DAY10 on Day292:Straight feedback

It might seem like I am excluding again by pushing the transcription of the straight feedback to a blog site all its own. But at approximately 19,000 words (40 pages) it would out-weigh the rest of blog. Maybe you need the blankness of a white curtain for a rigorous and relentless discussion to ensue. There are only a few names mentioned so it’s really a mass of unidentified (closeted?) voices (joke). But really, the discussion was long, amazing and articulate and such a valuable contribution to the project. Well that’s until I answer some questions at the end and become ‘like’ an ‘um’ insecure ‘like’ ‘you know’ mess of words. That’s the thing about professional transcription – it captures almost everything recorded. I got the feedback session transcribed (very affordably) by a woman named Sue who often transcribes the unidentified conversations of focus group for companies and their products. Interesting parallel. Thanking those who contributed.

Read full transcript

DRAG/MASH forum

Mashing drag – we need more practice

In regards to group conversations - maybe as a small, disparate community we’re out of practice. Maybe there was a need for more audience feedback, to give the interaction some space to breathe with the ideas and gestures presented by Gary Carsley (convener), Scott Redford, Alex Martinis Roe, Sue Dodd and Phillip Brophy. Maybe the topic of the forum was too broad and at times misdirected. Maybe we (the audience) needed to put our ideas on the line like some of the panellists.

I continually got the impression as I was sitting near the back of GCAS (Cate Constadine’s log in my face) that the panellists weren’t talking in the same neighbourhood. I agree with Alexie Glass (director of GCAS) at the conclusion that there was no need for consensus to be reached - but this still left the punters wanting. Probably due to the topic (DRAG/MASH) that was so loaded but at the same time was being hollowed of its political queerness and replaced by a series of processes eerily reminiscent of those described by Nicolas Bourriaud in 'postproduction.' Not that anyone has naming rights to series of artistic tendencies that are old but new again. I guess Carsley was describing appropriation and hybrid theory not on as a representational by-product but as a performative process used by artists. “Drag as a verb not a noun…. Drag that doesn’t take hostages.” What was a curious decision (after the de-queering) is that Gary Carsley used drag as his example for DRAG/MASH – albeit some would say of the more radical variety created by Leigh Bowery and Pauline Pant-Down – popular amongst those ‘Trotsky’ triple J’ers. Martinis Roes provided the forum with a simultaneous rigour, clarity and abstraction through her exploration of the constitution of a critical artistic practice. Footy dads dragging as mere strategy that use representation as a vehicle for objectification and the critical drag that is tactical (cheers Certeau) and deals with performitivity as opposed to performance. “Two singers doing the same karaoke song…who they are… where they are, makes a difference…” (That was a real bad ‘mashing’ of Alex’s presentation – quite apt really). Redford used an example of his high school collage to compare with his collaging technique 30 years later. “There’s no difference,” he pointed out – to the sound of laughter in the audience. “I see it in a book and then rip it off.” Carsley responded to Redford’s use of the world guilty. “Originality as a form of violence…. guiltless position of drag…not interested in canonical interpretation.” Dodd hilariously narrated a Chinese ‘New Idea’ and provided a moment that contrasted with her presentation, which was on the whole in keeping with her ‘Gossip Pop’ performance work. “There’s a moment when looking in the mirror…when one needs to escape the vision before you…” Phillip Brophy had all the moves – or the words for a person who denies being an artist but is continuously being validated by art institutions and stands for the visceral and the bodily but has had an academic moment or two. Maybe he should have commented on the Kingpins and his feminist (?) perspective on the conventional definition of drag at the same time as his sharp musings on pop emptiness/fullness and before the antagonistic questioning from the floor - that created a tension to say the least. I felt protective of the forum. For a predominantly straight (or there abouts) audience, drag needed to be critiqued within the realm of camp Commercial Rd but at the same time given a space. This should be a delicate operation – unless you want the weight of a homophobic backlash to strike again. I felt the anger expressed in “can you give any examples of DRAG/MASH…the Kingpins for example…or do only gay men do it?” as a result of a jaded and justifiable suspicion of gay male chauvinism. But it was an over reaction and probably more a by-product of the failures of coalitionist politics (between lesbians and gays) than the fault of Carsley, Redford or gay men. Thanks very much Janet.

On the whole I found listening to the vast differences between the presentation worth while – not as a rumination or critique of DRAG/MASH but as an exploration of how as artists we represent ourselves in professional and peripheral activities like artist talks, slide talk, feedback sessions and interviews. We need to do this more. Not only describe how we do it as artists but how we represent ourselves as women, queers indigenous etc.- the what, the where and the whys.

Comments really welcome on this.

Reply to Robert Schubert

Dear Robert,

I am responding today because BAD GAY ART was/is on my mind. This post/open letter is more tribute to the show rather than a response to your generous comment in late January. Of course this is threaded through my personal recollections of that show - presented by the Sydney’s Mardi Gras in 1997. You probably also have to imagine that this email has been sent by ship (a slow ship with wharf disputations at both sides of the exchange.)

Continue reading letter to Robert

DAY 9 on Day 282: Queer feedback

Should I post six months after my last post and not mention my hiatus? Maybe nobody is reading… Regardless – I made a commitment to tie those loose ends and adequately document the last few activities. After all isn’t - prompt completion - adhering to timelines and creating a manageable project within the boundary given privileging something archly conservative…blah blah blah or something. Did I mention the burning bridges or the river’s ecology - I am slowly building some pontoons. Lets see how we go…

So I have at last spell-checked the first feedback session but have left whole lot of (not-so-right) syntax unchanged. This was the feedback for the queer identifiers. I invited the Midsumma Visual Arts Committee, artists and writers. I haven’t gone through the normal clearing procedures so I won’t name them explicitly. (They did know the feedback was being recorded) Jeff (curator) facilitated the event. Jon (my partner) kindly transcribed the whole proceeding because I had some mini-disc recorder malfunction. So there are parts where he couldn’t hear what the participants were saying. Don’t worry the straight feedback is recorded and being transcribed by professionals. Their words are like… What is that saying? (Bridges Spiros – remember the bridges.)




Descriptive Feedback

John: This is really full on. Seems like there is a whole lot of platforms. Made of raw pine sort of screwed together varying heights. When I looked in the window weeks ago, all of these components were in one cube that was sort of closed off form from the outside. Now they’re sort of open and each component of that cube has a function in this space in different ways. Over here where Jon is typing on the apple Mac, it’s a low height which is quite a broad square area, black painted with wood panels on the surface and this is sort of like a messy number I can’t really say what its like. On top of this surface is a smattering of stuff, wine, paper, books whatever. But the interesting thing for me is the other things and how they’re all functioning. Here it’s like a display unit with this higher table, and on the unit are these geometric volumed shapes with shapes cut out and the holes filled with different coloured cellophane. The forms look like they’re cut and glued together with a glue gun. There’s a jumble of them that fills the whole surface. There’s a really nice a2 or a1 poster in brown paper with lettering in red saying 'groups do it better.' Over here there’s another display table it's like a little pop-eye village or something with all sorts of paper forms, some of them are volumed dimensional objects. There’s chimney shapes in burgundy paper, there’s Mattise shapes in (the leaf, I can't say the leave shapes) there’s spirals that are unfurling in the space the chimney continue in the lower rungs, the colours are gold and yellow and red and brown as well as the burgundy I mentioned. One thing I really like is the cube shaped forms that stand about 550 mm. high, they look like they have a solid plane on the base and the topside. The solid planes are painted black and the other legs are uncovered pine. There’s probably 10 dotted around the room and they look like they might function as a stool not sure I’m allowed to say that either but someone is sitting on one. There’s other seating arrangements too that look like the corner of a cube. Again it’s the black plane and the structural pine screwed together. Both have beanbags secured to them so its corner styled seating arrangement. Someone’s sitting on one. Over here there’s a box which is the same as the upright stools but its laying on its side and there’s 6 cones sitting regularly that look like they have been rolled into a cone. Above it are further cones but they're not pure cones like the ones underneath. To describe them…. they are party hats. (All laugh). - With lots of squiggly bits of paper that are stuck on them - a witch, black piece of paper that pierces one of the cones, they’re gathered together in a particular arrangement and the arrangements is strung up by a nail through the wall. But the mass of the 6 cones is much more playful than the cones underneath. The colour really has an impact in this ensemble. The cones are also pointing down which is sort of interesting. There’s one materials strung up against the window and coming out from the window on an orange nylon cord that leads up to the lighting rack and over here to one of the surface tables. Sheets have been pegged to these cords. This might be a valance. In the sheets and valances there are holes, numerable holes cut. Smaller in the brown larger in the red valance, and small hole in the yellow sheet. Over here there are more of these boxed stack in quite a different arrangement from anything else in the room into a little wall. It becomes over here a little tiled freestanding wall, When I look around it's empty from the back. The shelves go across on the 4 levels. Here there’s a big poster made of card with male and female paper doll cut outs repeated in 4 rows. I say there male and female but I'm not entirely sure that’s true. Some wearing boys clothes some girl smocks some international symbols. There are little ring party garlands or paper chains and I have a feeling that the paper of the paper chains comes form these midsumma programs. This looks like a work desk to me there's a slide knife notebook, stapler, guillotine, little staplers, empty film cartridge a few glasses, vinyl lettering saying without Spiros Panigirakis there's a tripod a camera. There are four paper garlands that have been strung up. Some of them just trail off and finish. Some trails off in to this pile of garlands spilling off the worktable. There’s a ladder next to storage - always difficult to know where to put the ironing board. We have more supplies of brown cardboard, some paint.

Edwina: Cut up bits of paper left over from the workplace. There's a big pile of Midsumma catalogues on a black box sitting at the workbench. There are also two containers on the grounds with amounts of alcohol. There’s a bag with photocopied texts from the 90 s about 30 pieces of papers. There’s a 'They shoot homos magazine' – I thought it was a Benetton catalogue. There’s a strip of negatives hanging over one of the corner alcove fittings with the beanbags. There’s the interior of the screens. From the inside of the space looking out we have a semi transparent view of the street whereas from outside our view is completely blocked.

Responsive Feedback

Charlotte: From outside the screens remind me of shops that have been done up or changed ownership and have screens to block the view. Rather than just screening the inside they negate the idea that there is something inside to look at.

Jeff: Knowledge that you can’t see inside from outside changes the way you feel in the space. And creates a kind of cheekiness for me and the idea that you can see without being seen. Does that affect the way you feel meeting with this group knowing that it’s blocked.

Charlotte: There’s the mystery of whether there are people in the space but also of whether there’s something here. It does remind me of those transitional spaces that are in process.

Edwina: I think I associate those screens with rear screen projections. It makes you curious about what is going on.

Charlotte: With window text it almost looks like a guerilla marketing campaign because the white space reads easily as slick interior design.

Fiona: To me the material reads as very domestic. There’s a whole idea about suburban design and renovation rescue in the back garden. It appears to me to be like of a shade cloth material. To me it's significant and carries on into this sort of Ikea dismountable objects

Charlotte: Carries on into the kid’s craft feel of the object.

Jeff: I think that’s what I meant when I said it felt like a secure space, with the helmets with semi shoddy glue gun construction. Craft based work renders it a more comfortable space to exist in. Is interesting to contrast that to what you say that you saw a couple of weeks ago.

John: It’s much more profuse. It’s not just like the things open it’s that it’s exploded. The materiality is what enables that explosion

Fiona: It’s also the activity.

Charlotte: People came into the space and felt comfortable to take ownership.

Edwina: The pieces that are lying around have a routine or used feel like an artists studio.

Jeff: It definitely has that aura of informality and sense of messiness and something less formal.

Edwina: I think if the screens were up you’d have a different experience of occupying this space.

Michael: Part of the relaxedness of being in here is that it’s not about seeing or looking at stuff. My subjectivity is probably affected by having taken part in an activity. It is just about being it’s not really about looking at anything. It doesn’t have the intensity that I normally feel in a gallery even when its set up to be an experience. I don’t feel that distance. That might also be about my familiarity with Spiros.

John: What strikes me about outside and get a minimalist pleasure or minimalist fantasy. That’s the work or what’s presented to the world. In here its about artists work and when you put out to the world its this nice thing but in here its about the sweat and toil. This is really all about activity.

Charlotte: It seems like a very manicured activity. Each activity has been given its own workspace. Even the stuff on the floor is obviously generated from one activity rather than from activities layer on other activities. There’s also a kind of order that s generated through the quite limited palette. The Midsumma catalogues, different covers. There’s quite a lot of visual order. It’s a manicured and ordered work environment.

Edwina: When I first came in it was like there was chaos and then I noticed order and found comfort in that.

Fiona: The dismantling of the cube structure is like an infinite explosion. Is also quite reductive. Becomes more and more explosive. Here is Bauhaus, there children. Material paradigm... white cube routines. Seen as more reductive but in fact more expansive, the elaboration of the interior and what is contained and excluded in that.

Jeff: Interesting because each grouping on each bench is quite discrete from the other. So there’s like a condensation of time. Makes me wonder if what we see is a presentation of the outcome as well as evidence of the activities. Wonder if these things are happenings simultaneously or if they happened at different t moments.

Charlotte: The neat order with which things have been placed precludes you from picking them up and disrupting. Even though there’s chaos there's a lot of things telling you not to pick them up and play with them.

John: That’s particularly so with that display on the wall. Something about exuberance, and particular... I think you tend to do that in all sorts of situations.

Jeff: To me that configuration for the hats is the most traditional museum display and it makes me wonder about the museological display, if there’s an audience, why do that in this private space.

Michael: It’s to create a photo for the blog.

Fiona: I’ve been following the blog. It looks very different on the blog. That’s the function of the photographic medium. You don’t get the idea of the seepage that’s coming out of these objects. They seem much more presented and people are wearing the hats. I mean its very engaging and looks very beautiful. But it doesn’t have the same idea of the.... well the kind of... The chord that blocks access to that part of the room, and you need to look across that to the museological assemblage. And then you have to think about receptacles, and I don’t want to go there. You don’t get that feeling on the blog. Everything seems much more presented.

Jeff: What the blog self consciously does is it kind of 'narrative-ises' it. There’s much more of a sense of a presented narrative rather than this more oblique process.

John: Except for the text that raises all sorts of issues. Especially about queer art, identity whatever. And I thing that’s interesting. So there’s a visual thing which is happening her and on the blog, and there’s an argument which is happening.

