He Xiangyu alongside his work, Skeleton at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art
photo Zan Wimberley
He Xiangyu alongside his work, Skeleton at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art
AN EXHIBITION CALLED COLA PROJECT DOESN’T AT FIRST SOUND ENTIRELY NEW: COCA COLA, CONSUMER CULTURE, THE POWER OF ADVERTISING—THESE HAVE ALL BEEN CONSIDERED BEFORE, NOT LEAST OF ALL BY CHINESE ARTISTS ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF GLOBAL CAPITALISM ON TRADITIONAL AESTHETICS AND VALUES.
This recent show at Gallery 4A in Sydney’s Chinatown, however, takes a different perspective, and considers cola the sticky liquid rather than the clout of its global logo. After analysing the effects of consumerism on images, it appears that what you are left with is the object, and the ‘stuff’ of material culture.
Cola Project is currently the signature work of young, Beijing-based artist, He Xiangyu, and one that has been doing the international rounds since first showing in Beijing in 2010. 4A brought it to Sydney as part of their ongoing program to situate Australian art within the context of the Asia Pacific, bringing Asian exhibitions to Australia and recognising the Asian in Australian work. This, He Xiangyu’s third major art project, helps underscore this geographical and cultural proximity, if only for its acknowledgement of the finite—and increasingly crowded—nature of our physical world.
He Xiangyu, Cola Project Resin (2009-2010), installation view at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, courtesy of the artist and White Space, Beijing
photo Zan Wimberley
He Xiangyu, Cola Project Resin (2009-2010), installation view at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, courtesy of the artist and White Space, Beijing
In 2008, He Xiangyu worked with factory workers to boil up thousands of litres of Coca Cola, tracing its transformation into syrup, then sludge and eventually into coal-like crystals. These were then ground down to produce a black ink, with which the artist painted a series of Song Dynasty-style landscapes. Meanwhile, some of the goo was put aside for experiments on skeletons made by the artist from jade. The works on display at 4A represent about one third of the original show, and include a miscellany of products and documentation resulting from the large-scale work. The artist was also in town to assist with the installation, and I had the chance to speak with him then.
“I’m interested in the relationship between objects and people,” he told me. “In Beijing now, there are so many buildings in the centre of the city, so they build the rubbish tips further out. But then the city grows, until it and the rubbish are all on top of one another. Then the groundwater becomes polluted by the run-off and, bit by bit, this rubbish starts to permeate you.” He Xiangyu speaks with an awareness of his physical surroundings, but more with a tone of curiosity than indignation. The cycles of transformation seem to interest him rather than any narrative of environmental decay. As we sat in the downstairs gallery space, our conversation was itself infused with the smell of the exhibition—the tang of cola residue sits in your nostrils.
Entering the gallery at street level, visitors are confronted with a large pile of the black molasses-like substance produced by the refinement process. At turns both filthy and magical, it suggests a heap of coal one moment and an ink-washed Chinese landscape the next.
Upstairs hang the paintings rendered in this sticky material, the waste product of an industrial experiment put to the production of new cultural forms. Familiar limestone mountains disappear into clouds, river systems wend around their bases. There are boats and little bridges (arched like eyebrows) and the odd lonely pavilion tucked high into the crux of a mountain top. Distinctly ‘works of art,’ these paintings are as exquisite as the idea of the Coke sludge is coarse.
He Xiangyu, Skeleton (2010), jade, installation view at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, courtesy of Pearl Lam Gallery, Shanghai
photo Zan Wimberley
He Xiangyu, Skeleton (2010), jade, installation view at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, courtesy of Pearl Lam Gallery, Shanghai
On a podium, laid out as if for medical inspection, is one of the original exhibition’s three skeletons made of jade. Cola scum, applied to selected bones, has discoloured and worn holes into this highly prized, ancient material. In a nearby cabinet, bone specimens and a beaker of leftover black liquid are arranged as if they’ve come straight from the laboratory. If there is a traditional Chinese aesthetic to the show, it also has a creepy Victorian feel—a Jekyll and Hyde sense of experimentation with the materials that shape body and society.
Around the gallery lie further traces of the distillation process: artefacts covered in gloop; a pile of buckets stacked messily on top of one another; a detritus of spades, gloves and goggles. Finally, a wall of photographs records the smelting process: men in protective clothing pushing poles into ponds of blackness, lost behind clouds of steam. A pile of empty Coca Cola bottles is, intriguingly, the only image here printed in black and white, the choice of monochrome print disavowing the power of the red and white labels. This show is about cola the substance—a material that moves through and is processed by our bodies—not a brand with its lofty mythologies.
Ultimately the exhibition has a kind of circular logic, with each work stitched invisibly to the next. The filthy is within the exquisite, the base within the refined. There is a constant reminder of the ongoing cycle of refuse and sophistication. In this sense the exhibition is about the inextricability of humans and what they create: culture and waste. However, it also highlights the question of art itself as a process or, more specifically, art as a physical production. If the world is now engaged in a trashing and rehashing of resources, what role does art production—and art consumption—play within that?
At one point my conversation with He Xiangyu turned to Wim Delvoye’s infamous artwork, Cloaca Professional, which mimics the human digestive system. Currently on display in Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), the machine is fed by curators and produces excrement on the hour. I suggested that the work was quite a confronting piece for a gallery environment. “Really?” said He Xiangyu with a smile. He was well aware of the piece. “I think [Cloaca Professional] is cool. It’s very symbolic of our times.”
He Xiangyu, Cola Project, Gallery 4A, Sydney, March 15–May 5
This article originally appeared in RealTime’s online e-dition May 22
MARCH WAS UNSEASONABLY COOL IN HONG KONG THIS YEAR, BUT THE ACTION AT FILMART MORE THAN MADE UP FOR THIS. THE MODEL FOR A MORE MATURE CHINESE FILM INDUSTRY IS FALLING INTO PLACE, AND THE MARKET WAS ALIVE WITH SMOOTH OPERATORS TALKING UP THE PROSPECTS OF “MONETISING CONTENT” (IE MAKING A BUCK).
China has now emerged as the world’s third biggest box office surpassing $US2 billion, only marginally behind Japan. Online revenue streams are also taking off as the industry stabilises around a new release chain. The freshly technologised China may abandon DVD altogether, given that it is so hard to protect the format from piracy. Instead, online platforms like Youku have emerged as second markets after theatrical exhibition. People are increasingly prepared to pay for content delivered to mobile devices.
There are also signs that the Chinese government is more interested in reaching an accommodation with the international film industry, allowing more “enhanced” foreign films (3D Hollywood blockbusters) to be distributed under better revenue sharing conditions. A joint venture announced with Dreamworks Animation suggests that, after years of frustration, Hollywood now thinks it can participate in the Chinese expansion. Expect to see more Chinese names in the credits of Kung Fu Panda 3.
Strangely though, once the Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF) started a few days later, there was a distinct dearth of Chinese films. As the HK industry declined over recent years, HKIFF became the place to see alternative Chinese films. This year, however, it was clear that the alternative Chinese scene is in sorry decline. Maybe everybody wants to come up from underground and get a piece of the commercial action, or perhaps the festival stopped programming the films because local interest was lacking.
love is in the air
Love
Instead, love is in the air for Chinese filmmakers. With the success of Taiwan’s You Are the Apple of My Eye and the mainland’s Love Is Not Blind, romantic comedy is the favoured genre of the region’s nascent commercial cinema. Doze Niu Chen-zer’s Love is a good example. Doze’s last film was the tough gangster film Monga, but Love is a network narrative of trendy young things who travel across the Taiwanese straits with more ease than they cross lines of class and gender.
