Recent Profile of Media Artist Daniel Kojta featured in FRANKIE Magazine Summer 2012.
Image courtesy of Frankie Magazine 2012.

This site provides a platform for the exhibition history and daily practice of media artist Daniel Kojta. The works are from previous exhibitions, journeys, and moments of practice which have provided the content or conceptual arena from which the artist continually takes from and adds to. This is essentially an electronic journal. If you have questions regarding works or the artists practice, see the contact page. Daniel Kojta is currently on leave and will return to teaching and practice in the near future.


Knock and Run [rolling]
Video HD Loop 6'00
Performance 2010.






SELECTED FOR BERLIN RESIDENCY (postponed indefinitely)
HOME BASE BERLIN



The HomeBase Project creates a unique platform for a multi-disciplinary artistic exploration of the notion of home as the foundation of humanity. It aims to foster a sense of interconnectedness in society through the arts, awaken social responsibility and integrate contemporary art into everyday urban living.


Trap Series, (current) Daniel Kojta 2011.

Daniel will be working with the concept of 'Universal Access' and the role of inclusion as a term for creative interpretation. Instigated as an initial subject for discussion in the collaborative residency setting, as a series of performance actions. This series has been inspired by the one minute sculptures of Erwin Wurn.

The HomeBase BUILD Artist-in-Residence program started on August 10th, 2011. Twelve artists, designers, social entrepreneurs, architects and original thinkers will spend the next two months working on individual projects in their live-in studios, whilst also engage in a creative communal living, an educational program, a cultural program and a “hands on” collaboration on building the different aspects of the HomeBase LAB making it one of the most innovative artist-run cultural centers on the map.

Many thanks to Anat Litwin for her continued discussion and open interpretations beyond the conservative limitations of challenging topics.


PAST WORKS

Artists Review
Daniel Kojta 2005 - 2010


Daniel Kojta & Shaun Gladwell
'Stereo Sequences'
Film Shoot.
Carriage works. Sydney 2010


Alien Presence H [Handmade Echo] 2005
Stills Gallery Sydney
First Draft Gallery Sydney
Daniel Kojta



Daniel placed an international call out to locate Eight International Artists who where directed to shoot a desolate landscape with the only stipulation being the height position of the horizon line in frame. Once international time zones where coordinated participants where directed to shoot. Due to the time zone coordination, all artists from eight international locations shot at the same given moment. I then edited the video sequences into a single line with horizon lines aligned. The edited line of footage was projected onto a 300 x 40cm Perspex sheet, suspended in the middle of the gallery space.

Artists: Daniel Kojta, Stephen Barrass, Adam Culllen, Johannes Birringer, Phillip Dadson, Greg Wood, Katryn Nyholm. Audio composition: Somaya Langley.


Alien Presence H – [ handmade echo ]
Catalogue Essay
Daniel H Kojta

Stills Gallery Sydney 7th June 2005/6


Originating from the Greek term ‘Horizien’, which refers to the delimiting and drawing of boundaries, the modern term, ‘Horizon’, remains an object of desire, pursued but never definitively attained. Although the horizon often appears to elude and exceed representation, the images offered here transform the horizon line through attention to the visual, spatial, temporal, and aesthetic figurations.

The eleven videos presented in APH transform the fictional entity of the horizon, colloquially, ‘the line joining earth and sky’, into representations of material and artistic form. New Media artist, Carli Leimbeck AUS., embodies the dualistic nature of the horizon by walking every step into the distance in a rhythm of contraction and expansion, concealing and revealing. Circumscribing the scope of our possibilities, the horizon line is always with us and yet remains beyond our reach.

This distance from definitive perception provides the context in and through which phenomena appear. A featured intent of the ‘Alien Presence’ series, phenomena, exists only when active at distance of perception. The horizon is most present in the landscapes of areas, which are minimal in content, open spaces traditionally frequented by phenomena. These areas are noted as offering moments of pure presence where one is both transfixed by wonder and transported by sense. This experience offers an acute sensory activity within what has been noted by Phenomenologist Merleau Ponty as the experience of the real. This subjective experience is defined by Phillip Fisher as; ‘a moment of pure essence’:
“The moment of pure presence within wonder lies in the objects difference and uniqueness being so striking to the mind that it does not remind us of anything and we find ourselves delaying in its presence for a time in which the mind does not move on by association to something else.[1]”
The Alien Presence series reflects this description by Fisher in the distance from definitive perception. This experience of pure presence is both a temporary suspension of chronological time and bodily activity.

