1000 £ Bend Planting Project

The crew at 1000 £ Bend have added a touch of greenhouse heaven to their pokey smoking room. They cherry-picked particular plants to cater for non-smokers who are sitting with their chimneys. For example, The Spider Plants remove carbon monoxide from the air, as does the Maidenhair Fern. And tomatoes were selected because there are scientific studies that prove cigarette smoke increases their growth. They orchestrated a watering system that would harness the rain caught in the drainpipe and pass through the inside of the smoking room, eventually watering the plants. So, if it's raining outside, it's probably raining inside too.

Contact 1000 £ Bend if you are interested in giving other plants a try. Green thumbs are welcome.

Speakeasy Cinema

The Universe of Keith Haring
The breadth of Keith Haring's artistic achievements is mind-boggling. His fame began when he worked outside the art gallery walls; he'd paint in the downtown streets, subways, clubs and former dance halls. Fellow artists Kenny Scharf and Jean-Michel Basquiat were his pals. He began a flowering art community and caught the public's eye for the rest of his career. Haring became internationally renowned for his young-at-heart ideas, simple design and direct, clear-cut messages — his art was truly made for the public. Having garnered worldwide recognition, he founded the Keith Haring Foundation in 1989, providing funding and imagery to AIDS organisations including children's programs; he had been diagnosed himself with AIDS the year before. The Universe of Keith Haring is a deeply affecting film that captures the work and life of one of the world's most important artists.
Sunday 1st November, 8pm

Obscene
Barney Rosset was a literary revolutionary. At the helm of publishing house Grove Press and magazine Evergreen Review, Rosset barracked to print the uncensored versions of many controversial novels including Lady Chatterley's Lover, Tropic of Cancer and Naked Lunch. There's nothing obscene about Obscene, per se, but it does explore censorship, the social context of his novels and the motives behind many 21st century literary greats. Featured in the film are Amiri Baraka, Lenny Bruce, William S. Burroughs, Jim Carrol, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Al Goldstein, Erica Jong, ray Manzarek, Michael McClure, Henry Miller, John Rechy, Ed Sanders, Gore Vidal, John Waters and Malcom X. If you like books, even a little bit, Obscene is a must-see. Rosset was one unapologetic literary maverick, and without him you probably wouldn't be cool.
Monday 2nd November, 8pm

Beautiful Losers
Speakeasy Cinema launches this month with Aaron Rose's documentary Beautiful Losers, a portrait of the former nerds, freaks and outsiders who gathered around New York's Alleged Gallery in the '90s and became accidental art-stars. Rooted in the DIY worlds of skate, surf, punk, hip hop & graffiti, they developed their craft with almost no influence from the establishment art world - but their influence is felt all throughout pop culture today. You might recognise names like Shepard Fairey (the Obey Giant series) and Stephen 'ESPO' Powers, the graphic design and advertising skews made by Mike Mills and Geoff McFetridge, Harmony Korine's wacko filmography, or the arresting naivety behind Chris Johanson, Margaret Kilgallen and Barry McGee's particular styles – but if you don't know the names you'll probably recognise their work. If that's not enough to get you there, the soundtrack was scored by Money Mark.
Friday 6th November, 8pm

During Anode, Speakeasy and 1000 £ Bend are offering a super deluxe meal and movie special. Choose between a gourmet roo or saganaki burger and either a glass of wine or a bottle of beer to suck on while you watch the film. For a clean $20 (pre-sale) /$25 (at the door), we challenge you to find a cheaper date with the kind of cache eating off a beanbag lap-tray will give you.

Find Speakeasy Cinema upstairs at 1000 £ Bend.
Tickets available through Moshtix at www.moshtix.com.au, 1300 GET TIX (438 849), on your mobile www.moshtix.mobi and all moshtix outlets.

"You make an incision in the front of the head," explains Julia deVille, holding a stiff, glassy-eyed bird, "and cut the back of its neck so you can pull its brains out." The New Zealand ex-pat's work blends two painstaking practices: jewellery-making and the bloody craft of taxidermy. "I'm an obsessive person. Millimetres are so important when you're making jewellery; it's all so detailed, so tiny." DeVille is not like most taxidermists. In her seven years of work, she's only had one piece of hate mail, from a Romanian girl who later apologised after learning more about her methods. DeVille only works with animals that have died of natural causes. Her friends have donated mice, rabbits, even a stillborn puppy.

Twenty by thirty: Julia Deville

She is a vegetarian, an animal rights activist, and she vehemently opposes traditional trophy hunting, in which animals are killed just as souvenirs. She remembers a documentary on taxidermists preparing for the world championships: "There was this guy who had gone on safari to South Africa to shoot a leopard but he got a lion instead and he was genuinely disappointed. It made me really upset." DeVille's jewellery label, Disce Mori (Latin for "learn to die") is a collection of bejewelled mouse brooches, mourning rings and jet beads. "If you can be aware of your mortality, you can appreciate your own life", deVille says. These beliefs are translated when considering her death, too. When she dies, her body will be sent to the Institute of Plastination, where it will be injected with polymer and boiled in acetone for preservation. "Every now and then I'm sent forms asking me, 'How would you feel about being sold as an artwork? How would you feel about being half-horse half-person, or in a sexual position?' And I say yes to everything."

