death by autotune

he's awful.

so are they.

she got pwned.

his expression is priceless.

dear music media #1

this is just the beginning.

dear music media,

if a girl raps, she still a rapper.
not a rapstress.
not only is it a dumb word, but it's insulting.
go learn something.

yours,

lauren

good and great

today i caught up on some reading, 'cos i'm procrastinating and i couldn't help it. but i wanted to post about some of the ace things i've seen, which mostly happen to be from GOOD.


clapping your hands when you like a band - music and social media.

brilliant posters for the kent state folk festival. they sparked a few little thoughts looking forward to the time when social media and social interaction get really close. i think they're getting closer, but it's gonna be awesome when we really smush them up and really value both.



i also had a utopian idea the other day that the death of television should be welcomed and that it was only ever going to be a small invention on the way to the much bigger awesomeness of the interwebs anyway.

in fact, if i was in charge of cultural radness in australia, i'd get rid of all funding to TV content production, turn it into good production for DVD/online video/live experience and radio; chuck money back into films, gaming, online stories and books. i guess like the media equivalent of thanking a lover for a good time, but committing to a long-term relationship for the future.

but i digress.


tourism is the march of stupidity


i'm a bit of a traveller/tourist at the moment, so of course i couldn't help but LOVE LOVE LOVE this post about tourism and literature by miles allinson. miles is a super-fucking talented writer and thinker and artist-type. readings is a melbourne institution that really supports literature, reading, thinking and artist-types.

BOMF wisdom to know the difference

and then there's the fantastic and worthwhile and 'oh i wish i thought of that' Back on My Feet running program coming out of the East Coast in the US - brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.

it's programs like this that remind me that humans are not stupid. we're not heartless. and although life circumstances can freeze over our hearts and minds - at either end of the poverty scale - it is the simple, meaningful, heartfelt actions that really help us keep our shit together.

heyousebutok
oh, and just one more thing from good - a great article about the history of the word OK.
i personally love the spelling 'okeh' and am going to use it from now on.
meh, teh and okeh.
perfect.


image credits:
44th kent state folk festival posters by marcus agency from the GOOD blog
miles allinson/reading st. kilda from his confrontation with falling blog
eric fair image from the GOOD blog/lauren e. friedman [best name ever, BTW]

music in berlin

for most of my time in berlin, i've been doing a whole lot of listening. mostly to the ambient sounds of the public realm. usually 'outside'.

but, i've also made sure that i'm taking in as much music-based experience as i can whilst i'm here. the relationship that germans and berliners have to music is particularly interesting to me. especially as it's like a super-extended-remix version of the relationship melbournians have to music.

there is such a wide variety of stuff going on, so it's been a great chance to just dip in and out of all kinds of styles, venues and times. i could, if i wanted to, spend every night of the week going to see electro-acoustic performances. or dance to techno. or see a classical performance. or go see a rock gig. thankfully i have neither the time nor the money to do so, otherwise i'd never sleep, eat, or do what i came here to do.

but, it's been great to sample in small doses.

last week i went to a choir/orchestral performance of giuseppe verdi's requiem - part of it, the dies irae, is surely in every tim burton movie ever made. well, it was the 90-minute whole piece. all fire and brimstone and judgment day. counter reformation-styles, in a protestant church. awesome.

a few weeks ago i went to peaches' 'operantomime' peaches does herself - celebrating 10 years of her career and all the love sex gender-bending fuck-you rock-out that comes with it. it was pretty goddamm spectactular, that's for sure.

last night peter newman and i stood at schieslischer's tor u-bahn and listened to two members of  krautrock/90s slacker band, camera, absolutely kill it in the entrance to the station on a practice amp and a hollow wooden stool, with marakas on the 'kick'. it was fucking amazing, genuine and reminded me of the brilliant BBC documentary on krautrock (thanks stan!)

this week i'm off to a couple of experimental performances in my local 'hood, one of which i think will feature chris abrahams, home-town pride, and some raw composition work at ausland - a venue i haven't been to yet, but hosts some brilliant gigs.

every weekend i go dancing until at least 4am. it's pretty rad. and the relationship berliners have to dancing in a club is awesome - there's not commandeering of the dancefloor here, kids. everyone faces the front and you dance. if you're with friends, you dance beside each other, and if you're there alone, that's cool - we'll all dance with you. it's such a great public action.

and, boys here dance. pretty well, and even when it's as ugly as sin, they're doing it with committment - it's awesome. there's no sense that a guy is just approximating dancing so that he can get in a girl's pants - there's hardly any direct sleeze on the dancefloor, but it's all hot as. it's fantastic.