New Media artist Katrine Nyholm DEN, navigates the subjective topography as noted by Merleau Pontyof ‘Pre-linguistic communication between things, occurring before the advent of knowledge and consciousness.[2]’ in her video documentation of a Danish horizon. Embedded with cultural and maritime history, Nyholm captures the constitutive ground through which phenomenon has for centuries appeared: the sea. This landscape reflects the contraction and expansion of the horizon in the ebb and flow of the sea. As a favoured environment of contemplation, this horizon offers a pause, a deferral of meaning, a consciously experienced presence in abstract perception. The alien, without reference or association.

Phenomenon ideally occurs in remote settings, which have reduced impact from human interaction. This geography promotes the perception of vulnerability, and insignificance, heightening the presence of anything alien to the surroundings. In his video documentation, Australian contemporary artist Adam Cullen extends the apparent alien presence of gunfire in the tranquil environment of the nighttime Australian landscape. Reflecting on the alien presence of the 17 Century European explorers to the Indigenous inhabitants, Cullen injects the silent horizon with an immediate presence. Cullen ‘shoots’ the horizon as directed, violently territorialising the absence with the presence of the unknowable ‘other’, the ‘alien’.

The ‘Alien Presence’ series by Daniel H Kojta utilises technology to employ perception as a strategy to engage the subjective consciousness of the participant. These interactive installations focus on absence as a response to the super real and, in order to generate abstract or raw perception.

This mode of abstract perception is as an element within the composition of sublime revelations projected by the ‘alien’. It is the mode that will never require an update. The essence of abstract perception is in its most basic evolution, phenomena. The language is pre-linguistic. The installations within the ‘Alien Presence’ series, translate the sublime through a recalibration of attention through absence of subject rather than presence of object. The interaction is on the part of the participant, subjective.

English contemporary New Media artist, Johannes Birringer, articulates a similar concern regarding presence/absence through his enquiries into perception. Birringer’s practice often explores aspects of abstract spatial communications through reconstructions of social perception. Spanning a diverse range of media including: network, film, responsive installation, dance and real time audio-visual manipulations, Birringer has an extensive professional career performing and exhibiting internationally. His video documents the dichotomy of evolution in our constantly changing environments.

Through observations within the transformation of contemporary psyche, the fascination of the mystery is the foundation methodology of my practice. I confront the creative process through a consistent examination into the ambiguities of reality, illusion and perspective, assimilating the forces that comprise my understanding of perception and interaction. This force has illuminated a navigation process of constant recontextualisation of perspective along a line of flight[3] traversing the liminal borders where an evolving system is on the verge of generating an alternate mode, a raw perception of being. The Alien Horizon.

Daniel H Kojta. 6/06.

[1] Fisher.P ‘The Vehement Passions’. Princeton University Press. Sep. 2003
[2] “ “Merleau Ponty.M, ‘Phenomenology of Perception’, Routledge 2nd Edition, May 2002
[3] ‘Line of flight’. Deluezian term refers to an available means of escape from the forces of repression and stratification. Lines of flight exist everywhere.
Deleuze.G and Guattari.F, ‘A thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Shizophrenia’ University of Minnesota Press. Dec 1987.




PRESENTER SAMAG 2011 Daniel Kojta

'Access - The Essential Element'
A conversation about past and future engagement for the Arts
Speakers
Amanda Tink - Training Co-ordinator, Accessible Arts
Jenny Spinak - Program Manager, Accessibility, Sydney Opera House
Jan Barham - Byron Shire Mayor and NSW Legislative Council Greens member
Daniel Kotja - Western Sydney based new media artist and emerging curator

Moderated by Naomi McCarthy, Manager Education & Visitor Programs, Penrith Regional Gallery.


