Movie buffs listen up! The guide for the 2008 Sydney Film Festival has hits the streets, and with 16 World premieres and 135 Australian premieres, there's going to be a lot to take in :) This year's 55th Sydney Film Festival will host some of the world's most dynamic and renowned filmmakers. From 4 - 22 June, the festival program will include 16 World Premieres, 135 Australian Premieres and a ... Read full entry

Vincent Fantauzzo's Heath Ledger portrait named Archibald Prize People's Choice winner On a recent visit to see the Archibald Prize portraits on busy Sunday afternoon at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Vincent Fantauzzo's portrait of Heath Ledger was, not unsurprisingly, the hardest work to get to see close up on account of the interest in the painting, and ... Read full entry

Future Music Festival 2008 The Future Music Festival has, as far as I am concerned, one massive advantage over the recent Good Vibrations event from the other week: I can hear the whole thing from where I live, as the Sydney show takes place at nearby Royal Randwick Racecourse. A westerly breeze on the day will greatly enhance the listening experience :) The Chemical Brothers head a star-studded ... Read full entry

The TED Prize Dave Eggers, Karen Armstrong, and Neil Turok, have been named recipients of the 2008 TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Prize. The TED Prize is designed to leverage the TED Community's exceptional array of talent and resources. It is awarded annually to three exceptional individuals who each receive $100,000 and, much more important, the granting of "One Wish to Change the World." After several months of preparation, they unveil their ... Read full entry

It's that time of year: Mardi Gras week, the culmination of the month long Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival in Sydney, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. Some cities connect with their gay pride events and others don't. It's hard to think of another major city that has embraced its gay pride event quite as Sydney has done. Furthermore, no other gay pride event has so captured ... Read full entry

Dan Cederholm writes about speaking at, and attending Webstock, and also driving around New Zealand, "where a two-hour drive can take you through 10 different landscapes". (It's true!) I just returned from New Zealand, where I spoke at Webstock. I am tired. I had a tremendous time. I was amazed at the quality of the organization of the conference. I loved the branding that was found on everything ... Read full entry

The hoped for tickets for Good Vibrations didn't pan out in the end, but we still wondered over to the Good Vibes site yesterday afternoon in Centennial Park anyway. A few people have posted photos of the event here and here, plus the Sydney Morning Herald. There was also a very visible police presence at the festival...

This week's trivia item, picked up while listening to last week's streamed 2008 show on Triple J. Kate Nash's song "Foundations" was awarded perhaps one of the countdown's more notorious gongs, being ranked at number 101 in Triple J's annual poll of their listeners' favourite , er, 100 songs for 2007. Personally I think the song deserved better.

Hopes, dreams and a glimpse of the future Artexpress 2008 kicks off officially tomorrow, 2 February, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. I've always enjoyed the vibrant, fresh, works that are selected from the top graduating arts students in NSW high schools, each year. Artexpress is a good measure of where contemporary art is headed in the next few years, not because it is ... Read full entry

Don't forget to update your copyright notices (if you use them) to include 2008. Most people carry them in the footers or sidebars of their websites, so changing them globally (across the whole site) shouldn't be too difficult. In the "old days", like a year ago, before I was using a CMS, and template based web publishing, I used to have to trawl through pages and pages of ... Read full entry