Julia deVille bumps into the tiniest gallery in Melbourne, TwentybyThirty, Pushka front window, 20 Pesgrave Place, Melbourne, Saturday 1st November
www.twentybythirtygallery.com

Bicycle Film Festival

For this year's Bicycle Film Festival video trailer, the supremely cool Italian-born Marco Mucig of Snowgroup put cyclists in big cardboard boxes and made them ride around. No doubt making the ad was highly amusing – but most of all, it's damn effective. This year's Bicycle Film Festival hits Melbourne in November. It'll kick off at 1000 £ Bend, with the opening night party to take place on Thursday 12th November. Running until Sunday 29th November, this year's exhibition will be held in our gallery space.

Featured artists include:
Conor O'Brien, Robert Cook, DannyYoung, Christopher Day, Benjamin Lichtenstein, Max Blackmore, Chris Polack, Kyran Starcevich, Andy Murphy, Bryan Derballa, Kate Moss, Carl Scrase, Christina Tester, Marian Wolfgang, Sam Wallman.

Opening night party
Thursday 12th November
Runs until Sunday 29th November
www.bicyclefilmfestival.com

Anode

From the Outside Looking Inside Out
Sydney-based audio-visual artist Robyn Wilson has recently returned from Brooklyn inspired. As part of Anode 2009, Robyn has curated several videos direct from New York to screen against the laneway walls of Melbourne and Sydney. A highlight of her collection is the work by video artist Jordan Fish. Jordan recently created a video for indie-electro poppers Boy Crisis and their latest single Fountain of Youth. The video, in the vein of the tribal-themed videos by MGMT and Empire of the Sun, captures the face-painting/loincloth-wearing sacrificial rituals of an ancient cult. Jordan Fish has also directed music videos for Das Racist and Kate Ferencz, and has worked on videos for MGMT, The Killers, Devandra Banhart and The Cool Kids. See other videos by Scott Kiernan and Jake Lodwick.

Anode Closing Party
To wrap up Anode 2009, 1000 £ Bend will host an evening of roller skates, burgers, and more roller skates. Tapping into the roller derby zeitgeist, Boss Films presents Figures and Loops, directed by David Regos and Walter Matteson. Figures and Loops takes a peek inside the world of leotards, glitter, and competitive artistic figure skating. Following the screening will be a performance by a troupe of figure skaters. Aweseome, indeed.
8 November, 5pm

Also happening at Anode...
Swing by the Anode pop-up bar at 1000 £ Bend for an installation by BOWER, sound art performances compiled by Going Down Swinging, art coverage from MAKE:DO, and a group show featuring installations Wood For the Trees, Hinged & Carnivalesque. Installation open daily until 8th November.

Check www.anode2009.com for more info.

You've heard the news, Laneway's back. But this time it's taking a homelier, outer-melbourne approach in the charming concrete suburb of Footscray. Now, it's difficult to picture a band like Echo and the Bunnymen in a suburb like Footscray, but it's happening. Including a line-up including Black Lips, Daniel Johnston, Dappled Cities, Dirty Three, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Florence & The Machine, Hockey, Kid Sam, Mumford & Sons, N.A.S.A, Radioclit, Sarah Blasko, The Middle East, The Very Best, The XX, Whitley and Wild Beasts. We caught up with Dave from Dappled Cities, who is also gearing up for a their performance at Laneway, for a chat.

If you weren't in a band, what would you be instead?
Probably something unremarkable, like in IT. As for the other guys, they'd probably be working in bars.

So in a parallel universe, if you were working together, it might be in an internet cafe?
Yes! With a bar!

What do you think of the line-up for St Jeromes Laneway Festival?
It's absolutely the kind of line-up I'd like to see in a festival. Especially Echo and the Bunnymen. I didn't get a chance to see them last time.

St Jeromes Laneway Festival
+ Dappled Cities Fly

Maybe you can become friends in the green room?
Yeah, I'm not sure we'll have anything in common...

Do you have any pre-performance rituals? Well, yeah, there's one... we have one peculiar vocal exercise. It's an impression of Alan Moore sleepwalking. It kind of goes like this: "MMO-MMO-MMO-JABBA-JABBA-JABBA". You have to say it deep, loud and really use your diaphragm.

Tell me your origin story. How did you and the other Dappled Cities boys meet?
We were all teenagers living in the same suburb and going to the same school. We'd drive around to each other's houses and compare notes on The Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana.

What has been your favourite ever show, and why?
Probably our very first show at the Houstoun in Sydney. It was Christmas Eve and the pub was empty. We learned a lot that night; we were very humbled.

I love the cover art of your latest album – is there a story behind the photo shoot?
We told the Art Director to surround us in gold and tell a tale of a tragic party

And what's your idea of a tragic party?
I guess sombre faces; surrounded in glitter.

The title of your last album is Zounds. Why doesn't anyone actually say 'Zounds' anymore?
Don't they? I believe Shakespeare coined it. It comes from the expression 'God's wounds'. It was supposed to be a profanity, like 'ouch', or 'shit'.

www.melbourne.lanewayfestival.com.au
www.dappledcitiesfly.com

Through the Looking Glass

Giving the MYER windows a run for their money, The Workers Club will launch a gallery space known as Through the Looking Glass in its Gertrude Street windows. Except this one won't have terrifying little wooden elves with beady eyes wielding hammers. Brrr.

Through the Looking Glass will rotate every month, exhibiting artists from far and wide. First up: Vicky Yuan. Her piece Kitty Kitty Bang Bang is an obituary, a lamentation, for a cat who departed before he reached his prime.* Wanna exhibit your work at Through the Looking Glass? Email michelle@getnotorious.com

*No kitties were harmed during the making of her work

The Workers Club, corner of Brunswick and Gertrude St, Fitzroy