'Digital Flaneur'
HD Video Projection 6'00''
2007


Promotional Image Arthur Boyd's Bundanon Arts Residency
Image Daniel Kojta
Produced on residency 2010.
Exhibited 'Into the [B] Voyd',
South Coast Regional Gallery NSW.


PRESENTER DELVE 2011

Media Arts Workshop, Daniel Kojta
Film & Video Presentation.
South Australian School of Art
Adelaide.

## Your picture: ''Walking all over my friends' DHK Voyd 2010(2).jpg' has been inserted here ##
'Walking all over my friends'
HD Video Projection, 6'00''
2010.


Ghost Show Hazelhurst Regional Gallery
Feature article
Arts Writer Elizabeth Fortesque, Daily Mirror



'Chance naked at the corner of the eye'
Interactive Media Installation
Data Projector, sensors, Vintage TV, acylic paint, Static footage, audio.
Daniel Kojta Dec 2010



Daniel Kojta and David Capra complete ConnectED Contemporary Arts Residency at Balmain SSchool.
Sci Fi Film Production produced with students. Final Edit due Feb 2011.
Many thanks to the Students and Staff of Balmain Support School.

Photo Daniel Kojta - Heath Franko & David Hu in costume.
Heath attended the program as a visiting contemporary arts practitioner interacting with the students and producing incredible results in costume and performance.



GHOST SHOW Hazelhurst regional Gallery Dec 4. Daniel Kojta, Robyn Backen, Matt Glen, Kate Murphy, Wade Marynowsky, Ugenia Raskopoulos.



‘Dancing naked, with chance in the corner of my eye’
Interactive Installation.
Vintage TV, Data proj., Sensors.
Daniel Kojta 2010.

‘Dancing naked, with chance in the corner of my eye’ suggests that the most reality-shaping aspects of the past are those which remain absent from the dominant narrative. The ignored, unseen, absent, forgotten. These characters provide the haunting; they demand visibility where we usually don’t look, because we believe, we are told, that there is nothing to see. This ghost is the subtle character visible only from the corner of the eye; a visual taste of absence.


Daniel Kojta Nominated for Disability Advocate Representing the Blue Mountains Community. Speaking Events to be confirmed.



HITCH
A rolling Adventure.
Prod. David Cretney, Dir. Daniel Kojta, Edit. Daniel Kojta, Kalani Gacon. Audio. David Cretney, Kell taylor.

Screened at Hoyts Fox Studio Complex.

A 48Hr Production Nominated for Best dir., Best Edit, Best Soundtrack, Audience Choice. Congratulations to the team for an incredible 48hrs.
Made for the 48Hr. Film Comp. NSW Australia.



Residency Begins at Hazelhurst Regional gallery as part of the group show 'Ghost' curated by Daniel Mudie Cunningham. An incredible line up including Wade Marynowsky, Kate Murphy, Robyn Backen..etc.
Exhibition Opens 4/12/2010 – 29/1/2011.



National Geographic Feature, 'Steve Shoots Dan'

Thanks to noted Blue Mountains photographer, Stephen Babka for the photo 'Dan on Dogface'. This photo features Stephen Babka's exemplary photographic excellence taken whilst suspended precariously 100 mtrs over the Jamison Valley in order to shoot me climbing the exposed cliff line of 'Dogface'. This incredible geographical feature is the result of a recent landslide in the 1970's, which was heard in Sydney, as the face of the cliff fell to the Jamison Valley floor. This shot won the well known photographer several awards. Please see the link at the National Geographic Magazine website at:
ngm.nationalgeographic.com/myshot/gallery/270737#/enlarged/906145/
Further adventures to follow.


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Original concept proposal submission 'Letters to the Editor' 2010.

'Letter to the Editor' Presentation

There will be a public opening of the Rookwood interactive sculpture 'Letters to the Editor' officially recognizing the acquisition of my work to the cemetery and a public ceremony to release the letters collected to date. This work invites visitors to the cemetery to deposit letters to their loved one's who may have passed on, offering an opportunity to pass on thoughts and comments to the loved one's when the opportunity was not possible prior to them passing.




ABC presenter, Richard Morecroft opens 'Into the [B]Voyd' Solo Exhibition at Shoalhaven Regional Gallery.



Installation view showing various works from'Into the [B]Voyd' 2010.