and there's this weird music/dance style that i've called the Berlin Skip. there's probably a proper name for it, but that's what i call it. the music is a little bit soca/a little salsa - i think it's called 'gypsy sound' and everyone dances essentially the same to it. i liked it when i first heard it and danced for a couple of hours, but now it's just too repetitive and i can't do it anymore. i need a little more variety in my dancefloor action, thanks :)

speaking of which, i've been to berghain a few times (it's massive, they dance all night, it's all about the freaks in there). although last weekend i got rejected! weird! but in a way, completely fun and part of the crazy/random/i-do-what-i-want ethos of the place that i actually really value.

interestingly, i haven't been to see a band play a straight-up rock/punk gig since i've been here. which is kind of hilarious, given my previous intensity towards the genre. to be honest, all the flyers i've seen are for pretty big american bands i have no interest in seeing, and i haven't quite plugged into the kind of venue that hosts great bands from germany. i'm sure it's out there, but i've been so enamoured with the electronic music goodness, that i figure that i'll just head to the tote when i get home to make up for it :)

before i leave, i need to go to the opera, a couple of baroque/romantic performances, and if i can, get to a stockhausen performance too.

i don't have a whole lot of music in my own collection that screams BERLIN, but the couple that do at the moment are on high rotation - black cab from melbourne, who obviously recorded their album call signs in or after time in berlin - there are multiple references to the city in their songs and the church bells they sample ring outside my apartment at 12 and 6 daily. listening to this album really adds to both the city and the album - it's like i'm really IN both of them.

the debut album from beak> does something similar - with the dark, electro-romantic-atmos feel about it, it's a perfect soundtrack to the elemental darkness, cold and wind that is enveloping berlin at the moment.

dancing in the streets again.

today i spent the afternoon pretty much back at the start of my masters research: in a silent gig in public, dancing to music with a bunch of people in headphones. public/private/public.

the first time i did it was at ars electronica 2007 and it kickstarted my investigation into sound in public, the role/symbol/place of headphones in public and the ensuing 2 years' masters degree on all things related.

today was a silent parade for climate change, organised by 350 org and it was mad-fun.

what better a place to dance on the streets as part of political action but in berlin! berliners LOVE their electronic music and LOVE dancing (i should know, my club-induced sleeping patterns are getting ridiculous). it was awesome.



the vibe itself was fantastic - i dipped in and out of different shared experiences with it, giving it a diversity of engagement that really floated my boat, and made for an even more enjoyable and thought-provoking afternoon.

of course, each of these points of together/alone with the parade had slightly different aspects of public/private/public politics:


through the media
i had to join the parade halfway through. so with twitter and their hashtag, i connected with the parade halfway through. connecting as an outsider to the crowd using social media + political engagement, easy - media studies 101.

full engagement
then, i joined the party. i danced my arse of for a while in a group of others all dancing and enjoying themselves with a cracking soundtrack and lots of clapping, w00ts and smiles. we were all in this together, for a common cause and enjoyment. and we were surrounded by a bunch of people who weren't sharing, but engaged with curiosity - watching and wondering and maybe feeling a bit like outsiders. [more on the 'outsider' aspect of such a situation in a minute].

separated engagement
as the parade moved, i grabbed my bike, headphones still in range and rode on ahead, physically separate from the crowd, but still sonically and technologically engaged [wirelessly]. it was pretty special - i was riding in my own space, listening to music on my own, unable to see/hear others, but just knowing that they were there. i think this experience is exactly why the internet works.

and i had the fuckin' coolest extra little public/private/public moment -  i'm riding away from the crowd, passed the polizei van escorting us and one of the officers has the headphones on (so he can keep track of what's happening, i guess). and HE'S DANCING TOO!! i gave him a mega smile + bodacious wave and kept riding.
private citizen + public representative togetherness moment. swoon.





separated, but with one other
another lone bike-rider with headphones caught up with me and together we were riding, dancing, w00ting and throwing our hands up in the air, having our own little private/public/private dance party. in fact, i think that confused people outside the 'gig' even more - just two crazy girls dressed in black, on bikes, wearing headphones, dancing like maniacs with each other. but it was another one of those moments of sharing an experience with another person, as part of a wider crew, that was just priceless.

