christmas cheer, part 6

this year has been astoundingly busy. which you probably figured, thanks to the dearth of posts.

as a result, i'm extremely glad that it is drawing to a close and am looking forward to the three weeks' holidays i've taken the risk of indulging in.

and when i say holidays, i really  mean it. i'm not getting on a plane. i'm going to really stay off the computer, i'm going to steer clear of galleries, i'm going to watch TV series all in one go, go to the movies, the beach and the cafe (not always in that order) and i'm going to read a stack of books.

you know, like regular people do.

save a few days in dubai earlier this year, and two days in albany in august, i've not properly stopped for ages.

i look forward to having a slightly different approach to posting about art next year - more consistency and less frenetic squeeze-in-between-stuff attitude.

thanks to those peeps who continued to read and i hope you all have a wonderful holiday period.

see you in the new year!

and then what happened?

i may continue to write about things i learned at reckless for a while. probably because some of the works will take a while to sink in*

one that came to mind early on, perhaps even before the workshop started, was my new slogan for 2012: and then what happens? i don't recall making a specific one for 2011, but it was tied up with not having a day job. 

anyway, i realised that i'm not so great at thinking through an idea to its true end. like, i have a good idea and can imagine the final 'image' of it, but the reality of my ideas and their execution is that the 'image' is really only the first part of the experience and sometimes i forget to think about the rest of it.

say i decided it'd be awesome to set up an installation in which people DO stuff. well i imagine all the details of the room - lighting, costume, action, person shuts the door, ta-da! but after that, someone has to open the door, reset the room and make sure that the instructions for the audience actually work. and i often forget about that stuff until the last minute. having gaffed it up in small ways during the workshop, i've vowed to take some time in a project to think like a production manager and make sure that the actual end of the work gets seen to. like when the last piece is taken out of the building and the work is safely stored in a warehouse, or something.

i don't know if i'm quite explaining it, but i just wanted to share it all with you anyway. perhaps as a confessional. perhaps to get a witness. and make it 'real'. 

and something along with that resolve is also a reminder that i can make meaningful work about things that matter when i start with what matters to me. musicians i like often talk about the personal being political and i have been able to see how it works with them, but it wasn't until i saw my own interests and experience being extended and expanded that i could see how it pertained to me too.

as i write, i'm currently waiting for some funding apples to fall from trees (could those with connections to christopher hitchens please ask him to orchestrate a little luck for me, please?), and quite a lot of that funding is to develop new works, or extend works currently in the early stages of development. i'm hoping to bring into those new works a deeper consideration and perhaps a more serious or formal process for developing my own works. this year it was quite haphazard - dependant on residency projects and a bit reactionary - coming back from europe and the early stages of figuring out how to actually manage my practice.

in that time i feel like i learned from my peers and elders how to put some space around my work a bit. interestingly a lot of them are from performance backgrounds and seem to have a good sense of time-planning that i have pinched from. not that i won't give myself time to respond to works immediately, but next year i'm hoping to bring more measure into my time. 

and then what happened?

*guffaw! in-joke!  i made a work in which i got people to stick their heads in a sink full of  water) 

fremantle arts centre shows

for the first time in ages, i went to see other people's art. it feels so strange to write that, considering how much time i spent doing just that prior to this year. i guess the recent article was right in a guide to buying art when the author said 'don't listen to artists, they're too busy making art to see anything'. damn.

i digress.

on saturday i went to fremantle arts centre to see what was on offer. i've seen some good shows there during the last year, but i was a bit disappointed this time - the paintings and prints from the mark howlett collection really left me cold and the women in fremantle public art design competition made me angry. 

the paintings i did enjoy were a series with geometric consideration. not hard-line math-art, they were nonetheless drawing from isometry, representations of dimension and had a quasi-sculptural element to them. the framing/structure of the paintings themselves contributed to their form.

upstairs was an exhibition of public art proposals about the women of fremantle and within 3 minutes of being there, i was pretty damned angry. in fact, if i was a woman from fremantle, I'd be pretty damned depressed that the only way of representing me was as someone concerned with facile symbols of out-dated ideas of 'femininity': 

chocolate moulds of flowers and hearts, guadalupe on a ship with safety pins and an iron; a bracelet and a pearl necklace. 

i mean, for fucks' sake! are the women of the area so uninspiring that the artists can produce nothing less insipid? the only image that didn't make me want to go on a rampage was a twisted, ribbon-like form that was reminiscent of the pink ribbon of breast cancer research, twisted with a double helix. the video produced was an investigation in form, but it was more interesting (or perhaps less embarrassingly out-dated) than the rest.

i don't think these plans or ideas reflect the true depth of the history of women in the area. in fact lily hibberd's play and exhibition showed more research into the women in the area and she's from melbourne.

this exhibition also dangerously paints female artists as limited, not concerned with the depth of another woman's experience. 