Charlotte: This is the first time I’ve been into the space, but because I've followed the blog I came here with a lot of knowledge. That gave me some power coming into the space through those manicured shots that enabled me to assume some familiarity with it. Virtual experience of something is just a virtual experience; it gives you some ways into something.

Jeff: Did you disagree with John’s objective description because you came in with that knowledge?

Charlotte: No it was more things like interpretation of the cones as party hats – I came into the space and looked at them and it took me a few second before I’d seen them on the blog as party hats. So when Jon described them I remember that I identified them as party hats because the blog had told me.

Edwina: I didn’t have time to go the blog - to me they were geometric objects made of crafty materials. I didn’t see them as helmets. That you can put them on your head is fantastic. Puts one on head.

Michael: Something about reality TV and that’s what the show has been doing.

Jeff: Is that what you felt like when you were in here participating in the activities?

Michael: Yeah, you don’t feel observed but Spiros is going around taking photos of you that will later appear on the website. Another thing I’m aware of is you often come to Gertrude Street and you are aware of other things going on.

Jeff: Issues are being raised about blog and being in a reality TV show that people follow on line. One thing that really struck me on the blog was the voice of Spiros as the artist with neurosis and issues really persisted and linked the narrative thread.

John: Spiros used the term pussy and I thought wow, and there’s something very revealing.

Jeff: You got to know Spiros Panigirakis.

Charlotte: I participated in a lot of online community things – by and large the people whose blogs I read are people I know or have some other point of contact, so there’s quite different community base.

Michael: Seems to me because there is this kind of artificial set – talking about blog.

Jeff: It anchors in something material that exists

Michael: Seems like more of a performance, a performed identity.

Charlotte: I have read someone’s blog lately though myspace – send each other material artifacts. No real life meeting as in Canberra. He’s become part of my community. Those ideas of virtuality, performance, and online space relate to real life situations and materiality in compels ways as they often feed into each other.

Fiona: I would like to pick the up on the comment that in a way we don’t see the gist. This is always the condition of the Midsumma program. One thing I like that the blog is the way he addresses that – wanting to get away from the homo as window dresser. Something about... (not audible)

John: This is like Spiros in his bedroom Video he made of him singing in a private performance space. That’s what’s extraordinary about the web the way people put themselves out in a private participatory space. Even the hanging is like Spiro's private bedroom hanging. Is not window dressing in that sense.

Jeff: There is an element of connoisseurship in curating – about colour.

Charlotte: Another fag stereotype. There does seem to be that kind of 50s domestic performance where you prepare for the party, you make your cakes etc. I’ve been making layered cakes and they have the same sort of aesthetic order that people impose on quite domestic private occasions – when they want people to witness their wedding or come to their party. The kind of very neat presentation does seem like 50s sponge cakes. The same kind of temporary feeling that something has been neatly manicured to be taken apart once the event has happened. So rather than it being about curatorship which are about public …

Fiona: Does it links i to a public paradigm.

Jeff: Is interesting what you say about the domesticity of the space. Constantly there are being cookies backed, or coffee brewed. It really ties into what you’ve been saying about domestic preparation.

John: When I came in he was putting chain up – like preparing for the party.

Charlotte: Like notions of hospitality but not quite.

John: Is by invitation...

Jeff: What’s your experience?

Michael: One thing is that it all kind of made sense. Before I didn’t really understand even though Spiro had been talking to me about it for weeks. When I came in that night I really got it. Is sort of like a mix of public and domestic, friends and strangers or colleagues. It’s about this balance.

Edwina: Hosting a party is like that also – old friends and new blood.

Michael: And the question of whether they turn up.

Fiona: I found interesting on the blog the aspect of in what way, or what level people are prepared to participated. Chronicle the disappointment, and does it look good. Even the number of comments on the blog – I thought there would be a lot more. It’s raising really interesting discussions – particularly the last few days. The whole hand job thing was great. How do you exhibit as a gay artist, and how do you exhibit queer work and how its located. That’s the role of this space and how it’s being worked with and…works totally celebratory and also critical.

Charlotte: Takes on the normal exclusionary door policy of art galleries and bends. Quite often-exclusionary spaces on class and educational basis. Way in which to have an exclusionary policy.

Edwina: Does say by appointment.

Charlotte: Reinforces exclusionary…similar to the lairds door policy or something.

Michael: Like idea of the serious buyer – do you want to buy into this – to make the phone call, to subscribe to this, are you going to read enough of the blog to work out what’s going one. The text outside is not exactly encouraging people to read...

Fiona: And also wants to read another blog…take it or leave it

Charlotte: Comments on blog – people who comment are other bloggers... as a performance

Jeff: Different levels of engagement.

Charlotte: Because in midsumma program brings in an audience that isn’t normally part of art community.

Jeff: Also random access and people from other blogs.

Michael: Was pretty mixed crowd at opening…spiro's friends…was aware I went to a Midsumma event and spent most of my time talking to straight men.

Jeff: I thought it was a really 'Midsumma' crowd.

Fiona: re Michael – The work set that up. Drove past the cube sitting in the window and thought oh god its Gertrude St boys show. And then when I found out what it was that was sort of great. And in terms of an objective is great. I thought I just don’t want to know whose work it is. And that was great about the launch was about the whole dismantling of that paradigm and scenario. I’m not surprised that there were a lot.

Michael: The activity I came to –there were 3 lesbians and 3 gay men but none of us where volunteers. Want to know the gender breakup.

Spiros: For the reading group I was trying to be quite balanced, but people always drop out. 4:3 boys: girls
Volunteers: 3 females
Rainbow network: 1 female worker and all male participants
Activists: 2 female one male
jerk off – no one.

Jeff: Obviously the process of exclusion, but there’s also the inclusion of the invited groups. Do people feel that it’s a representation of queer culture, or is it weighted in terms of gender, sexuality?

Charlotte: Midsumma bills itself as being gay and lesbian. Definitely excludes people and a lot of people I know.

John: What excludes you?

Charlotte: I don’t identify as gay or lesbian, Have been to a lot of midsumma spaces in the past, but I often feel that I don’t fit into those spaces. That’s what I liked about the idea of the arts scene and the gay scene and they way they operate as exclusionary spaces.

Fiona:(inaudible) – something about happiness...

Jess: (inaudible)....Assimilation and something gets co-opted rather than included necessarily.

Jeff: Did you think the space operated as a kind of critique?

Charlotte: First though was that it didn’t – to make that phone call or being invited in you needed to feel some kind of connection. I think reading the blog and seeing Gertrude Street space does work critically.

Edwina: Obviously limited no included into physical space but also connection through the virtual. Not sure how inviting that is. Obviously a gender and class difference about who feels comfortable.

Charlotte: Strength is not that it breaks down those barriers, but says that they are here and you can use them in different ways. Use them to create a safe space for a bunch of queers. The way you have the exclusionary door policy to allow things to happen inside that can’t happen in other spaces.

Spiros: Is that a question – I think I can only respond to questions.

John: I’ve got a question – is that a question – what’s the question.

Charlotte: Do you think your door policy is exclusionary?

Spiros: Yes, I have been exclusionary with door policy but it hasn’t worked. I’ve set this space up in the tradition of a university queer room. Women’s room s has probably been around for the last 20 years. I was going to use those to create a kind of barrier for the staff and I kind of dropped it, and I’ve got friends who are studio artists here. So staff and visitors saw the show. So it was always compromised to begin with.

Michael: You don’t see it unless you take part in it.

Fiona: How?

Spiros: What gave me a good impression about Ulanda was that she’s been walking past for the whole duration of the show but she still asked permission to ‘have a look.

Fiona: That’s a different idea of looking – you should put that on the blog.

Spiros: There was another scenario where a friend of mine had no idea about the show, saw the window and rang a studio artist and kind of worked her way in. I heard about it – then one of the studio artist said I was discussing it with _________and we really think you should bring up the blinds.

Fiona: You also ask people to identify themselves as heterosexual, which is confronting because normally they’d just assume.

Jeff: Identifies homosexual as the ones who’d come and look at the space without the knowledge. If you came to see the show as midsummer viewers would have came and there would have been nothing to it.

Edwina: Shows that have a specific focus – if people stumble across it they ask is it ok for me to have a look around.

Charlotte: Isn’t necessarily about identity, you can queer everybody who comes into the space. Also about opening heterosexual people to the possibility of identifying as queer. I always find when you’re in a straight space that it is a straight space because it’s not safe to come onto people or to act in way that in a queer space are permitted.

John: question…The material impetus of the activities that you have don't in the space the chains, thee hats… I get a sense of how the whole space is working in terms of what we’ve been talking about but id love to you to talk about the objects themselves and how they are operating in terms of the whole.

Spiros: I guess each activity is different in a way. So my attitude to the objects in each piece is different. Each pedestal designated to an activity. Midsumma volunteers things was like a thank you for them participating so I was celebrating.

Michael: Was like a conceptual thank you not a real thank you.

Spiros: There was work involved in the party –

Jon: Fun kids know how to squeeze a bit of enjoyment...

Jeff: Sort of idea of communal labour

Spiros: Conversations about what do you do, and how many things you volunteered for...

Jeff: Making things that weren’t for us – different view of process of labour.

Spiros: Two of the volunteers hadn’t volunteered for anything else – so some volunteers volunteered for this...

Michael: To be thanked.

Spiros: Gemma had volunteered for 3 or 4 things – she is a professional volunteer and had been there for 12 hours at the Midsumma launch and other hadn’t rocked up. The hats were almost like portraits. Wanted them to style them in an individual fashion.

John: There is a relationship between the objects and other things that you’ve done.

Sprios: I’ d done that formula with a group of friends and acquaintances. Show at clubs was 3 couples, and everyone had shape they… can’t be bothered writing…I’ve used that formula in high school.

Fiona: In the way you wrote about it on the blog it seemed like that.

Spiros: In terms of doing it with a gay and lesbian youth group I took it different.

Michael: It is important this teacher identity aspect. We need to align you with teacher art not just gay art.

Spiros: With this the difference being that at year 7 or 8 level, trying to communicate at forms and 3d forms. With the adolescent kids – age range 16-19 – when I’d say form they didn’t get it – I wasn’t trying to be pedagogical, so I’d just get them to draw a shape.

Jeff: What were your hopes for that group?

Spiros: I wanted it to be a fun activity for them to think about the construction of something. Some of the participants didn’t quite know how to make a form, didn’t bother about pestering them – asked permission to interpret that. When they came together my attitude to answer there questions – and this came from Michael and when they ask questions you’d say yes – and I found that confronting because as a teacher curriculum to fit into etc – and I took your model of just saying yes to anything. So my attitude was yes.

Michael: So you were sort of getting away from the control of the show.

John: The primacy of the outcome yes.

Spiros: So I set up this theme that I was first going to do this archway…16 year olds arch is not interesting – grand boulevard, but not interesting. So I was thinking of an older play area for older people – your space.

Fiona: You’ve always done that in your work. The idea of ceding control.

Spiros: There’s a lot of control at the start.

Fiona: And then you just work out a mechanism.

Michael: Probably have to ask Jon that question.

Spiros: This is not a result – talking re helmets. Went into detail asking them in an email but not many people responded. They gave me broad parameters and I tried to fulfill that. When I gave them the reading material before Christmas I asked them about what they wanted for the helmets and something about their presumptions. XX works like Russian constructivists.

Fiona: That’s all very referent to that.

Spiros: Was confident about hers because...

Fiona: Did they read the reading material?

Jeff: Was like back to uni – a lot of people who hadn’t read enough but then quite fruitful discussions came out of that...

Spiros: The first discussion was awkward.

Jeff: Reminded me of that first day at uni where people are trying to sort out their positions. Suss out expectation of the group and where people are coming form .

Spiros: There was too much reading at the start, it was too ambitious.

John: Do you feel that the whole project is so big – do you feel like people have moved along with you or have you sort of had to drag people along. There’s a level of altruism.

Edwina leaves

Jeff: Post after post on the blog in this personal confessional mode on the blog. In a way, not as a criticism, quite neurotically.

Spiros: A lot of people can’t be bothered – I mean the blog is too much. There are a lot of things stopping access. Revisiting number is much smaller than the people who visit.

Fiona: I really enjoy the intensity - it’s the most enjoyable idea that you can put something out and people will follow it. I mean it’s going to end tomorrow, but it’s actually not, because it’s set up so many things that will actually track.

Jeff: Hopefully blog will stay alive.

Spiros: Haven’t finished.

Fiona: Seems really clear that you’ve placed the project in that way. In terms of the reading group that you’ve revisited queer writing and shows form the 90s and how that’s situated now. Something about art toys that I went and had a look at them from Monash. So that’s really great to locate that – in a way a dialogue/critique of the space and the whole broader context.

Spiros: In the blog I’m always aware of precedents and things that have happened in the space or in my thinking. I’ve been conscious that I want to write about the teahouse in the front room. Talk about Bianca Hester having dinner with a lot of people e for a show called fame. Something Serepentine. All these shows that I want to talk about.

Jeff: Something about tangential - other directions.

Spiros: Want to continue that for the next month or so.

Jeff: Maybe we should wrap up. Drinks or dinner?

Postscript: Reading through this transcript I realise there are few comments that have not been recorded. The lovely Jon was typing furiously but sometimes there would be competing and overlapping voices. Charlotte commented at some stage that the colours and the abstract nature of the work could be representative of other political positions...replacing the Midsumma catalogue for one relating to black empowerment...Something about the curtain whiting things out... The pendulum swinging the other way... Fiona and Charlotte also discussed the threshold of the space and its bodily connotations. I guess the detail of these comments have been lost. Will discuss with Fiona when she comes back from overseas.

Out of time

Well it's April. I am procrastinating about having a vague plan for the talk I'm giving about this blog (tomorrow) - by actually blogging. Something had to get me out of this lazy stupor of a mood I'm currently in. This was actually my deadline for resolving a few components of the project. Let's just say I'm not going to make that deadline. So in the tradition of apologies translating into action that this project has engaged in, I have decided to post a few pics and talk about my (Greek) Easter weekend.

a.Tried baking tsourekia. Tsoureki is the singular - but it doesn't make sense baking one for the effort it takes. It's such a cutthroat business. I had passed the first hurdle by gaining acceptance at Mum's house on Sunday morning (3am) and was quietly (maybe not that quietly) confident that they would hold their own during the extended family lunch. Their were a few contenders vying for the family's attention unfortunately my tsoureki wasn't even presented at the table - my cousin had achieved a killer bake. My euphemistic consolation was that they it had a good aroma.

b. Went to Brunswick church on Friday night with Jon, Ben, Nikita and Ruth. (Do I need to make a disclosure that Good Friday night mass (Greek Orthodox style) is a cultural event rather than a religious one for the vast majority of attendees?). Ben overheard someone comment that there were too many poofters here tonight. Well I'm glad we're so welcome.

c. My other cousin discussed how couples with children are more grounded than those without.