Tsao Jui Yuan’s Joyful Reunion was another example, where food—the new bourgeois religion—is the currency of romantic complication, and where the divisions between Taiwan and China are effortlessly effaced by young and old lovers. These romances might prove harder for Western audiences to embrace, as they are directed at women rather than the male cult audiences that have traditionally sustained Asian film in the West. There’s also a kind of lush coyness with which the subject is approached. Given that the characters rarely enact their passions, gimmicky gesture and fairly obtrusive music become inordinately important as a way of signalling emotion. The result can be rather cloying, as Love Is Not Blind demonstrates. A young marriage planner breaks up with her unfaithful boyfriend and ends up with her prissy co-worker in a triumph for mannered cuteness.
bye bye miserabilism
After years of watching miserabilist films full of seedy pimps and chain-smoking grunge, it takes a little readjustment to see that Chinese audiences might enjoy seeing beautiful stars and conspicuous consumption of name brands (a lot of Häagen-Dazs is eaten in Love). Since the time of the Fifth Generation, the Chinese government has charged that underground filmmakers “pulled down their mother’s pants so foreigners could see her arse,” but the new rom-commies present us with the challenge of expanding our preconceptions about 21st century China. Previously, the Australian media only wanted to know that China was not a nice place. As the consumerist economy flourishes and an entertainment cinema emerges, we may have to look at frivolous genre films with a fresh measure of respect.
On the other hand, gloom is in the air for Hong Kong filmmakers. The money and the audiences are all on the mainland, and the glory days look to be in the past. This is the best framework for watching the two films by Pang Ho-cheung in the festival. There are two options for HK filmmakers: go to the mainland or stay in HK and make cheap movies. Pang’s Love in the Buff and Vulgaria are responses to these two options.
love in the buff
Love in the Buff
Love in the Buff is a sequel to Love in a Puff (2010), a romantic comedy with Shawn Yue and Miriam Yeung as two HK office workers who meet while smoking outside their offices. The new film relocates the characters to Beijing, where they have to fall in love all over again. Pang’s films are based around the idea that men and women are essentially opposed to each other. It might be the case here that men are from Mars and women are from Hong Kong, but the logic of the film is that geography tops gender, as our ill-suited couple form a tacit alliance against the northerners. The couple conspire in Cantonese against the more earnest, and nicer, Mandarin speakers. Hong Kongers are pictured as cool smart-arses whose sense of their own imperfect identities triumphs over the attractions of the north.
vulgaria
Vulgaria
Pang’s quicker and nastier comedy, Vulgaria, is as cheap as it is full of cheerfully scatological humour. A HK producer must go to any lengths to raise finance. This involves dealing with mainland gangsters whose idea of a big night out includes meals built around animal sex organs, topped off by a spot of bestiality. This is what it means to stay in HK and survive in the film business. No gag is too cheap and no in-joke too local. Stripped of this context, I’m not sure anyone would want to watch this film for more than 10 minutes. However, context is king here. Despite the tackiness of its mise-en-scène and the smuttiness of its humour, there is a strange grandeur to those who swim against the tide of history and persevere with lost causes.
Australians were thin on the ground at FilMart, which added a further layer of irony to the title of Wish You Were Here, one of the few Aussie films at HKIFF (see review). Asia features here as a place where Australians go to give in to their vices. It’s an inward-looking film about glimpsing the dangers of the world and retreating back to the family. Seen in Asia, this seemed a cogent statement on the limitations in the imaginative vision of Australians.
Hong Kong International Film Festival, March 21-April 5, www.hkiff.org.hk
This article originally appeared as part of RealTime's online e-dition May 22
I was born in Adelaide in 1957. Grew up there. I love that my children won't have to do that, be in that Australia. Back then. At my high school boys weren't allowed to do Art—they were taken outside to shift desks or pick up papers. Art was for girls.
I think 1976 was the first time I saw live music that wasn't a rock band. John Cage. Loved it. ABC-FM came out around then and gave me the first chance to actually hear interesting music on a regular basis. Andrew McLennan. Huge impact.
But I still did not meet someone my age who thought of themselves as an artist until maybe a year later. They were a neighbour. Showed them some of the audio and visual art I had been making. They took me to the South Australian School of Art where Bert Flugleman suggested I bypass art school and join South Australian Workshops, an artist collective in the city. I was thrilled and a little overawed to meet so many interesting people. My partner Lani Weedon and I met there. We've been together now almost 30 years. Two children. And a dog.
Ending up in Brisbane with a baby daughter, lack of income had me off to the University of Queensland. Student support payments were very welcome. I studied cognitive science. Came out with a university medal and a PhD in neuroscience. Hoping for a steady job. Let me know if something turns up.
Exposé
When I heard music I loved music, when I saw film I loved film, when I saw painting I loved painting.
Writing for RealTime gives me the opportunity to be connected with art from now, and write about it in ways I enjoy. I have not looked for other writing work, I wouldn't really know how to, but I can't see me being that interested in writing that didn't allow the creative freedom I get with RealTime. It takes me a long time to write a review.
Recent articles in RealTime
undercurrents
greg hooper: abhinaya theatre co & topology, the lady from the sea
RealTime issue #108 April-May 2012 pg. 38
The Seymour Centre Sydney will be home to this year’s National Reconciliation Week with a range of performances, talks and concerts aiming “to raise awareness of the historical and contemporary stories and experiences of the first Australians” (website).
The centerpiece of the week is Bindjareb Pinjarra (presented by Pinjarra Project, Deckchair Theatre and Seymour Centre). In 1994, performers Kelton Pell, Geoff Kelso, Phil Thomson and Pinjarra man Trevor Shorty Parfitt created a performance highlighting the horrific events of the Pinjarra massacre in 1834. It is estimated that up to 150 Bindjareb Nyoongar people were slaughtered (only 21 of whom have been publicly named) during a survey of the Pinjarra area aimed at protecting the rights and property of the white setters. To this day the site is only listed as that of a battle (one white man died falling from his horse) rather than a massacre, nor is it officially named as a significant Aboriginal site. The only memorial so far is a virtual one—www.pinjarramassacresite.com/.
In 2010, Pell, Kelso and Thomson (Parfitt has passed away) regrouped to share the work in oral tradition with three new performers, senior Pinjarra man Frank Nannup, Nyoongar actor Isaac Drandic and Wadjella (white fella) Sam Longley. While the subject matter is dark, the resulting performance is far from grim. In a review of the 2010 show Suzanne Spunner wrote, “The ensemble of six male actors are all agile performers and accomplished improvisers and very funny too, because this play about a massacre is presented as a comedy with a black undercurrent. The humour is always deadly serious. The actors play across age, class and race and play they do so that all the stereotypes are well worked over for comic effect. Its great strength is the depth of story it tells and the quality of the tale tellers.” (RT online exclusive May 24, 2010)
Bronwyn Bancroft, Falling Through Time (2012)
courtesy the artist
Bronwyn Bancroft, Falling Through Time (2012)
Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative are overseeing the exhibition component of Reconciliation week, titled Winds of Change. It will feature works by a range of prominent Indigenous artists such as Bronwyn Bancroft, Euphemia Bostock, Jenny Fraser, Graham Toomey and Wayne Quillia. The organisation will also hold a charity auction on May 26 at the Boomalli gallery to help raise funds to continue operations. Indigenous and non-indigenous artists are invited to donate artworks, $300 in value, for sale at the event. See http://www.boomalli.com.au/.
NSW Reconciliation Council and All Together Now are opening up a discussion on discrimination with their panel titled “I’m not racist but…” which will see Race Discrimination Commissioner ?Dr. Helen Szoke, Fear of a Brown Planet’s Nazeem Hussain, UN Youth Ambassador Benson Saulo and comedian Jennifer Wong in hot debate hosted by ABC Radio National journalist Steve Cannane. Australian Theatre for Young People will also create a space for discussion around the playmaking process with their a work-in-progress reading of Katherine, a new play by Rachael Coopes and Wayne Blair looking at the life of a teenager in the Top End.