‘Into the [B]Voyd'
[A contemporary derive' - Arthur Boyd rolls with Daniel Kojta]
Solo Exhibtion Shoalhaven City Arts Gallery
Video Installation, Sculpture, Digital Stills.
Daniel Kojta August 2010.



Daniel Kojta, new media artist and 2010 Bundanon Residency recipient.

Daniel Kojta, Blue Mountains based new media artist will undertake the second A.Arts Bundanon Residency during April. In 2004, Kojta graduated with an Honours degree in Visual Arts from the University of Western Sydney, where he was awarded the university medal. Since that time, as well as developing his own practice, Kojta curated a new media survey exhibition at the Bathurst Regional Gallery in 2008, received sponsorship from Arts Access Victoria and ANAT to attend the Super Human Revolution of the Species Symposium in 2009 as a Master Class Participant, and presented on the panel ‘Excellence – What is it anyway?’ at the Power House Museum Sydney, Arts Activated National Conference in 2010. Kojta’s current new media practice investigates the parameters of human form as well as bringing life and movement to inanimate elements of the everyday. He aims to create a series of video installations and interactive sculptures during his time at Bundanon, inspired by the presence and legacy of Arthur Boyd. Opened by well known ABC presenter, Richard Morecroft, these video projections and sculptural interventions will be shown in a solo exhibition at the Shoalhaven Regional Gallery in July 2010.


July - August Shoalhaven Regional Gallery Solo

‘Into the [B]Voyd'
[A contemporary derive' - Arthur Boyd rolls with Daniel Kojta]
Solo Exhibtion Shoalhaven City Arts Gallery
Video Installation, Sculpture, Digital Stills.
Daniel Kojta August 2010.



‘Finding a Boyd in the kitchen cupboard’
HD Video Loop. 6’00’’
Daniel Kojta 2010 Bundanon Residency

Into the [B]Voyd will present a series of media installations by New Media artist and curator, Daniel Kojta, produced on residency at Arthur Boyd’s property, Bundanon.

The video and sculptural installations of ‘Into the [B]Voyd’ reference the artists wanderings throughout Bundanon whilst on residency, as a derive’ by the contemporary flaneur. The attraction of the terrain immerses the flaneur in a timeless presence, a fold between the subjects of so many of Arthur Boyd’s paintings, and the paintings themselves.

This in-between space of reality and timeless presence, is experienced as a shift between the two dimensions of Arthur Boyd’s paintings and the three dimensional space of their subject; Bundanon. Into the [B]Voyd references this shift or fold as the relationship of time based media in the works presented, and the experience of Arthur Boyd’s paintings of Bundanon.



'Stand up for your self'
HD Digital still.
Daniel Kojta
Bundanon Residency Gravity Intervention [V]
2010.



’Get over yourself'
HD Digital still.
Daniel Kojta
Bundanon Residency Gravity Intervention [V]
2010.



'Manipulating gravity like a bad lover'
HD Digital still.
Daniel Kojta
Bundanon Residency Gravity Intervention [M]
2010.

'Knock & Run - rolling terrorism'. Expeditions of the 'Psuedo Utopian Socialist'. The role of this expedition is to locate areas of visual and audio silence; an indigenous space of the 'natural' which escapes the velocity of visual and auditory noise of contemporary society. The actions are based on the vacancy which remains between 'conveyor belt consciousness' and authentic surprise. This search has been a motivating force within my practice for some time.



Knock & Run [rolling terrorism I]
HD Digital still.
Daniel Kojta
Studio Gravity Intervention [M]
2010.



Knock & Run [rolling terrorism II]
HD Digital still.
Daniel Kojta
Studio Gravity Intervention [M]
2010.



'Art Collector'
'First Flush' Group Exhibition Parramatta City Council
Mixed Media installation'
Daniel Kojta 2010


NEWS 'Letters to the editor' from the 'Hidden' Group Sculpture Exhibition Curated by David Capra, has been acquired by the Rookwood Cemetery Trust as a permanent installation/sculpture on the grounds. Thanks to David Capra and the staff of Rookwood.

