heroic stage of creative types anyway?â ..... The café was crowded, as usual, and filled with smoke and talk. .... ro
MAGAZINE
ISSUE
#01
IMAGE USED AS STARTING POINT FOR THE EXCERPT EXHIBITION (KEEP READING TO FIND OUT MORE)
1
MAGAZINE
COVER IMAGE
WELCOME Our cover artist Lucas Blalock takes photographs that are familiar within their unfamiliarity. Experiencing photographic déjà vu, there is a sense you have seen it before or should have seen it before yet your expectations aren’t quite aligning. Blalock deftly toys with the idea of standard images of predictable objects and comes up with photographs you are not quite ready for that trigger a subtle double-take.
Excerpt Magazine concentrates on short pieces of text and images that together form a collection of thoughtful insights and exchanges around photo-based practice. As an independent publication we have been overwhelmed by all the support we have received. So many people have helped us realise our ambition, to make a magazine that is as creative in its self as in its contents.
Blalock seemed the perfect artist to invite for the cover of Excerpt Issue 1 and his image figure with blanket (arms raised), 2010 became the image ten people responded to visually within the first issue. Creating a domino effect of intrigue, we hope you will find this section as compelling as we do.
We hope you enjoy the launch issue of Excerpt Magazine.
EDITORS Amy Marjoram & Kate Robertson
[email protected] Creative Director Laura Gulbin
[email protected] SUPPORTERS Lou Hubbard Louis Porter
© 2011 EXCERPT MAGAZINE No part of this publication can be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission.
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CONTENTS
Catharine Maloney
4
Running From Camera_Muggezifter 5 PDA_Daniel Palmer
my vanishing act_Kim Guthrie
10-6 _ Jessica Williams
PHOTO INTERVIEW_Sanja Pahoki PDA_Daniel Palmer
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Mashed Art Writing_The hipster with a camera 18 my vanishing act_Kim Guthrie 20 10-6 – The Kitchen in NYC_ Jessica Williams
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Where’s the FUCK YOU ART?
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excerpt from Fantasticology_Alex Kershaw 28 QUOTES_SELECTED BY Rachel Stern 31 Where’s the FUCK YOU ART?
Fantasticology_Alex Kershaw
Zhong Ling
QUOTES_SELECTED BY KATE ROBERTSON 32 Zhong Ling_
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The Periphery_Claire Richardson 36 eBay Display_secretbetweenus 38 Making Time_Jessica Williams
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Excerpt Exhibition
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Contributor links
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THANK-YOU 56 The Periphery_Claire Richardson
eBay Display_secretbetweenus
Excerpt Exhibition
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Group 5, 2011
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Running from
Camera Muggezifter
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SAnja PAhoki
Q.1 Show us something about where you live?
A PHOTO INTERVIEW
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PHOTO INTERVIEW
Sanja Pahoki
Q.2
Q.3
Do you dance?
Rules that you break?
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PHOTO INTERVIEW
Sanja Pahoki
Q.4 What don’t you like about photography?
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PHOTO INTERVIEW
Sanja Pahoki
Q.5
Q.6
Funniest thing you have come across recently?
Where do you work?
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PHOTO INTERVIEW
Sanja Pahoki
Q.7 When you think of the future what do you see?
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PHOTO INTERVIEW
Sanja Pahoki
Q.8 So, whats next for you?
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public displays OF
Daniel Palmer
Madrid_2005
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PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION
Daniel Palmer
Venice_2011
Basel_2007
Paris_2006
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PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION
Daniel Palmer
Berlin_2007
VENICE_2011
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PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION
Daniel Palmer
KASSEL_2007
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PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION
Daniel Palmer
VENICE_2011
Barcelona_2008
BERLIN_2007
Melbourne_2010
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PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION
Daniel Palmer
LONDON_2006
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THE HIPSTER WITH A
MAW is written by a minimum of eight anonymous contributors. Submissions are only seen in their individual format by the editor who mashes them together to try to form something somewhat coherent (the editor does not contribute, but simply edits). MAW allows people to put forward ideas without feeling obligated to construct seductively lined-up arguments to support them. MAW supports a lack of justification and a mish-mash of whatever because the stickiest and most interesting thoughts are so often just like that.
CAMERA lot of people in art pretend they’re not competitive like they pretend they’re not cool. A Because really it’s all unwinnable. We like to believe we aren’t comparing our career splutterings to someone else’s success, but you watch and you notice. We all care about how things look. How we look. But we’re smart enough to think we don’t, that we don’t really, that we shouldn’t. But we do. And sometimes all we can do is look good at an opening. A hipster documenting the room with a camera was getting in my way. I need otherwise cause for respect than a nice piece of lense; and I am angry, with myself. A Hip-Star with a camera. Why would a Hip-Star have a camera? There must be some social currency in the idea of an object but where is the use-value in hip currency of this object. The point and shoot digital camera is out, too ordinary. The SLR digital camera, no seriously. Often, it’s their damn phone. Fortunately for the hipster, if you want an image that makes you look more interesting than you are, then there’s an app for that. Even an app named in their honour: Hipstamatic! A picture of a badly lit park bench can turn into that mysterious poignant image. Polishing everything that comes thru the lens: to pitch it to your own micro audience online. Perhaps I am being too harsh and kudos should go to those brave folks who filter and Flikr™ their little hearts out, experimenting with every possible permutation of sunset-wash effect. The hipster with a camera seems to have many cameras. The phone camera is too immediate so sometimes, it’s Polaroid. Thank heavens for the Impossible project, so we can document the evolution from a genuine naive 70s moustache through to an ironic recreation noughties moustache. Occasionally the hipster will spend the best part of an hour explaining why you should prefer analogue, for the materiality, the value, you really have to take care with the images. But we are in the world of working hard to hardly work- the analogue camera not a good work to attitude ratio.