observer
i decided to do a part of my listening to the city project as part of the parade, so once the crowd stopped at the park on spandauer straße, i turned the radio headphones off and became an observer. my observation was largely based on what i could hear (which is hilarious when you're hearing what everyone else cannot), but it was still as an outside observer. there were lots of people also observing what was going on - some knowing a little bit about it, some not knowing and quiet alienated, others unknowing, but fascinated, or nonplussed. interesting levels of understanding and public engagement.

one thing i noticed is that having 'outsiders' is an important dynamic to an event like this. it generates curiosity, a point to engage, thought and 'difference'. the alienation is not didactic, or perhaps even intended, but i did notice that because people couldn't (or didn't have to) engage, they stood around and watched, thought and perhaps envied the process. i know that the advertising peeps crave that juicy experience a lot, but as an artist and activist, it was the first time i understood how it could be used for good.

full engagement again.
and, right at the end, i put the headphones back on and danced with the crowd for another little while. the level of dancing reduced by the time we got to the park, some just opting to lay back in the glorious autumn sunshine and listen, but the sense of common and einheit was still very strong, without a harsh word, or forced action in earshot. brilliant.

james blake. damn.

remember this?

now, see this.



it's the first thing i saw when i arrived at ars electronica at 9pm on Friday night. yes, that's james blake. here's how it played out

act 1: lauren freaks out.

act 2: lauren dances for over an hour with a massive grin on her face.

act 3: lauren even talks to james, who is stupidly lovely and a bloody genius.

act 4 (fade to black - at 4:30am): lauren claims bragging rights to her friends in australia about it.



applause.

666: 2+2=5

favourite tune again right now. fitting for post #666.

she's just a girl

it's amazing how quickly a year passes.

i guess the old peeps knew it to be so by the seasons. we realise it by the time since major events. celebrity deaths, say.

on the weekend it was a year since michael jackson died.

i want you back is my favourite song of all time, but to be honest, i wouldn't have ever called myself a fan. i liked the rest of his songs well enough, but i was pretty shocked when he died. i saw how deeply it affected friends of mine - mostly men - who found in him an identity, a role model other than mucho macho.

i went to see this is it and i was reminded how much his dancing and his attention to musical craft inspired thousands of young men [who weren't white and middle class] to embrace such a sensual and vulnerable vocation.

he was such a complex man. may he rest in peace, finally.

this one's for jol and raphael. thanks to age.

geek week 7

hey everybody it's database week!

setting up a new filemaker pro database for the gallery and discovering that a) there aren't that many real templates and b) not that many other arts organisations have them to share.

by the end of the day, the bulk of the database will be set up. i still have to fiddle around with how to create a good exhibition history, but otherwise, the basic stuff is covered: artists, board, funding, supporters/subscribers and volunteers.

i'm also talking with the geek peeps to find out the best way to share these templates. surely other ARIs and arts orgs could use filemaker templates set up for those kind of organisations? why waste the time i did figuring out how to customise layouts? heh.

and let's face it, database designing is kinda dull. small victories are key. as is a good soundtrack.

although it was great to concentrate on just one task for the whole week, i spent the week transferring data to the awesomeness of diplo in china. here are some of the nostalgic awesome trashy tracks - a database mix tape if you like. i would have liked to post others, but you know 'embed disabled by request' on a few put the kybosh on that.

pump up the jam


drop it like it's hot


i love rock'n'roll


i like to move it


yeah

look i found her red coat...

damn.




i'm SO obsessed with this cherbic little electro-dubstep-jazz-futurist wunderkind that i just HAD to post this.

james blake. he is fucking brilliant and this song CMYK is playing 24/7 for me at the moment. either in real time, or in the depths of my sonic memory.

but it's not just this song. others like the bells sketch, and air and lack thereof are haunting and lynchian. and his remixes (untold/mount kimbie) are fucking brilliant.

and, just like alex turner from arctic monkeys/last shadow puppets - such genius so young! 22 years old! what is it in the UK water? damn.

the sound i love most is silence

i love john cage. i derive a lot of my practice from what he speaks of and this video just made me fall in love with him all over again. AND he's a cute boy with a cat.

the listening to the city project that i did last year looked at a whole bunch of these ideas: the act of listening without judgement to the city, the actual sound of traffic (although i think cage's experience of traffic as silence is from behind the filter of 6 floors up and behind glass), and an engagement with the desire of silence and the means to obtain it.

his definition of sound acting is exactly what propels me to respond to sound through performance, action, occupation and installation-based works. my relationship with sound is a verb, not a noun.

just as a heads up, i'm giving a lecture on sound, listening and silence in the built environment next month, so don't be surprised if there's a few cage quotes in there.

