Cool as ice
Icelandic musician Ásgeir Trausti Einarsson creates folky, electronic-tinged melodies and sparkling harmonies with soaring vocals. Likened to James Blake, Bon Iver and Jónsi, his most recent album In the Silence is Iceland’s biggest and fastest ever selling album – a huge accomplishment in the face of his compatriots Björk and Sigur Rós. The 22-year-old is in Australia for the Falls festival and is playing three sideshows in Sydney and Melbourne.
Ásgeir plays Sydney Opera House twice on 7 January and the Forum theatre in Melbourne on 9 January
Star in the making
The Mona scholarship is awarded annually to an emerging Tasmanian artist to fund the development of a new body of work to be shown at the museum’s Library Gallery. The 2013 recipient Rahni Allan has created an immersive installation that explores sonic connections and visual illusions created with interactive fibre optics. Allan is interested in the intersection of art and science – her previous experiments included video-calling a mobile phone she attached to 24 helium balloons and let float into the sky.
Stars in Disguise is at the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart until 11 January
Myth on screen
Russian collective AES+F create large-scale, highly rendered videos that depict mesmerising, otherworldly scenes unfolding in slow motion. Their latest work reimagines Giovanni Bellini’s painting Allegoria Sacra, which portrays icons of Christian and ancient mythology. In AES+F’s contemporary version, mythical creatures, architecture, fashion and cultural identities play out in surreal combinations. The work will be shown by the Art Gallery of South Australia in the Flour Store at Harts Mill, a fitting venue for its monumental scale.
Allegoria Sacra by AES+F screens at the Flour Store, Port Adelaide on 7 January for one night only
All yellow
Written and performed by Tim Crouch, I, Malvolio reinterprets Twelfth Night from the perspective of the yellow-stockinged steward. Designed for young viewers, in this production Crouch takes on Shakespeare in a way that integrates the performer and the audience in back and fourth banter and becomes a humorous and conversational celebration of theatre itself. The play has been met with critical acclaim since premiering at the Brighton festival in 2010 and has since toured to festivals across the world.
I, Malvolio is at Melbourne Arts Centre from 6–11 January
Bridging the gap
David Moore’s photographic documentation of the construction of Sydney’s Anzac bridge captures not only the technical elements of its engineering, but importantly, the workers who built it. The images, taken over a three-year period in which Moore had unrestricted access to the construction site, juxtapose the experience and emotions of hard physical labour with striking elements of architectural design, drawing attention to the stories behind that other bridge that is integral to Sydney’s cityscape.
A Feat of Daring: David Moore’s tribute to the ANZAC bridge, Customs House, Sydney until 15 January