Add to these performances by Casey Donovan in the Sound Lounge and free live music by Marcus Corowa and Jess Beck at the Reconciliation Party and there are plenty opportunities to reflect on Australia’s troubled history as well as celebrate the potential for more positive relations between Indigenous and non-indigenous Australians in the future.
National Reconciliation Week 2012: Pinjarra Project,, May 26-June 2, 10.30am & 7.30pm (Sat May 26 National Sorry Day & Sat June 2 special Community offer – quote the promotional code “COMMUNITY” to receive $8 off ticket price); Casey Donovan, May 30, 8pm; I’m not racist but…, May 31, 7:30pm; ATYP, Katherine, June 1, 1pm & 6.30pm; Reconciliation Party, June 1, 7.30pm; Seymour Centre, Sydney, May 26-June 2; http://sydney.edu.au/seymour/reconciliation/index.shtml
Jim and Linda Batten, Sweet Child of Mine, Bron Batten
courtesy the artists
Jim and Linda Batten, Sweet Child of Mine, Bron Batten
The Tiny Stadiums festival, produced by PACT Centre for Emerging Artists, began its life in 2009 under the guidance of the artist collective Quarterbred. The festival aims to infiltrate the streets of the most village-like of all Sydney suburbs, Erskineville, with gentle live art provocations and curious performance experiences. Now in its fourth year the reins of the festival have been handed over to a new artist curatorium—Amelia Walin, Christopher Hodge and Maria White, operating under the name Groundwork—who are focussing this year’s event around the idea of Centre/Margins and the traversal of such territories.
If you prefer your performances in a theatre there is a double bill at the PACT venue, but the works are far from traditional. Those of us who work at the pointier end of the arts are often faced with the dilemma of explaining what it is we actually do to non-arts types, not least of all our parents. In Sweet Child of Mine, Bron Batten exploits this awkward conversation by inviting her 60-year old parents on stage to discuss with her what might be the point of Bron’s own work, but also art as a whole. The show won Best Experimental Performance Award at the 2011 Melbourne Fringe Festival, and in the YouTube clip looks to be both heartwarming and a little bit heartbreaking.
Well matched with Sweet Child of Mine is Alice William’s Impossible Plays, coming to PACT straight from its Melbourne premier at Next Wave. Williams has interviewed four people about their imaginary lives: “Megan is a quietly spoken vet in Alice Springs. Andy is a poet whose writing treads an uncanny line between fantasy and reality. Douggie is an Arente watercolour artist. Mushi is a tarot card reader who navigates the realms of possibility in search of a sanctuary” (website). These interviews form verbatim texts for performers Amity Yore, Katherine Beckett, Megan Garrett-Jones and Jane Grimley to embody, creating a work that apparently walks a fine line between documentary and dream-like fantasy.
Ngoc Nguyen, Cultural Triangle
courtesy the artists
Ngoc Nguyen, Cultural Triangle
Over the weekend of June 2-3, the action will take to the streets (well mainly Erskineville Road) with a series of interactions, incursions and installations. Occupying one of the mini-parks on the strip will be Tom Hogan’s Monolith, a large metallic object which responds to the viewer, making sweet and, apparently, strangely familiar sounds. Meanwhile, Ngoc Nguyen whose installation [Xuan] Spring was a quiet highlight of Underbelly 2012 (see RT105), will be placing small Vietnamese style street coffee/food stalls around the neighbourhood, exploring ideas of cultural displacement.
If you’re genuinely hungry you can head down to PACT where Penelope Benton and Alexandra Clapham will construct the Tiny Diner, a three-sided stage set of a kitchen, with all elements made of cardboard, except the $2 toastie which is the real deal. And while at PACT you’ll also be able to experience Shamanic Organic, the video work of Robin Hungerford that melds food, plastic and technology into works that “kaleidoscopically implode” (website).
David Capra, New Intercessions
If the psychedelia is making you feel slightly freaky, then maybe it’s best to avoid Fitts & Holderness’ The Speaker, which will be peddling conspiracy theories, attempting to convince passers-by of the evil Project SKIN-EV that is taking place behind closed doors in Erskineville. And while David Capra’s New Intercessions—a dance around streets featuring the laying on of hands and speaking-in-tongues—is aimed at healing the spirit, it sounds potentially more terrifying than whatever The Speaker is promising.
Also aiming for the spiritual dimension is Gibberish and Let Go by Jodie Whalen, extending the one-hour meditation of spiritual Guru Osho to a five-hour durational performance in which the audience is invited to participate or simply watch. But if really all you want to do is have a quiet beverage, over at the Rose Hotel you will be able to experience some of the festival through YOU.DANCE. a video work by Rafaela Pandolfini who will be photographing locals and turning the small grooves of everyday actions into a celebration of our need to boogie.
Now in its fourth year James Cook University’s Screengrab New Media Art Award is open for entries that address the theme of control. All screen-based media are eligible including multi-channel video, digital illustration, audio sculpture, photography, generative media, 2D & 3D animation. This year’s award aims to explore the way in which technology is facilitating change as evidenced by recent political uprisings while at the same time allowing for even more surreptitious levels of control through “surveillance networks, social media, data mining algorithms, privacy interventions, sophisticated image gathering techniques and drone technologies” (website). A selection of works will be exhibited at James Cook University in August with the winning work awarded $5,000. For previous Screengrab exhibitions and awards see RT93 and RT101. James Cook University, Screengrab New Media Art Award, deadline for applications July 2; exhibition opens Aug 2; http://www.jcu.edu.au/soca/JCU_099817.html
arina.org, nava & crawl inc
Arina.org
NAVA and Crawl Inc have just launched a new online hub for information about all things ARI. While Crawl is a comprehensive list of ARIs and their activities, ARIna.org is a space for sharing ideas about the actual running of these artist run intiatives. Anyone can contribute and posts can be bumped up and down the list by other users according to interest and perceived importance (like Digg). You’ll find posts ranging from calls for proposals and studios for rent to guides to the intricacies of public liability, working with local councils and governance issues. http://arina.org.au/
dance film masterclass, aftrs open & form dance projects
Western Sydney Dance organisation FORM has teamed up with the AFTRS Open program to present a dance film masterclass. The weekend will be run by Dr Richard James Allen, co-director (with Karen Pearlman) of the Physical TV Company, responsible for works such as the feature Thursday’s Fiction (see RT80) and Entanglement Theory (see RT99). The masterclass, which is open to choreographers, dancers and filmmakers, will explore the history of dance films along with particular sub-genres and will also allow for practical exercises in the AFTRS studio with dancers. Form is also AFTRS Open & FORM Dance Projects, Dance Film Masterclass with Dr Richard James Allen, AFTRS, Sydney, July 28-29, 9-5pm, $495, $445.50 early bird booking by June 30; http://form.org.au/2012/03/dance-film-project/. FORM Dance Projects is offering one scholarship to a masterclass participant who is an emerging independent choreographer or performer. For more information email director@form.org.au
speaking in tongues, yppa national symposium
Young People and the Arts Australia (YPAA) will be presenting their national symposium at the Casula Powerhouse in July. Speaking in Tongues seeks to establish a common language around the multi-faceted manifestations of youth arts and the arts in general. The symposium will bring together a range of keynote speakers such as Sue Giles, artistic director of Polyglot Theatre; Baba Israel (in telepresent form) from Contact Manchester, a leading UK youth arts organisation; Colin Pidd from btli international, a global consultancy firm teaching strategy implementation and leadership development; and Suzanne Lebeau, playwright and theatre maker from Quebec’s Le Carrousel who will also be running a masterclass.