perhaps there has been no funding attached to this call-out for a new public art work, which results in no time for research or thinking. 

it may be that the artists involved felt that they couldn't investigate 'difficult' subjects like education, imprisonment, racial discrimination, madness, triumph, glory or revolution. 

it may be a case of jumping to conclusions about the lack of depth of fremantle/western australian audiences (which i can understand). either way, the work suffers, art as a whole suffers and the depth of women's experience in public has been reduced to a cariacature, which is unacceptable.

so, looks like i've been a bit grinchy with my writing about others' work for my first one back - sorry about that. over summer i'm going to try and check out some more shows, so i promise to make it up to you.

sleeping recklessly

with a title like that, i should make a sordid tell-all of my dirty weekends. but frankly, that's none of your business, and would be more self-indulgent than my art practice is already and i don't think you could take it.

thankfully, it's about the workshop i've been doing with mole wetherell from reckless sleepers.

i still don't quite know how to describe what reckless sleepers are, but i guess you might call them a contemporary theatre company. but when i say contemporary, i mean that they really don't give a fuck about traditional theatre and are interested in time and process.

mole was invited to CIA to run a creative lab - passing on some of his processes and getting us to extend, expand and share our process for making work, so that we could learn and possibly create a new work.

it was quite an intense fortnight.
intense in the same way that falling in love is intense.

we really did have a lot of fun, played a lot, but also pushed ourselves and made each other work together. i think it was a pretty good group and i mostly had a great time.

interestingly, the times that i didn't have such a good time were when i found myself reverting to adolescent ways of being: convinced that my difference from others was detrimental (and naturally untrue). i also discovered that a group dynamic that reflects my family environment, i get a bit mental. so passé.

i was really hoping to blog about the process all the way through, but as the weeks rolled on, i had other things to fit in after workshops, or was spending time writing applications, or fixing things, or just resting my addled brain. we had a bit of a blog going all the way through, which was mostly attended to by me, lynda roberts and mole. but that's OK. things happen.



some of my personal highlights:
- i rediscovered the importance of music in my practice
- lying on the floor sideways singing 'these boots are made for walking'
- watching 8 artists shove their head in a sink of water to listen to beak> - the poses, the gasping afterwards and the various types of wet hair.
- seeing my work in a whole different context.
- eating two whole chilis and making a disgusting concoction of stuff in a food processor in front of about 30 people.
- the in-jokes (yawn, is this boring?, wrong!)

other things i learned so far (i'm sure more lessons will reveal themselves):
- i really do use spaces to make people do things
- i over-think things
- i  need to kick my insecurities about my practice to the kerb
- i like performing
- repetition, feedback and testing are important processes i need to formalise from here on in.




to the rest of the sleepers: loves youse all
(jen, mish, ben, lynda, julian, sarah, paea)

back in perth

what you may not have picked up in my absence, is that i'm actually in perth (and have been for two weeks!). i came back to finish the geek-in-residence project, which i worked ridiculous hours for ten days to finish up on sunday. it still needs tweaking, but it's as good as i can make it at the moment.


the last few days have been spent in an amazing creative lab with reckless sleepers' mole wetherall and it has been intense and amazing.

i can't explain too much tonight, but there has been a real focus on deconstruction and reconstruction from language, repetition and mistake (or anomaly, perhaps). there are 8 of us participants and i'm having a really great time.

today i felt a bit behind the 8-ball, thanks to a slight misreading of a task, which then became a complete shift in text. but apart from that, it has been a fruitful time.

i'll fill you in on more details very soon.

until then, here's a picture of my performance map today:

image credit: sarah rowbottam

the listening booth: end of residency at collingwood neighbourhood house

i've been quite the boringly busy blogger this year, haven't i? 

constantly apologising for blogging about things way after they've passed.

so 'tis with the end of the residency at collingwood housing estate.

as the end of the residency loomed,  i really wasn't sure the best way to 'mark' the occasion. my initial idea was to put on a concert, with the local band, some experimental music peeps and some vocal groups from the local area.
whilst i don't think it's a stupid idea, the failure of the movie night helped me realise that my resources (time, money, skllls and patience) were too limited to be able to pull of something like that on the estate. and it just felt like i was going to make a work that kinda failed.

so i cancelled the tentative plans i had made, but that left me with a bit of a hole in my plans and a sense of impending anticlimax. 

thankfully i was able to chat about it with sue kent, the administrator and person who started collingwood neighbourhood house. she suggested, very sensibly, that i join the community safety day which was planned for the weekend after our conversation. it was a super-quick turnaround, but a great idea: the community would be out, it was going to add to a  sense of safety and awareness (listening, that is), and i'd be included in an event that already had community support, promotion and context. perfect.