Why would a Hip-Star have a camera? There must be some social currency in the idea.
The digital camera that carries the look of the analogue, this is when form precedes effect. Yes, the retroness of the return to the analogue after the deluge of love for the digital makes sense. This market is new enough to contain the style that appeals to the Hip-Star. The projection of the image of an image to be suspended by the image. The Other’s Other (not the real). This makes the appeal, this matching. 18
THE HIPSTER WITH A CAMERA [continued]
I went out the other night and was seen by a room full of hipsters. They were looking at something hip that looked like art and at each other and at me to make sure that I was looking at them and how hip it was that they were looking at that hip stuff that looked like art. I was looking at them too and at the hip stuff. I didn’t feel very hip though. I am sick of thinking I will, or that I already do, like someone’s art work because they give the idea through appearance and association and damn good looks that they do something interesting. I think I wanted to feel hip cause it didn’t really feel very good not to be. There was a shower curtain slumped gracefully against a plinth. It seemed pretty cool. Some guy came up and started talking to me. He asked me what I thought of the show. I said it all seemed pretty cool. He nodded. I moved and tried leaning up against a wall with a glass of booze. A Hipster with a camera standing nearby was saying, “Once I got used to the idea that I always had a camera in my pocket I started to look at the world a bit differently. I began looking for images everywhere I went...” I feel like my shower curtain at home, limp and bleach stained. I shifted my feet. The hip-star continued, “using the iPhone, you’re invisible, you’re just another guy on the street corner, playing around with his mobile. The feedback you get is quite addictive, and it’s interesting to see which shots get the best reactions. Everyone wants that affirmation as an artist.” I wanted to yell, “everyone has an online gallery, a web page and social media sites, aren’t we beyond that heroic stage of creative types anyway?”
I felt like everyone was looking right at me. I’m pretty sure they knew I was meant to be at home mopping up shower water. Although they were probably just looking at themselves on Facebook, looking hip and looking at hip things. The hipster extends the photographic tradition of photographing the banal, the everyday, by taking it one step further- by finding a banal platform to exhibit their photographs.
shooting from the hip; drunk friends, what they just ate, late night bike rides, cute girls, their kitchen.
If you are responding to this discussion point, if you are editing, if you are reading it anywhere, you are most probably hipster. How else did you get it? The arts community is small, in-house, in a fashionable, vicious feeding pen; you need your cool to survive. “No!” I hear you say. Hipster implies an extreme of ridiculous, of something slavish to current trends. This isn’t a question of how tight are your jeans; if you’re “in” the art scene you’re probably cooler than most. And I mean cooler than a random cross section of same age contemporaries in Dandenong, Gippsland, Queensland. This is the big picture, and cool, yes; means contemporary art. I know we take it seriously, but for most of the population it’s ridiculous, as ridiculous as acid wash denim and irony.
The hipster with a camera has Facebook albums composed largely of self-portrait photos with a vacant stare to just below centre, checking facial poses in the Photo booth photos taken in front of a fucking Macbook every fucking day. Or with melted-waxy, coolieweakling arms snaking either side to hold up the camera the wrong way (you’re supposed to point them away from you.) I’ve looked through my parent’s photo albums; never saw a single one of those sorts of pictures. Like some terrible degenerative disease blunted our ability to control eye muscles and turned arms into bloated, handless stumps that were stuck pointing upwards. Anyone can hit a target with enough time given enough bullets. The hipster with a camera is image-rich. I don’t have nearly as many images of my life. I guess I’ll just have to rely on memories of what I have to be proud of, or to regret. The hipster with a camera doesn’t have that problem. Not because all such deeds are documented, but because there are so many documents it turns into a tidal wave of infinitely re-combine-able units of experience, a wave that no-one could effectively dissect, or take any responsibility for. No regrets. No pride. Anything can be fixed in the machine afterwards.
This is about hipsters; which is two things: you’re always cool to someone and there’s always someone cooler than you. When we see people cooler than ourselves, we’re terrified it reflects a more interesting career, an interesting life. Yet, they’re hip, we’re cool. So why the vitriol? Why the derision? Why hate what we are?
Hipsters with a camera shooting from the hip - drunk friends, what they just ate, late night bike rides, cute girls, their kitchen. The hipster provides vital documentation of a specific time: of increasing awareness of their own identities within a rapidly increasing technological age, with the rise of online narcissism to validate one’s offline - and online - existence. Glibness is widespread with the rise of the technological age - and not just a mark of the hipster.
We are creative thinkers, this is the bubbling crust of contemporary culture. Be interesting enough that you aren’t threatened by other interesting people. May my clothes be the subject of ridicule and my thoughts addressing trend. I’m an artist and its pretty fucking hip. Stop bitching and get cooler. Edited together by Amy Marjoram, from a minimum of eight anonymous contributors.
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Kim Guthrie I’ve always been drawn to the margins of society and lived there. I feel a brotherhood with the disenfranchised, the people regularly overlooked by the mainstream (and let’s face it they are mostly always more interesting). I’m paying my camera’s attention to the value I see inherent in the everyman. The question I’m most often asked about my work is how I convince people to let me take their photograph? I’m not really sure, I try to treat everyone the same and be honest; most respond favourably some refuse. But I have had a fairly adventurous life and would like to think I’m street wise, which I think helps; I’m not spooked easily.