Posturing

Ok it’s been a while and there has been enough excuses both online and in person. There will be no ‘Dear diary’ catch-up and hopefully I won’t step on any toes. March is about positivity and…well um posturing. So here it goes.

WITHOUT has tumbled into its second mini-manifestation in "Five Minutes to Midnight" – a show hosted by Victoria Park Gallery and curated by the ever generous Meredith Turnbull. It’s made up of work by Sarah Haq, Marcus Keating/Salote Ana Tawale, Bridie Lunney, Steven Rendall and Stuart Ringholt. I was a bit drained after Midsumma/Gertrude and really couldn’t commit to a new line of work – so I decided it would be a good opportunity to actually finish the posters that I was making for the activists and try to present/launch them in some way. Hang on, I thought the point of the posters was that were engaging with a street as opposed to a gallery ‘public.’So I decided to pin the posters to black pin boards and for the opening surreptitiously begin the relocation process. I was thinking of those darn context driven ‘M’inimalists withdrawing from group shows the night before the opening, the cliché of the precious artist tearing down ‘his’ work on opening night and those labels you see in national institutions advising you that your ‘favourite’ Renoir or Roberts has been borrowed by another gallery in Adelaide or Philadelphia.

I thought while I’m at it why don’t I present the reading group helmets and ask the readers to pick up the helmets during the opening as again I really made them as a token of appreciation for their participation not as a display driven object. This snow balled (thank-you silver clouds) into presenting the actual reader atop a bean bag + out loud reading on my day of minding (Thursday). (What else are you meant to do whist minding?)

I enjoy participating in group shows because your work/practice grates, rubs and/or talks with other work thus creating refreshed meaning and dialogue. My friend Louise thought it was a type of artistic merchandising or PR… I was aiming for performative posturing with a dead black (vacant) tree at it’s centre.

Bibliography

What was with the last post? Enough sentimentality. I want to plough through the administrative phase of the project and my life. I'm moving house, being hassled by centrelink... Which is all distracting me from responding to comments made via blogger and through my email. All in good time I suppose. (Robert- I will respond once I post this text.)

Right now I'm collating the queer reader's bibliography. I feel like I need to justify the selection of texts I made and (come to think of it) the artworks I continually refer to. I am consciously referring to art that has been framed in some way by Gertrude Street or by my experience as a member of an audience. These ideas feed the project in a no less significant way than the result of collaboration with different communities. Oh I guess it's quite different as the collaborators have agency within the framework of the activities and the artworks create an incidental or conscious intertextuality - partners in dialogue, references, influences or down right derivations.

Regarding the reader- I am in the deep end (Jeff, where are you?) but I'll start treading water now. I'm no queer theorist and it might even be a stretch to call me an "amateur" within the context of net. As this usually means I'm very aspirational and I'll end up on some mainstream porn site once I get more buff and shave my testicles. (And not be afraid to show them... And maybe that was a bad analogy.) While it seems the bulk of the reader is dominated by a particular period in the life of Art + Text magazine, in fact this was the brief and light(er) relief that I dispersed amongst the Butler, Sedgwick, Halperin, Tyler etc. My aim wasn't to document (and centralise) a period completely but to provide a sketch from my own position - a position that didn't exactly engage with the art and theory first hand but from afar, as a sometimes-engaged student from Melbourne. So I guess there are holes and the consolation is that the reading group will continue through the year and those holes might be filled or deepened. Suggestions are very welcome (Thanking Scott for reminding me of the late David McDiarmid's work. Who could forget those rainbow-ed witticisms that punched faggot in your face. His prints alongside Matthew Jones's pre-Stonewall newspapers seemed to be on continual institutional rotation at the time...probably deservedly so.) As for Art+Text - it was arguably the dominant Australian art magazine of the period and it was quite a revelation to see article after article after review that related to queer theory/practice in the period between 1990 and 1996. I knew it was boom time for queer but the abundant exposure made it hard for me to choose between the Aurthurs and Marthas. But maybe choosing isn't the point. I'm going all pan-sexual...


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chris Berry and Annamarie Jagose, "Editors Introduction: Australia Queer." Meanjin 1, (1996) : 5 - 11
Judith Butler, "Against Proper Objects." differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies (Feminism meets Queer Theory) 6-2/3, (1994) : 1-26
Douglas Crimp, "AIDS: Cultural Analysis/Cultural Activism." OCTOBER Winter 43, (1987) : 3 - 16
David M Halperin, "Normalizing Transgression." In Transgression and the Culture Industry, ed. Jenepher Duncan and Denise Robinson. Australian Centre For Contemporary Art, 1995.
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, "Epistemology of the Closet." In The Lesbian and Gay Studies reader ed. Abelove, Barale and Haleperin. Originally published in text the same title, p. 67 - 90, Univeristy of California Press, 1990.
Carole-Anne Tyler, "Passing: Narcissism, Identity and Difference." differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies (Feminism meets Queer Theory), 6-2/3, (1994) : 212 - 245
Dean Kiley and Robert Schubert, "BAD GAY ART" catalogue - Raw Nerve Erskineville, 3 - 15 February, Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, 1997.

Art + Text

Nicholas Baume, "Janet Burchill - Strange Juxtapositions." Art + Text 44 (1993) : 62 - 67
Juan Davila, "Deathwatch: AIDS & Silence." Art + Text 40, (1991) : 33 - 34
Jeff Gibson, "Deej Fabyc: Artspace Sydney October 19 - 2 November."Art +Text 53, (1995) : 69 - 70.
Dave Hickey, "Apropos: Straight Talk." Art + Text 53, (1996) : 40 - 41
Amelia Jones, "Lari Pittman's Queer Feminism." Art + Text 50, (1995) : 36 - 42.
Catherine Lord, "Comment: DOWN THERE : Toys in Babeland." Art + Text 46, (1993) : 30 - 33.
Chris McAuliffe, "Scott Redford: Untitled (the critic decamps)." Art + Text 49, (1994) : 61 - 65
Catriona Moore, "The Art of Political Correctness." Art + Text 41, (1992) : 32 - 39
Marcus O'Donnell, "Matthew Jomes/Neil Emmerson: ACCA Melbourne May 25 - June 27." Art + Text 46, (1993) : 80 - 81
Robert Schubert, "Fiona Macdonald: ACCA Melbourne June 1 -5." Art + Text 49, (1994) : 78
Robert Schubert, "John Meade: The Basement Project, Melbourne July 14 - August 6." Art + Text 52 (1995) : 80
Simon Watney, " ART AIDS NYC: Interviews by Simon Watney with Gran Fury and Douglas Crimp" (respectively) Art + Text 38 (The AIDS Crisis is not over) (1991) : 59 - 98


PS. I've become one of those bloggers that posts other blog's posts.
PSS. Probably more importantly is Noel Tovey's story which is conveniently abridged, broadcast (and downloadable) from Radio National

Finished

I am not finished with WITHOUT. While I am due to bump out tomorrow from Gertrude CAS, the cataloguing and framing of this project via the blog will continue. My priority is to complete the posters for the activists and present a series of flashbacks of the events that were scheduled during my time in the space. I feel like a librarian’s assistant – with a trolley of text I kinda don’t want to get rid of. As I have learnt from Eve Kosofsky Sedwick, being framed by the closet is inevitable. I suppose I'm happy with the potential that this closeting device I have designed for the project has enabled. I am excited and apprehensive about presenting the meat of the last two reading group sessions and the two fantastic CLUBS feedback sessions that were held on Friday and Saturday. I am not saying this project will run indefinitely. This project had leaks and I just want to follow some of the flows outside of 200 Gertrude Street.

But today I am allowing a post Brokeback Mountain, Anthony and the Johnsons and nearly-end-of-project emotion to wash over this post. That was not a neat segue into Michael Farrell’s poem ‘luke & henrys storyline.’ He publishes his work widely and his 2002 anthology ’ode ode’ is published by Salt publishing. FYI those inverted commas are mine – Michael uses traditional punctuation more judiciously than those last few attempts. He performed this along with a couple of other poems for the Midsumma volunteers session last Monday. He made a comment about this being written way before Elton John got married. This poem was first published in Verse (US).

luke & henrys storyline

1

they met while scratching in the dirt of their
last relationships Stuff remains of their hearts maybe
you seem bigger up close luke Said you seem smaller
like a specimen said henry in a jar
& luke felt About to be prepared for
a slide something arctic like a lettuce or fox perhaps he became
Confused jellyfish against a wall back to facing he wasnt sure but
he didnt let go The string the farm was
his
so lets get in there where
its warm possibly youre what holds them Together god
knows its not the weather
what kind of dirt was it anyway sexual
favours regretted later Within without the apoetic has no
limit thats the way it went thats the way it goes lack
of resonance with
The others memory those cast off
ibsenite figures do you think youre one or
are You more comfortable
with luke the divorcer hysteria in with henry a regular shit & political with it
it hysteria in the family
theyve both achieved that mild pornographic notoriety nothing commercial though towards Evening
we get to see it those who stayed who were
committed to the commitment ceremony No doctors involved
luke kissed a woman didnt he
get it
this was all to make henry feel more
Of a man this & the big dog
we might as well go home Sure we can outdo
anything they can dream up hardly x rated was
it they may as well have
tried The romantic approach though would that be any more
convincing yet why be so
unkind lukes Not
so bad & henry well
when he told us earlier of The trips hed made
into the bush & naming trees & chasing
birds there was almost something spiritual about it His pale relaxed face for
once
not trying to win something or even trying to Be impressive
or radical & the way he went up to
luke & picked him up he was flat on his Back

2

settling into each other without us their friends getting in
the Way henry thinks they should try & live without tv so luke
starts making his Own tshirts &
a funny noise luke didnt know Was
in him the fridge becomes a silver cave there
are lots of dots in their dialogue lots of entering & Exiting &
it seems one drinks a bit more than
henry
well they made it To christmas ok
& they were convinced they
were both nicer than any Of their brothers luke owned far too
many shoes it seems every time the weather changes henrys mum
rings now your sisters got skin cancer & Shes having
an affair with her doctor just to let henry know hes got competition
he gets nervous
luke starts wondering whether to leave the lights on or not To say
hello
how was the day how was the year My nose bled
at
water polo sometimes the line
got so slack they
wondered
if they should do anything about it Themselves were they fishers
or fish washers or washing henry sits in darkness
trying to remember if Luke likes flowers &
if so which ones maybe delphiniums or are
they too old Lady or
is that a good
thing at least he knows how sick luke gets on fried food & thinking
cigarettes &
no tv are whats Needed down time but then wouldnt gym work
as well too distracting luke has sewn koalas
On his chest you have to be with someone
Special he tells his mother which was as good as a cup of
whiskey with tea in It for a while it all sounds quite promising
doesnt it but any sudden movement could break lukes
Mariah carey statuette or henrys focus
some meanness ensued but gradually they forgot
how people
In soaps behaved hasnt the dog been quiet up till now felix for
names
will out purred between
them sleepy or horny
you Find out slowly
luke undresses vision of love hes ready

DAY 7: The Handjob project

The hand job project – a how to guide for introducing explicit sexuality. (a series of contexts and inverted commas)

a. You don’t want to be known (they mean marginalised) as a gay artist. You can be an artist who is gay and that’s no problem but don’t go representing your subjectivity or community – unless of course it’s cloaked or sublimated into a form that adheres to the formal and process based protocols of the day. In fact – sexuality, relationships and sub cultural communities are no go areas in general at the moment. Unless of course you titillate or expose the edges of your middle class audience with something ‘fresh’ and ‘new’ – think internet dating, hippy-folk-cult spirituality or a stylistic representation of punk or…something. Be warned this audience is voracious in its appetite for the new ‘theme’ and will move on once it’s had its feed. It’s also a savvy audience so don’t go underestimating their critique of the relationship between the muse and the artist. We’ve been there and done that – once is almost always enough.

b. Some art shown at a gay community festival always features work that represents lots of cocks and asses usually in bright painted colours or photography that would feel more at home on the net. The art world cringes and distances itself from these practices. The art world’s representatives in these festivals then seek out work that is concerned more with the cultural or political identity and/or embodiment or maybe even makes these issues private by including gay artists who make ‘normal’ work. But since one of their agendas is to avoid marginalisation, this work must represent the ‘diversity’ of our community and collapse some stereotypes – it’s quite easy to create a rationale for any group show. It could be said that these group shows are trying to redress the balance, address and contribute to an important and evolving political discourse and show an expanded perspective (all good). Just don’t go mentioning affirmative action.

c. These two dynamics create a balance and this pleases both the general punters and the art world. Sometimes the taste of these two worlds collide and everyone is happy and/or gay.

d. I guess my project is hosted by the artworld and a few days before I turn the lights on, pull the blinds up and have a crisis over where the fuck I’ll store all this stuff – I want to dabble on the other side. After all, my taste for cock is the reason I have this gig in the first place. Now this isn’t unfamiliar territory: There’s was always a literal erection in my art as a high school student; at uni I video-punned with Nauman’s ‘Blue Balls’and recorded (and enlarged to mammoth proportions) the trajectory of ejaculation as a critique of painting and an illusion to fountain sprays. I realised only yesterday that this could be interpreted as quite a violent and territorial act. Was I relying on the audience to queer the work? Although my mum thought the sprays were plants. So there you go.

e. Now here’s my disclaimer: By putting the cock back into the equation I am exploring a territory that has historical and theoretical baggage - to say the least. I would love for my project to include some pussy. But for starters I don’t think I should be bandying around the word ‘pussy’ let alone represent it. While all activities in with-out have included a coalition of women and men up until now – the dominant vehicle for the representation of this project is via this (at times quite personal) blog and by the activities I have framed. So I am going to explore the action of sex via, you guessed it – me. A gay white male with ethnic working class roots who has coopted middle class values and has had some (to a lot) of experience on gaydar.

f. Now consistent to the home handy craft that has the been the end product or back drop to most of the activities in the space – I thought hand jobs would be an appropriate counterpoint to the paper chains, collaged posters and the dinky party hats. Handjobs: avoid the whole penetration issue; bypass any concerns regarding STIs; require as much dexterity as using a hot glue gun or wielding some sharp fabric scissors and have something quite fraternal about them but also on an individual basis masturbation connotes either an empowered state or a pathetic one.

g. So I was thinking Vito Acconi’s seedbed, Marina Abramovic’s recent remaking pivotal performances pieces, Linda Erceg, Annie Sprinkle, Carolee Schneeman, Austrian Actionists and a beauty of a painting by a UK artist (whose name I cant recall) who depicted an outdoor circle jerk. But the “where am I” in all this would only be resolved by brainstorming a few ideas such as: I host a jerk-off party in the space – after all Midsumma usually includes the Melbourne Wankers group meeting in its program (where is it this year?); I provide a service and jerk off people who volunteer to be relieved; I jerk off the curator – although this would be tied up to a discussion on the power dynamics of the art world (al la Jemima Stehli) and I think I have a policy not to have sexual relations with (most of my) friends or acquaintances; I participate in the hosted jerk – as this would be consistent with not only the framing but participatory role I have been taking with most of the activities. .

h. So I set up a gaydar account and for the last couple of days have been trying to muster support with a lot of time spent in chat rooms. It is so time consuming and I’m sure there are easier ways of getting some action.