Other hightlights will include the unveiling of the findings from TheatreSpace, a four-year research project looking at young people’s responses to professionally-funded theatre in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Also on exhibition will be Ruth Sancho’s ambitious TRIP – T(L)ICS, Digital Interactive Poetry Installation exploring how language shapes our world and identity by focusing on poetry in Spanish, English, Catalan, Kari’ña (Venezuela), Mapudungun (Chile), Nahuatl (Mexico), Guaraní (Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay), Maltés (Malta) and Yanyuwa (Northern Territory). YPAA National Symposium, Speaking in Tongues – How do we translate the collective language of the Arts?; Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, July 11-13; http://ypaa.net/program-2012/national-symposium/, earlybird bookings by May 23
because we care, colin, simon and i
In the time that New Zealand dancer Simon Ellis spent in Australia he made a quiet but distinctive impact on the dance scene. His 2006 performance Inert was for an audience of two strapped into reclining beds to experience the intimate dance and video work with a lessened sense of gravity (see RT73). About Ellis’ 2003 performance Indelible Jonathan Marshall wrote: “Ellis produces something closer to a mnemonic auto-da-fé…With only the barest temporal and emotional rises, Ellis creates a sense of an increasing trajectory of shattering and division.” (RT54).
Now based in the UK Ellis has been collaborating with Colin Poole as the duo Colin, Simon and I. They’ve recently been commissioned by The Place, London to create the work Because We Care, which explores the ways men relate, in particular exploring their own collaborative relationship. For a preview see their video promo. Colin, Simon and I, Because We Care, The Place London, June 8 & 9; http://www.colinsimonandi.com/
congratulations
The first batch of Creative Australia Fellows has been announced which sees Gaelle Mellis, Mic Gruchy, Guy Ben-Ary, Antony Hamilton and Cat Jones awarded the Established Artist Fellowships receiving $100,000 over one year and Matthew Prest, Lauren Brincat, Gian Slater, Lee Serle, Annabel Smith and Michaela Gleave awarded Emerging Artist Fellowships of $60,000 over two years. http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/grants/creative_australia_artists_grants
Peta Clancy and Helen Pynor, The Body is a Big Place, (2011), installation view, 5-channel video projection, heart perfusion device
photo courtesy the artists
Peta Clancy and Helen Pynor, The Body is a Big Place, (2011), installation view, 5-channel video projection, heart perfusion device
The prestigious Prix Ars awards, part of the Austrian-based media arts festival Ars Electronica, have also been announced with three Australian groups receiving attention. Van Sowerwine and Isabelle Knowles (working with Matt Gingold) were given an Award of Distinction in the Interactive Art category for It’s a jungle in here (reviewed in RT108); while Peta Clancy & Helen Pynor’s The Body is a Big Place (reviewed in RT107) and Prue Lang’s sustainable dance performance Un réseau translucide both received Honorary Mentions in the Hybrid Art Category.http://www.aec.at/prix/en/gewinner/
THE UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE’S INTERNATIONAL SPACE TIME CONCERTO COMPETITION IS UPDATING ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST PERSISTENTLY EXCITING MUSICAL GENRES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY.
“The concerto has always been the testing-ground of virtuosity,” explains Richard Vella, mastermind of the competition and Head of Drama, Fine Art and Music at the University of Newcastle. “But there is this idea that standards go down the moment you move away from classical music, which is simply not true. We want to revive the form by bringing back the improvisational aspect of the concerto and asking what a contemporary concerto would look like.”
The application process is simple: university students of all levels can upload an audition video or showreel on YouTube by July 1 and fill out the online entry form. The competition’s rules are slightly less so. Solo or collaborating performers, composers, producers, and A/V artists may enter one of six “historical” or “innovative” categories to share in a prize pool of $50,000 and perform at the finalist concerts in Newcastle with telematic collaboration from Ars Electronica in Austria, the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in Singapore, the Central Conservatory of Music in China and Waikato University in New Zealand.
Vella sees the relationship between the concerto and the spaces in which it has resonated as central to the competition’s historical categories “Baroque (1600–1750),” “Classical/Romantic (1750–1900)” and “Modern/Postmodern (1900–1990s).” As well as representing a musical repertoire and a relationship to space, the categories also reflect different modes of interaction between performers and audience members.
Born from the opera overture, the baroque concerto roused audiences by “concerting” solo and small groups of instruments against the opera orchestra. The soloist would virtuosically bait and antagonise the orchestra with a spirit of improvisation that fed on the audience’s reaction. Musicologist Richard Taruskin suggests, “One doesn’t have to work hard to imagine such a thing; any rock video will provide a living example.” Audience interaction was no doubt encouraged by the fact that musicians and audiences were usually on the same level of ground as each other, either in front of theatre stages, in churches (where one wonders whether they stamped and clapped so enthusiastically) or the concert rooms of palaces.
If the baroque period was the concerto’s wild youth, then the classical era saw the form ossified into a set of widely understood performance conventions. Having composed over 300 of the things for Frederick the Great, Johann Joachim Quantz enumerated the essential elements of the late baroque concerto grosso as “numerous accompanying players, a large place, a serious performance and a moderate tempo.” That Quantz listed the physical surroundings and performance style of the concerto alongside its formal properties shows the importance of cultural and physical space to music in 1752 Sans Souci (that’s “No Worries,” the palace after which the Southern suburb of Sydney was named).
The classical and romantic eras saw the birth of paid public music performances and the image we now come to associate with the genre: a soloist on a stage in front of an orchestra. Beyond the partition of the proscenium arch it is said that a wall of respect for the works they played—and no longer improvised—separated performers and listeners, that people partitioned their outer and inner worlds while listening.
In the 20th century audiences and performers were further partitioned within modifiable concert halls with different distributions of players. For generations weaned on broadcast media it is said that performing and listening became further alienated and individualistic. While a solo performer may choose to perform a work from one of these periods (in the competition's “Historical” section), they may alternatively bring the work’s fascinating history into the present, combine it with contemporary musical forces or completely reinvent the spirit of the concerto within one of the competitions three “Innovation” categories.
Inspired by a trip to Austria’s peak arts and technology R&D centre Ars Electronica last year, Vella challenges young composers to develop new horizons for this ever-relevant art form. “The rise of the personal computer in music-making over the past 20 years has provided different creative opportunities. What is needed is a perspective that is historical, but also looks forward to creating the future.” Groups of performers, composers, producers and A/V artists can get together and enter either the “Remix/Recontextualisation,” “New Modes of Presentation,” or “Networked Music Performance” categories.
The Remix/Recontexualisation category invites groups to engage with historical works through sampling or quotation. The orchestral part can be remixed (though it will eventually be played by a live orchestra) and you can even compose a completely different solo part!
In the New Modes of Presentation section you can think about the long history of the concerto and find new ways of presenting it. Extend the orchestra with popular, world and jazz instrumentation; use synthesisers and live signal processing; or use real-time kinetic or visual interfaces.
With tertiary educational institutions all over the world building video conferencing suites it is easy to connect several orchestras with high fidelity A/V in real time. While not providing great new sonic possibilities, telematic streaming provides a logical progression in the relationship of the concerto to space and the gaze of the audience. So, while you’re practicing your Handel, why not consider entering the Networked Music Performance category to be accompanied by the International Telematic Ensemble drawn from the competition’s five partner institutions?
The International Space Time Concerto Competition invites us to decentre our idea of the concerto from a repertory of works tied to a set of performance conventions encompassing history, space, performers and audiences. When viewed in this way “the concerto” becomes an immensely enticing sandbox of contemporary possibilities.