I’m addressing head-on our cultural cringe
I’m exploring Australian-ness, trying to get to the essence of us. My work is a warts and all antithesis to the superficial and faked images that are pumped out by the popular media and the over-Photoshopped and sanitized imagery sometimes presented in this digital age as “art”. It’s my purposely-considered approach to be unmistakably Australian, as it’s my belief we are exotic to the rest of the world and thus interesting. I’m addressing head-on our cultural cringe. My work is things and people as I’ve encountered them, one’s that have had that particular “magic” to attract my attention, enough to approach them and photograph them. It’s the reality of my experience, but I’m not there. Kim Guthrie 2011
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MY VANISHING ACT
KIM Guthrie
I’m exploring Australian-ness, trying to get to the essence of us
PREVIOUS PAGE 1 War all the time__Kid in a skate park wearing a t-shirt he drew himself__Man with his dog 2 Jamie__Man with a wolf on his t-shirt__Kevin 3 The young ones (triptych) 4 Fashion our way__Couple in Narrabri with their grandchildren__Fries 6 Zepp__Ian__FTW 7 Gentleman in Cowra__Jen__Girl in a gallery with Damien Hirst wallpaper THIS PAGE 1 Shyla__Talk to the hand 2 Brooke & Lance__Three girls smoking 3 Yellow Flamingo__Lurlene & David__Bug 4 Canberra__Two people in an art gallery__ Elder Moran & Elder Horlacher 5 Wood__Media circus__Post
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A collection of images taken in 2009 while working at The Kitchen in NYC
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10-6 – Kitchen_NYC
Jessica Williams
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10-6 – Kitchen_NYC
Jessica Williams
_10-6 24
There’s no radical art, where’s the
FUCK YOU ART?
Where’s that? Where’s that art? ** MARK McGowan asked this during one of his “artist taxi driver” video monologues www.youtube.com/user/chunkymark
**
Amy Marjoram, Daniel Munn & Ka-Yin Kwok respond to this question RESPONSE by Daniel Munn “Generally speaking, art is an expression of man’s need for an harmonious and complete life, that is to say, his need for those major benefits of which a society of classes has deprived him. That is why a protest against reality, either conscious or unconscious, active or passive, optimistic or pessimistic, always forms part of a really creative piece of work. Every new tendency in art has begun with rebellion.” e-flux recently posted this quotation, in which Leon Trotsky cunningly portrays the political effect of art as both the source of its evolution and the entire product of its power to resist. Artist Willem de Rooij suggests a broader interpretation of radical artworks, “Saying no to the demands of the art world, in my understanding, is one of the most important weapons that you have as an artist."2 In response to Mark Magowan’s question, I want
1 2
Cory Arcangel Here Comes Everybody _2010 to refute the underlying assumption of Trotsky's statement (i.e. that art is solely a political tool) and map out some of the broad domains across which art can say “Fuck you.”3 Art can resist the expectations of the previous generation. It can work outside of the traditions of the museum. It can defy demands for authenticity. It can resist formal expectations: scale, location, value, access, visibility, duration, or durability. In The Conservative Artwork Christopher Stokes argues that even artwork which crystallizes mainstream world-views avoids a simple, monodimensional perspective on the world through the density of both its sign and structure. 4 In late 2010 I visited the exhibition “Here Comes Everybody” by artist Cory Arcangel at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. On display was the artist's video compilation work A Couple Thousand Short Films about Glenn Gould, Composition #7, a modification of a ‘Guitar Hero’ type video-game, and Modified Dancing
Trotsky, L. (2011). “Excerpt from Art and Politics in Our Epoch.” E-flux on Facebook. Williams, C. d. R., Willem (2010). As We Speak. Frieze Magazine.
Stands, constructed from over-the-counter kinetic product display stands. I had previously encountered Arcangel’s video work via the artist’s YouTube channel and also through the book of the same title. Composition #7 references a work by minimalist composer La Monte Young and the player is asked to hold only a single chord for the duration of the game. My encounter with both works contained a sense of emptiness. By refusing to provide the singular presence one might expect of a video or interactive work within the exhibition space they took a radical stance. The Modified Dancing Stands were therefore a microcosm of the exhibition as a whole in the way in which they produced a two dimensional illusion of bending lines. This illusion echoed the relationship between Archangel’s exhibition space within the Hamburger Banhof and the fragmented milieu of formats through which he distributes his works.
3 4
Williams, C. d. R., Willem (2010). As We Speak. Frieze Magazine. Stokes, C. (2011). “The Conservative Artwork.” Maddalo Blogspot.
Hamburger Bahnhof installation shot, image courtesy of the artist.
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where’s the
FUCK YOU ART?
RESPONSE by Ka-Yin Kwok Group photo > A scene from Park Chan-Wook’s Sympathy for Lady Vengeance_2005
Geum-ja is a wronged woman. Thirteen and a half years in prison is a long time to endure for a murder she didn’t commit. After Geum-ja is released she finds Mr Baek, the real killer of the victim Won-mo and of many other children, still working as a school teacher. With the help of her former prison inmates, Geum-ja captures Mr Baek. The parents of Mr Baek’s victims are invited to an abandoned school. Seated like a class, they watch videos of their children begging Mr Baek for mercy. In another classroom, Mr Baek is tied to a chair. Plastic sheets line the floor. Wearing raincoats, the parents sit outside in the school corridor. Provided with an assortment of weapons, each parent has their turn with Mr Baek and leaves covered in blood. The last, a grandmother, enters the room with a pair of children’s scissors. The scissors is later removed from Mr Baek’s neck. The parents lift the sheet of plastic holding his blood and pour it into a bucket. Bonded by the experience, the group poses for a photo.
RESPONSE by Amy Marjoram I do not sleep tonight > Video still_Courtesy: Galleria Continua, San Gimignano/ Beijing / Le Moulin_ 2010
When I was in China last year I felt I was never alone, not because of the 1.3 billion population, because of the tight security control that left me with a distinct impression of my own insecurity. Quite simply the bug eyed cameras, the white security vans, the checkpoints, created a slippery omnipresence, not quite in your face until it suddenly was. Then in Beijing at Galleria Continua I saw the video I do not sleep tonight (2010) where the artists Sun Yuan & Peng Yu had installed emergency lights on a white SUV and had cruised around Beijing all night, in plain view of security vans, checking things out whilst not being checked out. Seeing the footage shot through the SUV windows of the artists vehicle as they trailed an actual police car, I kept waiting for their ruse to come smashing down, but it didn’t. The sleek anonymity of the security vans became a veneer that shielded the artists. The artists, the exhibition audience, Beijing security, were all in different ways taken for a ride.