the only problem was the i wasn't sure the best way to include some of the art community in that end-of-residency rah-rah. it wasn't a sexy event and i also didn't feel like making into a typical art event with a bunch of artists who aren't really into community-engaged practice.

thankfully my friend lucas came to the rescue - he suggested exactly the right thing, which resulted in two quite private tours for invited arty guests as well as members of the estate. perfect.

finishing touches

having brought my finale 10 days forward, i had to work really hard to bring everything to completion, but thankfully i just put my mind to it, and employed an assistant. mark, a local in transitional housing and main guy for the men's shed was my assistant for the week and he was amazing. he helped me put together the listening booth and string up all the wiring for the underground sound listening stations.

i worked my arse off writing up the sound wall, compiling the CD, getting maps printed and sorting out the logistics of inviting people to a one-off tour. all whilst  talking to loads of people from the area about what was happening. it was pretty intense, but amazing week. and it was really satisfying. those posts about each of the artworks will give you an idea of the meta processes of the whole work, but the overall fervent activity about all the works really brought everything together and did make it feel like a finale. the locals got a sense of what i was doing, and i started to see what my work was about and how it fit.

the listening booth and tours of the housing estate

thankfully the listening booth was the perfect device to bring all the works together on the one day.
i gave out CDs, maps to the estate and it was a great site from which to leave the tours.

the tours were great! a really nice mix of locals and arty-visitors and each person took something different away about the residency and the estate itself.

each group started with underground sound listening stations, to the sound wall, through one of the tower foyers and back to harmsworth park. i spoke a little about my experience on the estate, some about the work, about the significance of the places we passed (including the neighbourhood house and the DHS office0  the first group was overflowing, with quite a lot of the local peeps joining in (including a couple of kids) and we were treated to an outstanding tirade about public housing by a resident as we passed through the foyer of 229.

the second tour was slightly smaller, but later in the day. it was still a great little tour and some great questions asked about the nature of sound on the estate. I think most of the visitors really enjoyed all the works, and the chance to have them placed in context with a bit of a story and a chance to compare and contrast.

during the week afterwards, i was able to give people who couldn't make the main tours a consolation tour - with out the booth and vibe of the day, but still a glimpse into the sound works, the wall and a copy of the CD and maps.

i was so flattered at all the people who came and the great feedback i got about the works.

i also feel incredibly honoured that i was able to make the work that i did, and to be able to connect with such a wide variety of residents and locals to the collingwood housing estate.

mad props to 

the wurundjeri elders and their ancestors who allowed me to make work on the country and who were generous with their time and blessings

mark ryder, who was a total rock; 

to sue kent and john bainbridge who ended up totally backing me, even though i was an upstart early on; 

to kaukau who helped me and really befriended me

to my guest listeners: eddy carroll, jed from VACRO and travis marke with his year 8 music class

and to lucas, who helped me reason it out.

captcha

i just stumbled upon this video by australian artist gabrielle de vietri, whose chinese whispers work i loved at PICA screen space a while ago.

how beautiful is this story! it's like princess bride meets finnegans wake.


Captcha from Gabrielle de Vietri on Vimeo.

the sound wall (extended remix)

the sound wall on the yarra men's shed is the culmination of two and a half months of regular listening at the collingwood housing estate. it's a hand-written façade of every sound on the estate, covering the outer two walls of a weatherboard clad shed.

regular readers are probably aware of my ongoing listening practice - and may have popped over to the poorly-kept listening to the city blog to check out the listening i've been doing during the residency.

the locals and residents would see me pop up around the estate, standing for just 30 minutes at a time, usually with a camera in front of me, armed with headphones and a notebook. less ignored on the estate than i am in other areas of public space, i was often approached and asked what i was doing. if not in the moment, then afterwards. most residents were curious, assuming i was taking photos, singing, making a film clip or something creative. the most suspicious were always the powerful ones on the estate: the office of housing, security guards and heads of committees or organisations.

anyway, after the sound wall at electrofringe, i realised that it was a great idea for the project on the estate. there were a few false starts (namely some mis-communication between organisations resulting in the ordering of an embryonic wall to be removed).

anyway, the men's shed were delighted to be able to have the wall on their shed whilst they sorted out other creative opportunities. over a few weeks, i painted the corner walls of the shed black and the first text went up. it coincided withe the stages of organising the final event. 

in the 10 days prior to the listening booth, i spent evenings writing up the wall. the weather was particularly crappy at that stage, so mornings were usually raining, clearing to a fine-ish evening. as i perched on my ladder, or stood and write, it was a good opportunity to talk to residents about what i've been doing over the last two months.

the wonderful thing was that locals, who had observed slow changes to the shed, had no problem asking me what it was all about. i had amazing discussions with cute somalian men, old addicts and alcoholics from the block, an old greek woman who was in the group who sang exe geia kaimene kosme to me early on (and who practiced reading english on the wall). mark from the men's shed spruiked about it with every chance he got. 