Here are the responses:

Sent Wednesday 25 January 2006 00:28
hey,
1. It's not possible to see your picture yet as it has not been classified.
2. I love you and wish we could have our own jerk-off.
x j

Sent Wednesday 25 January 2006 00:28
very interesting. i wanna go. is it gonna be with an audience, i mean people watching while we jerk-off ?

Sent Wednesday 25 January 2006 00:31
Thanks for taking the time to send me a message, but I don`t think our profiles match.
Good Luck with your search though.
This is an Automated Message.

Sent Wednesday 25 January 2006 00:33
hiya ... I dont seem to have got any propositions from you?

Sent Wednesday 25 January 2006 00:41
Hi there, ive just read your profile, wow, sounds interesting but i dont think so... im a pretty quiet one- it was embarrasing enough for me years ago when XXXXX from Sydney sketched me and one of the sketches was used for the gallery launch- face, body, dick and all... so I swore never again.. I wish you the best of luck tho! Will have a read of the blog shortly... thanks again for asking .. cheers, XXXX

Sent Wednesday 25 January 2006 07:50
good morning spiros,
that messages has cut-and-paste written all over it... 'great pics'... anyways, clearly you didnt recognize me from the pics. its XXXXX.... yeah we go way back, louise XXXXXX.... XXXX XXXXX is my main squeeze at the mo...
i love the jerk-off idea, but it seem to be quite a full social calendar... we'll see if i can squeeze it in.
good luck,
XXXX

Sent Wednesday 25 January 2006 09:50
04XXXXXXX5 so you can text me location

You would think there would be a group in some of that support but gaydar is a tricky (and not mention) addictive beast and after some follow up chatting I have only one taker planned for the night. That’s ok. I have taken it to ‘a’ community and sometimes they’re just aint that much interest out there. (I have been to an opening where only three people have rocked up) Anyway the conversation with Mr Interested goes to the mobile phone text format.

Me: Hey spiros from gaydar, hope you are still interested in tonight, the address is 200 gertrude st, no one else has responded yet…but should be fun regardless…Lets meet at 10:30 tonight…maybe a drink before we get going?

Mr Interested: Thanx mate. C u 10.30 on location

Me: We’re still good for 10:30…looking forward to it….

Then as Jeff is opening the door…

Mr Interested: o, o…bf drama cant go! So sorry. Hope thers gonna b a next time

So there you go – almost predictable really. But not to be dissuaded Jeff the professional and consummate curator, encourages me to get back on the gaydar horse and look for jerk off crew there and then. Got a few bites – but again after 45 minutes of chatting and drinking – all potential falls through the net.

Sent Wednesday 25 January 2006 11:40
hey buddy still lookin for people ???

Sent Wednesday 25 January 2006 22:35
is this on tonight

Sent Wednesday 25 January 2006 22:36
am vry interested. please tell me wat i should wear. hw many people will there be n wat age group?


So I’m quite drunk at this stage and I suggested to Jeff that if this had a narrative arc I would just go into the room and have wank in a solo capacity. Although thinking about this a day later – there would be another narrative arc that the net would explore –but we wont go there. So I could go into the room and have a wank but I could also lie about its actual occurrence. It could be Jeff and my little secret. I was tired and with the stress of the project my libido is way down – so it would be a chore rather than a pleasure. After some banter I get Jeff to take some faux myth-making photos in the designated hand-job area. I think I saw a glimpse of real pornographer potential in these few moments but he’s already got a day job and we quickly lock up the gallery and head out to the witness protection program. There I continue to lie about the end result to a couple of people. Then this morning, I get this message:

Sent Thursday 26 January 2006 01:41
What a shame, I would have done it.

DAY 6: Reading group

Today WITHOUT actually felt like a lived project for the first time. It’s not like I’m asking people to pose for ‘process’ photographs (well apart from this gorgeous shot of Solate and Marcus in their helmets) or asking them to do anything they’re not comfortable doing – it’s just that I wasn’t being the usual anxious host and that the reading group’s familiarity with the space, activity and dynamic was instilling a sense of ownership over the proceedings. There was the usual paranoid ‘did my utterances make any sense’ reflection at the end but I’m beginning to think that these discussions are (or should be) a space where we practice verbalising those uncharted thoughts that are filed neatly away. Some sentences will invariably make no sense – but I think that’s ok – not in a pedagogical “we only learn from our mistakes’ kind of way but in an active pursuit of experimenting with verbal language in its potential to communicate in these garbled and fraught states. The reading group met in the afternoon and this time we concentrated on two texts: Judith Butler’s “Against Proper Objects “ in Differences – A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies (Feminism meets Queer Theory), Volume 6 Summer – Fall 1994, Volume 6, Numbers 2+ 3 and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s “Epistemology of the Closet” that was sourced from the Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader (Edited by Abelove, Barale abd Halperin). It was originally printed in a book by the same name, p 67 –90, University Of California Press, 1990. I am really running out of steam at the moment – so here is the second day that I put off an extended reflection.

DAY 5: Midsumma volunteers

I'm finishing the reading I need to do for this afternoon's reading group (will post bibliography soon - I promise). So here are things I need to mention about about Day 5:

- Afternoon meeting with Shannon (They Shoot Homos), Georgia and Shona who helped me prepare for the night's proceedings.
- 12 volunteers RSVPing sometimes means 3 lovely volunteers turn up (Gemma Demarco, Ines Bowden and Emily Hardy.) So in this exercise Jeff Khan and Michael Farrell join in. Well, Jeff volunteers his time for the Midsumma visual arts working group and Michael has had many years experience performing in the festival - so all apt inclusions really.
- Michael Farrell performs a reading of his work.
- We drink, make paper chains from the Midsumma catalogue and decorate our own party hats.

Rainbow network

When I got a call from Felicity on Thursday regarding some of the participants not being able to rock up on the Friday for the Rainbow Network sculpture session I thought I would need to invite another group to utilize the blocks designed by YAK and EGG respectively. But the good thing about catastrophising everything is the other side of the drama. When four YAKers and one EGG rocked up I think I was beside myself. (This is all a separate post really, which I’ll title “Relational Neurosis and the Role of the Party Planner.”)

Perhaps I need to go into the background to the production of the paper block sculpture. Well: 1. It involved a group of gay and lesbian youth from the Rainbow Network. Each separate participant commissions me to produce an edition of 15 paper blocks. By ‘block’ I mean any form that allows card or paper to become 3 dimensional. 2. I go away and make the blocks, usually in a restricted colour palette and for this occasion the choice of anything within the spectrum of brown, red and yellow was given. 3. Participants get together and with trusty glue guns construct a more unified structure using all the blocks and working out a way to collaborate and share blocks. I create a theme and physical framework (a pedestal) for the participants and the rest is up to them. I am there to answer questions, help out with construction and support the process as much as I can.

I was initially thinking that a structure to provide thematic orientation for the sculpture could be an arch way for a street PRIDE parade. But after I discussed this with Bunjey who arrived early and was keen to help out with the set up - we decided that a design of a playground/a hang out space for adolescents like themselves might be a better idea. Now, when I’ve conducted version of this project previously, the theme has only been an active consideration for the first half of the construction process. Then a type of formalism washes over the group as the macro view of the sculpture emerges. My facilitating role isn’t to redirect the project towards the theme but to try instill a partial ownership of the project. Since I don’t want my role to be pedagogical I work hard to adopt a yes-man / cheerleader persona. Can I glue the shape anywhere on the table? Yes. Can I use the glue gun to decorate the cardboard? Sounds great! Can I cut up the blocks? Sure, whatever…

DAY 4: Rainbow Network

"A model of our playground with Ben Pokidin, Cliff Fowler, Bunjey Spillard, Tristan Harrison and James Dunn." Assisted by Elise Willersdorf, Mark Camilleri and Felicity Martin.

DAY 3: Some of my closest friends...

Some of my closest friends are two dimensional.

The other night while I was downloading some shots I had a read of Helen’s blog. I’m still on my blog-training wheels and I suppose I should have been ready for the moment when someone would read and misunderstand me. But it was a strange disappointing shock. I’m not blaming Helen at all for this – my writing is often unclear, flippant and clumsy. But, I guess this is a medium made for miscommunication – so public once it's written, yet so private in its conception and without the aid of the immediate feedback that helps us construct meaning in real-life interaction. (I have had so many misconstrued msn 'chat' conversations that have ended in quite a bit of huffing)

Anyway Helen says:

Have been thinking about the pictorial, the two-dimensional, how it is perceived in some circles as inferior.. triggered by Spiros’ terminological coupling of ‘fictional narrative’ and ‘dumb art’[NB. For a later discussion... isn’t this problematic in the same way as a blanket dismissal of Relational Aesthetics]

Now what I meant when I said that some late 90s work was ‘dumb’ was that amongst a handful of other tendencies, some work played dumb - it used the age-old artists’s guise of disingenuity. Whilst it was rich in historical and theoretical references it pretended to be guileless. Think Warholian cool but transposed into the 90’s. Like when Tracey Moffatt said something along the lines of “I used the nuns in the photo because with their habits they looked like mountains” – as if the place of the nuns in Australian race relations was lost on her. Or like David Rosetsky’s understated presentation of a gym mat (was it baby blue?) which with such a light touch stood for a parody of minimalism, played with site and interrupted space, was drenched in the sweat of writhing muscle and critiqued ‘lifestyle’ from within its own vocabulary. And I know I bang on a bit about Mathew Jones in this blog – but in 1998 he did curate a show called Dumb, which featured work by Erik Hanson, Micah Lexier, and Diana Lopez. It was a perfect (and funny) title for a show that included photographs of Bowie sounds, photographs taken by children under the age of 10 and 75 photos of a David aged between 1 to 75. By the way, when I referred to ‘fictive narrative’ work I was not only talking about much of my own work (i.e. from sprinklers, the hedge burner to the poster project in this show) but the work of my peers and the work that influenced and continues to influence me. (Matthew Barney – well then anyway, Eliza Hutchison and Sean Kirby). I wasn’t meaning to dismiss either…just contextualise a period in my development that I kinda forgot to literally 'read' in.

I agree with Helen about the problem with tribalism, and the tendency for everyone in the art community to feel that our work isn’t valued outside our own micro-systems. I’ve also been thinking about how careful we need to be with each other – and feeling quite guilty about one earlier post where I got carried away with writing and rammed home a point in an insensitive way. I’ve edited that post now so it’s closer to something I’d stand by. Suppose that any time we publish we have to be prepared to accept critique. This goes both ways.

I wasn’t very productive today. Although I did get a phone call for my first appointment next week. I also got a disappointing phone call regarding the Rainbow Network – more than half the young–uns aren’t coming. Here's hoping the other two rock up. Group work minus group. OK...

DAY 2: The reading group

After last night’s curtain fiasco I just felt like going all-foetal once I got home. I was tired but after re-establishing my diet cola addiction also a bit twitchy. I was planning on doing some reading while baking my cookies for the reading group but gave up and planned to wake early. (It felt like I was a 2nd year student again.) I had acquired my recipe (peanut butter with milk chocolate and walnut) from epicurious.com that covers anything sweet, fatty and American really well. I wasn’t planning on talking about those curtains again but I arrived at Gertrude Street with cookies in hand able to see right through to the office. You guessed it; the curtains hadn’t just frayed off the rod but had completely collapsed. Alexie (Director of GCAS) had kindly laid them flat and Michelle (friend and GCAS studio artist) suggested I give up on the sculptural integrity of the rod and staple gun the shit out of them. It worked. It got me thinking prematurely about this blog and its positioning within the project. While production of the blog is a by-product of the issues of access and exclusion – it’s becoming art talking about art – in a confession booth. Is any discrepancy, false move or undermined position justified or OK if I come back home and spill the beans?

Well with all that I was seriously under-prepared to host the reading group but was keen to deflect this shortcoming by making organization of the discussion into a group issue. I so didn’t want to be seen as the tutor – but I had compiled the reader so it was hard to dislodge all expectations that I’d provide a type of leadership. I thought we’d start with the articles that were reviews or features on queer art produced from the mid 80s to mid 90s because I got the distinct feeling that most in the group (and this definitely included myself hadn’t finished with the theory). I did try to structure the beginning by an attempt to share ‘our’ first impressions of the reader. I felt it was a major error by omission that I hadn’t include any written reflection on Juan Davila’s practise. Although I did include a review he wrote on Matthew Jones “Silence = Death. There was a claim that I definitely had an agenda with the choice of text, (who me?) and maybe it was all a bit overwhelming. All in all, this strategy didn’t work too well and while I spent the hour after the group reflecting on every garbled and mumbled phrasing that came out of my mouth - by the end of the session there were two competing and weaving conversations going on so I think the group is cooking nicely.



