. Exploring and mastering this fundamental area of new media will equip Leon with the skills that will enable him to expand this work into many other areas of investigation. The piece will be exhibited or performed at various stages of development in public spaces locally and overseas.

'I think the Fellowship program is important for artists that have been working consistently for many years, this is a once in a lifetime award and it gives me the opportunity to work on an ambitious program not otherwise achievable, and also allows some time to take stock of the work and look to the future'

During his Fellowship period Leon intends to visit the WAAG: Society of Old and New Media in Amsterdam and Sarai: Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi.

Leon currently lectures in the School of Communications Design and Media at the University of Western Sydney.