Solo Exhibition 'Into the (B)Voyd', Daniel Kojta, Video Installation, sculpture. Shoalhaven Regional Gallery. June 2010

Selected for Group Exh. 'The Ghost Show' Hazelhurst Regional Gallery Nov. 2010

Currently Showing Daniel Kojta 2010




'First Flush exhibition', investigates and celebrates this novel but important contribution the Macquaries made to modern Australia. Chamber pot to WC - Lachlan and Elizabeth Macquarie were the first in NSW to import and install a flushing toilet into their then residence, Old Government House, Parramatta.

'The First Flush' exhibition will be installed in locations around Parramatta CBD. Look out for the works of Anna Watts, Jodie Whalen, John Spiteri, Linda Brescia, Frances Bickle (aka Heath Franco and Jodie Whalen), Kay Armstrong, Lada Dedic, Anne Gaulton, Alli Sebastian Wolf, Daniel Kotja, David Capra, Jason Wing and Kerrie Kenton in Parramatta from 30 June.

discoverparramatta.com.au
Ph.02 9687 6090


Current Works Daniel Kojta 2010
Bundanon Residency



'Walking all over my friends'
HDD Video, 6:00 loop.
Daniel Kojta
Bundanon 2010.

'Walking all over my friends' 2010, is a contemporary derive' through a perception of phenomena; a virtual miracle in which the artist's relationship to gravity is altered by the omniscient power of the 'Edit'.

Artist Daniel Kojta, directs colleagues to film the lower half of their bodies as they walk, and unites their movement with his torso in a choreographed 'derive' through the geography of a single body. The result presents Daniel (paraplegic) walking through the geography of Arthur Boyd's Bundanon as contemporary flaneur.
Contributing artist's include: Claire Healy, Sean Cordeiro, Wade Marynowsky, Malcom Whittiker, Adam Cullen, Mark Bolotin, and others.


Trapping the gaze - [trap series I]
Interactive installation, found objects, lights, audio, HD video.
Daniel Kojta 2010.
Thanks to Bundanon Residency



"The fascination of the mystery saturates my practice. By confronting the creative process through consistent explorations into the ambiguities of reality, illusion and perspective, my works assimilate the forces that comprise my understanding of perception and interaction. This force has illuminated a navigation process of constant recontextualisation of perspective along a line of flight traversing the liminal borders where an evolving system is on the verge of generating an alternate mode, a raw perception of being. The 'alien' is emerging."




Group Exhibition 'Hidden'
Curated by David Capra
Daniel Kojta - 'Letters to the Editor'
Rookwood Cemetery
2010.



The front of the work provides a letter box slot into which the audience at the cemetery are invited to submit letters and notes to loved ones who have passed on, to which they may have missed the opportunity prior to their death.





'Letters to the editor'
'Hidden' Group Sculpture Exhibition Curated by David Capra
Sculptural installation
Sandstone, stainless steel, perspex.
Daniel Kojta 2010.





Art Month Sydney Launch Party Video Exhibition
CUSTOMS HOUSE SYDNEY

Elvis Richardson
Soda_Jerk
Jessica Hayley & Hayley Forward
Sarah Goffman
Daniel Kojta
Rachel Scott
Pete Volich
Sam Smith
Agatha Gothe-Snape
Daniel Mudie Cunningham





'Letters to the Editor'
Sandstone Sculpture
Sandstone, Stainless steel, LED light, Letterbox insert.
Daniel Kojta 2010.

NOW IN ITS SECOND YEAR, HIDDEN: A ROOKWOOD SCULPTURE WALK UNVEILS THE WORK OF 24 ARTISTS' RESPONSES TO THE ROOKWOOD SITE, ONE OF THE LARGEST CEMETERIES IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE. THROUGH ASSEMBLAGES AND EPHEMERAL, TEXT AND SOUND BASED INSTALLATIONS, ARTISTS OPEN UP QUESTIONS ABOUT DEATH AND GRIEF AND EXPLORE THEIR OWN PERSONAL CONNECTION TO THE SITE.



One Minute Films - Dir. Daniel Kojta Selected Shanghi World Expo 2010





Daniel Kojta is a curator and new media artist based in the Blue Mountains Australia. In the tradition of Panamarenko and Bill Viola Daniel’s works engage the senses, often through an interactive experience within installations, sculptures, performances and video projections.

