Kenzie Larsen

Thursday, December 29, 2011

It's Just Everything



Upcoming solo show

Where- 55 Sydenham rd Sydenham NSW
Opening- Thurs 19th Jan 6- 8pm
Exhibition continues- Thurs- Sun 1- 6pm

Everything is a show about a few things, mainly; excess, destruction and perspective and in this context ‘mainly’ should be defined as something closer to ‘kind of’ or ‘not at all’. Larsen has thought about these themes along with a few others and then devised studies on various topics using instruments such as, play dough, video, seafood and illustration. How these studies turned out is this show.



Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Grand Chasm










































































For their latest artistic collaboration Kenzie Larsen, William Mansfield and Eddie Sharp present ‘Grand Chasm’, an installation and naturally occurring wonder. File in. Be amazed. Leave quietly.

Human intervention of special effects to change or enhance natural wonders is a magical union in the eyes of our collaboration. We think that theatric devices (lights, stories, ghost tours) coupled with natures own mystical displays distort our experiences of natures majesty and align them more with the uncanny rather than the natural.

More info sanddunehike.wordpress.com

Monday, October 3, 2011

New Performance









































































For Cab Sav at the Melbourne Fringe Festival this year I created a new video/ performance work for the stage. A short piece in which outline the many ways in which 'Beyonce stole my identity' followed by a large scale video interactive choreographed dance routine inspired by Beyonces' spectacular live performance at the Billboard Music Awards this year.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Friday, July 15, 2011

A is for America



I have been in America for the past few weeks on an epic road trip from Los Angeles to New York. I have been documenting my aesthetic interests and research whilst in America as research for an exhibition in Sydney in September. This trip is the first of many trips in which I will travel to one place for each letter of the alphabet (preferably in alphabetical order) to undertake research for new art works.

Monday, May 23, 2011

A story in a book


The premise of this blog post is that;

Kenzie and Eddie wrote a popular monologue about a Sci- fi thriller movie pitch (starring Morgan Freeman) for their theatre show "Some film museums i have known". Then Penguin plays rough put it in their book.

Holey Moley!


This book is also full of other amazing short stories by the likes of Zoe Coombs Marr and Claudia O' Doherty and some other people but i forget their names... The story by Claudia is about killer whales and I got to draw the illustrations for it (it's mostly tessellating whales swimming in a sea of love hearts).

Also this book has a hard cover and a matching iPhone 'app' (short for application) and i think it is available in most books stores in Sydney and Australia at large. It was launched at the Sydney Writers Festival last week but i couldn't go to the launch because i wanted to watch 'Lost' re- runs and cook this really amazing fennel and Barramundi dish that i'd read about on the internet.... i mean... i was sick that night...

Anyway, i think this book is pretty cool on a number of levels and i think that you should all 'get amongst it'. You can order it online here

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Space Happens!











“Space Happens”

Is a new video/ sculpture work that functions as a video hosted board game for up to six players. “Space Happens” references a time when video board games such as “Nightmare” and “Atmosfear” were a hip novelty for a generation that took amusement from both board games and VHS. Larsen is investigating both the nostalgia of childhood forms of entertainment and means by which a gallery audience can participate in and use artwork in a physical and cognitive way. Through the participation in playing the board game the displayed artwork becomes a model through which the audience establishes relationships to one another.

Directions:

To play “Space Happens” six players are allocated a planet, which they are ruler of. The aim of the game is to have your ruler complete one whole orbit and make it back to their planet before the game timer runs out. Simple! I hear you say! Well not really, as there are black holes, jealous aliens and an array of space obstacles that will try to knock you off your orbit. Kenzie is your video host who keeps a time check on the game, enforces tasks and guides the players through the mysterious fun of space!

"Space Happens" opens at Firstdraft on the 6th of April and runs until the 24th of April. More info available here: www.firstdraftgallery.com


Friday, January 28, 2011

Hand made T- shirts by Kenzie now available!