everyone was stopping to read the words.

i still do like how i've managed to make a work that has different points of time and access. 

people can walk past it quickly and take in a few quick words as they're walking past.

they can glimpse it from across the street, or right up close.

they can stand and read it whilst they wait to score, or whilst their sister gets the kids out of the car.

i think it's just that bit too big/long to take in during one whole sitting, but someone could if they wanted to.

but that also means that there's enough of it to keep you coming back.

and although it's all about language, it's not the language of power. it's phenomenal. most of the phrases are one, two or three words long. they're not complex, but not simplistic either. and i don't think that it's patronising.

there are parts on the wall that people know are theirs - some names, some phrases they said directly to me when i was on the wall and i think that people like it because they know the sounds.

most assumed there'd be more swearing on there than there was. i only edited out instances where the word 'cunt' flew around, which wasn't actually that often. people also suggested there'd be the sound of gunshots on there. i could honestly say that i never heard gunshots in my time. perhaps i wasn't there late enough, or early enough. nonetheless, it felt right that i was able to remind people that the prevailing sounds of the estate were still birds, traffic and kids playing.

one of the local lads told me he was illiterate and got me to read some of the lists out. i didn't do it very poetically, but he got the drift. he told me he could read a few words and could get by so he had stopped trying to learn to read. he said he knew how to read the word birds, so i showed him were they were on the wall and he could read that. later that evening i busted him reading the wall from the beginning.

i got a lot of comments on my handwriting too. i didn't really expect that, but i guess when people couldn't immediately relate to what was written, they were attracted to how it looked. and the time it took. i didn't even think about doing it another way, and now - having had that feedback - i probably never will.

people called the work beautiful. that rocks my world. i know beauty is a pretty old-fashioned idea, but if i can bring a sense of beauty to a place that is known for its fear, cynicism and ugliness, that's pretty amazing isn't it?

overall, it was a simple work, but something that i'm proud of.

if you're in the hood, it's on perry street, collingwood near the corner of hoddle street and will be in its current form until at least february.

everybody's favourite song

when i first arrived on the estate as the artist-in-resident, i was trying to find other ways to observe sound on the estate (as well as the listening works). in the first week, i went into the neighbourhood house for a meeting - possibly a CHEAC meeting, and i observed deb, a resident, come in, make a beeline for the stereo, put a CD on, go directly to track 17 and listen intently. she didn't have her ears pressed to the speaker, but she was intensely focused on the song, as though she had dived out of the present moment and into whatever meaning that song held for her.

i wrote that down on the whiteboard in the studio, as well as the name of a CD i had found lying around, thinking that i was going to start collecting sounds in an ambient way. sounds that i 'happened upon'.

somewhere along the way i realised that others probably had similar experiences to particular songs - one's that they carried with them. and that was a particular phenomena of listening and sound in public housing. so i started asking people what their favourite song was, and writing it down.

ages ago, niko and i had talked about the device of The Playlist as a means of empowering people - an abstract form of choice that people could move around, customise and personalise. I didn't actually think i would end up making a playlist, but that's what happened.

unsurprisingly, it was a great device for talking to residents about music, listening, what i was doing and who they were. just personal enough to expose a little bit of ourselves, but not so much that i would be intruding or interfering in delicate dynamics or defense mechanisms.

as i wrote here, children and teenagers were the most in touch with their favourite songs. they knew, as though their lives depended on it. perhaps your favourite song is currency in the school yard - like if you like justin bieber, i'll talk to you, but if you like beyoncé, i'll only play with you once. i don't know - i just came up with that then.

A&R peeps for justin bieber, beyoncé, taio cruz, usher, eminem, LMFAO and gym class heroes will all be pleased to know that their biggest fans are 8 - 12 year olds in poor areas. i'm guessing that's exactly who they're pitched at (except beyonce - she rocks my socks too and jackie, 12 and i were friends for an afternoon because of it).

older residents were also quite in touch with their favourite song - like all the likes/dislikes over the years had decanted, leaving that one song that just stuck through. the beatles, simon and garfunkel, lynard skynard.

obviously there were a few "i dunno"s and a lot of "ooh, aah, ummm", but most people could think of something - at least a band or musician that they liked. the vietnamese on the block loved traditional asian melodies and soft, sweet sounds. and the aboriginal crew loved archie roach and bob marley. more than once i got 'took the children away' stuck in my head.

and above all else, people loved love songs.

day after day, i wrote up one song of the day on the blackboards,  i made sure that i chose a love song if i could.  love me do, i love you like a love song, everything i do, i do it for you, greatest love of all, when i fall in love, i want you back.

time and time again. simple and universal, clearly.


here's the final playlist, pretty much in chronological order. i made CDs and handed them out to peeps from the listening booth. i left some at the neighbourhood centre and i will be making a new batch of full sets in the next few weeks.