The latest curatorial gathering assembled by Daniel featured over twenty works by some of Australia’s most celebrated new media practitioners at the Bathurst regional Gallery. From the award winning immersive media installations by Jordanna Maisie to the expansive cinema practice of Video Art collaborators, Soda Jerk, this exhibition remains one of the years highlights.

Most recently Daniel was awarded the 2010 Bundanon artist's residency at Arthur Boyd’s south coast paradise, Daniel will be working through a media series of video installations and interactive sculptures that will present a body of human traps to the audience featuring the allure of some of contemporary society’s most desirable consumables within the awaiting bait.

This latest work follows on from previous explorations in urban myth and social history in which Daniel documented the 2009 sightings of the Western Suburbs Yowie. As a hero figure of the unattainable, the Yowie series immersed those who chose to believe, in a romance of absence and invisibility from our world of loud and inescapable noise.





ONE MINUTE FILMS LAUNCHED TO WEB
Five films selected - Dir. Daniel Kojta (Sydney)

In City One Minutes life in each city is divided into 24 one minute portraits, each depicting one hour of the day. Every film is a personal impression of the city in which the artist lives or in which he is staying.

On cityoneminutes.org you can browse through time and place in a number of ways. For example: Follow the life in Beijing throughout 24 hours; explore life in each city between 5 and 6 in the morning; watch all the films in a mosaic of cities.

Selected for screen by Daniel Kojta (Sydney)



It must be a sign..
00:00 - 01:00
The Harbour bridge plays host to a bill board prophet. The sedentary directions usually offered by street signs have given way to a personality. It must be a sign.

Sydney Santstone
10:00 - 11:00



Accidental Tourist
11:00 - 12:00
Tourists frequent the Sydney Harbour bridge as a similar traveler traverses the foreground horizon. Both species are known to carry their home with them on their travels directed by the rythm of the heart.



Yowie Sighting in Sydney_Daniel Kojta
18:00 - 19:00

Eternity 2009
21:00 - 22:00
During the 1930's an anonymous legend of Sydney, Australia, left the word Eternity written in chalk all over the city on walkways, walls, buildings, it was seen everywhere and it soon became a legend of Sydney history. Here, technology of 2009 has reinterpreted the insignia of the people... Does it offer the same divinity of the original? Shot beneath the Harbour Bridge - a favored location of Eternity.



Blue Mountains based new media artist, Daniel Kojta has been awarded the 2010 Accessible Arts Bundanon Residency.


The Bundanon Trust Artist in Residence program is open to professional artists and groups, from all disciplines. The program supports artists’ new work, research and collaborations. Australian and international artists are hosted in purpose-built studios located at the Bundanon properties on the Shoalhaven River in NSW. As a gift to the Australian people, Arthur Boyd’s vision for Bundanon was to provide an inspirational haven for artists to pursue their practice.



Attending Re:live Media History Conference

The next iteration of the Media Art History conference is Re:live which is to be held in Melbourne, Victoria in 2009. The event follows the success of the two previous Media Art History conferences, re:fresh (Banff 2005) and re:place (Berlin 2007). The conference series is an injpg' has been inserted here "8International Society for Art, Science and Technology) whose International Advisory Committee will publicise the event and referee papers.




Metazoa, 2008, Angela Main, Super Human Exhibition

Superhuman Masterclass Participant Daniel Kojta

FOR THOSE FEELING THE URGE TO EVOLVE, MELBOURNE IS THE PLACE TO BE IN LATE NOVEMBER AS LEADING MEDIA ARTS MAKERS, COMMENTATORS AND HISTORIANS CONVERGE FOR THE ANAT’S SUPER HUMAN: REVOLUTION OF THE SPECIES. CELEBRATING THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE PUBLICATION OF DARWIN’S ORIGIN OF SPECIES, THE EVENT INVOLVES A SYMPOSIUM, MASTER CLASS AND MONTH-LONG EXHIBITION EXPLORING COLLABORATIONS BETWEEN THE SCIENCES AND THE ARTS AND THE IMPACT THESE HAVE ON BEING HUMAN.

