Micah. Lilia. Girlie Werewolf Suits.

BACKGROUND Out of the Matrix examines contemporary practices that challenge traditional functions of the printmaking matrix and inherent notions of reproducibility. Supported by the catalogue essay, all works engage in a discursive dialogue that reactivates print-informed practice as a key element of contemporary art enquiry. The catalogue specifically captures work in situ at RMIT Gallery, focusing on the architectural and thematic context of space, visual and conceptual relationships between works. CONTRIBUTION My own work is grounded in the reduction linocut medium (in which the matrix is progressively destroyed), further extended through construction into wearable art, or represented as large scale one-off digital iterations on cloth banners. The work sits within discourses surrounding art theorist Boris Groys' The Politics of Installation 2009 and Jean Baudrillard's Simulation and Simulacra 1981, referenced in the catalogue essay. I ask, "How might shifting iterations of a medium The uniqueness of the cloth banners challenges and subverts conventional print hierarchies by employing digital printing - usually associated with infinite reproducibility - to create a unique work that is ironically more limited than the hand produced reduction linocut 'original'. The banners are new work, not previously submitted to ERA. I also chaired the panel discussion, "The expanding print", interrogating contemporary print practitioners' shifting relationship to the matrix and the multiple. SIGNIFICANCE Artists are key educators in Printmaking from Monash University, VCA and RMIT. The panel discussions, floor talks and catalogue add to the live and contentious debate occurring through the national print journal Imprint and as part of the Print Council of Australia's Year of Print.