The International Space Time Concerto Competition, University of Newcastle, Australia; entry deadline July 1; http://spacetimeconcerto.com/; finals will be held Nov 30 and Dec 2
Australian composer and sound artist Ros Bandt and German electro-acoustic composer Johannes S Sistermanns’ CD Tracings is aptly named. It offers the sonic results of three key collaborations undertaken over the last 15 years, exploring the concept of tracing, both as noun—the evidence of an action or event— and also verb, the very act of mark-making itself.
Tracings opens with BYOS, a project devised by Sistermanns for ABC Radio in 2006 in which each artist brought their owns sounds to the studio to create a collaborative composition. The CD presents five short pieces segueing seamlessly, yet each with their own character. “BYOs Preludes: Take off” launches us into a cavernous space where industrial, grating noises play a supporting roll to the reverberance of the site itself (a signature technique of Bandt’s—see her 1981 release Improvisations in Acoustic Chamber). “BYOS Vivace: Gannetts” is energetic and vibrant as bird flaps, squawks and water sloshes are overlayed and effected to create escalating sheets of sound. “BYOS Adagio: Bells” uses slowed and muted bell tolls punctuated by pitch-shifted plosives and staccato vowels.
“BYOS Industrial Blues” in particular exemplifies the aspirations of musique concrète—each sound a discrete unit, reminiscent of actualities, yet the true source is unidentifiable—as mechanised shards of sound mingle with distant voices over an insistent hum. In contrast, “BYOS Epilogue: Catwalk” is peppered with tiny mewings, moans, creaks and footfalls and scrunches with more of a cinema foley feel. As a collection, the “BYOS” offers a fast moving, rich but never cluttered collection of sonic collages, presenting glimpses of territories that make you eager for more.
“Sonic Blue Red Tracings—Kami” gives the CD its name and the artwork imagery. In 2008 Bandt and Sistermanns were in residence in Wakayama in Japan, where they began to explore the sonic properties of paper. They also applied dye to their hair (Bandt auburn red, Sistermanns blue) and created paintings using their hair as brushes, exploring gestures such as swishing and whipping. These paintings form the basis of a graphic score, but also act as instruments in themselves as the paper is miked up, amplifying the performative actions. The recorded composition is underscored by distant tones (accordion perhaps) giving it an ethereal atmosphere, while the rustle of paper scrolls and the friction of hair rubbing and whipping create a textural landscape with small rhythmic eruptions. The result is a delicately industrial soundscape with some haunting sonorities that offer more elegance perhaps than the action painting of the live performance manifestation (accessible via available video documentation that can be found here and here).
The final two tracks on Tracings are from one of Bandt and Sistermanns’ earliest collaborations, “A Global Garden for Percy.” (“Whispering Between Stars” offered as a separate track is based on an excerpt from the larger work). As part of the 1997 Melbourne Festival program Ros Bandt was commissioned to create an installation, A Garden for Percy’s Delight, in the grounds of the Grainger Museum. For this she utilised recordings of some of the curious instruments Percy Grainger had created in pursuit of his idea of Free Music—music released from regular metric rhythm, exploring smooth pitch undulations, like ocean waves, that could in fact be performed by machines free of human intervention. Some of the instruments in the museum include the Kangaroo Pouch Machine which uses three oscillators to create sliding tones, the Knoxville Butterfly Piano and a Metallophone (Steel Marimba).
Bandt and Sistermanns also performed a live composition, “A Global Garden for Percy,” via an ISDN line linking Melbourne and Frankfurt, with the piece broadcast and recorded by the ABC’s The Listening Room. The result is a substantial 41-minute work with each composer’s contribution well melded. Given the paltry capacity for streaming even today, this live global linkup was and still is an impressive feat. (Bring on the NBN!)
“A Global Garden for Percy” is structured around recurring themes: watery field recordings made at Brighton Beach where Grainger grew up; samples of ascending and descending glissandi on his inventions; voices whispering his treatise; and deep plucked piano strings. At one point Grainger’s Viola d'Amore (adapted into an Alto Viol) is used to play a wistful version of John Dowland's 17th century song “Come Again,” alluding to Grainger’s love of folk music, only to be subsumed back into the composition's layering. At another point a helicopter, a sound of modern rupture, alerts us to the mechanical glissandi that surround us everyday. It’s a drifting dreamscape, using fascinating source material and taking dark and difficult turns—a fitting tribute to one of Australia’s most fascinating and complex composers.
Tracings as a whole is an engaging work with many textural and atmospheric pleasures. It rigorously explores not just the sonority of objects themselves, but the very nature of composition and collaboration.
Currently living in Wrocław developing a research project with local theatre company Teatr Piesn Kozła.
the meeting place for living theatre histories
Wrocław is a beautiful small city, full of culture and life. Its city slogan is “the meeting place” and in my time here I have come across many artists from Europe and beyond who are attracted to the rich strand of theatre found here. As I write the city is blossoming into Spring and the Euro Cup 2012 approaches, this year hosted by Poland. On any given day most people you pass on the street will be eating ice cream and when it reaches 30 degrees you will see many red faces soaking up the much-waited-for sun.
for culture…
Wrocław
I first came to Wrocław to train with local theatre company Teatr Piesn Kozła (Song of the Goat Theatre) in their MA Acting program facilitated by Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. Piesn Kozła is a highly acclaimed avant-garde theatre company working in the tradition of ensemble laboratory theatre. In the artistic lineage of Polish theatre directors Jerzy Grotowski and Włodzimierz Staniewski (Centre for Theatre Practices “Gardzienice”) the company develops performances over a long period of time, researching, training and presenting new theatrical works with a consistent ensemble of actors. This company attracts artists from around the world to experience their unique approach to actor training through their workshop and MA programs.
Every July, Piesn Kozła hosts the Brave Festival, an international festival of disappearing cultures. This event brings together performances from around the world that are living examples of ancient cultural traditions. With an emphasis on music and song the festival aims to celebrate precious cultural practices that may be under threat due to the pressures of modern society. The theme of the 2012 festival is Women’s Voices and will take place July 2-7.
Wrocław
Wrocław is also home to The Grotowski Institute, an organisation dedicated to the work of Jerzy Grotowski, whose laboratory theatre was based in Wroclaw 1965-1984. Located in the Rynek (town square) this centre holds archival material of Grotoswki’s work as well as collections from associated artists such as Peter Brook and Eugenio Barba and his Norwegian/Danish company Odin Teatret.
The institute is also very active in hosting theatrical research projects, workshops, lectures, film screenings, festivals and performances. Last year I was lucky enough to see Eugenio Barba, dressed in sandals in the cool Polish autumn, introducing one of Odin Teatret performances being hosted there. Currently the institute is running a research project with acclaimed Russian director Anatoly Vasiliev; such projects are attracting artists from all over Europe to audition and participate in laboratory theatre programs.
Biennially the Teatr Wspolczesny in Wrocław hosts the Dialog Festival, showcasing high profile artists from around the world. Dialog is usually held in October with the 2011 event featuring work by Polish director Krystian Lupa, Les Ballets C de la B (Belgium), Sociétas Rafaello Sanzio (Italy) and Teatro Milagros (Chile) to name a few. Definitely worth a look if you are visiting the country in 2013!
for refreshment…
Cafe Monsieur, Wrocław
There are many little cafes and bars growing like mushrooms all over Wrocław, but I would recommend the lovely Monsieur Café. Located just off the Rynek, this romantically French style café serves delicious home made cakes and croissants and is a very nice place for writing postcards or using the free Wifi.
