This is Not Art

09:00am - 10:00am

Breakfast Book Club: The Book That Made You Seethe

Is there anything better than a chat about books over breakfast? Start your day with authors talking about books that have changed, shocked, moved and inspired them.

10:00am - 04:00pm

Monuments of the Everyman

Artists’ create monuments memorialising the everyday. This exhibition reminds us to acknowledge the ‘everyman’s’ contribution to society, affirming our fundamental human right to exist with meaning and purpose. Octapod and The Lock ...

10:00am - 04:00pm

Instruction Experiment: Action//Reaction

The artist is located in shop window. You instruct her via the hashtag #actionreation. This work is an exploration of the bounds between request and response, instruction and action, method and spontaneity. Octapod and The Lock Up present Critical Animals ...

10:00am - 04:00pm

Side A/Side B

Experienced by two people at a time: take a seat, choose a side and conjure up the face of the one you love. A hypnotic, contemplative place of love and loss.

10:00am - 11:00am

Best Job or Total Flop

Editing is often held up as the perfect job for writers and readers alike, but does the experience live up to the hype? Five editors chat about editorial life.

10:00am - 04:00pm

Hapticity

By working intimately with participants Robbie Karmel creates drawings of tactile, visual, and haptic interactions. This is an open invitation to experience first hand the act and process of drawing.

10:00am - 11:00am

Where I’m Going, Where I’ve Gone

What is it about poetry that makes it such a powerful conduit for storytelling and placemaking? Join Australia’s finest young poets for this discussion of narrative, journey and home.

10:00am - 01:00pm

Your Art Will Change the World

Artists. World changers. Join us for global stories, challenging ideas and performance participation to envisage how your art can transform the world.

10:00am - 06:00pm

Artist Mobile Matchmaking

Can an app designed to quench our amorous urges, be subverted to create fertile creative collaborations? This digital intervention uses tinder/grindr to facilitate artist hook-ups during the three-day festival. Co-presented by Critical Animals and the National ...

11:00am - 01:00pm

If it's good enough for 9 year olds

Matt Roden shows you the tricks used at the Sydney Story Factory to inspire young young young writers and runs through workshop ideas ofr writers of all ages.

11:00am - 12:00pm

When It's Time To Stop

We're all doing seven things at once, that’s part of the creative lifestyle, right? Are nervous breakdowns just part of it too? These writers share their horror stories and when it’s ok to say no.

11:00am - 12:00pm

Backchat Live

Your alternative to talkback. Hosted by Luke Marshall and Heidi Pett, Backchat is FBi Radio's news and politics program. We do interviews, discussion and lols. FBi 94.5fm or fbiradio.com

11:00am - 12:00pm

Arts Management 101

Do you like festivals and events? Do you want to make them happen? Maybe arts management is for you. Find out what it involves and meet some people who do it.

12:00pm - 12:00am

The True Story of World War Three

World War Three ended last Thursday… in case you missed it, here’s a recap. We’ve brought the darkly prophetic writings of novelist JG Ballard into the 21st century through spoken word and electronic music mayhem.

12:00pm - 02:00pm

OOO: Object Agency & Creative-Critical Spaces

Three panellists' creative and critical work engages with ideas emanating from the metaphysical movement, Object Oriented Ontology. They speculate: what happens when human experience is not the centre in understanding 'the world'? Presented in ...

12:00pm - 12:00am

sincerely yours, (Love Letter Project)

The manifestation of longing between loved ones... love letters link with a tangible resonance.

12:00pm - 06:00pm

Three Wishes

Walk past thoughts, doors, hopes, and shop fronts. Newcastle shares their wishes for Australia in ten years time. An audio walk. Meet out the front of Cream on Hunter.

12:00pm - 01:00pm

Mandatory Attention - the State of Immigration in Australia Today

Immigration policy in Australia has always been a hotbed of controversy, and never more than right now. What do we, as young writers, think about the mandatory detention system?

12:00pm - 02:00pm

Beauty and the Grey Beast: Surprising Tales From Prison

This workshop, facilitated by Off The Record, encourages a conversation around the impacts of creative and cultural programming on inmates at Junee Correctional Centre. It's about humanising the demonised and the power of art to create an environment where ...

01:30pm - 03:00pm

Contemporary Dance Workshop

Explore your own physicality through dance and movement in this contemporary dance workshop taught by Alex Andrews and Brianna Kell. No experience necessary, just a desire to move, slide on in, and give it a go.