everything is alright - jesus christ superstar: deb

love is in the air - john paul young: anna

you are so beautiful to me - joe cocker: nga

red & black - les miserables: geraldine

little wings - jimi hendrix - gunther

money for nothing - dire straights

three little birds - bob marley: reg, reggae

gold dust woman - stevie nicks: lola

the power of love - huey lewis and the news: johnny

mua ru'ng: han

when i fall in love - nat king cole: mark

drive-by - the necks: tony

use me up - bill withers: jed

dj got us falling in love - usher: jake

not afraid - eminem: danny

party rock anthem - LMFAO: KK, ikro

freak the freak out - victoria justice: vanahn

set fire to the rain - adéle: maurice

ace hood - lifestyle

all i ever wanted - : sumeyra

i love you like a love song - selena gomez: hillary

venus - bananarama: val

luper - earl sweatshirt: brian

venus in furs - velvet underground: hugh

rain over me - pitbull: sondos

all day - cody simpson: hana

i wish you would - flamingoes: nick

whitney houston - greatest love of all: kaukau

itchycoo park - small faces: susanne

baby got back - sir mix-a-lot: cst pallisier

fight the power - public enemy: snr cst mclaughlin

catch a fire - mojo juju: nikita

memory lane - nas: james

flame trees - cold chisel: shane

took the children away - archie roach: james, tracey

take it easy - the eagles

stereo heart -  gym class heroes: vanahn

run to the hills - iron maiden: wally

fade to black - metallica: rob

under the bridge - RHCP: simon

the end - the doors: simon

sweet home alabama - lynard skynard: deb

superstition - stevie wonder: sue

sole survivor - rolling stones: sue

bad romance - lady gaga: de-anne

dynamite - taio cruz: shey

someone like you - adele: lillian

one time - justin bieber: jessica, natasha, isabella

never say never - justin bieber: vanja, natasha, jessica, izabella, elisha

pray - justin bieber: natasha

love on top: beyoncé - tia

ram jam - spiderbain: kerry

all the single ladies - beyoncé: jackie

california - tupac: DJ

love me too - the beatles: john

traditional greek songs: greek women's group

L-O-V-E - al green

feel so close - calvin harris: emma NYCH

i needed you - chris brown

sounds of silence - simon and garfunkel: peter

everything i do (i do it for you) - bryan adams: tammy

white lotus - poy

i want you back - jackson 5: lauren

khe sanh - sharon boyd

love story - taylor swift: jessica

beat it - michael jackson - taylor b

let me know if you'd like a copy.

the sound wall

last weekend was the culminating event for the residency i've been doing at the collingwood housing estate. i have much to write about - a lot to reflect on and update, but have been quite busy showing people around and attending to other paperwork i neglected in the lead-up.

but i just wanted to post this pic of the sound wall. i think it's my favourite image of all the projects so far.

from two months of daily listening projects, the sound wall is an artifact to all the sounds on the estate.
it has had the most amazing responses from locals and visitors alike.
i have specific stories to tell about people's reactions to it, and more to explain but for now here's just a little pic.

maps

I know that 'mapping' is a bit of a thing, and could likely be ground down in overuse, but today i did an impromptu project with some of the residents about mapping.

I need to make some maps for this saturday's sound art walk, so i got some of the residents to help me make them.

They told me where to mark some of the significant aspects of the estate, especially the car park area above The Underground.


I was particularly impressed with Sean (9) -  his recall and attention to detail was amazing.
He and his mum spend a lot of time in the community garden, so he must have some really visceral memories of the place. In fact, he was quite passionate about it - correcting me and filling in parts himself. It was amazing to watch.

I also found it quite enlightning how Jessica (9) visualised the area with a bit of perspective - not an abstracted form. She loves art, and can't read very well.

Dawn and Dolphin are in their 60s and have lived in the area a long time. Dawn was quite concerned about letting people know about toilets - concerned for people's safety and comfort, and was happy to include whole sections as 'the back of the high rise'.

Dolphin has a boxing ring and was still grieving the death of Joe Frazier. He did a great job of being able to describe the area to me, and of course talked about the ring.

The Listening Booth

I'll be wheeling this baby out to Harmsworth Park on the weekend for the final project of my residency at the Collingwood Housing Estate.