26
where’s the
FUCK YOU ART?
RESPONSE by Amy Marjoram THE actions of Voina >
RESPONSE by Amy Marjoram
It has been alleged that the Russian art collective Voina in 2010 upturned 7 police cars in St Petersburg, as an act of performance art titled Palace Revolution. This video, may document the action: VIEW VIDEO
This guy has my macbook >
Of an earlier work Oleg Vorotnikov, a founding Voina member, has stated in a written interview: The corrupt, dirty cops started hunting for us after our action Dick Captured by KGB, in which we painted a huge phallus – 65 m high, 27 m across – on the Liteiny drawbridge in St. Petersburg. As the bridge opened, the erect dick weighing 4 thousand tons menacingly showed a massive “Fuck you!” to a building directly opposite the headquarters of the KGB’s successors, the Federal Security Service1. VIEW VIDEO
Images courtesy of Joshua Kaufman
Oleg Vorotnikov: We don’t cooperate with commercial galleries, curators, and art institutions. We don’t sell our works on principle. It is impossible to “embed” us into the art market for the simple reason that we don’t give a shit about it1!
Joshua Kaufman had his macbook stolen after he had installed anti-theft software on it. This software enabled him to capture images of the thief. The thief deleted Joshua’s account, and yet this erasure was incomplete as Joshua quietly watched and screen grabbed the act and put this online on a specially created blog for all to see. The theft of an object became the theft of the thief’s image, we see him nap on a couch, drive, sits in bed. The thief was caught, the laptop was returned and Joshua was able to erase his erasure. A story of possession and retribution within the art of the FUCK YOU.
Oleg Vorotnikov, stated in a Reuters interview in 2008, “I believe one of the tasks of the young artistic community is to demonstrate unrestrained action.” en.free-voina.org
1 source: interview by Forrest Muelrath in Bomblog http://bombsite.com/issues/1000/articles/4776)
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Fantasticology Alex Kershaw an excerpt from Fantasticology: Participatory Video and the ‘Impossibility’ of the Other
Alice Springs: 13th December 2007
Franky Japanangka, Teddy Egan Jangala and Peter Yates arrived where we were staying in east Alice Springs at round 9 a.m. I had met Peter the last time I was in Alice Springs when I had come to give a talk at the Des Arts annual general meeting. The talk was to art centre coordinators about photographic documentation of artwork in remote communities where they had limited facilities. After my talk I got talking to Peter who mentioned that he ran a company called Vast Film Services, casting aboriginal talent in Alice Springs. Peter had worked casting extras for films such as Rabbit Proof Fence (2002) and The Tracker (2002). In negotiation with Peter on this trip I had asked him if he could find some actors that knew indigenous sign language. Peter organised Franky, an Anmatyerre elder, and Teddy a Warlpiri elder, who were both living in Alice Springs at the time. Apart from being painters, dancers and senior lawmen they knew Warlpiri sign language 1.
1 Many Australian Aboriginal cultures use sign languages as a part of their spoken language system. This is used in situations where speech is undesirable such as: contexts where there are speech taboos; while hunting; in private communication; across distances; while ill; or for subjects that require a special reverence or respect. Signs are also used as an accompaniment to speech. For a detailed analysis see: Kendon, A. (1988). Sign Languages of Aboriginal Australia: Cultural, Semiotic and Communicative Perspectives. Cambridge and Melbourne, Cambridge University 28
excerpt from Fantasticology
Alex Kershaw
The day before this shoot Peter asked me if I would like the men in ceremonial paint with loincloths and spears. While I was a little surprised considering he knew the work was set in the present I guess this was a fairly standard request if you run a talent agency. We invited the three men inside for some tea and conversation. Franky and Teddy talked about their travels overseas where they had performed as dancers, while I tried to explain what I was doing in Alice Springs. After a while we left the house with the camera gear and headed up Spencer Hill, which is across the street from the house. I had chosen a location further up the hill but it turned out to be too difficult for the actors to get to so I decided on another spot. I set up the camera and got Franky and Teddy into position. I asked them
to sign to one another about anything they wanted. I felt strange watching them as I had no idea what they were saying. After a couple of minutes Teddy began laughing and then began talking with Peter who was off camera, so it ended up turning into a break. I was not sure what was so funny and after some confusion Teddy explained they had been chatting about hunting kangaroo but then changed the subject to what they had got up to that morning including having seen a really good looking woman at the shops on their way to the shoot. I liked the way they were having fun with the filming process and telling the camera things that I could not know. It seemed like an appropriate inversion of the process. We continued filming for another hour or so and then headed back down the hill.
In hindsight I can say I was drawn to signing as it embodied a différend, something that I was ignorant of and that could not be put into language. For a long time I did not think I would use the footage. To me it seemed nostalgic, I did not know how I could ever embody that moment of play, that irrational moment where I was tricked. How could I say ‘this is not Warlpiri sign’ but ‘this is a différend’? When I returned to Sydney I played around with the footage, configuring each of the men on separate screens creating a diptych. While I was still very unresolved I prepared the edit and took a copy of it with me on my next trip to Alice Springs. While I was there I decided to try and find somebody to narrate the sequence for me—to try and account for that ‘impossibility’ of the experience. After some looking around I found a young radio announcer called Shari
Larkins through Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA). Shari was now working as a presenter for Imparja Television on their morning kids show called Yamba’s Playtime. Shari and I met over coffee to discuss her involvement and the project in general. She agreed and a few days later we made the sound recording. I directed Shari to simply narrate what she saw on screen. I was surprised by Shari’s approach. While she had some idea what they were talking about Shari chose not to attempt a literal translation. Instead her approach beautifully embodies that moment by bringing a sense of play and the différend that were part of the original experience into the video work itself. While this video would never have been possible without my authoring, it equally owes a debt to all the participants who contributed something of themselves in its realisation.