02:00pm - 04:00pm

Tinder Poetics

A Burroughs-style cut-up poetry workshop, using text derived from the poetics of online-dating. Co-presented by Critical Animals and the National Young Writers' Festival. Octapod and The Lock Up present Critical Animals as part of This is Not Art.

02:00pm - 03:00pm

New Storytelling

The world is exploding with new ways to tell stories, whether through technology platforms, social media. Come listen to these innovative storytellers chat about the future of writing.

02:00pm - 03:00pm

Funny Ladies

Some of Australia’s brightest comic minds reflect on what it means to be a funny lady in a world that still wants to argue about whether or not women are funny.

02:00pm - 03:00pm

Justice

It's a slippery subject and it underpins so much of what we write - from crime fiction to journalism. Five writers discuss what justice means to them, both professionally and personally.

02:00pm - 04:00pm

Monuments of the Everyman - Exhibition Launch

Join NANA Contemporary at the opening of "Monuments of the Everyman', a Critical Animals satellite exhibition, curated by Madeleine Cruise and Jacqueline Larcombe. Octapod and The Lock Up present Critical Animals as part of This is Not Art.

02:00pm - 02:30pm

Far Flung

Relationships and distance... an unhappy mix? Choose your time, choose your venue and join the story as it unfolds. Held in various venues, including The Edwards, The Store and Hunter Design School. This project was supported thorough Creative Partnerships ...

02:00pm - 03:00pm

Everything You Wanted To Know About Design

Ever wondered what goes into designing a lit mag, a website or an anthology? Listen to this group of up-and-coming designers discuss their work, inspiration and the benefit of good design.

02:00pm - 05:00pm

Is this your life

Do you lead your thoughts or do your thoughts lead you? Let this time and gender blending performance help you understand where you truly are.

02:00pm - 04:00pm

Perform Like a Pro

Poet and performer Kaitlyn Plyley will take you through getting your poetry off the page and onto the stage. Learn everything from microphone technique to breathing and perform with confidence!

03:00pm - 04:00pm

A Captive Audience

Do artists have a responsibilty to use their art for good? Should books just aim to be entertaining? These writers discuss using your writing as a platform for sneaky preaching.

03:00pm - 04:30pm

Live Arts & Social Unrest: the Greek crisis case

How can art be re-defined in times of crisis? Several “snapshots” will be presented from the Greek reality of the past five years, in order to discuss how the crisis has made dominant morals more conservative and social reactions more extreme, ...

03:00pm - 04:00pm

Creative Transformations and Conjurations

How may creative practice be a catalyst for transformation? Four panellists explore the potential to conjure new forms of personal, mystic and political experience through artistic expression. Octapod and The Lock Up present Critical Animals as part of This ...

03:15pm - 04:15pm

WAY OUT dance

Immersive promenade dance event activating the concrete landscape.

04:00pm - 06:00pm

Small Press Workshop

Always wanted to start your own magazine or lit journal? Join the editor of Archer Amy Middleton for this workshop into the world of small press publishing.

04:00pm - 05:00pm

Slacktivism vs Street Protests

What does the future of civil disobedience look like for Gen Y and future generations? What works and what doesn't? Are we just lazy online slackers, or innovative, new world thinkers?

04:00pm - 07:00pm

Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow!

1 in 7 people believe the world will end in our lifetime. Climate change, viruses, cyber-attacks, anthrax letters, electromagnetic pulse, North Korean missiles – there’s impending doom everywhere we look. How prepared are ...

04:00pm - 05:00pm

Get a Real Job

Sick of being asked about your plan b when that writing thing doesn’t work out? Come meet some writers who’ve made writing their day job.

04:00pm - 05:00pm

Spilling Your Guts

Is there something addictive about laying your life out for the world to see? And how do you deal with the aftermath to your revelations?

04:00pm - 05:00pm

Re: Reading

If reading is not simply the passive reception of a text, what does this mean for reading/writing? This panel examines the poetics and politics of reading, and the relation between text and world. Octapod and The Lock Up present Critical Animals as part of ...

04:15pm - 05:00pm

The Frankensteined Monologues

We’ve created a monster. One typewriter. Two festivals. Hundreds of voices. See the already sewn, build the next beast.

