Russell Milledge

MFA (QUT) Lecturer Cairns

Contact Details

Teaching Responsibility

Cairns campus: digital media, theory and photography

Coordinator - Bachelor of Creative Industries

General Interest Areas

Russell is the Co-Artistic Director of Bonemap a contemporary intermedia arts company who produce the OnEdge Contemporary Media and Performance program, an annual event/festival linking Cairns to a national and international context through presentation of local and visiting artists working in hybrid genres. Bonemap has received major State Government funding for the 2008 OnEdge festival in Cairns during July - August.

Russell is a founder and previous Deputy Director of KickArts at the Cairns, Centre of Contemporary Arts. He continues to provide research and consultative support through ongoing curatorial projects. A recent highlight has been the exhibition design and publication of Ailan Currents Contemporary Printmaking from the Torres Strait featuring the works of seven Islander artists and an accompanying 100-page catalogue.

Russell’s Masters project, involved designing and implementing a responsive video system for live performance, along with the conceptual development, production design and documentation of a series of contemporary performance works. This cross-disciplinary research was facilitated through both the Dance and Communication Design disciplines of the Creative Industries Faculty, QUT.

Biography

In 2004 Russell graduated with a Master of Fine Arts from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). He is also a graduate of the National Art School, Sydney.

Russell has been awarded a number of creative arts scholarships and bursaries including a five week QANTM Silicon Studios Training Centre Scholarship in 3D animation, Australian Network for Art and Technology Summer School at the Australian National University, and he has been an invited as a participant to the Australia Council’s Time – Place – Space hybrid arts laboratories at Charles Sturt University and the Ausdance Creating Performance laboratory at the University of New England.

As a practicing artist Russell has been constantly engaged in projects within various artistic fields including contemporary performance, new media, sculpture, installation, photography and graphic design. He is represented in national collections through visual art pieces and has presented contemporary performance works nationally and internationally. He is considered an Industry Expert in the field of Visual Arts, multimedia and digital arts for the purposes of assessing grant applications, with Arts Queensland a department of the Queensland Government and has a position on the Youth Arts Queensland, Young Artists Mentoring Program Assessment and Advisory Panel. Russell regularly contributes reviews and articles to a range of national publications including Dance Forum, RealTime and Photofile.

As Co-Artistic Director and Technical Director of Bonemap he has received multiple awards from the New Media Arts Fund and Dance Fund of the Australia Council along with numerous State and Local Government awards. In 2000 Bonemap was invited to present work in association with the Tokyo Performing Arts Market and World Dance Alliance Conference in Japan. In 2001 Bonemap was awarded the first interdisciplinary residency through the AsiaLink centre for a project with the Substation in Singapore. In 2003 Bonemap was invited to present work through the Experimentica festival at Chapter Arts Centre in Wales UK. In 2005 Bonemap was awarded a commission for Art-Built-In with the Cairns Convention Centre and in 2007 Bonemap participated in the Invited Artists Program of Strand Ephemera, Townsville. Bonemap continues to present work in many media and contexts including gallery, theatre and screen based platforms.

As a founder, previous Deputy Director and Exhibitions Manager of KickArts at the Cairns, Centre of Contemporary Arts, Russell has curated and managed an annual calendar of exhibitions over three gallery spaces. He also produced, edited and designed all the publications and graphic ephemera for the organisation. As a founder and senior staff member of KickArts Russell worked with many artists and contributed to the presentation of hundreds of projects across the spectrum of artforms.

what new media art means to me

“New Media Arts is a generic term associated with the creation of art in techno-cultural spaces. The genre has been associated with new tools and innovative approaches to expressive media at the nexus of art, science and technology often leading to fresh encounters and cross-fertilisation of creative forms outside of conventional art domains.”