Some interesting questions popped up during the tail end of the discussion that I think will be more valuable addressing now rather than later. The big one is: how am I going to record the discussion? My goal is to find a mode of light documentation that preserves all the informality of a reading group. A video or audio recording or web-cast might make people uncomfortable. Since the publication device I’ve chosen for the project is the blog I decided this was the best way of documenting the reading group – simply my summarised impression of the meeting with all the narcissism and distortion that comes with the bloggers territory. If I’ve misrepresented the discussion I’d love reading group participants to respond in the comments. I should take more notes…

What I found most exciting about the meeting was that people seemed to be into having another two sessions. We made a commitment to read the four theory essays by next Tuesday. It felt as though today’s session didn’t scratch the surface and the reader has too much content (nb: should listen to my boyfriend more). Maybe some of us will want to meet again beyond the two weeks of the Midsumma show. If so, I’d count that as some kind of success. Anyway, here’s a list of thoughts and ideas that we covered. The discussion was held with Rob, Alicia, Marcus, Alex, Andrew, Jeff and myself.

Some uncredited ideas: Queer theory is dead (Is it? No. Isn’t it?); queer art as stagnant force; queer as a historical period; queer as interpretive framework; queer as a definitional device for the ‘other’; queer as a masculinized identification; queer as stylisation and an affectation which has probably resulted in it’s credibility loss. There’s definitely a lack of support or an institutional demise. Queer as a politic in response to the urgency of HIV/AIDS – Australian art institutions have ‘done’ AIDS with the NGA’s ‘Don’t leave me this way.’ Part of the art world short attention span – queer/HIV as another passing fad. Meanwhile the dire situation re: AIDS in Africa and South East Asia - probably no more urgent a time to respond to these issues than now. Issues surrounding individualistic versus collective gain and gay marriage: Prioritising the white, the middle class and the male. ACT-UP and Gran Fury – talked about but can’t recall what we came up with. Is an artist’s personal life important to the reading of the work? No and Yes. What about in an extended catalogue for a retrospective? Mostly yes. Should artists stitch their ‘queer’ identification on their sleeve? Yes and no. Aren’t we other things? Considering a historical artwork not only for its photographic documentation but the text, the gossip and/or discourse that surrounds the work. We talked about Fiona MacDonald, Janet Burchill, Scott Redford and Mathew Jones’ artwork via the reviews/features written by Robert Schubert, Nicholas Baume, Chris McAuliffe and Juan Davila respectively. Fiona MacDonald: the punctum and the prick; the flaccid phallus; power play; discussion on the accompanying landscape; the rubber fetishised frame; unhinging of representation; who owns what; most recently hung in a ‘spare room’ corner of ACCA’s ‘Orifice’ show; why hasn’t an institution acquired it? Janet Burchill: replicating or performing the veiled representation of 1960’s gay artists – or using a fictive device that parallels Gertrude Stein’s positioning in the ‘Autobiography of Alice B Tolkas; fucking with the suburbs. Chris McAuliffe: talks about himself subjectively talking about the subjectivity of Scott Redford – replicates in his writing the false equations represented in Redford work…till he’s blue in the face – till we’re bored; enacting a type of a marginalisation, (maybe.) Maybe the BAD GAY ART show wasn’t so good in retrospect – yes it was – Dean Kiley’s writing – knows his theory so much better than his art – even then - product of its period – cultural theorists writing about anything with authority. Talked about the Midsumma visual arts program –the official curated program and the community centred ‘all in’ bit that replicates the ‘really’ bad gay art that Robert Schubert ends his piece on. Matthew Jones: really too obvious; too oblique; did he need the slogans; I stupidly said that without the slogans the work at Gertrude’s is a bit like Jon Nixon's (regret) - but what’s the difference between Jan Murray’s canvas turned to the wall and Jones’ – if not for the contextualising slogans(?); there’s an obvious reference to the hospital; to two bodies; to the feminine via the draped material. Judith Butler: not that hard; a psychological barrier that we need to transcend by the next session. Conversation regarding structure of next week’s session. That’s all I can muster – I guess we did cover a bit of territory.

I’ll write up a bibliography during today’s poster production. Don’t have any appointments so if you have the ‘right’ inclination give me a call.

LAUNCH

I've decided (in the tradition of making a decisions on the run) that I'll need a 24hr turn around to really reflect and then post. But just this once – here it is live. The launch went well - I think. The audience response and the performative action of Jeff and myself dismantling the cube (which I haven't subtitled) and pulling down the blinds all gelled to a good consistency. Except for those darn blinds. Not only were they not sitting right - like they were in the dress rehearsal but by the time people had 'Coconut Palmed" (Vietnamese restaurant with too many interior revamps to mention) and 'Unioned' (pub) I was getting calls and texts to tell me that the blinds were peeling off their rod. I thought the heavy-duty double-sided tape the hardware assistant suggested wouldn’t be enough so I beefed things up with gaffa. To no avail. Ahh - it was the last thing I needed and it felt the like this incident was undermining the whole project. Jeff and Jon were really supportive with my “I need to go into space and fix it now" (at midnight) suggestion, so we have spent the last hour gaffering it some more before tomorrow morning’s more sane reappraisal. David and Sarah joked that the work was trying to break through and find an audience – or perhaps I sabotaged it because my inner homophobe needed some mainstream cooption.

Photo credits: Bianca Hester (top group); Jeff Khan (middle) and Jon Symons (bottom).


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An Invite and a phone script

As I haven't filled my two week program in the space I thought I could open the space to appointments for visitors wanting to participate in some of the ongoing activities planned for the inside. This might include discussing the poster project, finish constructing the paper blocks for the Rainbow network kids, having a read or a scan of the reader and beginning or finishing some of the tasks set up for the volunteers . I am also encouraging a type of visit that focuses on active participation rather than an opportunity for a personal tour. While I do love being a tour guide and also understand the importance of experiencing the spatial qualities of a essentially sculptural project - I also need to prioritise the projects already set. (I just got an exciting call from Alex Vivian from New Zealand who has agreed to meet in the space during the second week of the project - I want to make a video for one of his tracks. More on that later - but if you want a peak into his practice and life check out his blog)

Now there are strict conditions to these visits and these conditions need to be adhered to otherwise the gallery staff will thump me. As I keep repeating, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces is closed for the summer and the staff aren't hosting the space (in a literal sense) - I am. (I have discovered that Midsumma hires the space off Gertrude CAS and this opens up a few more issues for consideration) ANYWAY - You need to call me (on 0434553717) to arrange a time for an appointment - this is to ensure that A. there is no clash with a pre-existing event and B. to ensure that all entrants are queer (or at least non heterosexual identifying). (I know, non-heterosexual identifying is using a heteronormative value system and that queer is an umbrella term that is defined by a non-heterosexuality and rejects the binary relationship between homo and hetero). But I am having resistance (from some quarters) with the term queer and with the request for a type of sexual identification as a prerequisite for participating in the project. So I relented only for a moment but if Midsumma is about one thing (apart from a celebration. a protest and a type of collectivity) it is about some sort of public conversation about sexual identification...I don't want to be the judge and jury - I am playing a game or at least trying to have a conversation.

A potential telephone conversation.

Me: Hello - Spiros Panigirakis speaking for WITHOUT
Caller: Ummmm, hey
Me: Access to WITHOUT is reserved for those identifying as queer, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex or at least non-hetrosexual identifying. Do you believe that you belong to or have an inclination towards one or more of these categories?
Caller: I guess I am... (If caller is on the queer side of the fence)
Me: Great when would you like to make an appointment...(Continue conversation)
(If caller is heterosexual)
Me: Unfortunately you only have access to the project via the blog - it can be found on www dot with hypen out dot blogspot dot com. Thanks for enquiring about the project - you can also leave any comments or enquiries for me via the blog. (End of conversation)

This is an invite that Jon (partner) sent out to his friends:

Hey all, this is more a notification than an invitation because there's no arm-twisting to attend involved...Spiros has a kind of opening this Tuesday 17 Jan (6-8pm) at 155 Gertrude St (just near Claypots which was previously Growlers).

Spiro's show is at 200 Gertrude street, however the launch is based at nearby Seventh gallery at 155 Gertrude St. Also Spiro's thing is more a closing than an opening - his show involves creating a private queer space and the opening consists of him closing the curtains so that you can't see anything - not necessarily very exciting. However if you want to feel the icy breeze of being excluded by Spiros directly - you are more than welcome to join us.

Xx j

Bianca has kindly posted another invite on the CLUBSproject Inc website. Where you can also peruse our archive which includes some of my other projects ("WITH" in 2005 and "There's a Hole in the Bucket" in 2004)

Agitprop

Yeah(y), Felicity gave me a call today as I was (some would say) frantically trying to install my blinds in the space. I thought none of my activists would reply to my request for feedback because – well just because…(Four days before a project is launched an inferiority complex often emerges). Even though this is my third project that sits between a curatorial, collaborative and solo practice – it always surprises me that sometimes complete strangers are quite willing to give up their time to participate. I also was a bit nervous because the best suggestion I had made for Felicity's “Love Makes a Family” campaign was actually her own idea and the others were just too whimsical to make any impact in any arena let alone the hard nosed world of the Melbourne’s queer left. Not that this bothered me as I haven't set myself up to be the designer that will, with one poster unravel the entrenched societal and legislated homophobia. I guess I just wanted to help out in a small way without being too cool about it but also not moving too far away from an image I would want to make. I guess the act of manifesting Felicity’s idea and crafting it in a particular way is my contribution in this collaboration.

I’ll relay the discussion between Felicity and myself before I continue this line of enquiry. Felicity agreed that I should go with the fold out family. She could relate to the concern that I had about creating a representation of diversity within an illustrative context. She found some humour in this concern that I apparently share with her partner who is a cartoonist. She also tries to depict a range of body shapes, colours, shapes, abilities and cultural signifiers when depicting a community. She also suggested that I represent little people (kids) in the mix. I thought maybe they could be lifted in the air and Felicity thought that maybe they could be included as a separate layer. Now I’m thinking that the children could have a separate chain and that this could weave through the adult chain in some way.

(Continuing the first paragraph and getting into some tricky territory.) When I first approached this task – designing posters for activists – I thought it would be cool to create all these boundaries for both the activists and myself (the designer/maker): No text; no figuration and colour restrictions (well everything colourful will be red, yellow and brown) – basically creating a structure where the poster would have difficulty fulfilling its intended purpose. Not that I wouldn't try - the process would inevitably illustrate a quest for a failed utopia via an oblique piece of agitprop. Produced within this process it would communicate to a few while rejecting an intention to communicate to many while putting my own aesthetic value system above the intention of the activist. Think Daniel Buren doing General Idea in Russia in the early twentieth century with the enthusiasm of Raquel Ormella utilised in an ACT-UP action. (I obviously don't know what I want so I'll just keep digging that hole a little deeper.) (What about Group Material, Tom Nicholson and Felix Gonzalez-Torres? What did you think I was made out of links?) Not that I was trying to undermine the activists’ positions – I guess I was in a way sceptical that any poster campaign could do anything more than reinforce an already held position. But on the other hand - I guess a poster is sign of defiance and this defiance is needed in a long chain that eventually leads to change. But after I met Mark I thought that my aesthetic strategy would be totally insincere (and pretentious to say the least) and that I would suspend my cynicism and make a poster that pays homage to the activist via their political position and also explores a narrative structure in picture making as opposed to exploring a narrative via the movement of triangles against a series of squares. So you see this singular poster is a portrait of an activist or maybe a portait of me making a portait of an activist via their issue…There are holes in this mess of thoughts and I'm not really happy with the resolution of this post – it might be good to use this as springboard for further discussion with this blog’s audience (hint, hint). I've got curtains to hang.

Program for invite

Oh Daddy

The painting I made of my friend Michael being fisted by sailor – torrents of textual abuse followed the contoured forms of the figure - was confiscated by my high-school art teacher. She was disappointed and all she could suggest was that I rethink my strategy of airing my dirty laundry to the world. It was all bit expressive in those days and it wouldn’t be for another year until my really cool friends Tess and George (from uni) eventually got tired of me showing them all that cum and cock. (Yes I was one of those students). While I hadn’t heard of Tracey Emin at that stage I was transposing this model of an artist on the artistic guise of Jenny Watson of all artists. Emin is currently making really twee (or is it naf) white on white on beige Cy Twombly decorations. She must have a really good therapist. Continue - my really cool mature age student friends (Tess and George) and the interior design department introduced me to the world of coding – via a bit of well-deserved slapping. And apart from a few slips I really didn’t embrace a full blown puke until this project plopped along. Well there was that video….

I made a video in first year art school which I editted in honours that was concerned with a really oblique ‘order’ of symbolism and references. It mashed together a few songs from the Partridge Family, endurance performance, homo romance, Amish quilts, geometric abstraction, AIDS, full range of ‘bonds’ underwear, video clip culture, window dressing and a dance routine found in a Hal Hartley film that was probably swished from some French New Wave cinema. It’s all a bit much. That’s probably because I’m not editing any of the process out of this discussion. (Editing is good.) Did I mention there is a mannequin in this performance/video? Well I thought I needed a backup dancer. Things get a bit saucy between the mannequin and myself and at this very point my dad walks into this fictive scenario to tell me to turn down the music. It turns documentary at this stage as my father goes berserk about me not only sleeping with a mannequin but also a male mannequin. I try to explain (via this very squawky gutteral yell) that it was a performance and it was supposed to be funny. I start showing him every bit of art that a conservative would consider obscene – to no avail – the yelling continued. All the while the video camera is still recording but has fallen into the Y-fronted crutch of the mannequin.

So I was working on the sculptural pedestal that supports WITHOUT at my parents’ house (now displayed at Gertrude CAS) - the whole thing was going well because my parents hadn’t seen me for half a year. Until a type of tension between my father and myself starts to develop that had some resonance with the above incident. I can’t actually tell you what it was about – it was all gutteral, irrational and abstract (in that it didn’t have a coherent narrative) – all directed at my 11pm production of this black cube. I think it was all about that other video.

Day after – all is well – we don’t talk about it.

Poster Ideas for Kate

Hi Kate,

Just getting back to you with some preliminary ideas for the poster. I have come up with 4 ideas for the general conceptual framework. These are by no means fixed or rendered in any finished manner and are just starting off points. I had a bit of difficulty with your concept as I couldn't come up with an idea that dealt with the different facets of the issues you raised.

So what I've come  up with are slogans that are calls to unionism targeted to the queer community. There's no implicit attack on the Howard government's IR changes or the tokenism of their inclusion of same-sex couples of carer's leave arrangements...