I'm running guided tours, which are for residents, but if you'd like to come along, leave me a comment and i'll see if I can save you a place. If you're reading about this on here you're probably partially interested in what i've been up to and likely interested in socially-engaged practice of sorts.

free food

yesterday in collingwood i scored some lunch, which was a bonus! mark from the men's shed, who is my assistant for the week called me and said 'there's free food - come and have some - there's even tofu!'. bless him.

so i popped upstairs to the first mothers' kitchen event held at the neighbourhood centre. it was quite lovely actually - thai meal with home-made cupcakes, some beautiful fresh fruit and a pile of kids christmas costumes being given away. it was rather surreal, as it happens, but still quite delicious.

free food happens quite a lot on the estate. which is great, because people's diets can be a bit crap. several of the kids programs cook - they made the most amazing lasagne last week, and a cracking stir fry another day. my mouth waters..

disgustingly, McDonalds also feel the need to hand out free meal cards to the residents.  I know in a free country they're technically entitled to. But the ethics of it makes me feel quite vile - especially given the state of a lot of public housing peeps' teeth, livers and stomachs. However, they go down well with the boys on the block and people are entitled to die however the fuck they want, so they're entitled to eat that way too, I guess.

Art and The Housing Estate

As part of the AURA Project residencies in the Collingwood Housing Estate, we are hosting artist talks and a panel discussion in The Underground studios.



Interested in questioning ourselves, as artists, on our role on the estate, the afternoon will encompass artist talks by the resident artists and a small panel discussion:


Art on The Estate – is art really an important part of life on a housing estate?

Friday November 4, 2011
3 – 5pm
The Underground Studios
44 Harmsworth St
Collingwood




If you're interested in creative industries, social housing, the practicalities of art making a difference in people's lives, come on down!

do you hit your kids?

The objections to the Occupy uprisings have been fairly predictable: 'no single cause' and/or 'go back to your jobs' and the charming 'the police said move on and you didn't, why is force surprising'/ 

Actually, the second one is a typical response to those who hide behind their jobs and expect others to be accountable for their freedoms. It's not their fault - standing up for your rights can be scary sometimes.

The first one is a funny response really. The reason that there are a myriad of demands by the Occupy uprisings, especially those I have briefly been part of in Melbourne, is that there are wide-reaching effects of focusing solely on listening to corporate lobbies, and focusing on the singular demands of the 1%.

When that happens, healthcare goes; poverty rises; education is to the privileged, citizens civil liberties are lessened (i'll go in to that in a minute), fossil fuels are mined and housing gets tight. all of those are worth protesting as a singular cause, sure. but all of them together are the symptoms of corporatism.

Mic check: This is what corporatism looks like!

And to the third one, I've taken to asking people 'do you hit your kids if they don't do what you want?' It's kind of the same response, really.

Until today, i hadn't been down to City Square to Occupy Melbourne. Clearly, i was resting on my privileged laurels: focusing on work and family first. But when I read the tweets of friends who were in the square and about to be evicted, I decided to finally act.

As Jello Biafra says in this interview, it's better to do something rather than nothing.

I joined the demonstration and occupied the public spaces of Melbourne. My home town, the place were I vote, where I contribute, where I participate in life as a citizen. It was great to remind myself that my rights are not just on a piece of paper, or something that Someone Else will take care of. I have to contribute to that.

So I did.

I also learned an important lesson about the State liberal government's focus on public spaces, in the form of their new Public Order Intelligence Group. Sounds sinister already, doesn't it.

Well, it is kind of sinister. Although technically they were working with the local constabulary - whose demeanour was firm and calm, yet still mostly polite - this squad of overall-wearing, nameless cops were another force altogether.

Yelling at me aggressively, I learned empirically that their hands are rough and hard. And that they believe grabbing someone me by throat and throwing me backwards was the best way to deal with a peaceful protestor. At the time, I was moving, but being pushed in a dense crowd down Swanston St and got wedged against a Police car parked on the road.

It was grossly unnecessary. And, like the old woman I am, I calmly told that man so.

I also learned that they are willing to drag a woman by her hoodie onto the ground and not assist her in getting up again, even when that woman was not resisting, fighting, yelling or contesting - but walking slowly in a packed crowd down the streets of Swanston St.

Yes, kids, that woman was me.

Thankfully, years in moshpits gave me the strength to deal with a pack of unruly men pushing and shoving and yelling and screaming. I was OK. Pantera fans are more intense in a crowd than these new thugs in uniform, but at least they're more polite.

It's weird to watch a group of people, moving slowly and purposefully, loudly, but in good spirits and with a sense of community be set upon by the human equivalent of barking dogs. I can't imagine what the perspective of the individual police officer in this situation is.

As well as contributing to a global uprising, sadly this situation has shown to Melbournians the petticoat of the Victorian Police (just like in the Kennett era): an aggressive bully, willing to strike out at the faintest whiff of conflict; attempting to cover up a sad insecurity complex.

Melbourne, we love you! 