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excerpt from Fantasticology
Alex Kershaw
The final sequence does not have a specific meaning. I have included it because it embodies a sensibility that resonates with my experience of Alice Springs. In a word that sensibility is ‘tangled’. This sequence was filmed in a brief moment of playful subterfuge where one thing was said instead of another. Shari’s ventriloquism then tampered with this — extending it to infer movements that go back and forth, round in circles, or facing a stranger as they knock on your door. If there was ever a place that made me unsure how I felt about so many different things it is Alice Springs. The town’s population of around 27,500 live relatively close together due to a shortage of available land for residential housing. It has a
2
small town centre with one large supermarket, where its diversity of cultures traverse the aisles day-by-day. They are exposed to one another and get tangled up in each other’s lives. The Arrernte name for Alice Springs is Mparntwe, which means ‘meeting place’ — so it has always been a place where people from different places come together. Alice Springs is home to Arrernte culture. It is also a base for Northern Territory tourism; provides the labour for Pine Gap; a hub for central desert art; and the epicentre of government agencies involved in land management and the indigenous service industry. On top of all this as an image, it is a highly charged symbol of the Australian outback.2
While making this work I struggled with how to register the radically separate communities of people who live in this small town where they are constantly pushed together. This sequence implicates a sense of connectedness and disconnectedness, where much is alluded to but nothing is said. This sequence is like many of the other vignettes in One of Several Centres, where Alice Springs is provoked through allusion. Some of these include notions of: welcome (turf rolls laid out on a rounda-bout); resistance (barrier tape rolled out through abandoned cinema); or exertion (a remote mental health nurse stacking chairs
to a precarious height). Through this sequence and many like it the Alice Springs I have accounted for is a place of activity, absurdity, possibility and complexity. It is a landscape brought to life through: its indigenous history; the ingenuity of people who live there; the introspection its sonically silent landscapes engender; and the friction between its different cultural inhabitants. In this sequence Shari provokes the spaces in-between Franky and Teddy’s conversation—they are all doing something — they are tangled up with the town and with themselves, suggesting there is not one but several centres.
ine Gap is a joint defence space research facility between the United States and Australia. P About four hundred American families moved to Alice Springs in 1970 when it began. See, Stanton, J. (2000). The Australian Geographic Book of the Red Centre. Terrey Hills, New South Wales, Australian Geographic, p. 57. 30
QUOTES excerpt selected by
Rachel Stern
Living My Life
by Emma Goldman _1931 Chapter 3
In her autobiography“Living My Life” Emma Goldman writes about how she often came under attack for her “fine tastes,” and specifically her love of flowers. While she was promoting anarchism, the rights of the proletariat and the working man, free love, etc. she would take every chance she could to attend the opera or drink fine wine and particularly relished a gift of flowers. Her (primarily male) comrades berated her for they felt that it was frivolous and selfish to spend even a penny on these lavish and bourgeois extravagancies. Goldman saw that there was no revolution without flowers for there is no use in fighting for a perfect world if that world would be full of people who could not love flowers and were not interested in the opera. Goldman knew that meaning and responsibility should never be ignored but their practice is married to their goal, which is always in the end some form of beauty. We can take this attitude in our image making – allow ourselves to make work that is enjoyable, that affirms life that in some way deliberately ignores our sense of responsibility and instead celebrates our need for beauty.
Berkman did not wait till we reached the café. “A good anarchist,” he began with deep conviction, “is one who lives only for the Cause and gives everything to it. My friend here” — he indicated Fedya — “is still too much of a bourgeois to realize that. He is a mamenkin sin (mother’s spoilt darling), who even accepts money from home.” He continued to explain why it was inconsistent for a revolutionary to have anything to do with his bourgeois parents or relatives. His only reason for tolerating his friend Fedya’s inconsistency, he added, was that he gave most of what he received from home to the movement. “If I’d let him, he’d spend all his money on useless things `beautiful,’ he calls them. Wouldn’t you, Fedya?” He turned to his friend, patting him on the back affectionately. The café was crowded, as usual, and filled with smoke and talk. For a little while my two escorts were much in demand, while I was greeted by several people I had met during the week. Finally we succeeded in capturing a table and ordered some coffee and cake. I became aware of Fedya watching me and studying my face. To hide my embarrassment I turned to Berkman. “Why should one not love beauty?” I asked; “flowers, for instance, music, the theatre — beautiful things?” “I did not say one should not,” Berkman replied; “I said it was wrong to spend money on such things when the movement is so much in need of it. It is inconsistent for an anarchist to enjoy luxuries when the people live in poverty.” “But beautiful things are not luxuries,” I insisted; “they are necessaries. Life would be unbearable without them.” Yet, at heart, I felt that Berkman was right. Revolutionists gave up even their lives — why not also beauty? Still the young artist struck a responsive chord in me. I, too, loved beauty. Our poverty-stricken life in Königsberg had been made bearable to me only by the occasional outings with our teachers in the open. The forest, the moon casting its silvery shimmer on the fields, the green wreaths in our hair, the flowers we would pick — these made me forget for a time the sordid home surroundings. When Mother scolded me or when I had difficulties at school, a bunch of lilacs from our neighbour’s garden or the sight of the colourful silks and velvets displayed in the shops would cause me to forget my sorrows and make the world seem beautiful and bright. Or the music I would on rare occasions be able to hear in Königsberg and, later, in St. Petersburg. Should I have to forgo all that to be a good revolutionist, I wondered. Should I have the strength?
