Electrofringe has outgrown the cheerful amateurishness of its roots and takes the quotidian business of festivals in its stride. The run-of-the-mill business of festival, which is innovative and well curated exhibitions and shows, are all present and correct. More captivating though are the oddities of the many-appendaged beast.
Because while these events aren’t always successful, neat, or even deliberate, the volume and quality of that bizarre spontaneous insanity is the flesh on the solid Electrofringe bones of conventional festival fare.
The Best of the Beast, Dan McKinlay, Realtime 76 [Electrofringe 2006]
“Significant new territory covered”
No Mission Statements Please, Dominique Angeloro, Realtime 82 [Electrofringe 2007]
Electrofringe is an international festival of electronic arts and culture. Its program is presented around the year nationally and as a festival that takes place annually over 5 days in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, as part of the collaborative festivals of This is Not Art – Sound Summit, National Young Writers Festival and Critical Animals.
Cat Jones was Co-Director of Electrofringe in 2006 with Sumugan Sivanesan and Ben Byrne and in 2007 with Ben Byrne and Alex White. Together the co-directors programmed more than 150 events and 250 artists across the 5 day festival each year.
Cat introduced the Electro-Etre program of live media performance that ran from 2006-2009 and an ongoing exchange with the Japan Media Arts Festival. Just some of the artists programmed for live or mediated events include Dumb Type (JAPAN), Blast Theory (UK), pvi collective (AU), Unreasonable Adults (AU), Troika Ranch (USA), spatnloogie (AU), Mei-Yin Ng (Malaysia/USA), Julie Ann Long (AU), Nibroll (JAPAN), The League of Imaginary Scientists (USA), S E Barnet and Hillary Mushkin (UK/USA). In 2008 after 10 years of operation as an unincorporated group, Cat co-founded Electrofringe as a company with Ben Byrne and Alex White and was Chairperson from 2008-2010.
cat jones 