Another favourite haunt is the beautiful Mleczrnia Café located on ul. Pawła Włodkowica. With its chic antique décor and candle-lit tables it is a must stop for a delicious Polish hot chocolate, giant cappuccino or a sumptuous breakfast. Mleczrnia also doubles as a hostel and offers lovely accommodation at relatively affordable prices.
If you want to boogie until the Polish sun rises, I would recommend the gorgeous art deco bar Kalumbur located on ul. Kuznicza—a great place to sample some Polish vodka and if you are lucky you can be out-danced by a particularly crazy DJ.
other recommendations…
If you’re staying in town for a few days I would definitely recommend hiring one of the city bikes or taking a stroll. The Odra River weaves through the city and not too far from the town centre you can find the islands of churches, old style buildings and the botanic gardens.
As a student town, Wrocław is home to a lot of young people, many of whom speak English. So it is quite possible to get by as an English-speaking tourist, but it is always appreciated if you make the effort to speak some Polish too!
Janie Gibson is an actor and theatre maker. She has trained at UNSW, PACT Theatre, Teatr Piesn Kozla (PL) and most recently Shakespeare & Company (USA). Her work focuses on the ensemble as the heart of the theatrical process and an understanding of theatre as an ongoing practice of research. She is currently exploring the art of oral tradition in the performance of drama, storytelling and song. Recent productions include Stories of Love and Hate with Urban Theatre Projects and Sydney Theatre Company and Rhapsody by her own company Whale Chorus, part of Underbelly Arts Festival 2011.
related articles
in the belly of the beast
gail priest, teik-kim pok, sarah miller: underbelly arts festival
RealTime issue #105 Oct-Nov 2011 p5
learning to listen
caroline wake: utp’s stories of love & hate
RealTime issue #89 Feb-March 2009 p36
someone else’s dream
keith gallasch on janie gibson’s the whale chorus
RealTime issue #84 April-May 2008 p36
Byron Perry, Antony Hamilton, Simon Obarzanek, Ross Coulter, Untrained, Lucy Guerin Inc
photo by Untrained Artist
Byron Perry, Antony Hamilton, Simon Obarzanek, Ross Coulter, Untrained, Lucy Guerin Inc
lucy guerin inc’s untrained
Lucy Guerin Inc’s successful show Untrained has already charmed audiences around Australia and in Hong Kong. The show is scheduled to tour the US in November and the company is looking for two new untrained men to become part of the show. Males over 18 with no dance experience (and no criminal record, for visa purposes) are eligible to apply. Applications close 5pm, May 14; auditions May 26, 10–1pm; http://www.lucyguerininc.com
international space time concerto competition
Australia’s University of Newcastle has announced the inaugural The International Space Time Concerto Competition encouraging artists to explore the concerto both from an historical but also contemporary perspective looking for innovation within the form. Also involved are the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in Singapore, Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, Waikato University in New Zealand and Ars Electronica in Austria and entries are encouraged from virtuoso classical instrumentalists, orchestral players, jazz, contemporary bands, electronic and new media artists. The pool of prize money is $50,000 (sponsored by benefactor Jennie Thomas and the Friends of the University). Six finalists will be chosen to perform with orchestra at the Newcastle Conservatorium of Music Concert Hall in late 2012 with another two finalists performing with an ensemble linked across five countries via the internet. Entries close July 1, www.spacetimeconcerto.com
access space uk residencies
Access Space is an open digital arts lab in Sheffield, UK. With an emphasis on sustainability the lab runs on recycled computers and open source software and systems. Access Space is calling for applications for Artist Residencies which will utilise its Refab Space, a DIY fabrication studio including tools such as 3D printer, laser cutter, CNC router, Arduino and an embroidery machine. Applications are sought for one residency in July and three residencies from September 4 to December 15. Residencies are for 15 working days and successful applicants receive a fee of £1500 (approx AUS$2,300), self-catering accommodation, a small budget for materials and a small contribution towards travel. Applications close for July residency May 16 and Autumn residencies June 18; http://www.access-space.org/arts/Refab_Residency_Call.htm
realise your dream
If you need help getting to UK there’s The British Council’s Realise your Dream program, funding artists in their first 10 years of practice to travel to the UK and undertake a tailored professional development program devised in consultation with the Council. Applications are open to people working in any industry “where creativity plays an important role” (website). The award offers $10,000 plus airfare. Applications close June 3, 2012; http://artsfrontier.britishcouncil.org.au/?cat=4
vagrant, new weird australia
New Weird Australia is currently offering small grants (up to $750) for artists to curate and produce an event for New Weird’s open source gig series. The events will take place under the moniker of Vagrant, with NWA providing promotion. Applicants must share the organisation’s eclectic and experimental sensibility, but the style and responsibility for production of gigs is entirely up to recipients. Funding is for artist fees, travel, marketing and production costs with a stipulation that “artists are not out of pocket” (website). Events can take place anywhere in Australia before July 30. Applications close May 14; http://newweirdaustralia.com
kit denton disfellowship
The 2012 Kit Denton Disfellowship, named after Andrew Denton’s father, a respected writer, is now in its sixth year, however it’s been re-titled a “disfellowship” to encourage “subversive ideas” which the press release suggests might mean that “your nan disowns you, your neighbours shun you and the shock jocks call for you to be locked up.” The aim is to “find ideas of substance, intelligence and purpose that will take viewers outside their comfort zone and challenge the status quo” (press release). This year it is run by the Australian Writers’ Foundation and Cordell Jigsaw Zapruders, the privately owned television company that is responsible for shows such as Go Back to Where You Came From, The Gruen Transfer and Enough Rope, as well as the upcoming Dumb, Drunk and Racist. The fellowship offers a grant of $30,000 to script the idea for screen production. Applications close May 25, http://awg.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=383&Itemid=509
HAVING LIVED IN THE MELBOURNE SUBURB OF COLLINGWOOD FOR ALMOST A LIFETIME, I AM SUBCONSCIOUSLY AWARE THAT FUGUESTATE WILL BE PERFORMED ON GIPPS STREET AT THE UNITED MASONIC TEMPLE.
A woman wearing a ritualistic tailcoat greets me at the entrance. Together, we step through a hall and enter an antechamber. Black and white photographs from the early 20th century occupy measured space on tar-stained walls. But the equilibrium of ancient imagery is sabotaged by the inclusion of several closed circuit screens. A Dali-esque clock appears on one screen, and intermittent shadows across its face betray the presence of others passing through some hidden mausoleum.
A man approaches me as if he has known me all my life. He invites me to sit at a table that might have been constructed purely for letter writing. He disappears, then returns with a glass of port and a sheet of paper that details the widely reported 2005 discovery of ‘The Piano Man.’ I read on, hoping the liquor provided will fortify me against this tale of a fellow found wandering along a road on the English Isle of Sheppey.
Fuguestate, Jason Maling & Joseph Giovinazzo
photo tmphoto.co
Fuguestate, Jason Maling & Joseph Giovinazzo
The port achieves its stated aim and lodges an ember in my belly. But this report of a speechless man who, when provided with a piano played melancholy versions of Swan Lake, disturbs my thinking. Is it a media myth or an actual case of a gifted person requiring treatment for a personality disorder? It is impossible to tell, but the cynic within conspires toward the circus surrounding Australian pianist David Helfgott. Some employed in the media will do anything to make a buck. Then again, adopting the role of urban mythographer is preferable to hacking the phone of a murdered English teenager.
Then I too am fitted out in tailcoat, white gloves and a set of headphones jacked into a book with an esoteric sign embossed on its cover. The aforementioned man opens a door and invites me to explore a hidden recess. Inside, empty chairs placed in methodical rows remain attentive before a decrepit portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. There are others inside this ballroom, also wearing tailcoats, gloves and headphones. We wander together, as if condemned to immolate within a purgatory bereft of defining terms.