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QUOTES excerpt selected by
Kate Robertson
Donald Thomson in Arnhem Land Donald Thomson
An account from the 1935-1943 expedition Page 51 – 52 Page xiii: Using a Thornton Pickard half-plate camera and a Graflex he (Thomson) built dark-rooms in the field at each location where he spent any length of time and he developed the glass negatives on the spot. Often he worked late at night or in the early hours of the morning to develop the negatives because in the summer months these were the only times when water temperatures fell back to suitable levels. The plates published (in this book) have been chosen from the total of some 2,200 that he took in Arnhem Land….
I cannot describe adequately that journey. We were both by this time in a desperate state; the pain of the sand on our now skinned and lacerated feet, and swollen legs, brought a feeling of numbness, and of intense cold. There was about us a vast space that seemed suddenly to have closed in, like a material, substantial thing. It was as if at each step we had to force our way through a solid nothingness. So had the sense of unreality become fantastic. Joshua had long abandoned his blanket. I tore mine up now to make bandages for my feet, but these filled with sand, which added to the pain of the wounds, and after many attempts, the idea had to be abandoned. After a while we didn’t talk much. Our pace was reduced to little more than a crawl. Joshua insisted on lying down at frequent intervals, but for me these halts only made matters worse. Before the day was out we had some difficulty in getting on to our feet after a rest, and the pain of walking again was intensified by each halt. We walked as close to the water’s edge as possible, for the sand was harder there and progress less painful. But it was an intense effort even to move up the width of the beach. Early that morning I noticed what appeared to be a dead turtle on the waters edge – so shrunken and emaciated that it seemed to have been long dead. It proved to be a small green turtle, thrown up on the beach in the storms of the past week, injured too badly to regain the water, but still alive. It provided us with some meat which we needed badly, very pale in colour, for it has little blood; almost like fish. A little later in the morning we saw turtle tracks across the beach and found a nest of fresh eggs. We dug these out, broke the soft parchment-like shells, and greedily swallowed some of them raw. The remainder we carried. Early in the day, we came abreast of Bickerton Island which lies between Groote Eylandt and Cape Burrow at the head of Bennet Bay. But by nightfall, after a full day’s walk, we had made such little progress that we were still miles from Cape Barrow. This was the worst day of the journey. Joshua lay down at frequent intervals and when I tried to get him on to his feet he begged me to leave him behind. I knew that we could not now be far from Bennet Bay. If I could find water we could live for several days on the turtle eggs.
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Zhong Ling 钟灵
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钟灵 Zhong Ling
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钟灵 Zhong Ling
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TheThe Periphery Periphery Claire Richardson
…So, there is this thing, and it’s called moving image art. And it’s an art movement, and it’s a medium, and it’s creative and it is art, but which part of it is the art? Which part of it represents the art concept itself? Confused? I think we all are…
Moving image work, including new media, video art, and so many of these disciplines, has proliferated. A series of projections, screens and interactions populate our walls, our galleries, our computers and our public spaces. Every biennale, triennial and arts festival, littered with these wonderfully hectic interventions. As a medium, moving image intrigues and excites us. But, years after its emergence, it continues to confuse us.
on a temporal plane. As a medium, it is also impermanent. Constructed of videotape, CD, DVD or binary code, it is prone to disintegration like the trickiest kind of contemporary installation. Even the playing equipment required to bring the piece to life (players, computers, or even mac-minis) risks becoming technically obsolete within a matter of years. In short, its entire premise and construction circumvents the traditional art object.
In the beginning, peripheries acted to document and, in a way, rematerialize performance works. Yves Klein called them the “ashes of his art”, the parts that were left behind to index and record a fleeting art performance.3 For instance, the prints made when Klein painted a group of nude models and then directed them in imprinting their figures onto paper in Anthropometry, 1960 these were his peripheries.4
Moving image is a damn tricky medium. It is popular, constantly present, and yet somehow elusive. Introduced as a means to ‘service’ other art forms (recording and documenting the performance works of artists such Bruce Nauman and William Anatasi), moving image has developed into an important form of artistic expression in its own right.1 An unwitting delinquent of the art scene, it challenges us to rethink what art is and what an art object looks like.
But, the art world is not stupid. It sees the success of this movement, this little colony, and, the potential of its endurance.
For artist Robert Smithson, peripheries were his ‘Non-Sites’.5 Collections of photographs, documentary footage and artist sketches that referenced and represented his ambitious sculptural projects such as earthwork Spiral Jetty, 1970 - an installation comprising a 1,500 foot jetty constructed of earth and black basalt on the edge of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, USA.6 Like Klein’s ‘ashes’, Smithson utilized these peripheries to stand in for, and materialize an otherwise absent artwork.
Moving image is complicated. As a medium, it is somehow immaterial. It lacks the tactile qualities of other, more traditional art mediums such as painting, drawing and sculpture. And, though seemingly tangible when being played (projected or otherwise), the essence of a dormant work is difficult to grasp. It is also duplicable, which, although promotes its dispersal and consequently its survival, dilutes the ‘aura’ associated with a singular, exclusive artwork. In addition, a moving image work is performative. It plays out for us, and ends
…So now, there is another thing, and I call it ‘the periphery.’ And it can be a number of things, and it represents all the elements that are linked to an artwork, or to a moving image work. Elements that aren’t necessarily in our immediate sight, but are somehow felt, and quietly acknowledged. Confused again? We have seen them all before. They have been called remnants, ‘archival exhibition’ materials, ‘transformative actions’ or ‘material components’, and they lace the art historical canon.2 They are the preparatory sketches, documentary photographs, storyboards, even videos, and, in the case of moving image artworks, packaging, certificates of authenticity and collateral, which stabilize and give form to otherwise elusive artworks. They anchor them, and help us to address and alleviate our scattered confusion.