thanks to nella for this one.

hold your horses

ok, i promise this is the last cut'n'paste thing for a while.

darling eddy showed me this and i think i'm officially in love with this video clip. if you can be in love with a video clip. i want to cry, squeal, dance and fall down when i watch this!

i don't feel that way about the mos def on yo gabba gabba video, the ipad on will it blend? segment, or even this too shall pass by OK go.

here is 70 million..

into the white

last night i saw the pixies for the first time ever. i was in the UK when they toured here last time. and i was back in melbourne when they played in the UK. d'oh!

it was ecstatic, frenetic, uplifting, nostalgic, visceral, expansive and intimate - all at the same time.

within that quasi-public/private space, engaging with sound, music and shared acoustic space/taste, i noticed that standing in a crowd of people presents a particular experience of space. you get half-spaces, framed by the negative space of people's silhouettes and together that makes up your total spatial experience. add to that an immense soundtrack over the top of it all and it's quite a peculiar and indelible experience, irreplaceable.

viva la musica!

what are you thinkin' bout...

so miss jones and i went to the beach this morning. kick started the public holiday with a good dose of sun, sand, deep-soon water and deep'n'meaningful conversation to dive into.

on the way back, enjoying the wind in our hair, in her super-cute car, we both fell into a silent reverie - reflecting on the joy of the day, the intimacies of friendship and the uncertainties of the future.


me: hey gem, what you thinkin' bout..

jonesy: major lazer.




it does not get any fucking cooler than that, kids.

what the tote taught me that my parents could never have.

monday night was the final gig at the tote. if you're not from melbourne, here's the back story and apologies for the local jargon.


i was one of the lucky peeps to get a ticket to the last hurrah and it was amazing. so much nostalgia, joy, sadness, anger, love - all in one little venue. that place, the bands it supported and the melbourne music scene shaped who i am.

and here's what the place taught me that my parents couldn't have:

what goes around, comes around.



take this for an example. wally meanie (née kempton) booked spiderbait's first gig. at the tote. they made a massive impact on the australian music scene. he played bass for them on their last song. at the tote. [cue angels voices!]

on a smaller scale i lost my glasses in the mosh during the last song. at the end of the set, i had 5 people helping me look for them, by mobile phone screen light. i found them, unscratched, unbroken, on the carpet stairs. that's love that is.

and then, as we left before the drones started, the security guard let us give one of our passes to a guy outside who couldn't make it in. he probably did someone a good turn earlier that day.


chaos is vital



a venue like the tote is messy. it's filled with loud music, shit spilled on the floor, band posters in various states of degradation, graffiti on the toilets, tattered clothes, messy hair, shouty voices, smashed glass, missed beats, foggy windows, quasi-violent dancing and people jostling and wrestling for a spot to see.

it's not very 2.3-kids-with-a-white-picket-fence-and-an-SUV.

but thank fuck for that. chaos (even in a controlled environment like the tote) is a catalyst for change in all kinds of ways. and, as any scientist will tell you, all systems have an inbuilt element of chaos. it's called entropy. and it's needed for change. without change, things grow stagnant, you can't generate movement, or friction, or any of the other things necessary for innovation, progress or inspiration.


investing in culture starts from the ground up.



30,000 bands have played at the tote over the last 30 years. that is a helluva lot of rock and roll. no doubt a stack of them were local artists who have gone on to make successful careers. the other chunk were surely a whole bunch of international artists playing their first or second shows in melbourne.

as an aside i remember seeing the white stripes play there before they were massive. they played 7 shows in a week in melbourne (i saw 3 of them) - starting at the empress and culminating at the tote. the difference in the crowd numbers even between the trans-am show and the tote on the following friday was 5000%. pretty much after that, they went gangbusters. and have only played massive venues here since. and who brought them out here? if my memory serves me correctly, mr bruce milne had a lot to do with it... i'm just sayin' you know.

anyway, all of those bands and all of those musicians, who worked behind bars and cafes and sold records and made t-shirts, flew interstate/overseas, bought petrol and started businesses. and their audiences all buy records, t-shirts, alcohol, coffee, books, art, bikes - they start businesses, attract tourists, customers and spend money in victoria. all of which then flows back into the economy and the "cultural capital" that the government leverages their promotion/trade/economy on. if the government was closing the supply chain for 30,000 businesses (like major banking institutions), there'd be something to say about it.

also known as 'what goes around comes around'.

commitment is sexy.