Continue reading email to Kate
Details of drawings

Sanding the pink away

ACCA flash back

So I am coordinating this ‘queer’ reading group and my memory is struck by a few shows I attended and missed at the old ACCA. Well to be honest I wanted to create a balance between the Bad Gay Art catalogue and something from those heady 90s with some female representation. The first ACCA show I saw was with Christopher Langton, Maria Kozic and Kathy Temin – something about Bad Toys if I remember rightly. In retrospect Temin was kicking goals and all I was concerned about was lighting levels, conservation issues and the assignment's assessment criteria. Now I have constructed a 12 year old memory mélange of Pierre et Gilles, REA and a hard show with lots of tits, ass and text. When I did a scan through the ART + Text’s of that period, all roads lead to that project being by VNS Matrix (A Cyber Feminist Manifesto for the 21st Century) - so early 90s it hurts – I squirmed gleefully at the idea of the text that would/could accompany such an exhibition and immediately wanted it to be part of the reader. So while I’m at it (I thought) why not pick up the POOF (Mathew Jones) and Pierre et Gilles catalogues too - cant hurt investigating the curatorial framework of a range of exhibitions. I ring ACCA to enquire about an archive of catalogues that they must have hidden away somewhere – the front desk person said – nah. Well not quite – but it was a negative response that communicated either ignorance or an unwillingness to help. I ring Monash, thinking that ACCA was under its auspice at the time – this time much more helpful with some help at passing the front desk ‘gate-keeper’ (outbound telemarketing jargon). So three phone calls and four emails latter…

Dear Spiros,

Sorry it's taken me a while to get back to you. Unfortunately the catalogues you're after sold out some time ago.

Good luck with the show,

-------------

Thanks for the query Spiros. I'll forward your email to our front of house people, and ask them to look into it. Keep in mind that we are in the middle of B.K. installation ...!
Regards,
-------------

Now I’m not blaming this current ACCA administration for the absolute short-sighted view of history displayed in the act of not preserving a few (usually) well designed/published/funded catalogues from every exhibition - as this is definitely a problem that has many contributors. Doesn’t the name of the institution aspire to the national? Don't 'Centres' archive ? (Should I – as Denise Robinson suggested - reevaluate the language I assign to ACCA.) Has the history of the cottage been erased by the current rusted monolith? Just look at the website. Are the catalogues sitting/stuffed in box – out of reach out of mind? Wouldn’t it be great if we could have a resource corner/room that archived the shows predating NEW 1,2,3 and 4? It’s just hard to believe.

Poster Ideas for Felicity

Hi Felicity,

Just getting back to you with some preliminary ideas for the poster. I have come up with 4 ideas for the general conceptual framework of the poster – these are by no means fixed or rendered in any finished manner and are just a starting off points. In consideration of the site for the poster (Family First territory or around the Family Association) I think that a poster that leads the audience to the ‘Love Makes a Family’ website might be an interesting strategy. Innocuous image that leads them to some family friendly homo-loving...

Continue reading email to Felicity
Details of drawings

Poster Ideas for Mark

Hi Mark,

Just getting back to you with some preliminary ideas for the poster. I have come up with 4 ideas for the general conceptual framework. These are by no means fixed or rendered in any finished manner and are just starting off points. Yours is the poster I started off with and was confronted by the need to represent something very literally, when I am accustomed to being quite abstract and some would say obtuse in my visual representations. So I have swung the other way and gone with some cheesy clichés in a way – hopefully I have flipped them a bit....

Continue reading email to Mark
Details of drawings

And that pink door

I am so not into the pink enamel door at Gertrude Street. It was painted pink towards the end of the Gertrude Street studio artist show after being a pretty non-descript light sky blue. I get that it matches the vinyl lettering on the window and the colour identity of the organization as illustrated on the web but….no. Apparently this last blue is the same blue that the internal stairwell was painted in – I would think this went over most people’s heads. Anyway, I didn’t like the blue either. Yes, this might be interpreted as precious but the street frontage is the surface of my work that the majority of the audience will be interacting with. A pink door is way too loaded for a Midsumma show – especially if I’m attaching a catalogue shelf/stand thingy on it. (Loaded in an unhelpful way if you get my drift.) And if I’m covering the window with a type of white fabric then all there is – is pink. I’m thinking dark grey.

Conversation with Felicity

Now I had this conversation probably a few weeks ago but posting it has consistently slipped by me – but with a New Year enthusiasm I am ripping through my to-do list. So. I met with Felicity Martin (for another poster commission) after my afternoon with the youth group that is participating in the construction of the paper block sculpture. Felicity has been really generous with her time – linking me with youth programs that are umbrella-d by the rainbow network. Now maybe all roads lead to Andrea in my ties with the activist world – and yes Felicity is Andrea’s friend – anyway – Felicity along with being a grass-roots activist is the co-convener of F.A.R (Fertility Access Rights lobby), which is tied to the Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby(V.G.L.R.L). 'Love makes a Family' is the campaign that F.A.R is working on at the moment and in short calls for the social and legal recognition of Victoria’s rainbow families. Rainbow families incorporate any parenting combo under the sun with a defining emphasis on loving and nurturing qualities. Now F.A.R and V.G.L.R.L have been really busy over the last few years and I seriously encourage a cruise through their sites.

Felicity gave me heaps of info – so here’s a smattering. In 2001 the Victorian government reformed/amended 49 pieces of legislation that discriminated against homosexual people. While this seems really progressive this did not include an equal footing in access to parenting, reproductive technology and surrogacy for same sex couples. Marriage and superannuation on the other hand is in the federal government’s food court so don’t go celebrating yet. The state government via the Victorian Law Reform Commission has slowly called for public submissions into three areas that form the missing link in terms of parenting equality for same sex couples. Paper one and two received record submissions from the public and you can actually wade through them (Don’t ask me exactly where.) I think FAR have but I forgot to ask how many Family First and other eastern suburb Christian submissions were accounted for. Paper one was about ‘access’ that included access to assisted reproductive technology, self-insemination, gamete donation, and posthumous use of gametes. Paper two was about ‘parenting’ and explored among other things the status of same-sex couples as parents and adoption and the third paper will be on ‘surrogacy’.

The political machine is slow on this one and while there is a good deal of community support (amongst the gay and lesbian one anyway) for progressive changes it is hard (I think) to get a vocal momentum that wouldn’t be ignored by the powers that. So organizations like VGLRL tirelessly initiate community education campaigns without having the huge band of grass roots support that they might have received over say the decriminalisation of homosexual sex, equal age of consent or HIV/AIDS issues. I get the impression there is a general malaise and/or burn out amongst the gay and lesbian community with a ‘well it’s good enough’ mentality in regards to our rights

The ‘Love makes a Family’ campaign have used images in their banners like those fold out series of stick like figures that potentially repeat and hold hands endlessly. I was excited by this innocuous child-like craft decoration and it’s potential for homosexualising. (It doesn’t take much if you think about it). Felicity was interested in pasting the poster I designed either in Family First territory in Knox/Wantirna or in North Melbourne near the Victorian headquarters of the loon organization that is the Australian Family Association. Just have a look at their site – it would be hilarious if it weren’t so sad and damaging.

Window dressing

I love a well-dressed window and have always been intrigued by Jasper Johns, Robert Rauchenberg and Andy Warhol's display at the New York department store - Bonwit Teller in the late 1950's and in 1961 for Warhol. I just discovered that Mike Bidlo redid Warhol's window in 2000. Bidlo is the artist that continuously painted Duchamp's ‘Fountain’ on and in anything he could get his hands on. Of course John Meade and Christopher Langton played with these conventions in 1996 with 'Tour de Force' - it was a Gertrude Street window knockout. I'm working on a new intro text that puts a little more emphasis on the window display - as if I don't have a million things to do for this project:

Each January Gertude Contemporary Art Spaces hosts a project for the Midsumma Gay and Lesbian Festival. This blog documents the 2006 show. Since it's summer the gallery is closed, and the Midsumma show is only a window display. As the artist for this year's show I've chosen to avoid the homo-as-window-dresser tradition by blocking out the window with blinds. Inside I'm creating a private environment for a series of queer happenings. But, in keeping with a more recent gay tradition of building our identities on-line, I've created a blog, through which you can view the work.

(5/01/06) This was the old introduction:

This blog publishes the inside of 'WITHOUT' - a work that will occupy the front space of 200 Gertrude Street in January 2006. The project is part of Midsumma – Melbourne’s gay and lesbian festival. As the gallery space is closed during this period some of the activities and objects in the space won't be accessible to a general public. This blog trades in public disclosure/exposure/restraint, exclusion and inclusion by offering a type of unfettered access to the project.

Reading

Like a y2k survivalist who hoards tinned beans – I have been collecting queer theory texts that I thought would come in handy some day since I started art school (in 1997). I say collected as opposed to read as I don’t call scanning for pics, reading the intro and a few key paragraphs as studied in a traditional sense. I studied in a transitional period: where the exploration of identity politics was becoming a historical period; the phase where strong institutional support for theoretically driven or interpreted art was on the decline, Art + Text was going through its L.Afication; fictive narrative representation was on the up; art was (playing) dumb but in reality full to brim with historical references (read Mark Penning’s LIKE ART article on First Floor) and the queer academy had passed its peak and was performing Matthew Jones’ POOF of smoke piece. So apart from: sporadically reading heaps on the cultural analysis of AIDS - texts by Douglas Crimp, Gregg Bordowitz and Simon Watney – until I would become thoroughly depressed and neurotic; Dean Kileywas then the partner of my best friend and I was a fan of key homo artists and interested in re-evaluation of Twombly, Rauschenburg and Johns’ work via their somewhat triangular relationships – but that was probably as close to queer theory my study got.

I don’t know if I’m letting any cats out of the bag but CLUBSproject had this idea to present ourselves as a committee in a group exhibition by each re-presenting other Australian artists’ work. Without much hesitation and with some predictability I decided I wanted to redo Matthew Jones’ Silence = Death which was presented at 200 Gertrude Street in 1991. Problem was I wanted to wade through the world of theory that Jones was referring to as a research component to my piece. I got out his catalogue, which tried to replicate the type of coded silence that he was visually representing in his exhibition. It was a photographic essay that documented (like some performed National Geographic or sociological text) the life cycle of a contemporary homosexual man. The last page had this short and poignant quote about refusing to use the language that oppresses and the importance of remaining silent. (“We rally to the slogan because they have forced us to, but keep the silence as a place were we refuse to use their terms “) So get it? White gessoed canvases and minimal structures that were padded and protruding with a scaled reference to the body (and I think to army hospitals), black and white slogans (silence = death; homosexuality = AIDS, discourse = defence; defence = disease; disease = discourse) and this ‘text’ that had a sentence a few slogans and a series photographs that documents the weight of AIDS discourse on the life of a gay man. They don’t (seriously) make work like that anymore – although Jones slightly retards his argument by writing a text that illustrates his sophisticated and abstract machinations at play in this work. Anyway this text is heavily footnoted – as an exercise for the ‘remaking’ I thought it would be interesting to actually read the original sources quoted in the footnotes. Off I went to get “Taking Liberties: AIDS and Cultural Politics” (Ed. Erica Carter and Simon Watney), “Displacing Homophobia” (Ed. Ronald Butters) and the Kristeva Reader (Ed. Toril Moi). I couldn’t get my hands on Wojnarowicz catalogue but hey, there was a start.

Well I carted these books around on my travels – did I read them? No. Well it seemed like work and I was on holiday. Arrived home to complete this project and I thought it would be more interesting if I coordinated a reading group. Like the Oprah book club without the audience. More like Radio National's 'Books and Writing' for beginners - who am I kidding? My mind jumped to hosting this event with cookies and milk – hang on soldier, where’s the text? Well, I also had this idea that I would construct these brown cardboard helmets that had coloured cellophane windows for the participants. Like astronauts or deep-sea divers we would explore this often referred to, sometimes maligned and generalised theoretical history. So apart from accessorising the event I had to collate a series of texts that I had been avoiding. The reader has now been collated and distributed and it doesn’t contain any text from the Matthew Jones’ pile. Saving those for the big one…

A brief intermission

(25 years of legal buggering) Yeah I know, where is my promised relentless outpouring of postings? I’m finalising the construction component of the project and installing tomorrow. Busy. While I’m working on some entries I have neglected the blog and abandoned the live bit of the journal. Anyway – I have been sanding, shopping, leaving too many mumbling messages on collaborators' phones, having a few break downs (like Adriana Xenides – Wheel of Fortune – remember) and having (t)issues with the whole studio being located at my parent's house. The romance is over.

Conversation with Kate

I first met Kate Davison while working as a teenager at Target – I was quite anti-social during my part-time student jobs so my short chats with Kate as I walked towards the lay-by department from ‘sound’ was me at my most conversational. Over the years I have given her a wave from across the street and more recently she was one half of the fab duo who organised the homo-histories conference – she also gave an interesting paper investigating the relationships between homophobia, communism and state propaganda in 1950s Australia. Kate works part-time for the RMIT student union, is an activist (homo / radical left), organised the ‘unionist in pink’ float at last year’s Midsumma parade and is a student of history and languages. We went to Rays where I had 1 too many coffees. I started contextualising the poster collaboration within the wider Gertrude Street project – interrupting this with depressive grunts regarding the passing of VSU legislation and the race riots in Sydney. Can’t get over the televised image of a plastered surfer, with “Australia is full” slogans scrawled over printed (DIY aesthetic) board-shorts and T’s – just depressing really. Is it just me or does Sydney seem so much further away?

Kate was thinking through a couple of issues for the project including the changes to Industrial Relations legislation and their convergence with queer recognition and same sex unions. I started beating around the bush regarding what I feel is a conservative position regarding same-sex marriage but was surprised to find out that Kate was on the same (traditionally fucked institution but let everyone have it if they want it) page. Kate wanted the poster to target the queer community as much as the broader one and thought that while there is opposition within the left regarding marriage – the majority of homos support such marriage. On this basis she chose to focus on how the government has decided to recognise same-sex unions only in a situation where they are radically stripping back the rights for all workers. Another area where the federal government recognises same-sex union is in the anti-terror laws in the situation of arrest and one phone call granted – “hi love, I’m ok but I won’t be back for few weeks” – thud (telephone noise). So the lesson learnt is that the Howard government only recognises our relationships when there is nothing to offer. Well it’s certainly a case of “too little too late” but it’s Kate’s selected placement of the poster that holds the added bite. By choosing to post the poster near the south-side queer mecca - Commercial road, she is targeting a part of the homo community that she believes privileges the commercial, the aspirational and the commodified. Can you make that conceptual leap that this demographic isn’t part of the unionised workforce and that other commercial/entertainment centres don't function in similar ways? Well they’re probably no more unionised than their straighter peers around on Chapel Street. So they’re probably not (unionised that is)- looking at the rates of unionisation amongst younger workers. And as for north/south homo divide - Kate wasn't claiming the north was a better alternative but I think (and I could be wrong) that a type of capitalism that Kate would critique is heightened and concentrated in the south.