04:45pm - 05:45pm

For the Love of an Orange

A new work combining puppetry, visual theatre, projection, and 50 kilos of oranges to take you on a dark, absurdist journey.

05:00pm - 06:00pm

Converged Futures

The future is interactive. Join three artists/technologists/storytellers as they share their thinking and works, exploring the boundaries of technology and questioning modern aesthetics and structure. In partnership with the University of Newcastle. Octapod ...

05:00pm - 06:00pm

Salon Talks with Lawrence Leung: Making a Career Out Of Your Passions

Ever wanted to talk about the apocalypse with David Henley? Discuss feminist futures with Clementine Ford? Three of our festival favourites are giving you the chance to get up close and personal and talk about subjects close to their heart. The first five people ...

05:00pm - 06:00pm

Salon Talks with David Henley: Is Sci Fi or Fantasy Superior?

Ever wanted to talk about the apocalypse with David Henley? Discuss feminist futures with Clementine Ford? Three of our festival favourites are giving you the chance to get up close and personal and talk about subjects close to their heart. The first five people ...

05:00pm - 06:00pm

My Favourite is Problematic

Who hasn't been crushed to discover that your favourite celebrity is kinda bigoted? Inspired by yourfaveisproblematic.tumblr.com, we ask some of our fave pop culture writers to share how they cope.

05:15pm - 06:15pm

Tonsils + Tweezers

Tonsils and Tweezers are best friends. Tonight is their high school reunion. And they want to do something. Something unspeakable

05:45pm - 06:00pm

Electric Naga

You're a ghost driving a meat coated skeleton made from stardust, what have you to be scared of? Dance | Dark Circus | Insanity | Beauty. An experimental performance piece combining new technology and ancient moves. A plug and play performance.

06:00pm - 07:00pm

Ghost Stories

Apparitions, superstitions and things that go bump in the night. These fabulous writers share tales of the supernatural and the circumstantial. Strap yourself in for a scare.

06:30pm - 07:30pm

Eucapocalypts Now

Eucapocalypts Now is a poetry performance which prizes open the eyes to an increasingly likely future that’s neither utopia nor apocalypse, and asks – can you face it without flinching?

07:00pm - 08:00pm

Seen & Heard Screening

Seen & Heard is a Sydney based festival showcasing women's work in film, joining Critical Animals for the first time in 2014. Join us in our imagining of possible futures beyond the existing cultural impoverishment and shortage of women's ...

07:00pm - 09:00pm

The Evolutionary Straitjacket: Climate Change Karaoke

The StraitJacket encourages audiences wear an extinct animal costume while belting out karaoke pop songs that are lyrically rich with tales of evolution.

07:00pm - 07:30pm

Do.

Solo aerial performance in a laneway challenging the ideas of failure and success and exploring what it is to 'Do'. It is a reminder to keep going, keep trying and to overcome the fear that is within us all.

07:00pm - 08:00pm

Crack Family Dinner: But wait, isn't this about performance art?

Text has no place in contemporary or devised work, amirite? UAMRONG. We talk to spoken word artists, people writing for devised theatre and artists remixing text to make totally new, totally contemporary, and totally well-written work.

07:30pm - 08:00pm

Fat Actor

A comedic examination of self, the industry and why fat people are people too... even when they're actors.

08:00pm - 01:00am

NYWF Intergalactic Ball

Space! It’s big and so is our annual ball. You won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind bogglingly big it is. Dance, drink and be merry with all your festival pals.

08:15pm - 09:00pm

Salt

A continuum of harvest. Salty. Salt. Heralding Salt. Need. Salt.

09:00pm - 09:45pm

Project '84: Part One

An interactive exploration of an Orwellian inspired future, performed spontaneously through precise, synchronized instructions delivered to participants mobiles.

09:30pm - 10:30pm

Bomb Collar

The Last Singer is giving a secret concert, 10 Ballads of the Dead Future. Revolutionaries Only.

09:45pm - 10:30pm

Scattershot

A ten scene love story in a random order each performance. From meeting to breaking up to breaking up again.

10:30pm - 11:30pm

Gail Force Wins!!!

Are you feeling lucky, c*nt? Batten down the hatches! There's a Gale a'blowin'! This project was supported thorough Creative Partnerships Australia’s pilot program - MATCH: Crowdfunding for the Independent Arts Sector – which helped ...