30 years. that's as long as most people commit to a mortgage/marriage. it's a long time for rock'n'roll. the tote has become the sweetheart of melbourne's music scene because it has stuck around. it has continued to plug away at putting on bands, giving peeps a place to hang out (the stories of romance from digger and the pussycats at the tote was hilarious!). that kind of consistency is hot - i don't care what anyone says.

the tote has also taught me the value of continuing to follow my heart/instinct/principles/dream. the tote has become what it has because richie and bruce and amanda and wally and all the people involved that venue believed in the importance of live music to melbourne.

hell, they probably put on some really shit shows. i know i saw a few! but if they closed the doors every time they only had 5 payers, or the PA fucked up, or a microphone was damaged, or there was a bad review; then no-one would get the benefits of the times that the place was overflowing with people, the jukebox was pumping, the vibe was jumping and the times were good.


what else is dead sexy.

the tote, and the kinds of bands that played the last gig, and all those who played there over the course of the last 3 decades are pretty much responsible for my taste in men.

flannel and/or checked shirts, tight black jeans and skinny legs, winkle pickers, converse sneakers, band shirts and broad shoulders, crazy hair, facial hair, dancing like a maniac, suits (oh my god, link meanie was the first man to prove how hot a man looks in a suit.), lust for life, tattoos, jewellery, husky voices, a love of music, piano-playing fingers. and men hugging. nothing cracks my ice-queen heart like seeing two burly rockstars showing public displays of manly affection.

i guess my mother will be pleased that the tote is closing now. :)

girls can do anything.



ok, so my mother always told me this and i kind of believed it in theory, but until i saw people like janet english, claire moore, brody dalle, bands from collingwood's rock'n'roll high school, kim gordon, pj harvey, courtney love, meg white and my best friend sarah barber get up on stage and kick arse - i never really believed her. you think it's an accident that half the crowd on monday night were some of the most amazing, inspiring, creative and beautiful women in melbourne? no way.


always finish with a rock'n'roll ending.

bruce's farewell speech was eloquent, powerful, graceful, steady and brought together all the vital parts of the tote as a working venue. my personal highlight was the 'palmer, palmer, palmer' chant that went up for venue booker amanda palmer. champion.

rather than die out, fade away, lose momentum with frustration, or completely implode, the tote went out in fucking style: 20 bands, a great vibe, awesome music, the jukebox in full swing, plenty of love in the air and mucho respecto. a seriously awesome party.

here's hoping for an encore.



photo credits:
clem bastow x 2
sarah barber
shutterspeed photography

two important things to help

a few of things suck right now:

1. the massive earthquake in haiti.



that fuckin' sucks. the place is in a total mess, millions of people are dead, dying, wounded, grieving, homeless, desperate, scared and isolated.

i've done two important things to help: given extra money to medecins sans frontieres to help with medical supplies and staff (they're my particular favourite charity, but i'm sure you've all got yours that you give money to regularly);

shown gratitude for my amazing life. it seems not quite right to whinge about stuff when there are others who are having a gnarly time of it right now.



2. the tote is closing down.



ok, read that bit again, above, where i say that it's hard to whinge, etc.

i realise that the tote hasn't collapsed in on itself and collingwood isn't the epicentre of an earthquake. but, on a local scale, this sucks and i just have to write about it.

for those who don't know melbourne, the tote hotel is a pub and music venue that has been in the back streets of working-class melbourne for the last 30 years or so. it has been a consistent supporter of underground music that whole time - hosting a ridiculous amount of local and international acts, not to mention people, that has helped make melbourne the kind of place that it is.

my favourite Tote Quote is from an old friend, Ray Ahn:

"I always liked the Tote because it has always been full of good looking well dressed people with immaculate taste. I felt honoured to be among such rock n roll illuminaries. As a Sydneysider I always felt under dressed and daggy there but I always learnt something from there whether it be a sideburn here, a pointy boot there.

And the pinball machine instead of poker machines (Sydney pubs are full of one armed bandits and as an oriental, I can never resist them) is a classy touch.

Well done Tote and thank you"


the state government, in their enlightened crack-down on drunk fuckheads, has decided that, because there have been brawls between bouncers and bogans in the CBD, that a pub with a license until 2am in collingwood (about 10kms away) is deemed 'high risk' and needs a heftier licence. one more like the ridiculously unsafe, but state-supported casino has. which costs a ridiculous amount of money and which has forced the owners to close.

i don't know a lot about running a pub, but i know a fair bit about alcoholism and violence. believe me, the tote is not the cause of violence in the city. this weekend is the last weekend and there is pretty much a round-the-clock vigil-type atmosphere happening.

i'll be doing two important things to help: writing to my local MP (not to mention posting a blog) and voicing my displeasure; and then going to the pub and paying my respects/showing my solidarity. for a place that has supported my musical taste, created a safe place for me (a single, white female) to go out late at night and shown commitment to music culture in melbourne.


