Chris Howlett (born 1974, Kokopo, Papua New Guinea) is an Australian artist based in Brisbane, Queensland.

Howlett graduated with a MFA from the Californian Institute of the Arts in 2000 and previously graduated with First Class Honours in a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Queensland University of Technology in 1996. His works have been exhibited internationally in festivals including the Inter-Society of Electronic Arts in Helsinki, Finland and Stockholm; Videoholica International Video Art Festival in Bulgaria; Los Angeles Freewaves Festival of Film, Video and New Media and exhibited work at the Art Centre College of Design in Pasadena, California. His solo and collaborative works have also been exhibited locally at the Gallery of Modern Art, Institute of Modern Art, the QUT Art Museum, the Arc Biennial for Art & Design and interstate at the Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia, Hobart Art Gallery, Cairns Contemporary Art Space and Blindside Artist Run Space Inc. in Melbourne. His public art commissions include "KICK OFF" which is a curated screen-based program at the new Metricon Stadium homeground of the Gold Coast Suns and Australia's largest public art canvas the QUT billboard project.
Hire Me Out
Photographer unknown.

Concerned with how virtual and real environments shift cultural and political understandings of our physical and psychological selves, Howlett's work often results in long term performances, computer game design, hardware modifications, sound and sculptural works, site-specific installations, painting, machinima, film and video art. His diverse, artistic universe expands preconceived notions of narrative and documentary by using autobiography, architectural simulations, pop music, fiction and fantasy to explore how technology redefines and influences our subjectivity through its pervasive use. His short machinima films include "Metropolis: Part I-III", "Michael Jackson 4 ways: Part I-IV", "Homesteads", and "Homesteads: Part I & II".

In his machinima film entitled "Metropolis: Part I-III", he uses the game SimCity Societies to construct three imaginary psychological zones which undermine the logic of the game to create a meditative space for reflection, seduction and poetic, apocalyptic reverie. Abstraction, repetition, the grid, and architecture all play their role in the actual town planning strategies of cities throughout the world in order to produce territory and the modern civilized society. Within the narrative of the film, dystopian and sublime, gated estates merge and dissolve into one another and are subjected to natural disasters, conjuring up disturbing comparisons between our real, lived experience and the day-to-day spectacle of mediated trauma.

In another machinima film entitled "Michael Jackson 4 ways: Part I-IV", Howlett questions the slippery position the viewer inhabits to make informed, truth based decisions with the personal information they encounter online. This experience is further complicated, when these personal and moral online statements take their final form in the depoliticized realm of entertainment and video games. Where does one locate one's moral and ethical decisions based on Jackson's aesthetics?

In 2010 he founded the Queensland Centre for Contemporary Art which is a collaborative performance project that discursively realizes its curatorial art projects within institutional and community partnerships and is currently lecturing in Sculpture at the Queensland College of Art in Brisbane, Australia. Upcoming, in 2013 he is part of major group exhibition that is in development to be held at the Torrance Art Museum in Los Angeles surveying Australian artists links to the United States curated by Max Presneill. … Read More

Chris Howlett
Born 1974, Kokopo in Papua New Guinea, currently lives in Australia.
Education

2000 Master of Fine Arts, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, Los Angeles, U.S.A.

Professional Experience

2010 Director, Queensland Centre for Contemporary Art, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Lecturer, Sculpture, Queensland College of Art, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
2006 Curator, Debut III, Blindside Artist Run Space, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Committee Member, Blindside Artist Run Space Inc., Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
2004 Studio Tutor, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

Awards, Grants and Scholarships

2004 Arts Queensland Monthly Grant, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
1998 Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Art Scholarship, South Australian School of Art.

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2009 Flashbacks, Metro Arts, Gallery 2, Edward Street, The City, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
2006 InOut, Blindside Artist Run Space Inc., Nicholas Building, The City, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
2005 Weapons on the Wall, Institute of Modern Art, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
2003 Weapons on the Wall, The Farm Space, The City, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
2000 Hire Me Out, Gallery 1, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, Los Angeles, U.S.A.
1999 Untitled Exhibition, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, Los Angeles, U.S.A.

Selected Group Exhibitions

2010 Premier of Queensland’s National New Media Art Award, Gallery of Modern Art, QLD, Australia.
Hobart Art Prize, Hobart Art Gallery, Hobart, Tasmania.
Machinima, The Block, Creative Industries, Queensland University of Technology, QLD, Australia.
Vocal Thoughts, Contemporary Art Centre of SA Inc., Adelaide, South Australia.
2009 Sweet Lip, Accidently Annie Street Space Artist Run Initiative, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Visual Dust, Parer Place screens, Creative Industries, QUT, Queensland, Australia.
Everything (et al), Metro Arts, Gallery 2, Edward Street, The City, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
2008 Sunshine Coast Art Prize, Caloundra Regional Art Gallery, Queensland, Australia.
2007 Christopher Howlett Enterprise: this is not art but design, Post Studio Arts, Victoria, QLD, Australia.
2005 Arc Biennial: Art & Design, City Hall: Sherwood Room, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
2004 Contraband, Stowaway Lounge: Artist-Made Karaoke Videos, 12th Inter-Society of Electronic Arts,Helsinki, Finland and Stockholm & Tallinn, LA Freewaves 9th Festival of Film, C-level, China Town, LA, U.S.A.
2000 Ply, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, Los Angeles, U.S.A.
1996 Cue, KickArts, Cairns Contemporary Art Space, Cairns, Queensland, Australia.

Public Art & Commissions

2010 QUT Billboard project, Kelvin Grove Road billboard, Creative Industries Precinct, Brisbane, QLD, Australia.


Interviews

2010 Australian Art Market Report Interview by Serena Bentley, Issue 36, April, Paddington, NSW, Australia.

Selected Publications

2010 ‘In the not too distant future’ by José Da Silva, Premier of Queensland’s National New Media Art Award Catalogue Essay, p16-19, QLD, Australia.
‘The past informs the future’ by Danni Zuvela, RealTime Magazine: Issue 99, Oct-Nov, QLD, Australia.
2009 Flashbacks by Mark Webb, Flashbacks Catalogue Essay, August, Brisbane, Australia.
Bold Intersection in Time by Suzanna Clarke, In the Frame, ETC, Courier Mail, Aug, QLD, Australia.
Flashbacks by Mark Pennings, Eyeline: Contemporary Visual Arts Number 70, p.83, QLD, Australia.
2006 A Semiotic Analysis: Sound & Text Exercises by Chris Howlett, Blindside Catalogue Essay, VIC, Australia.
2005 Let's Get Political by Rex Butler, in BAM, The Courier Mail, Jan 1st, Brisbane, Australia.
2004 Weapons on the Wall: Seduction is Important by Chris Handran, IMA catalogue, QLD, Australia.
2003 Reviews by Chris Handran, Eyeline: Contemporary Visual Arts, Number 52, p.47, QLD, Australia.

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