WOW! I built a website to house my new project 'hand- made- T- shirts- by Kenzie'!

www.handmadetshirtsbykenzie.com

This project has developed out of my commitment to making my friends personalized T- shirts as gifts for just about any occasion you can imagine. With my new website i am expanding the option of having your own personalized T- shirt to EVERYONE! Not just my friends! So if you are into badly drawn fan T- shirts featuring a poorly rendered version of your favorite musician, band, celebrity, TV and cartoon characters then send me an order ASAP!

The deal is that you pay a small fee of $65 plus postage and tell me your T- shirt size. Then the most important part is the "About me" section in which you let me know about 'you', your likes or dis- likes, your hopes and dreams and the things that represent 'you'! I then take this information and design a T- shirt that will most accurately represent your interests.

All T- shirts come in white and the hand drawing is made in permanent washable ink. If you have any questions about this project or if you just want to drop me a line to chat about all things 'hand- made- T- shirt" then email me at,

kenzie@handmadetshirtsbykenzie.com



Made for James Brown because he is a super cool ex boyfriend to me and other girls!



Made for Mish who just LOVES Megadeth!



Made for the coolest couple to ever walk the earth and they also dig party time!

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Amazing theatre show!



This is the show that has been keeping me busy lately, opening for a Sydney season in February.
"A theatre show. A comedy, with a lot of live video and models.
Welcome to The Barumpool Film Museum, a broken down tourist trap in a remote country town. It’s not about accuracy or even safety. It’s about getting to the rebirth you were promised when you first got on the minibus.
From Rhubarb Rhubarb (Wonka!, The Mad Max Remix) comes Some Film Museums I Have Known. A darkly comic journey into the heart of cinematic obsession.
Pilfering elements of horror and fantasy, Rhubarb Rhubarb have crafted a wildly ambitious show of songs, dioramas, model trains, tiny cameras, live video and holograms. A raucous comedy of utter dread, within an ever-evolving DIY set."
Starring Nat Randall and The Holographic Ghost of Nick Coyle
Written by Eddie Sharp & Kenzie Larsen with Natalie Randall & Nick Coyle
Set Design, Holograms and Technical Wizardry by WillMansfield with Eddie Sharp, Kali Reid, Kenzie Larsen and Fred Rodriguez
Music by SPOD
Directed by Eddie Sharp
Produced by Kali Reid
Part of The Imperial Panda Festival (!!!!)

Documentation and assorted oddities from the Sydney season,




Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Dr. Kenzie Larsen at The Melbourne Fringe Festival



The documentation my performance as Dr. Kenzie Larsen for Cab Sav at the Melbourne Fringe festival 2010. This performance is based on the premise that i am promoting my new joke book "102 Jokes" and details some of the funniest one liners around, including a recent breakup.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Richard in your mind film clip "Losing our minds"






I just completed a new film clip for Sydney band "Richard in your mind". This clip is based on an art video i was working on whilst in residence at the Piet Zwart Institute in Holland. By layering projected footage and re- filming each layer I found that I could create a scene in which multiple versions of the same person could interact, kind of. I was reading a lot of Jorge Luis Borges and Kurt Vonnegut at the time. So i wanted to experiment with multiple images of self and changing perspectives of time, which is why i ended up calling the videos "Time sculptures".

I recently got the opportunity to create a video clip for my favorite Sydney band "Richard in your mind" so i jumped on the opportunity to use this idea again. I thought 'the only thing better than one "Richard in your mind" band would be two "Richard in your mind" bands mixed together through the magical power of video art'. So it goes.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

The Joke Book





The Joke Book is a project that i created for a recent FBI fundraiser. They asked me to submit a work for a seven hour exhibition. I decided to sit at a table in the exhibition space for the duration of the show and invite people to share their jokes with me no matter how long, funny or unfunny they were. i have recorded them all in my joke book and now i'm just looking for a publisher...hahaha. There are 74 jokes in the joke book so far but i would like to get that number up to 102, just because the title 101 jokes is already taken. Here are a few of my favorite jokes from 102 Jokes;