3. police search powers have increased.



due to said crack-down on drunk fuckheads, police powers to search without a warrant have been extended to include 'blitzes' on geographical areas that have a history of violence, including 'train stations and city blocks'.

these blitzes are only allowed to be 12 hours' long and must be 'advertised' 7 days in advance, but they still provide cops with a blanket search.

this means that there is no specific suspicion of illegal activity - they're looking for weapons and drugs across the board, just in case. it's like a pre-emptive strike for civility. and i can tell you, they're not going to be racially profiling anyone. nope, not our victorian police.

and when did this new law get passed? 16th december. that's right kids, when all the politicians are home having christmas with their kids, or overseas getting the fuck out for a while.

i'm going to do two important things: write about it (tick). as an artist in public, i'm concerned about my right to actually be in public. you know, without an assumption of guilt; then i'm going leave this country for a while. not yet, but soon. it's all getting a bit weary, so i'm going to go to an ex-nazi state to get away from this proto-nazi state.



i also wanted to write about the lempriere being swallowed sculpture by the sea, but that can wait.

fuck that's so good...

this techno viking handiwork is hella old, but i finally got around to watching it and laughed out loud for real. i love henry rollins and his spoken word - he makes vitriol taste like creme brulèe. but i also love a bit of healthy 'fuck you too' in my diet. here's a nice mix of both.




and the original rant:



thanks to iain tait for this.

imma let you finish, but..

beyonce made the best music video OF ALL TIME!!






via stan

music and sound and art and craft and technology and stuff and that.

On Friday night i went to the last performance/public program event for Viva La Craft - the Chicks on Speed extravaganza* at Craft Vic and had the best time. In fact, the whole exbhitition has been totally inspiring for me.

The Chicks are amazing artists who combine craft,fashion,art, technology, music, sound, performance in their multi-disciplinary practice. They just make stuff. They're incredibly intelligent, focussed, friendly, political, inclusive and innovative gals. Hella inspiring to just throw of the shackles of image-based insecurity and just get into it. Just make stuff.

On friday night, they collaborated with another inspiration local artist, Dylan Martorell, and made the most amazing combined soundscapes i've heard in ages. Dylan does a pretty hot job of sound/art production as it is - being a maker of musical instruments, technology whizz, creator of whacky plant-based scores and general rad dude - and his work is all about the growth of a space, whether that's through nutty potato forms, or a soundspace, his organic (for want of a much less overused term) process was spot on for this.



Add to that the stuff that the Chicks on Speed make: image and sound repetitions that create rhythm and melody: the images of painted fingernails slapping girls bums, fingernails scraping, stiletto heels scraping, a zip being done up in slow-motion and the occasional distorted scream. Plus they had their own instruments: sampler, these amplified headware contraptions that looked like felt french horns, plus the shoe guitar. All of it was an amazing cacophony of sound and sound-base art production, that was melded into a working rhythm between the 3 artists.

And the images/object surrounding the space were all so amazing - a complete mash-up and intervention into the gallery: Pipes from the ceiling, patchwork on the walls, string and fabric, and light projection and people everywhere. Good stuff.

The whole performance got me completely psyched, as did the exhibition and other performances. Lately i had been a little, well, consumed by my own self-consciousness. I had been retreating into myself a little and playing it a bit safe with my own personal aesthetics. Doing silly things like being concerned more with a flabby tummy than fucking with the stereotypes associated with fashion. Thankfully, i had a good kick-up the pants with this show and am releasing some of those dumb shackles and am inspired again to just 'fuck shit up'.

PS - If you haven't been to see the exhibition, go. For crying out loud, go. It's amazing. Unfortunately the artists left Oz yesterday, but the installation and tapestry theramin, the sewing table and clay lumps are still there. And if you don't check it out, may you be stuck in a rut forever.

*most excellent description lovingly borrowed from miss dell stewart.

image credits: Girl Monster applique wallpiece, Chicks on Speed
Melissa and Alex from Chicks on Speed, by Faythe Levine on flickr.

has anyone noticed...

there are way more people busking for cash in melbourne at the moment? like non-professionals: off key, crazy harpsichords, strange versions of traditional songs.

times are getting tougher much quicker than i thought.