So this poster runs a more complicated line: a call to unionisation amongst a certain population in the homo community; queering the IR issue; a thanks but no thanks to the Howard government and an alternative queer visibility and message for the surrounding and passing non-homo community. We finished up our conversation with an observation Kate made at the last IR rally. Some guy was chanting for “Johnny” to “shove the IR legislation up his ass.” Well Kate suggested that maybe he change it to “up his nose” – asses aren’t such bad places after all.

Conversation with Mark

Met up with Mark Pendleton yesterday for my first activist / poster designer meeting. Mark works at RMIT as a research officer for the student union, is part of the editorial committee of BITE magazine and has held queer officer positions for NUS. Mark was concerned that he wasn’t currently involved in queer activism on an organisational basis (-has in the past) – so at the moment his support is realised in rallies and actions only. That’s beyond good enough for me and besides I have also been bumping into him at parties and openings so felt it would be a good opportunity to get to know him a little better. This part of the project is not about a capital ‘A’ activism on my part. I realised though that talking politics isn’t my forte and trying to engage with these ideas while eating a tofu curry wasn’t going to work. Mental note 1: Make these meetings ‘drink events.’ You would think that after being good friends with Andrea Maksimovic and partnered to a political theory PHD candidate that I would be able to string a polemic together.No - not in conversation anyway. Although this is about listening…right? It all went off course in 1994 (dream sequence moment) when I was involved as a teenager in Resistance with my friends at the time Lian and Claire. Apart from the occasional green/left faux pas – it was nothing a Friday night Marxist re-education wouldn’t fix. We had spent most of the summer hanging out in the office and at some point the Richmond High (or was it Secondary College?) closure and occupation became a priority on the activist agenda. At the same time a gay uncle figure of a friend of mine had died of an AIDS related illness. The two circumstances jockeyed for a prominent position in my thinking – I never went to Richmond or the office again.

I was talking about Mark, wasn’t I? Mark wants the poster to explore the issue that emanates from the Australian Refugee Review Tribunal rejecting an Iranian gay man’s claim for refugee status. Apparently he’s not gay enough judged by the tribunal’s criteria that includes affection for Madonna and Bette Midler. Not only are they trying to define an acceptable homosexuality but they are equating being gay with a fixed cultural identity that would be offensive in Australia let alone a country with a entirely different set of cultural markers. In a country that has a criminal sentence of death by hanging for the offence of homosexuality – downloading Madonna’s MTV Europe awards performance of Hung Up is the least of one’s priorities and interests. Mark has written a related article in BITE and I seriously recommend that you read it to get a better understanding of the issue. (It’s in issue 2 on page four and five)(eloquent). I had not read the full thing for our meeting - Mental not 2: Read all relevant articles written by your activist participant before the meeting. Hope Mark doesn’t mind but I’ll post his expression of interest in the project – it’s just so succinct and I’ll just make a mess of it if I try to paraphrase:

“I'm excited by your project, particularly the potential for pursuing more "marginal" queer issues (such as the policing of sexuality/gender by immigration as outlined in my borderline article). In fact, I'd be very interested in exploring this particular issue if you thought it was appropriate. Not only does it address how queers understand sex and identity but is also indicative of how the state continues to try to regulate social behaviour, delimit identity and control access to the (Australian) nation - all interesting ideas to try and conceptualise in a poster..”

We discussed briefly where the poster could be placed and Mark suggested Maribyrnong ‘s detention centre or the offices of the immigration department in Melbourne. I think Kylie Wilkinson has organised an action outside the department a year or so ago.

Helmet proposition for reading group

Screws and Artists doing furniture

I’m so not good at on-the-spot reporting and I have been concentrating on completing the pedestal for WITHOUT – oh yeah there’s now a title. I had another meeting with Jeff last week and I commented that I had been playing with words like out, outlet and outside – I also liked the simplicity of the title for my last project WITH. So Jeff suggested without - I got excited about the suggestion – that’s always a good sign. When I relayed this story back to Jon he reminded me that he had suggested ‘workout’ - this hadn’t infiltrated any layer of my brain but I immediately felt conflicted between the two. I chose WITHOUT because it played the collaborative and the exclusion card – plus I love a sequel.

BACK TO THE PEDESTAL/SCULPTURE/STRUCTURE/SUPPORT. I went to Lara’s furniture design exhibition and was bedazzled by all that sanding and finish. Lara had made this gorgeous (and yes it truly was) – ply foldable beach or garden chair with no legs. Another student made this picnic table/chair structure that transformed into a flat platform. I was seduced. It made me aware (as if I needed reminding) of how artists take on furniture – usually borrowing form and disregarding the detail. Except for Jorge Pardo who makes a room full of cast-iron light fittings look intelligent...and (um) microcosmic(?). I felt insecure (surprise surprise) but after some thinking while sanding my own monster (as I have come to call it) - I became empowered by the screws used to join my bits of wood. Furniture takes longer to make, usually has a life-span that extends past the two week point, is probably more useful and is much more marketable than its art cousin – it just make sense that the furniture we make needs to be knocked up and knocked down. Who is going to take it home? So I spent a couple of hours protecting the screws in my work with blue-tac so that I wouldn’t paint over them but also sanding all the pine so that it would look like it was of a consistent quality. Apparently Tanya Eccleston said that we should do these pointless labours because God would know if we hadn’t (Scott was quoting her). While this sounds deranged or at least odd – this was the exact spirit behind my actions – minus the old-testament. (I really didn’t like Eccleston’s work at Gertrude St in 1996 - it really went over my 19 year old head – but since then It drifts/floats/slumps occasionally in my rear view mirror – building its own integrity through its lightness, structure and flying carpet whimsy)

Another issue with artists and furniture (and this includes you too Jorge) is this over-reliance on referencing the past - furniture swallowed by the cloud of retro. It’s like - we need to signpost that we are making ‘furniture’ and the only way to accomplish this, is by quotation. While it sounds like I’m on the 'even more retro' band-wagon that is the paradigm of originality – I’m not – I’m just looking for the embrace of the designer as well as the furniture - in the ‘artist touches everything and it should turn to gold’ school of thought. I’m thinking about Fiona Abicare’s designs that flip from formalist sculpture to coffee table effortlessly. (I don’t think she would appreciate the coffee table bit – but there’s nothing wrong with coffee table design). The structure she built for her West Space show in 2002 was a pedestal that brought together irregular formal geometry (think some kind of cross section of an atomic structure) with a type of critique of the show room and fashion flair/material investigations of Rei Kawakubo and Hussein Chalayan. Maybe this is a digression - I’m sticking with the design of a better pedestal. I could go into Bianca Hester’s ACCA sculptural pedestal that made the conventional white box pedestals around her work look alien – creating a friction – nice - but no time now.


INTERUPTION – At this furniture design opening I met Mark who is one of the editors of Bite magazine. He had met me at ACCA after a reading I had performed a couple of years ago but also thought I played a significant role in the production of 'They shoot homos don’t they?' After all I have been credited with being the arts director. I felt a major twinge of embarrassment – I just can’t continue playing this non-interventionist role that just coasts through politically problematic public exercises and remain unscathed. I know the magazine occasionally aligns itself with problematic positions on sexuality – a Vice magazine for queers. There’s definitely an audience for this content –but do I need to contribute to it? I wanted to let Mark know that I’m not really the art director but a bit of an adviser and gave him permission to critique the mag in our conversation. While Mark’s jibe at the mag’s overtly visual nature and it’s lack of textual content didn’t phase me - pretty pictures are content too but I would say the problem lies with some of these pictures relying too heavily on internalized hatred as their mechanism to attract desire. We politely agreed (and this is obvious) that the two magazines have different purposes – bite having an overt political agenda and I suspect a tendency to use core as a suffix a lot.

At another opening – this time Chris Hill’s CLUBS opening conversation reverted to a comparison between the two magazines with another magazine editor. She thought the soft porn was too boy-sy. (I thought it was ok for gay boys to oppress themselves with their own porn and the magazine has never claimed to cater for a very broad audience). While Bite plays the queer card – redoing late 90’s performative gender fuck porn – Shoot homos identifies with the faggot basher as drewl factor – Apart from the obvious problems but also the subversive potential - do magazines that do porn or play with the idea need to think very hard? Yeah it ‘s great if they do – but I also want to get off sometimes. Even Bruce la Bruce ended up using models reminiscent of a Cazzo or Cadinot porn stable. And lets face it – the politics were pretty under-graduate - still very hot. Plenty of images are welcome in my porn fantasies – sometimes stupid/buff/simple or the new, but getting tired, bear trimmings tendencies. I think Christos Tsiolkas explores this idea in every novel he has written. Enough said.

The concept and the catalogue

Jeff Khan (curator of project) has aknowledged me as a co-author of the text below (planned for the catalogue) but I really only editted it in a minor way.

WITHOUT

A large black cube, standing blankly as Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces’ front window-display, confronts viewers of WITHOUT. Its minimal form, and the limited perspective offered by the street-front viewing space, seems designed to deflect the public gaze. Associative potential inheres in the cube’s fragmented structure (which is a compound of domestically-scaled pine furniture) – yet such details are obscured from the passing viewer. Though legible as a meditation on the legacy of sculptural minimalism, the collaborative, interactive focus of the work is played out away from the public eye, in a sophisticated series of actions and activities accessible only through a weblog called “Outside 200 Gertrude Street”: viewable at http://with-out.blogspot.com

WITHOUT enacts a complex interplay between inclusion and exclusion; public, private and virtual space; and the parameters of artistic and community practice. Whilst the oblique installation may seem designed to exclude any form of interaction or participation, the activities played out within the space tell quite the opposite story. Throughout the timeframe of the exhibition, the space and the craft-based materials and objects contained within the sculpture are utilised to organise, initiate or facilitate a succession of activities with specific groups, each of which occupy different positions in the continuing history of “queer” discourse. Like the sculpture itself, these activities are veiled from public view, transforming them into private rituals of affirmation and self-reflexivity. At once a protective device and a canny political comment on the inclusion (or lack thereof) of queer practice in social and artistic histories, this cloaking process nevertheless contains a (mediated) internet–based window of insight in which local and global audiences can access the activities. Ultimately, WITHOUT looks to the past and present of queer discourse, questioning the boundaries and possibilities of collective action and critically investigating the promise of a utopian future.

Hey Jeff,

Sorry about the late send - think the text is great but have made a few changes - hopefully ok ones. The concerns that I have relate to fixing theconceptual framework of the project - guess it had to happen at some point.

I'm still not sure about with the line "periodic‚ blacking out of the windows" as I think the show needs to be permanent partly obscured. I understand your concerns but I also want the text to make a more definitive statement about the partial- closure of the work. My reason for this are:

1. The work's social role is like a university queer room. Allowing openviewing access to the space would destroy this role.
2. If the space is obscured while there is activity going on, but the detritus/remnants of that activity is displayed it seems to undermine this intent. It would seem to replicate the traditional role of the homosexual as window-dresser and entertainer - so that a gay aesthetic entertains a straight community without affirmation of queer identities.
3. The work explicitly plays with the exploration of the internet as an anonymous outlet and safe-space for queer identities. This aspect of the work will lose its integrity if the show is clearly visible to the public.

The irony is that I have framed some of the exploration so that the crafted results and remnants will look like the craft found in an art/craft class in some Christian heart-land school (with a penchant for formalism) negating any attempt at representation or overt politic. What interests me is the participants and the process and their relationship to an identification that sits outside heterosexuality.

Anyway, enough of the diatribe. Can you make an executive decision on that moment in the text - rambling helps me think - im kinda stressed about this because it seems like I have pushed myself into this corner - anyway...

Have been working on an image - got one of the cube with a black veil think will look good against white but will also look at making a composite image if I have time tonight.

x Spiros

Rainbow network

Had a meeting with the rainbow network today. The rainbow network is a group of organizations that runs all these queer youth programs across Victoria. When I was in 14 and 16 the Victorian AIDS Council and Gay Men’s Health Centre tried to set up an under 18 group – to no avail. Now there are groups in Epping, Geelong, Dandenong and Shepperton. So for starters I’m humbled by these guys – within ten years the landscape is significantly different because of these youth programs. I was at this meeting to propose the collaborative paper block sculpture (see letter for Project 1). I agreed that it might be hard getting the same group of kids to two sessions so I have pushed aside any sense of ownership one would have for their specially designed block. I have also agreed as type of exchange to present a talk on gay and lesbian art practises. I wasn’t expecting to offer this in some type of exchange for participation in my project. But I felt the do-gooder energy in the room and it felt like the least I could do. Only problem is – How do I ever begin in talking about gay and lesbian art practise? As I was walking to my car after the meeting I instantly thought – cool time for a top 10 – maybe I could do some art historical outing – maybe as an audience we queer things independently of the artist’s intention – maybe I could highlight closeting strategies gay artists have employed or are employing – maybe all this is too much for 15 – 18 year olds – maybe they just want see themselves represented – maybe they just want the image to validate their desires – maybe no one will turn up.

Blocking windows, blocking views

Massage table?

Ok – It’s so easy to slip into bad smart-ass one liners. This particular image could be ‘death on wheels’. Yeah its that bad. For those who don’t have time to grasp the conceptual thread of this project - Death refers to Tony Smith’s Die. Die is a black steel sculpture that is 183 cm cubed. (I was thinking a hardened double bed rising – typical daddy work and not his best by far.) When asked why he didn’t make the cube a looming tower of a Serra - Smith replied he didn’t want to make a monument. When asked why he didn’t make it to a scale so that an average viewer could look down on it - Smith answered he didn’t want to make an object. I find this interesting because when presenting a sculpture in a window display you are taking away one more experiential vantage point (the walk around) and presenting a type of image. So I have knocked the steel away and built a structure made out of three benches, twenty stools, two armchairs and a bed base. - an imagined interior. I am about to clad components of the structure – what now looks like and feels like a cubby house. I went to the Moorabbin’s timber yard and without any description of the components the assistant asked me if I was cladding a massage table. It was one of the better moments the suburb had to offer. It’s also so easy to plunge into the clichés that framed your adolescence when working from your parent’s home.

