Thursday Day 12

Visit to Melbourne to get in touch with galleries and academics. ACMI(Australian Centre for the Moving Image) is a revelation -as are the huge museum developments in Federation Square right by Flinders Street Station. Spectacular in all ways. There is a blockbuster video art show from the Pompidou there with Tony Oursler puppets lurking and talking in unexpected corners. (It was nice to see New Screen Media on prominent display in the bookshop).

The Victoria Gallery of Art (VGA) has a brand new building too with a wonderful collection of indigenous art. I am trying to get a meet with the curator. ACCA(Australian Centre for Contemporary Art) too is brand new and equally angular -it rained while I was there which made the huge rusty external panel look even more striking. Managed to also visit VCA and RMIT Galleries as possible venues. In the old VGA were some great inventions to fill the huge foyer-but best of all was the waterwall at the front which I remeber from 20 years ago.

Met up with Sean Cubbitt who is nicely set up at Melbourne University-which seems to be powering forward to become one of the world's top ten research universities. Certainly a high level of student and staff engagement with subject and a sense of groves of academe to match. Rob Hassan is researching theories of speed and new media-which is a dimension often overlooked outside the pages of Paul Virilio and goes down well with a beer!