Keynote speakers for the event include Ju Gosling (UK), working with digital lens-based media exploring ideas of the able and disabled body; Tami Spektor (US) an organic chemist with an interest in nanotechnology; Barbara Maria Stanford (US) who explores the intersection of visual arts and neuroscience to shape our senses; Paul Brown (UK) media artist exploring robotics and neuroscience; and Junichi Ushiba (Japan) who has developed the Brain-Machine Interface (BMI), offering the potential for people to operate avatars in SecondLife just by thinking about it.

There will also be two days of masterclasses with a wide range of international and Australian artists, curators and thinkers with practical advice on resource networks, marketing and audience development, as well as theoretical discussion, from the likes of Amanda Macdonald Crowley, George Poonkin Khut, Lizzie Muller, Kim Machan, Jens Hauser, Sarah Cook and Daniel Kojta.

Presented by ANAT in association with the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI).


catalog design & production Pro-Brand.


draft promotional image design Daniel Kojta

Showing Off
a new media exhibition curated by Daniel Kojta

Friday 7 August to Sunday 20 September 2009
Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, 70-78 Keppel St, Bathurst, NSW

Bathurst Regional Art Gallery (BRAG) is pleased to present Showing Off,a large-scale New Media survey exhibition curated by one of Australia’s most exciting emerging curators, Daniel Kojta.

In 2008 BRAG was one of only three galleries to receive an Arts NSW grant under their Emerging Curators Pilot Program. BRAG invited Daniel Kojta, an artist and curator based in Wentworth Falls, to develop a New Media exhibition which would showcase emerging and established, regional and metropolitan artists.

Exhibiting Artists 'Showing Off':
Keith Armstrong, Ella Barclay, Kirsten Bradley, Cash Brown, Ben Denham, Leah Heiss, Soda_Jerk, Janice Kuczkowski, Alexandra Gillespie & Somaya Langley, Sofie Loizou, Jordana Maisie, Peter Newman, David O’Donoghue, Jasper Streit & Rene Christen, Justene Williams.

This visually and intellectually engaging exhibition will demonstrate diverse trends within current New Media Art including wearable technology, locative media and video arts says Curator Daniel Kojta.

While referencing both obsolete and cutting edge technologies, Showing Off will offer regional and metropolitan audiences a unique experience of New Media Art.

The exhibition will be opened by Dr. Blair French, Executive Director, Artspace, 6pm Friday 7 August.

Written by Brad Hammond for Bathurst Regional Art Gallery 2009

PLEASE NOTE : The documentation below provides a brief outline of curatorial and exhibition practice to date. At present I am recovering from compulsory surgery and able to produce or curate works which I am able to complete whilst confined to bedrest. Thank you for you interest.
Artist/Curator/Teacher, Daniel Kojta


2009

Curating 'Showing Off'
Daniel Kojta
New Media Exhibition
Bathurst Regional Gallery
Info: dkojta@dodo.com.au


Daniel Kojta is an emerging curator / new media artist. The works engage the senses, often through an interactive experience within installations, sculptures, performances and video projections.
In the tradition of Panamarenko and Bill Viola, the works call from the participants an alternating range of rational reflections and spontaneous emotions by apprehending the creative tension between subjective response and the kinaesthetic experience of philosophical ideas. Prior to surgery Daniel was working within remote Aboriginal communities of the Gulf of Carpentaria, and far west NSW. in the development of New Media programs.
Although not practicing due to medical complications from surgery Daniel holds a history of practice within local and metropolitan galleries throughout Australia, focusing on Sydney. At present works are restricted to what can be produced from a hospital bed.

2009

Exhibiting ATVP 'Bushwacked' Group Show
'I told you it was there'
Installation. Micro flouro, Electronics, Glass.
AWARDED SECOND PLACE
Daniel Kojta Feb 2009


'I told you it was there'
Daniel Kojta 2009.


August 2008

Teaching Wilcannia Central school - Art & Science/Secondary.
Indigenous community - Paakantji People.

Alternate Project 1. Documenting magnetic polarity suspension phenomena - Darling River Plains - Darling River Wilcannia.






Photo credit Laurice Ghannoum.


