Editorial 19 July 2017

So much of contemporary life feels as if it’s shattering. In the art ecology, the labour market, the housing sector, media business models and politics, things aren’t working like they used to. But sparks of fresh life are coming from surprising places. Ancient sky spirits speak to us in Warwick Thornton’s documentary, fresh from the festival circuit. Perth theatremakers are breaking apart the very atoms of narrative and putting them back together in weird and inventive ways. In a renovated substation in Melbourne, Angelo Badalamenti’s 25-year-old Twin Peaks soundtrack is remade by an art-rock band. And we continue our series of video essays by Conor Bateman — RealTime is the only publication in Australia to consistently commission such audiovisual works, as part of our effort to find new means to bring words and images together in works of creative criticism. The old ways are gone, but glimpses of the new are all around. LCH

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Top image credit: We Don’t Need A Map