I exit this room and enter another. It’s a kitchen and I do declare that the multitude of cucumber sandwiches once prepared across its steel benches are present in spirit, if not vanquished by time and hungry Freemasonry. Emanating from my earphones is what I believe to be an atonal composition that competes with itself in the attainment of some transcendental plane. It’s a fugue, of course; and the title of this performance thumps between my ears as I now believe myself to be in composition with a world that previously had been limited to subtle winks and shifty handshakes.
Fuguestate, Jason Maling & Joseph Giovinazzo
photo tmphoto.co
Fuguestate, Jason Maling & Joseph Giovinazzo
I venture further, into a dusty hollow. There, again, is another man who has known me all my life. This time, he takes the shape of a decaying skeleton resting inside a miniature coffin. The detail is remarkable, but so is the magic of human deception. In fugue with life as in death, we compete with ourselves in defiance of some final retribution. Our time will come, my friends, and in the end there will be nothing but the sad monument of death illuminating a lifetime of wasted dreams.
Fuguestate, conceptual realisation Jason Mailing, Joseph Giovinazzo,
drawing, photography, production design Jason Mailing,
musical composition, audio technology Cake Industries (Jesse Stevens & Dean Petersen), production Joseph Giovinazzo, producer Ann Schoo, book construction Gene Hedley, Cake Industries, United Masonic Temple, Melbourne, April 16-29; http://www.fuguestate.info/
This article originally appeared as part of RealTime’s online e-dition May 8
Following an on-again off-again long distance love affair with The Middle Kingdom, I’ve returned to the glittering embrace of cybercity Shanghai to present augmented reality apps and live performance Metaverse Makeovers as part of Jue: Music+Art, an annual open-source festival.
Another aspect of my visit to China, supported by the Australia Council for the Arts, is to instigate ‘Border-Crossing’ collaborations and partnerships with international live art practitioners and presenters.
whore or pearl of the orient?
Shanghai’s scent is like a certain Chinese brand of cosmopolitan spirit. Soaring above, gleaming neon and LED emblazoned skyscrapers punctuate an ever-evolving futuristic city skyline. On the lower levels crumbling alleyways, the Old Town and French Concession, sophisticated Art Deco buildings, dizzying marketplaces and shopping—oh so much shopping—over stimulate the senses (and my new ‘authentic non-faux’ Chanel purse).
Shanghai is the city for being seduced by historical charm and the aspirations of what-is-yet-to-be—witnessing the excess and paradoxical peaks of communism and capitalism colliding; having dalliances with the luxury and the gutter classes; and immersing yourself in the closest visual and sensorial experience you’ll find to Blade Runner.
Shanghai
photo Thea Baumann
Shanghai
for culture…
Beijing is known as the city for edgy contemporary art and as the base for China’s heavyweights, however myriad cultural hotspots are fermenting in Shanghai.
Located in a stately Art Deco building, The Rockbund Art Museum shows local and international contemporary artists. Night@RAM is worth dipping into—a series of free educational events held on weekends. Walk up to the top level of the Rockbund for a free cup of coffee and head out to the balcony for a fabulous view of Pudong, The Bund, Huangpu River, laundry laden shikumen [19th century style townhouses] and apartment rooftops.
Reminiscent of the 798 district in Beijing, M50 is located in an industrial park next to Suzou Creek. Here converted and revamped warehouses, a warren of studios, cafes, and the LED new media art collective Island 6 are located. ShanghArt is one of the more reliable galleries for cutting-edge contemporary mixed media practice, as is Eastlink supporting emergent practice in China. Walk down the street from the entrance to M50 and you’ll catch a glimpse of what is most likely the only trace of an underground street-art scene in China—a wall dedicated to graffiti art.
The Shanghai Biennale opens October this year and has moved to a renovated power plant—now the New Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, formerly the Pavilion of the Future at World Expo.
Yuyuan Gardens, Shanghai
photo Thea Baumann
Yuyuan Gardens, Shanghai
diy & propoganda…
For meeting Shanghai’s new media community, tinkerers, inventors, local and visiting artists, head to XinCheJian hackerspace. They stage hacker gatherings, presentations, workshops, robo-racing and show and tells.
Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Centre is a treasure trove basement museum of socialist realist graphic art, communist utopias, Mao portraits, little red book waving masses and, surprisingly, a fabulous archive of Shanghai Calendar Girl posters.
ni che le ma? (are you hungry?)
Che. Definitely. Shanghai is a city for eating, drinking, dining, clubbing, indulgence and debauchery.
For revelling with Shanghai’s glitterati, The Glamour Bar on The Bund is perfect for sexy cocktails with pink-hued lighting and vintage lounges graced with stunning views of Pudong: giant flashing billboards, the retro-futuristic Pearl Tower and sharp shiny modernist architecture.
On the Pudong side, head to the Jinmao Tower and take the ear-popping ride in the elevator up to the Skywalk—the tallest observation deck in mainland China. Then calm the vertigo and head down a level to Cloud 9 for cocktails and blindingly twinkly views of Shanghai.
If desperate for a good cup of coffee in Shanghai (after disgracing yourself with a Starbucks sprint), head to Old China Hand Reading Room located in the French Concession. This library cum cafe cum bookstore is owned by local architecture buffs who have published gorgeous books on Shanghai’s Art Deco heritage.
Time in China cannot be spent without sampling the myriad street food options. Chuanr— little chunks of seasoned meat on skewers cooked over coals on portable BBQs (sometimes an electric grill, mostly just an old iron gutter grate)—is unbelievably addictive. Ask for ‘la’—hot! Head to Yuyuan Gardens for bazaars and night time street snacks.
for sleeping…
If you’re starting to feel guilty about your love of Shanghai’s blinking neon display and need to alleviate your carbon emissions, sleep at Urbn, Shanghai’s first carbon neutral hotel with rooms fitted out in recycled wood from old concession era houses.
Foyer of the Paramount Ballroom, Shangai
photo Thea Baumann
Foyer of the Paramount Ballroom, Shangai
bargain, haggle, sing, dance
Shanghai is dotted with experiential jewels and a multitude of opportunities to shop.
Cut label (seconds) designer boutiques line the streets of the French Concession. Pick up a stack of DVDs from the stores and carts that pepper the streets. Need some Shanzhai (Chinese imitation and pirated brands and goods)? An ‘iPhone,’ ‘iPad,’ or a Steve Jobs memorial iPhone case? Head to Pacific Digital Plaza. Or hire an OTT VIP Karaoke Lounge Room at MJ.98. And for an enchanted vision of a bygone era, stop at the Paramount Ballroom for ballroom dancing and champagne.
Shanghai: it’s a city that still provides an intoxicating and heady array of options to indulge your every vice.
Thea Baumann is Executive Producer of Aphids where she co-directs Atelier Edens, a series of field laboratories sustainably creating cross-artform, digital and transmedia projects in remote and natural environments: OCEAN, WILDERNESS, SPACE. She conceived Metaverse Makeovers, augmented reality enhanced performances and AR apps for iOS, and is currently undertaking R&D in networked, collaborative live arts practice in China, Europe, and the US.
Soundcapsule is a bi-monthly online feature offering free downloads of music by artists we’ve recently covered in RealTime.
All tracks are copyright the artists.
jon rose, tromba mariner
Jon Rose playing the Tromba Mariner, 1979
Jon Rose is a UK-born composer who has lived in Austraila since 1976. He is a consummate violinist and versatile improviser, has made a multitude of instruments and has also created many radio works. Most recently he has been exploring interactive music making experiences in works such as Pursuit, using musical bicycles (see RT90; RT96), an interactive netball game, Team Music! (RT96); and the multi-user festival hit The Ball project (RT102).
