'TRACE: Displayed (Post-Colonial-Cluster-Fuck)' TRACE Collective @ Artspace

Nobody knows what we are doing, we don't know what we are doing, nobody cares.

'Saturn's Return' Tommy Murphy & David Berthold @ Sydney Theatre Company

The girl and her toy boys, spinning around her doll house, spinning around the walls of her spinning mind, until everything is stuck from the artificial gravity. The old people in the audience stare at her from a distance and wave, like when they used to take their own kids at Luna Park.

'Elling' Axel Hellstenius & Pamela Rabe @ Sydney Theatre Company

As the mess progressively accumulates on stage, one might fear that the mind is a dangerous place to leave in. By the end, though, despite of all appearances, all the agony, the fear, and the tears can actually set one free.

'Australian Minescapes' Edward Burtynsky @ Australian Centre for Photography

The photographer is actually producing a painting - the roads acting like brush strokes and the earth filling in the spaces with appropriately matching colors. The mines, though, allude to a different discipline; displayed in clear view they require the same study like skin wounds in a medicine book.

SANAA @ Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation

A maze of invisible walls; this is where we are. We try to find each other, wondering around the curves, the ghost doors. Our images are distorted through the layers of space between us. It's just air that prevents us from touching each other.

'Poor Boy' Matt Cameron, Tim Finn & Simon Phillips @ Sydney Theater Company

The production is an interesting battle between the dark thoughts of human existence and the feel-good intentions of commercial theater. We are shown the hole, the grave, but in place of what really lies inside, we get a birthday cake instead.

'Perspective cutouts' Paul Selwood @ Tin Sheds Gallery

It's amazing how easy the eye gets tricked in seeing things that are not there. And how easily the mind gets entertained with a play of dimensions. These works produce instant, universal, primitive awe. They are like a rainbow.

'Last ride' Glendyn Ivin @ the cinemas

This should have been a silent film: the characters' words don't add much to what already is so beautifully shown. It's the landscape, the moments between, that narrate the story, this allegory of a father and a son, bliss and murder included.

John Brack @ National Gallery of Victoria

Take each thing as what it is, the mirror, the flowers, the dancers, the sequence of a man's life, of all humanity, devoid of irony, and try to find meaning. This is the nothing that holds everything. This is Australia.

Tacita Dean @ ACCA

Yes, mister Alain de Botton, one does not have to go out of one's house to travel. There's always something new to see inside one's house, one's head.

'Red Cliff' John Woo @ Sydney Film Festival

The sun eclipsed by the arrows of the men from Mars, fighting for their right to own the face that launched a thousand ships, the face of the woman from Venus.

'Hatsu-Yume (First Dream)' Bill Viola @ Ivan Dougherty Gallery

Ingredients for the great big cake of things: mix water, fire, and stone, in a bowl with spirits from the other world, and stir it with light. Then pour it into the spaces between life and death, and bake for eternity. Tape it.

'The September Issue' R.J. Cutler @ Sydney Film Festival

A battle of familiar sorts, Anna and Grace, in the galactic ventures of a different spaceship, familiar stories of bad and good, idealism and capitalism, father and daughter, past and present, and animated sidekicks. The pages of the biggest magazine issue ever are filled not with beauty or advertising, but with snapshots of the same universe that is everyone, really.

'When the rain stops falling' Andrew Bovell & Chris Drummond @ Sydney Theatre Company

The past hides backstage, waiting with the actors and the props to reveal itself, slowly and beautifully, upside down, backwards, inside out, and sometimes with a tear or a scream. When the whole story is told, it falls victim to its own profoundness: somewhere in Bangladesh, there's more important stories to be told.

'Paper soldier' Aleksei German MI @ Syndey Film Festival

I will read you a poem about words and life and fate, the first human in space, and communism and capitalism, and, did I mention, fate, and camels and bicycles and dogs, and the most beautiful woman on earth, and, yes, Russia,'can't feel my ears' cold Russia. I will read you a poem about words and life and...

'Three monkeys' Nuri Bilge Ceylan @ Sydney Film Festival

A window that looks out to the sea, drops of blood on the floor, a curtain blown up by the breeze... This is a show of little paintings, and while there's lots to see, little can be said of their content, except, of course, if you happen to be there.

'(500) Days of Summer' Marc Webb @ Sydney Film Festival

This latest movicine identifies broken blood vessels somewhere in the stomach, where 'love' fought its battle over someone that just didn't feel the same way about you, and slowly nurtures them back for reuse. It feels good, but please use responsibly.

'What are they doing here?' Cao Fei @ Art Gallery of NSW

Things 'Made in China' carry more than just an attractive price; they are packed with stories and lives from the otherness, or the unknown. This story uses a more universal language, and at times, it resonates like a morning stare at your bathroom mirror.

Peter Robinson @ Artspace

A mysterious cube; an abandoned salt lake, a piece of the sky, a sniff for a giant nostril. The list goes on, but not for long. In the end, it's light, empty, and useless and fades quickly like an image during a regular commute to work.

'Overlord' Stuart Cooper @ Sydney Film Festival

Death writes a poem, calls it 'War',and sends it to life. Life reads it, sheds a tear and moves on.

'Lighting the sails' Brian Eno @ Sydney Opera House

The video projections inhabit the building like butterflies around a tree trunk. Like a good book, if you get into it, you can stare for hours. People will take pictures and take you in their homes to share with friends and family.

'Archive' Michael Cusack @ Martin Browne Fine Art

The paintings live in one of those white minimalist apartments, somewhere in the Upper East Side. During the 70s. They gather things of different shapes and sensibilities and place them together according to eastern philosophic traditions. They look balanced, but their lives are a complete mess.

'Collage' Michael Taylor @ Gallery 9

The paintings have been shipped from last century, sometime in the mid-50s. The years of memories and unfortunate choices weight down the interesting bits. It's not a pretty sight, and it's not meant to be. The big canvases in the last room have something better to say.