Don't let them push and shove you!

autonomy

i have not previously given too much thought to the idea of autonomy. in theory i know what the word means, and i value it as a principle in my personal life (especially related to family and other relationships). but it has not been until the residency at the collingwood housing estate that i have considered the real value of autonomy and its relation to public and social welfare.

the department of housing does a great job in providing housing for people whose situations are otherwise very precarious. it is an excellent safety net, that i'm very proud of in this county.

and having to bring together large groups of people to live relatively harmoniously, regardless of cross-cultural considerations, is a difficult job.

and in doing so, i wonder if the first 'luxury' to go is the luxury of autonomy.

it's not that there isn't freedom in a housing estate, or certain levels of creature comfort and community. but only to a certain level. major decisions all stop with DHS. public space is within the directorate, permission must be granted for all kinds of things.

this keeps residents - whose lives have been traumatic, or dangerous, or disastrous - safe. for the time being. and i wonder what a difference having a sense of autonomy might bring to these lives. and how does one learn a sense of autonomy in a community situation?

and can autonomy - the notion of freedom earned from self-responsibility - exist alongside welfare? or is it a utopian ideal - a luxury afforded the bourgeoisie and bratts like me, who are actually privileged enough to believe that choice is the ultimate freedom.

listmakers

every artist remembered

on friday evening i went to ACCA to watch agatha gothe-snape's performance every artist remembered. this one was in partnership with domenico de clario and was actually really entertaining for an art history nerd and list-maker like me.

i didn't arrive until about 6:45, but stayed for 45 minutes, playing along at home - making my own connections between the artists remembered by agatha and domenic. and only once did the same artist come up: from The Quote Generator to Jenny Holzer.

this makes me a total sad-fuck, but i think i'm gonna go to as many of these performances as i actually can. i learned some things - heard about some new artists and enjoyed the slight randomness of grace crowley and pelé being on the same page.


in between days



jobs warehouse was closed when i went to pick up some fabric, so naturally i popped upstairs to check out what was on at sarah scout: kate daw's show in between days

kate's first show there was the first show i had seen of hers, the first show at the new gallery and i really liked the ceramic lettering.

this show was mostly about fabric motifs and the symbols in furnishings that just recede into the background so quickly (a bit like sounds of everyday life, yeah).

one work that i was intrigued by was a typed list of names - apparently fabric titles and flower names. it was very beautiful and reminded me of what i've been trying to make with my lists of sounds.

kate from the gallery showed me a few others of kate daw's typed lists or exerpts - on fabric, with an industrial sewing machine. i loved them immediately. they're mostly found type, but have the form that i like in text on fabric: slightly warped, considered and with the weight of literature (as opposed to a slogan, or marketing brand).


collingwood playlist

one of the projects i'm doing as part of the aura residency is asking people what their favourite songs are. i'm making a playlist and it will end up being a mixtape/CD thing that i'll give to anyone who wants it.

the list is starting to look pretty ace, and i've starting writing some of the songs up on the blackboards outside towers on 253 and 229 hoddle st.

i've also decided to make the playlist another formal object. so far, it's just blue whiteboard marker on a whiteboard. but i'm going to make it neater and more ordered, so that it's pleasing to look at and something that can be moved around a bit - maybe even hung up on walls somewhere in the block.


image credits: 
agatha gothe-snape's every artist remembered pinched from agatha's blog every artist remembered
kate daw's 5 menus; Juliana, Louise, Clara, Tim, Stewart pinched from the ACCA site

siri says the darndest things

excellent tumblr site.
and so quickly!
my personal favourite:

thanks to this is my next and jake marsh.

assembly

On saturday night, i had the great fortune of being able to check out the last show of the performance Assembly, on as part of the melbourne arts festival.

a collaboration between victorian opera and chunky move dance company, i was intrigued by the outline in the festival program, and by the seemingly unlikely pairing.

the tickets were SUPER expensive, so my best friend (a dancer) and i almost didn't go. until she overheard her dance teacher talking about how amazing it was. so we rifled through our possible discount options and, thanks to us both being RRR subscribers, got ourselves some cheap tix (still $60, mind).

after a bit of a kerfuffle with our seating, we settled in for what is probably going to be my favourite event of all year.

 i'm not kidding.

 it ticked so many boxes for me that within about 10 minutes of the performance, i had tears in my eyes from the beauty and 'right'-ness of it. i know, so Ancient Greek of me, but whatever.

It was just stunning.

 I'm not so great at writing/talking about dance*, so please excuse the simplistic review, but it was fuckin' ace.

The work was essentially about crowd movement. Gideon's discription of it in the program outlined it well. He wrote of seeing choreographic a group as a single entity and how that translates into public gatherings. Each of the 'movements' within the piece addressed different types of crowd movement - the collective form, the beauty of patterned chaos, the swarm and how and individual can divide a crowd so quickly.

The dynamics between the performers was incredible and they must have just practiced and practiced and practiced. It was a perfect example of controlled mess.

Singers vs Dancers
As the program mentioned, it wasn't an operatic piece that was 'illustrated' by dancers. It was truly a collaborative piece: the singers danced and the dancers sang. There were a small group of prinicpals from each side who led significant pieces, and supported by about 40 all-rounders.

