RealTime E-dition 23 November 2016

RealTime E-dition

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The new abnormal. The international trend towards demagoguery and the diminution of democracy moves closer to home with, among other things, Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act under threat from an increasingly right-swinging Liberal-National Government. RealTime this week includes reviews of works that address old norms—rape culture, racism, masculinist popular culture, fear of immigrants—which are finding cancerous new life as they fuse with fact-free, empathy-challenged alt-right, libertarian and One Nation populism. At least now, thanks to Prime Minister Turnbull doing a Howard, we know who we are, part of the “media elite,” oblivious to the concerns of ordinary Australians. Next on the list? Artists?

Keith and Virginia

A NEW INSTRUMENT SPEAKS Zoe Barker is taken with Matthias Schack-Arnott’s Annica, a rotating musical instrument that sets its two Speak Percussion players dancing, yielding layered, hypnotic resonances built from brushed and struck stones, shells, sticks, wires, sandpaper, finely tuned chimes and big cymbals.

WITH AN EAR TO THE FUTURE The future of creative radio broadcasting was vigorously forecast at the Radio Revolten Festival. Hear fascinating works and see many images from this once in a decade event. Sophea Lerner gauges its significance just as the ABC decommissions Australia’s acclaimed creative radio and sound art program, Soundproof.

EUROVISION: LOOK BACK IN ANGER Just as it’s been announced that Australia will again participate in the next Eurovision Song Contest, Philip Brophy defends the event from the depredations of SBS TV coverage.

ALL SET ADRIFT Jane Goodall sees Zsuzsi Soboslay’s Anthems and Angels, part of her Compassion Plays series, give expression to a sense of loss—of metaphysics and mythology in a culture where communication has been reduced to shouting matches.

UTTERLY WIRED With its spooky ambience, curious creations and restless ambiguities, Ella Barclay’s solo show, I Had To Do It, at UTS Gallery induces self-examination about the experience of a pervasively plugged-in existence. Showing until 25 November.

HAVING A GO AT THE HORROR
In Terror Australis, Leah Shelton defiantly runs the gamut of horrors embedded in masculinist Australian popular culture. It’s “an extraordinary testament to Shelton’s wit, intellect and performance energy,” writes Kathryn Kelly.

WHEN DADS DANCE
In Parramatta, Dance Makers Collective listen to their fathers talk about the importance of dance for them and lovingly translate their movement into “a subtle enquiry into male frailties,” writes Tony Osborne. “It challenges stereotypes of paternity and masculinity and exposes a charming vulnerability in older men.”

NOT DEFINED BY RAPE
Xan Fraser, raped in 1981 at 12 years of age and blamed for it by the court and community, bravely appears as herself in Hellie Turner’s Project Xan, a documentary performance about a still pervasive rape culture.

GIVEAWAY: HIGH-RISE DVD
In a self-contained 40-storey high-rise, social relations and services go to pieces as self-interest takes over on the eve of Margaret Thatcher’s rise to power. Ben Wheatley’s film, has been praised for its “future-retro vision,” “coolly immaculate” design, a fine central performance by Tom Hiddleston and its strongly realised sense of escalating decadence.

RealTime E-dttions are published by Open City an Incorporated Association in New South Wales. Open City Inc is supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding body, and by the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy [VACS], an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments. RealTime’s Principal Technology Partner is the national communications carrier, Vertel.

Opinions published in RealTime are not necessarily those of the Editorial Team or the Publisher.

RealTime, Open City Inc
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Tel 61 2 9283 2723

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www.realtime.org.au

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