Die (in Moorabbin)

Daddy

I have been spending a lot more time with my dad over the last couple weeks. Since loosing our studios to the new owners of Builders' Arms - I have been making my work in Moorabbin (my family's home). My dad has heaps of equipment and also lends a hand now and then. He's actually a perfect assistant - doesn't ask too many questions and senses when a problem needs to be solved. I think he's into my art looking like his home renovations - yes we can talk about that later. The photo is from last week's rally in opposition to the Howard government's proposed IR law. We decided to march together - although I did loose him a couple of times. At the end of the rally I hooked up with my partner and he was greeted with a very enthusiastic and some would say loving hello from my Dad. My friends and I were touched by this enthusiasm. My Dad is a 73 year old Greek Australian man who migrated to Australia around 40 years ago and doesn't quite get the full extant of my relationship with Jon. He's really into the idea of a good mate looking after his wayward son. He's a conservative man in terms of his sexual/gender politics but quite a lefty regarding the broader social issues. Anyway - I am finding the tension between his enthusiasm with him being my leading-hand (his words) for the construction component of the Midsumma project and his conservatism really interesting.

Die

Tony Smith, Die (1962)
Steel, 6 x 6 x 6ft

Melbourne Prize

Ahhh – OSW (Terri Bird, Bianca Hester, Natasha Johns Messenger and Scott Mitchell) won the Melbourne prize for urban sculpture. It’s so exciting and so bloody deserved. It was so unexpected because while great projects like ones completed by OSW are acknowledged they don’t usually win $60,000 worth of prizes. Besides when I saw Terri sitting in the back row during the prize ceremony – I thought to myself that a choreographed prize ceremony wouldn’t allow such a seating plan. It is such an affirmation of the type of the conceptualism that is neglected by the gallery institutions. The round slowly moving disks of lawn (inset and flush to the lawn) were a seamless concentrate of the four individual artists practises. I loved it because it involved lawn; because it involved lawn as pedestal for human activity; because the human activity could be a picnic or loitering; because it was as simple as the act of highlighting. I mean these artists (as individuals) have such ten layered fondeau practices without the pomp that a fondeau suggests. I guess collaboration (in my experience) is a great way of editing wonderful messes. (Although none of these artists are very messy actually.) Is the kind of inevitable compromise that one takes in collaboration a good thing in general or just in the context of a presentation to a wider audience (like the Melbourne Prize)? I was recently in the museums that exhibited a handful of Vermeer’s - I was amazed (amazed by my amazement) by the scale and the resolved nature of the work. One small painted image – packed with ideas and technical nuance and complexity – complete - just one or two in a handful of northern European museums. OSW’s proposal elicited a similar thought. It makes me feel like I need to do a lot more editing. We make so much stuff – it takes up so much space – do we think that this prolific output and scale is communicating more? Is more better? (Am I taking in the voice of Kerry from Sex and the City?) Michelle on my arrival back to Melbourne suggested that the cultural and financial climate of the period allowed artists like Vermeer to be patronised by the some royal family or trust fund so that they could make that one small painting a year.

The whole prize walked a great line with great entries from Tom Nicholson, John Meade, Simon Perry and Matthey de Moiser. Tom’s entry was as frustrating as it was enigmatic. Is the frustration part of the experience of the enigma? I have come to understand that this frustration comes from the vehicle he communicates in. Political agitprops that have their conventional use stripped away. We expect the protest banner or the paste-up poster to tell us something or tell us how we should act but all it is alluding to is the poetry found in conflict. It’s similar to the strategies used by Felix Gonzales Torress only subtler – so we’re talking wonderfully wafer thin. When Tom’s practise is coined as political art in some simplistic derisive manner – I imagine that this person is disregarding frustration as a valid pleasuring device and more importantly is confused by the conflation of form with the work’s content. John Meade’s work proved that he’s the best stylist around – incorporating danger, sex and a fuck you feminine (maybe it’s a better sort of drag) attitude.

I was chatting to Scott after the prize ceremony and commented that the written voice he used in his blog was a lot more positive (I would even say chirpy). I was thinking about Scott’s blog at the time of this blog’s inception. His sits alongside his PHD art/industrial design project like a happy inventor’s journal. He and Lara asked me what voice I would be using. I reflected that I wanted to let it all out and be relentless about it. Only problem with that is that relentless is hard work. Lara agreed. I also have to make decisions of the timing of when to reveal things. In the conversation Scott at some point used the word neurotic and as usual Scott’s precision with language was on the money. I’m not saving things up – I’m just unsure of the timing and I’m also unsure of the parameters that I want to load the work at Gertrude Street with. For example is the fact that I used the word internet (rather than porn on the internet) a censoring device that goes against the ethos of letting it all out. As Sean Cody, Dick Wadd and Bait Bus all have some influence in the making the Gertrude Street work more bodily and (sexually) relational. I asked Jon (my partner) to take the modem away today – I’m a lot more productive.

They shoot homos don't they?

During the conference’s lunch break I went to Readings to have a look at a copy of They Shoot Homos don't they?. The magazine was launched while I was overseas and I was keen to see how some of my ideas manifested in the final version. I am involved on a minimal level - recommending the kind of art that I think will entertain, titillate and inform the predominantly queer male audience. The magazine is one of those fashion / art / lifestyle magazines that acts like a coffee table book but is at the scale of an almanac or boys-own manual.

I knew there was going to be a feature interview with Melbourne based artist Christian Thompson and somehow I had totally blocked from my memory that I had in fact read a draft version of it. Interestingly the draft version differs from the version found in print. Timothy’s added an attack on relational aesthetics to the section on “Technique and process-driven art” - I guess Tim wanted to sound edgier or maybe he was a bit reluctant to bag a type of work that I, some of the colleagues I collaborate with, and the space I’m on the committee of (CLUBSproject Inc.) is involved with. So I was pissed off with both Timothy Moore (the interviewer) and myself when I read the interview with Christian. Timothy had emailed me the transcript of the interview when I was in London and I had a chance to give him some feed back – but Melbourne seemed so far away, teaching was so stressful, I was probably fighting with my friend Nikos or was I just on Gaydar while downloading Sean Cody. Anyway no response was given then but here is a taste of it now.

Timothy: Ahh, so there’s gayness in your work. How long have you been a gay artist for? A few years now?
Christian: I don’t think I’ve ever been a gay artist. I’d hate to be one. To be quite honest, I know heaps of gay people that make art but they’re not gay artists. It’s a matter of interpretation. For instance, David Rozetsky (sic) is like gay but he’s not a gay artist.
T: Yeah, he’s more about an atmosphere of meaning without having meaning.
C: It’s like a lot of shows I see. Where’s the art? It’s designed based. A lot of shows I stop and think, I’m in an art gallery but
there’s a terrible absence of art.
T: Technique and process-driven art (Relational Aesthetics in final print version) is popular Down Under. Maybe, it’s not about having ideas. Or it could be artists are scared to speak sometimes and share these ideas. They prefer to hide behind a concept. Or hide from not having a concept. Not that there’s a problem with this. It’s interesting that many artists don’t want to talk about their work. Then, what are they trying to say?

Here is some belated feedback for Christian and Timothy.

1. In 1997 David Rosetzky was in JUICE – a group show at the Gallery of New South Wales that was presented by the Sydney Mardi Gras festival (you know that gay and lesbian one). The exhibition was curated by Wayne Tunnicliffe and featured Jane Trengrove and Christopher Dean. That same year Bad Gay Art was also presented as part of Mardi Gras. This exhibition was curated by Robert Schubert and featured work by John Meade, Scott Redford (another artist featured in the magazine) and Andrew McQualter. I wish Monash University had not decommissioned the e-journal GLOBE so I could link the killer essays from Dean Kiley and Robert Schubert.

2. I would have thought that the 101 cultural studies these guys have under their belts would inform them that creating identification categories for other people is not on. They would also be aware that people rarely identify or belong to one box – but many. Potentially Christian can be indigenous, gay, male and also middle class. Tim maybe he can be the same except swap the indigenous with white. I’m a Greek-Australian artist whose work rarely touches directly on ethnicity, but that doesn’t make the identity inappropriate. There’s no hard and fast rules to all this stuff but don’t go raining on some community parade. I guess being known as a ‘gay artist’ is not something that would advance anyone’s career in this country's current political and cultural climate, so I can understand anyone not wanting to embrace it. But I feel that commitment to a politics of equality means we have to own the full complexity of our identities. The interview reminds me of the endless gaydar profiles of the “straight-acting”, the “clean” (i.e. negative) and guys who are “not interested in fems or Asians”. If you’re in a marginalised minority then de-emphasising those parts of your identity that feel least cool and taking a few swipes at those further down the ladder is an inviting strategy… seems discrimination comes from every direction and sometimes from within. Saying you would hate to be a gay artist isn't helping anyone. (Sorry for the 101)

3. As for Tim's art prattle that follows the self-hatred – It’s just that - Absolutely meaningless series of words that make up a sentence with no substantiation. I can’t be even be bothered rebutting this.

Conference I

Rodney Croome started the conference off with a considered reflection on the historical lessons for GLBTIQ organising today. (While I’ll use GLBTIQ if it’s used in an author’s text – I’m currently considering queer as an umbrella term). Croome (a man with some mainstream gay activism under his belt) felt that the issue of gay marriage was the next challenge for the community. What happened next didn’t surprise me as a steady opposition came from the audience who were predominantly from a politically left constituency and ranged in age from 19 to late 70s. While the ensuing discussion was a valuable internal one – I felt frustrated by the respondents inability to understand their views antipathetic position to more mainstream queer and non-queer thinking. Croome wasn’t ignorant of the historical problems that cloak marriage as an institution. But if you believe that all Australian people deserve equal rights it then follows that: all international marriages (regardless of the combination of genders) deserve to be recognised; the right for all women to have access to reproductive technologies and that all couples have the right to adopt. Croome advocated a system that would classify relationships with a choice between registration, de-facto and marriage as a way for couple’s relationships to be recognised by the state. I was recently in Amsterdam where I was living with a married gay couple and was surprised by how touched I was when looking at the ephemera that documented this union. The marriage certificates from Spain and the Netherlands, the video, photographs and anecdotes of suits, party food and culture clashing refreshed my tired witnessing of straight marriages that have dominated my 28 years as a Greek - Australian. It’s patronising to deny anyone the banalities that straights take for granted. You might want to fuck marriage off but that should remain an internal political discussion and not a strategic platform for the realisation of equal rights for all.

The rest of the day’s papers weren’t so controversial. Georgine Clarson’s paper on the Women’s Garage in 1920’s Melbourne was a fascinating reflection of the progressive gender fucking that was going on post WW I but was then shut down as part of the swing towards conservatism. It was interesting because a conventional timeline on the views surrounding sexuality and gender would read like gradual flow towards liberalisation but Clarson provides us with a more complicated history.

The panel discussion between Gary Jaynes, Jamie Gardiner and Alison Thorne on 25 years of Victorian gay law revealed that the arrests of a whole heap of men at the Black Rock beat was the catalyst for the last big activist action in 1980. This was just before the laws were overturned in the state of Victoria to make sex between men legal. The men were arrested loitering with the intent to have homosexual sex. Both the loitering and the homosexual sex were illegal at this stage and while there was private negotiation and lobbying with the then government, activist groups decided to hold an afternoon picnic protest down at Black Rock beach in response to the arrests. My friend Michael joked after I revealed that Black Rock was the first beat I regularly attended as a teenager – was it because sex between men was legalised in 1980? Yeah I said after my 3rd birthday I was relieved that the first steps of homosexual law reform were enacted so off I went to the foreshore. Actually, I still get dreamy when I smell the pollen that fills the air from the dry coastal shrubs. I’ve always wanted to do a landscaping piece for this shrubbed area that lines the coastline. The beat is now thoroughly over. It saddened me greatly when I visited Black Rock last summer. Not only had the council cleared and poisoned the shrubs but had fenced off the whole area – the fence being at chest level. Not only does this block the meandering paths but also creates quite an ominous regulated space that really offers me nothing. Even without the promise of salty sexual gratification / flirtation offered by a walk down the path - there was a simple and relaxing delight that was created by the dry, grey, green and entangled bushes that would shelter you from the middle suburbs...

...As I left the conference I picked up a copy of Traffic. Quotidian Queer - a special edition of the Melbourne University’s postgraduate journal. In the edition was the article Misplacing the work of Matthew Jones in the Discourse of AIDS Activism by Kate Macneil and an interview with the academics who work within the area of sexuality studies at Melbourne university like Steven Angelides, Sheila Jeffreys and Annamarie Jagose. I feel like my research at the moment is bit like this postgrad journal. I mean my initial idea was to respond (in some way) to Matthew Jones’s Silence = Death which was shown at Gertrude street in 1991 and even potentially have conversations with some of these exact academics. I don’t want to sound like some undergraduate doing a visual version of a queer histories essay. For the midsumma project – I was interested in a sort of a revival and reflection process of the period that lasted from the mid 1980’s to the mid 1990’s – a period where queer theory was high on the agenda in cultural arenas. I wanted to be Rita, in some abstracted performance of Educating Rita (1983). I want to question the position of my project in the midsumma festival.

It's a blog not a wog

I was asked by Jeff Khan to design a project for the front window space of 200 Gertrude Street as part of the Midsumma festival in January 2006. The gallery is closed during this period and the project would only be visible from the vantage point of the street. This blog is both a publication of the process of making a project for this particular context and an antidote to a type of restraint that will be explored. I have been working towards this project for over a month now - I decided to start this journal on Saturday 5th November and only start posting a week later. In terms of letting it all out, I will need to retrospectively reflect at some stage – like some hazy process driven dream sequence. Last Saturday I attended the Australian Homosexual Histories Conference and it's from here that my blogging begins. Although it could more accurately be called word processing at this stage (wog – not my joke). Anyway. I feel excited by the added pathways the conference has lead me towards. It also allowed me to design for the Gertrude St. component quite prolifically as I work well with talk in the background without the internet and phone as interferences.