Minimal set
The set was a brilliant double-sided, wooden staircase that added dynamic and cluey percussive elements to the dances. The movement thread up and over, up and across, down and over the stairs.
It added a percussive element to the otherwise accompanyless music, which I thought was pretty nice. And i almost wished for a little bit of tonal variation in the steps - not much, but just enough to click me.

Colour 

The costume design was so amazing. The design disease in me just went bonkers. Everyone was dressed in a perfect blend of colour and tone - elements of neutrality and hue, with divisions possible along colour, tone and temperature too.

The scene about (which i pinched from the SMH review) was a fantastic haka-esque battle between warm and cool sides, with operatic, but tribal yelling and beautiful but warrior-like movement. 

Sound of the crowd

Obviously i found some areas specifically relevent to my work in it. The sound of a crowd all talking at once is amazing to listen to. I do it regularly in my listening projects, and it was a new, yet familiar experience to listen to it in a framed performance.

And I also enjoyed a section, early on in the piece, in which the whole crowd tilted their heads, as though collectively listening - to each other, or to the audience, or just to provide a welcome balance to the previous cacophony of rhetoric en masse.

 * which is why sarah is going to start a dance blog soon. when i get off her back about it :)

listening poem

i never thought of what i did as poetry at all. until i had to explain to DHS what i did.

saying it was a 'poem' was the quickest, simplest and easiest was to talk about the list of sounds i hear. 

 then i went to electrofringe and the peeps from australian poetry and the new young writers festival said it was totally poetry.
interesting.

 on tuesday i started writing up the list of sounds i've been listening to on the glass in the foyer at 240 wellington street. i did another installment of it this morning and two people came up to read what i was doing. and aesha, a girl who lives in the wellington street block said that it was a poem and she liked reading it.

 when i talked about how i came to the words, she agreed that when you break it down like that, we listen to a lot, don't we.

 in fact, she liked the idea so much she's going to join me listening tomorrow afternoon!

what a great result that is. cross-posted at aura project blog

stay hungry, stay foolish

steve, baby.
see you at the big nerdfest in the sky.

sound mapping, across the universe.

i was fortunate enough to participate again in This Is Not Art - the festival of festivals that takes over the ex-industrial city of Newcastle every year.

one of the down sides to realising my own work in the festival is that i didn't really get to full participate as a punter. i spent quite a lot of time organising and invigilating the shop-space i set up for garments for listening.

the rest of the time was as the listener-in-residence.

i did get to eavesdrop on some pretty fantastic workshops, discussions, performances, gigs and general ambience of newcastle at festival time.

each day, that list of sounds was transcribed onto 5 large blackboards outside the festival club - the fantastic great northern hotel.

the list was a combination of ambience and people's conversation - all sounds heard. and as it rolled out over the course of the festival, people enjoyed catching up on some of the happenings. it was so great to observe people reading and becoming more aware of the sounds of the festival, and also their own sound-based contributions.

there were a few times where, in the process of transcribing onto the boards earlier listening sessions, some fantastic sounds would reach me and i would jot them down too. some great conversations happened too - about what people said, or the nature of the festival - or even if the work was in fact poetry.





i really enjoyed taking on a 'role' as an artist for this project. rather than a producer of things, i was the provider of a service. miwon kwon has criticised this in the past, but i still enjoyed it. and felt that i contributed in a positive way to the event as a whole.

some of the sessions/events I listenly attended to* included:

The TiNA opening party
Songbirds by Joe Moriglio
GLI.TC/H: hacking codecs in the pursuit of communication by Evan Meaney
Listening to Place by Clare and John Andreallo
There might be a Bed in the Street by Crack Theatre
Spelling Bee hosted by Lawrence Leung
Media Lab Melbourne Presents.. with Pierre Proske from Media Lab Melbourne
Technology as/with/in Performance - a panel facilitated by Cat Jones
Save Me (which was called something else on the day, but i didn't note it) - Shani Moffat, Natalia Ladyko, Aesha Henderson and Matina Moutzouris
Science, Sound and Imagination - a panel chaired by Nick Keys
and
a pop-up performance outside customs house that i haven't quite been able to find what it was.

I really enjoyed this project, actually, and am looking forward to pitching it to a couple of music/art festivals coming up soon.

I do love seeing people walking around with their program - the bible for the weekend. But I must say, i hope sometime very soon, there'll be an online version that can be updated and distributed easily. Naturally there were stacks of changes as (mostly) weather fucked with people's projects (including one of my own), and there wasn't really an effective way of noting the changes.

Perhaps i also should have written up the changes on one of the blackboards, so that peeps coming to the festival club could see.


Regardless, congrats to all the artists who put work on, especially with the crappy weather, and the people who descended on Newcastle for the weekend.


*full TiNA program here