Currently Showing 'Myth' Exhibition Parramatta Artists Studios, Group show. NSW.
'Yowie Evidence AX G - 73' - security camera footage as captured Western Suburbs during ascent of Mt. Druitt. 2008. Data Projection, audio, Ledger book 1936, water mark, plynth. Daniel Kojta.


'Metholated Spirit - safely hidden'
Rubber, 'Witches Hat' boundary marker, cotton military pattern cover.
77 W x 67cm H.
Mori Gallery, Sydney. 'Battle Feel' Group Exh. April 2008.
Daniel Kojta

This sculpture juxtaposes the extreme attraction of the 'witches hat' used to gain attention, with the concealment of the military camouflage, used to remain hidden in a given situation.


April 2008

MORI Gallery Sydney. Group Exhibition 'Battle Feel' Sculptural Installation, 'Metholated Spirit'. Opening April 9 6pm. All welcome.

Jan 2008




EXHIBITION OF THE YEAR SYDNEY 2007
Voted as Photo media exhibition of the year, Sydney by Peter Frost of Artlife, with a number of critics including Robert McFarlane. Alien Presence - [handmade echo], Daniel Kojta, Stills Gallery Paddington. Jan 2007 with Paul Adair, Pete Volich.



Artlink Magazine Feature Article written by Daniel Kojta.
Artlink, Vol 27 no 4, Reskin: Intensive Collaboration.
www.artlink.com.au/articles.cfm?id=3037




'Line Describing', Architectural Projection, Electrofringe Festival, Newcastle. Daniel Kojta 2007.


The installations are designed to activate the attention of the visitor or participant, beyond that which is allocated to chance or phenomena. They capture ordinary moments and present them as a discovery, or application, as an experience unique to each visitor.



Most recently Daniel has begun a new series of work. The works focus on the relationship of gravity and movement. Movement in flight, movement as the experience of the contemporary Flaneur, a journey through the senses. The first in the series explores movement only visible through stasis. In 'Digital Flaneur', Daniel employs technology to transform the 'position of view' in order to achieve the anonymity required by the contemporary Flaneur.




Showing Vanishing Point Gallery, Newtown. Climate Change Show.



April 2007



Showing Vanishing Point Gallery, Newtown. Gallery Opening Show. Group. April.Installation 'Digital Flaneur', 2007.

A video install showcasing the results of a 'miracle' by technology. Daniel is healed by technology and walks. In memory of Baudrillard, 'Digital Flaneur' explores the simulacra in the power of contemporary technology to produce reality, 'The Super Real' as ref. by Merleau Ponty, and ponders the entropy of reality through a modern day miracle.



March 2007


'Light Scribe' Anat Residency LAB RESKIN, Australian National Museum. Daniel Kojta Feb. 2007

Completed LAB residency, Reskin ANAT www.anat.org.au/reskin see images: www.flickr.com/reskin, or article written by Daniel Kojta: www.artlink.com.au/issue.cfm?id=2740


Jan - February 2007


'Alien Presence - [handmade echo]' Stills Gallery Paddington. Daniel Kojta Feb 2007

Showing at Stills Paddington, 'Alien Presence' Video Installation.
This video installation presents a synchronised moment through twelve video works produced all over the world at the same moment with each work sharing a common horizon line. Directed by Daniel Kojta the installation includes works by noted artists; Adam Cullen, Greg Brown, Carly Leimbech, Katryn Nyholm, Stephen Barrass, and others.



'Sleep' Ahros, National Contemporary Gallery Denmark. Katrine Nyholm, Carly Leimbach, Daniel Kojta. Installation presenting a telepresent projection of people sleeping, shot live in Australia, projected on bed in Denmark State Gallery.


'Alien Presence - [erewhon seduction]' Pelt Gallery Sydney Daniel Kojta. Apr 2006

'AP Erewhon Seduction' engaged four Artists each evening through the course of the exhibition. They slept on the constructed beds wired for video and audio recording. The footage was captured through the evenings and presented following time treatment next day as a large wall projection at end of each bed. The complete install was set up as a lab research event. Sleepers included; Stephen Barrrass, Inga Liljestrom, Adam Cullen, Daniel Green, Jasper Streit, Laurice Ghannoum.