In March he received The Australia Council’s Don Banks Award which honours an artist of high distinction over 50 years of age who has made an outstanding and sustained contribution to Australia music.
The following track is a recording of an instrument that Rose constructed in the 70s called a Tromba Mariner. It was based on a medieval triangular bowed string instrument which Rose says “was attached to my boat which I had at the time, [and] used water to change the focal length of the resonating chamber'” (invterview in RT108).
the sound of bicycles singing
shannon o’neill: jon rose & robin fox, pursuit
RealTime issue #90 April-May 2009 pg. 48
listening to history
jon rose’s 2007 peggy glanville-hicks address
RealTime issue #83 Feb-March 2008 pg. 46
——————————
thomas william vs scissor lock, dreams of dreams (excerpt)
Thomas William vs Scissor Lock
photo Lucien Alperstein
Thomas William vs Scissor Lock
Thomas William, previously known as Cleptoclectics (real name Tom Smith) is a Sydney-based musician and producer working primarily with sample-based music. Scissor Lock (real name Marcus Whale), also Sydney-based, creates gritty swathes of sound using voice, feedback, no input mixing and laptop processing. They first teamed up for a New Weird Australia benefit gig and have continued to collaborate, producing their debut CD Jewelz for the NWA Editions series (reviewed in earbash.)
The following track is an excerpt from a piece created for the experimental radio show Ears have Ears presented by Brooke Olsen, on FBi Radio 94.5fm.
part 1: sydney scenes & sounds
gail priest: silent hour, ladyz in noyz, high reflections
RealTime issue #103 June-July 2011 pg. 40
—————————————
shoeb ahmad, kitten’s eyes
Shoeb Ahmad, Watch/Illuminate, Mystery Plays Records
Shoeb Ahmad is a Canberra-based musician working with guitar, voice, field recordings, keyboard and laptop to explore drone, ambient, improv and pop. He is one half (with Evan Dorrian) of the duo Spartak whose recent New Weird Australia Edition, Nippon, was reviewed in earbash. He is also the founder of the DIY label hellosQuare, which has released 49 CDs and CD-Rs since its inception in 2004. See in the loop to read about the label’s upcoming residency at Canberra Contemporary Artspace.
The following track, Kitten’s Eyes, offers a special preview of Ahmad’s upcoming solo album Watch/Illuminate, to be released June 2012.
Beirut is a city in a period of rapid transformation. One sees evidence of the devastation of its troubled past, but all around there is renovation and reconstruction, not just physically— the city is gripped by a desire for cultural change. It’s an exciting and contradictory place. Whether or not, in the face of transformation, it can maintain some of its old charms is a debate current amongst its citizens. The reconstructed downtown looks like a film set—almost too perfect; a few metres away are the empty shells of bombed buildings. A promenade by the Mediterranean brings you in contact with a diverse group of people. Beirut is a complex place.
Old Beirut
photo Jim Denley
Old Beirut
Getting around the city is a challenge, there is little public transport and walking can seem unpleasant and dangerous due to noisy, chaotic traffic—drivers park their cars almost anywhere, often blocking pavements. But once you get the feel for it, crossing streets and negotiating the traffic becomes easier and off the main roads it’s surprisingly quiet. Everything in this place is negotiable. Regulations have little power—red lights are often run—but strangely, it works. Cabs are cheap, every trip seems to be 10,000 Lebanese pounds, around AU$6-7.
for culture…
Around Easter in Beirut is the Irjtjal Festival devoted to improvised music (irjtjal means improvisation in Arabic). The event forms around a core group of musicians: Mazen Kerbaj (trumpet), Raed Yassin (double bass) and Sharif Sehnaoui (guitar), three brilliant players working at the very edge of experimentalism on their instruments. They have links with an array of European and American musicians and, excitingly, performers from Egypt and Tunisia. The festival takes place in a variety of venues throughout central Beirut.
Straight after this festival is BIPOD—Beirut International Platform of Dance. Launched in 2004 as the Beirut International Dance Festival it offers dance performances by artists of different origins, workshops, conferences and debates in order to develop new concepts in contemporary dance. The Beirut Art Centre is also worth checking out, offering programs of exhibitions and performances.
Bustros Palace, Beirut
photo Jim Denley
Bustros Palace, Beirut
There are good bookshops throughout the city. I guess given Lebanon’s history it’s not surprising that the politics section is often large and quite radical. There are bookshops in the main street of Hamra and even Virgin Megastore in the Downtown area carries a large number of books on Lebanese history and politics. There are also little shops in Mar Mikhael, like Papercup on Rue Pharaon, specialising in art books.
Metropolis Empire Sofil in Ashrafieh, at the heart of Beirut, is a two-screen theatre, also a café and a film library. The program is mainly art cinema.
La Plage, Beirut
photo Jim Denley
La Plage, Beirut
for refreshment…
Eating in Beirut is a great experience, I didn’t have a bad meal in my time there. For Armenian food, Mayrig (282 Rue Pasteur) provided me with one of the best meals I’ve ever had in my life. Armenian food is similar to Lebanese but with subtly different spices. I think the meatballs in cherries might have been sheep testicles—it was delicious.
A good place for lunch is Basma (Sasadi Bldg, Charles Malek Ave) in Achrafieh. The menu seems to be modern meets traditional.
One of Beirut’s most famous landmarks—a massive seaside palace with swimming pool beach club and swanky eatery—is known by long-time locals as Café d’Orient or simply as La Plage by everyone else (Ain el-Mreisseh). It’s expensive, but a great place to sit and have a drink in the evening and watch the Mediterranean.
Cheaper options are Barbar on Rue Spears in Hamra where you can pick up fresh falafel and kebabs till late. This popular chain sells manaeesh, shwarma, pastries, mezze, kebabs, ice cream and fresh juice.
Shoemaker in Beirut
photo Jim Denley
Shoemaker in Beirut
other recommendations…
A walk around Bourj Hamoud just to the north of Beirut takes you into another world where Armenian culture dominates. There are lots of delicious and cheap places to eat. Bourj Hammoud was founded by survivors of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and expanded mostly during the 1930s. They were given the right to construct shacks on the eastern banks of the Beirut River that, at the time, was swamp and marshland. Subsequently permission was granted to erect houses and buildings which stand to this day.
If you have time, take the bus north 85km to Tripoli. The souk (covered market) and the old city there are extraordinary, and people are friendly and inquisitive—I guess they don’t see too many tourists. Eat at Abdul Rahman Hallab & Sons (just ask, everyone seems to know this place) where the sweets are amazing and different from any Lebanese sweets I’ve had in Australia.
Jim Denley is Sydney-based musician. Wind instruments and electronics are core elements of his musical output. An emphasis on spontaneity, site-specific work and collaboration has been central to his work. He sees no clear distinctions between his roles as instrumentalist, improviser and composer. Denley performs regularly at local, national and international events and festivals and also runs the record label splitrec.
sounds found & introduced
bruce mowson: bogong air festival
RealTime issue #102 April-May 2011 pg. 40
sonic interiors
simon charles: liquid architecture 9, melbourne
RealTime issue #87 Oct-Nov 2008 pg. 47
the many ways to play
chris reid samples sonic innovation at mibem
RealTime issue #85 June-July 2008 pg. 45
the improvising organism
gail priest, machine for making sense
RealTime issue #48 April-May 2002 pg. 38
Interview with artist Lara Thoms about her participatory performance work The Experts Project, part of Local Position Systems, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, curated by Performance Space.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE’S INTERNATIONAL SPACE TIME CONCERTO COMPETITION IS UPDATING ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST PERSISTENTLY EXCITING MUSICAL GENRES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY. 