Joke 33- Why did the astronaught cross the road? Because he needed some space

Joke 43- Why did the baker have dirty hands? Because he needed a poo

Joke 60- What do you call Woolworths when it burns down? Coles

Joke89- What’s brown and rhymes with Snoop? Dr Dre

Joke20-A man walks into a bar and the first thing that the bar tender notices is that half of the mans head is an orange. He walks up to the bar and orders two scotch and cokes and one lemonade. The bar tender says that will be $12.50, but before the bar tender finishes the man pulls out exact change and puts it on the bar. The bar tender says “wow that’s amazing, also I noticed that all the women in the bar are gravitating towards you, what’s the deal?” half an orange head man takes a sip of his drink and it dribbles half out of his mouth and says “I was cleaning out my garage the other day and I found an old lamp, naturally I gave it a clean and a genie popped out and he gave me three wishes, first I wished for is for every woman in the world to be attracted to me, second wish I wished for was for there to always be correct change in my pocket” Bar tender says “That’s smart because you can get any woman you want and you can buy anything from drink to a car but what was the third wish?” He takes another sip of his drink, which naturally spills half out of his mouth and says “well that’s where I screwed up, I wished for half of my head to be an orange”

Joke3- I went into a fish and chip shop the other day and I said “Do you serve crabs?” and they said “yes we serve anyone, sit down”

Joke 25- when is a door not a door? When it’s a jar

The above photos were taken by Lucy Parakhina and Amelia Groom (not a joke)

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

New video



"How to change yourself into an object" is the video that accompanies sculptures and drawings for the exhibition "Platinum Prospects Prosperity Power Lunch". This video was an attempt to integrate comedy and B- grade special effects into the ramshackle collection of sets and props in the show.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Platinum Prospects Prosperity Power Lunch






The proper documentation of my recent exhibition at MOP. The show was made up of a series of drawings and sketches, two large sculptures one complete with a functioning water feature/ continuously erupting volcano. There was also a video that was an instructional guide on how to turn yourself into an object

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Platinum Prospects Prosperity Power Lunch

It's the final countdown

Exhibition of my new sculpture and video work at MOP Projects opening on the 21st of Jan
http://www.mop.org.au/upcoming.html

This show is based on the writing of Donald Barthelme and b- grade sci- fi film sets. The show features super large sculptures and super small landscapes and a ramshackle layout of furniture, props and video.

“Ask us anything about our thing, which seems to be working”, the chief engineer said. “We will open our hearts and heads to you, software man, because we want to be understood and loved by the great lay public and have our marvels appreciated by that public, for which we daily unsung produce tons of new marvels each more life enhancing than the last. Ask us anything. Do you want to know about evaporated thin- film metallurgy? Monolithic and hybrid integrated- circuit processes? The algebra of inequalities? Optimization theory? Complex high speed micro- miniature closed and open loop systems? Fixed variable mathematical cost searches ? Epitaxial deposition of semiconductor materials? Gross interfaced space gropes? We also have specialists in the cuckoo flower, the doctor fish, and the dumdum bullet as these relate to aspects of today’s expanding technology, and they do in the damnedest ways.”

- D. Barthelem "60 Stories", P. 79 (From short story "The Report")




Sunday, November 8, 2009

New sculpture and drawing





New studies for B- Grade sci- fi film sets in texta and sculpture.

I have been working on these smaller sculptures whilst procrastinating making the large sculpture that i should be working on. After completing the small sculptures in materials such as plasticine, perspex, balsa wood, felt, bricks and paint i decided to draw portraits of them. The portraits are more like 'interpretations' as they are not entirely accurate, i guess you could say that i took some 'artistic liberties' with the drawings.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Locksmith Project #1


The first issue of Locksmith project space's publication was launched last night! We are currently seeking submissions for the second issue which will appear in September. For more information visit the Locksmith website,

www.locksmithprojectspace.com

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Memory experiment 2





The second film in the "Movie memory" experiments series, now completed. The second film features the retelling of "The Wizard of Oz" as remembered by James Brown. Both of these works will be shown on the 5th of June at the "Play pause play stop" video screening at workshop showroom