Today, the role of these peripheral elements has advanced. Preparatory sketches, artwork packaging, and certificates of authenticity are now a means by which the art world supports and coddles a variety of contemporary works. A way in which tricky art, including moving image works, may be defined and explained. As a result, peripheries lace the practice of many moving image artists, including that of Australian artist Shaun Gladwell.7
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The Periphery
Claire Richardson
Shaun Gladwell is a rock star of contemporary art practice...
Shaun Gladwell Endoscopic Vanitas (No Veins Version)_2011 Courtesy the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery
Shaun Gladwell’s work, predominately moving image practice, is subject to all of the mediums’ niggling issues. It is immaterial, performative, unpredictable, and as such, often confusing. And so, to address this myriad of concerns, Gladwell’s moving image pieces are sold alongside peripheries. Surrounding packaging (carefully produced cases featuring artwork stills), and a signed certificate of authenticity accompany any moving image artwork sold, indexing what lays dormant inside the casing. These items, these peripheries, compensate for an apparent lack of physicality and as such, allow an art world to more easily commodify, explain, and in some cases, legitimize an otherwise difficult art form. These peripheries give so much support to the work, in fact, that versions of them appear in public galleries too. The display of Endoscopic Vanitas (no veins version), 2011 at the ACMI exhibition Shaun Gladwell: Stereo Sequences is a case in point.8 An installation made up of a human skull, camera and video screen, Gladwell’s Endoscopic Vanitas… is a full and complex work. Located in its own, darkened multimedia
room, and shrouded in a cloud of mist, the work presents a live feed from a carefully roaming, endoscopic camera – set inside of the human skull. Around another corner of the exhibition, a drawing, an artist’s sketch, quietly accompanies the work. It is not part of the above-mentioned installation, but is certainly connected. The sketch is Untitled, 2011, and is a working illustration.9 Comprised of a drawing of a skull, a camera, some holding equipment, and hand written notes, the sketch breaks down what may be seen in the other room. But why does it lurk there? Unlike Yves Klein and Robert Smithson’s peripheries, this offering does not simply reference an absent work. After all, the moving image piece is available for the viewer, just around the corner. It is not just a way to commodify the installation either, as the pieces are no doubt available for purchase separately, if available at all. Instead, this sketch is a means by which the exhibition curator can highlight the artistry, the skill and the thought involved
in the production of Endoscopic Vanitas… It draws attention to an otherwise absent auteur and helps to legitimize a highly technological, and difficult art form. Negated to a quiet corridor, across from interactive ACMI screens and reference catalogues, Untitled assists the viewer to understand Gladwell’s moving image practice and to link it to more traditional, indeed, more familiar and digestible art processes. … And so, there is this thing, and it’s called moving image art. And its existence is littered with peripheries, supports, and explanations, but are they really that helpful? Do we really need the apparent reinforcement they provide? Does Endoscopic Vanitas… gain something through the inclusion of these elements? Is a Shaun Gladwell piece somehow legitimized by its attractive packaging? Or, do we risk allowing the artwork itself to be made obsolete by the very “redundancy that transports it”?10 Do we risk heightening our confusion by our own attempts to resolve it? Still Confused? Good.
1 Bruce Nauman (b.1941), William Anatasi (b. 1933). 2 H. Rosenberg, ‘De-Aestheticization’ in G. Battcock, The New Art. A Critical Anthology, New York: E.P. Dutton and Co. Inc, 1973 (1966), pp. 178-87; C. Green, ‘Words and Images.The Fate of Australian Performance’ in N. Waterlow, 25 Years of Performance Art in Australia, exh. cat., NSW: Ivan Dougherty Gallery, 1994, p. 16; Performance artist Carolee Scheemann referred to her photographic documentation of performative works such as Eve Body as her “transformative actions.” C. Schneemann, ‘The Obscene Body/ Politic’, Art Journal, 50.4, 1991, p. 28. 3 Yves Klein (1928-1962); Y. Klein, Selected Writings 1928-1962, London: The Tate Gallery, 1974, p. 53. 4
Yves Klein, Untitled Anthropometry, 1960. 225 x 145 cm, pigments blue, synthetic resin on fine fabric, is an example of a periphery. It was created during the first public exhibition of Anthropometry, which took place in Paris, 9 March 1960.
5
obert Smithson (1938-1973). R. Smithson, ‘A Provisional Theory of R Non Sites (1968)’ in J. Flam, Robert Smithson. Collected Writings, Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996, p. 364.; As stated by Smithson,
“I have developed the Non-Site, which in a physical way contains the disruption of the site [...]” R. Smithson, ‘A Sedimentation of the Mind. Earth Projects (1968)’ in J. Flam, Robert Smithson. Collected Writings, Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996, p. 111. 6 Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970. Earth and black basalt. Utah: Dia Art Foundation. Robert Smithson, The Spiral Jetty, 1970. Film. New York: Museum of Modern Art, Circulating Film and Video Library is an example of a periphery, created from this work. 7 Shaun Gladwell (b. 1972). 8 Shaun Gladwell: Stereo Sequences, Melbourne: Australian Centre of the Moving Image, 1 June – 14 August 2011. Endoscopic Vanitas (no veins version), 2011, human skull, endoscopes, electronics, fog screen, lighting, sound. 9 Untitled, 2011, ink and graphite on paper, 25 x 37cm. 10 R. Smithson, ‘The Spiral Jetty’ in L. Cooke and K. Kelly, Robert Smithson. Spiral Jetty. True Fictions, False Realities, New York: Dia Art Foundation and University of California Press, 2005, p.8
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MAKING
TIME
INTERVIEW WITH
Jessica Williams
Jinjoo Huwang
I had been thinking a lot about the relationship between making art and making a living.
