An Artistic Guide to Sydney Festival 2012

The artistic side of the Festival is in the mix from the beginning, with the Art Gallery of NSW staying open late to play with the Festival First Night crowd offering Picasso-friendly Spanish goodness in the form of film, performance and live music.

Photographer William Yang returns to the stage, bringing his own life into focus with I Am a Camera. Crafting a story with his images, accompanied by the deep tones of Elana Kats-Chernin on cello and offering of Hasan Elahi levels of voyeurism focused on Yang's everyday life.

Edge of Elsewhere returns from last year's festival for its final engagement, connecting Chinatown to Campbelltown with a Thai mural painted in clothing, livestock-within-a-house-within-a-gallery and new animation from Brook Andrew.

Brook Andrew also brings his black and white aesthetic to the Carriageworks, peppering its foyer with full-size caravans containing stories within for attendees to investigate in Travelling Colony. Andrew's foyer is part of the Black Capital season, along with 181 Regent Street's collection of memorabilia and images from the stellar history of indigenous performance.

The University of Sydney will have Sydney ex-pat Narelle Jubelin cover its campus with art for Vision in Motion, painting windows with video, draping art all over some of the Uni's less Potteresque modernist architecture and adding petit-point with abandon.

Architectural talks will accompany her exhibition, as well a showcasing of young designers'  transformations of Cockatoo Island, Hyde Park and the University of Sydney into weirder spaces in youtopia.

The Scope brings ideas back to the festival, featuring interviews with festival artists at Microscope, Ira Glass's radio revelations at the Opera House and three nights of Bright Club — which will bring a TED-like vibe to the Spiegeltent, forcing scores of University types to compete for belly-laughs live on stage, with only eight minutes allowed for their profundity.

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