I CAN DRAW YOU A PICTURE @ UNDERBELLY FESTIVAL LAB

I Can Draw You a Picture (ICDYAP) is a publishing installation experiment helmed by Alice Gage (of Ampersand Magazine), Mikie Inglis, Esta Chung and Simone Mandl. They are setting up shop at the Underbelly Lab + Festival from July 5-18 and need your help, um, drawing pictures … Mikie Inglis and Alice Gage tells us more.

Wow, your promo picture looks pretty serious. Isn’t ICDYAP supposed to be fun?
MI: You didn’t see the fun version of the picture did you? It got censored because far too much fun was being had in it.

ICDYAP begins with the creative contributions of Joe Blow in a series of cognitive craft games, at the Underbelly Festival Lab. What kind of games will we play? And what will you do with our creations once we’re done?
MI: The game stations will encompass various creative activities, from drawing to model making to creative writing etc. Mr Squiggle is an example, the Dadaist creative writing game Exquisite Corpse is another.  Once a game has been played, the resulting work will be carefully documented, catalogued and “analysed” by us.  During the whole process, we will be designing a magazine that collates all the works created, which will be printed by and for sale on Festival Weekend.  We will also curate an exhibition of the works within our space to be viewed at the festival.

AG: I don’t know Joe Blow but I hope he comes to our Lab. I hope Joe Blow and all his friends come to the Lab, whatever their professions, penchants or proclivities. We don’t want just artists, the place is bloody crawling with them. We want all people, we want strippers and dentists and jockeys and landscape gardeners and paramedics and mountaineers because the truly interesting thing about life that we are exploring in this project is difference. You will play games that involve being given a set of objectives and a set of tools – build a bridge out of matches for example or draw a still life of this film of a woman dancing. When you have finished your time in the lab (there are 7 stations and you can stay as long or as briefly as you please and do as many or as few of the stations as you please) we will take very high quality photographs of your work. These photographs will be sent digitally to a design station where Simone and Mikie are laying out the publication. This is the content for the magazine. It is laid out there on the spot then it is sent to the printer and returned for the Festival Weekend.

The publication will then be available at the Festival weekend July 17-18 – is that it? What if we are crippled that weekend and can’t get out of bed?
MI: No, the publication will also be available from venerable booksellers and galleries locally (and nationally hopefully), details about which we will post on our blog… icandrawyouapicture.blogspot.com. We also hope to do an expanded edition after the mag.

Why drawing? Not, say, story-telling or photo-taking?
MI: If you are referring to the name, then there is a story behind it. The story actually involves a photo. I can tell you a story about a photo if you want…

AG: It’s not just drawing. It’s collage, sculpture, painting, photo-taking and lots of other things. When it says in the Bible that the world was created in 7 days, do you believe that? No. You wouldn’t read that literally. Because everyone knows that it took at least a fortnight. So just open you mind a bit to a bit of out-of-the-square thinking. A bit of lateral thinking. A bit of open-minded thinking. Did you ever do Tournament of the Minds in primary school? I didn’t think so. Because you think to literally. They might run courses for adults though, so maybe you should check it out. Or actually just come to I Can Draw You A Picture, and expect to be doing more than drawing a picture. Presto you did it!

What’s your favourite thing to draw?
AG: That’s a tough one. I like swirls but I really really like concentric circles. I also like lightening bolts, waves and African mask faces. And I’m known to knock out the odd choad.

This is your first live publishing installation. What is next?
MI: Who knows? We hope to tour the project if it is a smash hit. Or continue with like-minded explorations. To put it simply our two main interests are the creative process and audience interaction, so more stuff along those lines.

ICDYAP @ Underbelly Lab + Festival, Jul 5-18, Kensington Sts & surrounds (old Carlton Brewery site), Chippendale, underbellyarts.com.au