Ideas and impressions in my head homogenize so I don’t really consider my job and my personal work mutually exclusive.
When I was asked to guest blog on I Heart Photograph for a week in February 2011, I decided I wanted to test out an idea I’d been working out for awhile in my head. More specifically, I had been thinking a lot about the relationship between making art and making a living. To figure out what other people were thinking, I got in touch with a handful of photographers I admired and asked them a short series of questions about how they balance their time. Some had day jobs and others did not. However, each interview brought something new into focus and together they make a very interesting read. Since graduating with a BFA from the Cooper Union in 2008, I have worked two-full time jobs in NYC. One was at a historical experimental arts non-profit and the other at a small for-profit company. I’ve also been freelancing doing everything from commercial photography to teaching computers to an art therapist. I’ve learned a lot of different and unique things from these jobs. However, I ultimately was unable to find quite the right balance between my artistic and work lives. Currently I have gone back to school to pursue my MFA at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. My goals here are to gain a better understanding of both the history and the future of the art academy / figure out how to live a modest yet full artistic life. More and more I have been thinking this is possible completely outside of the realm of the traditional “art world”.
Do you have a day job? What is it?
I do, I work as a dietetic technician at a private hospital in Los Angeles. I mostly work with renal/diabetic patients along with patients with complicated diet prescriptions or allergies. Do the people you work with know you are a photographer?
I don’t think they do. Or at least there’s just very little conversation about photography or art in general in the hospital. I do dress differently from everyone else though, apart from the lab coat. Does the work you do during the day affect your personal work?
Working as a diet tech and being a photographer demands different skill sets but for me they’re somehow processed in the same stream of thinking. I feel like at the end of the day when I sleep, the ideas and impressions in my head homogenize so I don’t really consider my job and my personal work mutually exclusive. Recently though, I’ve been told that if you don’t devote your life solely to art or attend a proper art school, it deprives you of your right to call yourself an artist. I thought about that a lot, but now it just sounds obnoxious. If you could rearrange your time, what would be the ideal balance between your personal and professional work?
I work at the hospital only part-time at the moment, so having time isn’t really an issue. It’s funny though, there are so many moments at work where I wish it were either appropriate to take a photo and/or I had a decent camera with me. So many interesting, weird, scary, gross, and happy things happen pretty often.
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making TIIME
JESSICA WILLIAMS
INTERVIEW WITH
Eric M arth Do you have a day job? What is it?
Being with people who make a living from caring for their place has been a pleasure, and the work itself has yielded some good photographs.
For the past few years I’ve worked as a clerk and bibliographer at a small used bookstore called Riverby Books. It’s a bright and busy store in my hometown of Fredericksburg, Virginia. The shop is owned by a lovely family, and I’m one of a few employees. We stock the shelves (and the stairs) with good books, reading copies of interesting and classic titles. We’re interested in rare and unusual books as well, examples of fine printing and binding. Paul, the owner of the shop, is a bookbinder and keeps busy with making and repairing books for our customers, and putting things together for projects of his own. It’s been a very good place to be and a great place to work. In the growing months of 2010 I worked on a produce farm in Westmoreland County, Virginia called Blenheim, the ancestral home of the Latane family, who farm there today. Blenheim is part of a series of farms on Potomac River once owned by the Washington family. Their place was first the home of William Augustine Washington, the nephew of President George Washington. The farm is very near to Wakefield, President Washington’s birthplace. Blenheim is about four hundred acres, with something like a dozen acres in produce. Much of the farm is woods, and a wonderful place for bird hunting. There’s a lot of delicious stuff growing out there, strawberries, asparagus, tomatoes, potatoes, cabbages, elephant garlic, apples, peppers and a lot more. This summer we wrapped up work on a big hoop house and the Latanes grew lettuces and tomatoes during the winter. The family sells at a few markets here in Virginia, and offers weekly shares of produce for about ninety families close by. Work at the farm slowed as the growing season wound down.
This winter I’ve had a handful of small jobs: sorting cattle for a livestock auction, working some odds and ends for a friend of mine who is a builder, and I’m doing some studio modeling for a life drawing class at the University of Mary Washington. Do the people you work with know you are a photographer?
Yes, I’m lucky to be close to a lot of the people I work with. My friends at Riverby, at Blenheim and my friend Jason the builder, have known me for a long time! The students at UMW know that I photograph, too. Does the work you do during the day affect your personal work?
Working at Riverby has put me in contact with a lot of great photography books. And tracking books down for customers has made it easier for me to find the work of photographers I’m interested in. Most of what I’ve learned about photography has come through books, by studying the work of other photographers. My recent work has been made on farms in Orange, Franklin and Westmoreland Counties here in Virginia. Working with the Latanes at Blenheim I’ve had the occasion to make a lot of photographs of their farm and of the family at work. If you could rearrange your time, what would be the ideal balance between your personal and professional work?
I’m looking forward to the coming of Spring and to working again at Blenheim. Being with people who make a living from caring for their place has been a pleasure, and the work itself has yielded some good photographs.
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Excerpt Exhibition______ Excerpt Magazine invited ten people to visually respond to the front cover image by Lucas Blalock to make an exhibition beginning from a visual premise.
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Excerpt Exhibition
Heather Lighton Pilosocereus Catingicola in Chiffon
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Excerpt Exhibition
Janina Green “Truth” Newspaper poster Thornbury, 1989
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Excerpt Exhibition
Ann Woo Glitters
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Excerpt Exhibition
Paul Knight
jenny & christian 2011
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Excerpt Exhibition
Yvette King with Elise King Nanna and Ikea food
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Excerpt Exhibition
Bettina Hamilton Untitled
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Excerpt Exhibition
Michael Meneghetti Uovo cosmico
VIEW VIDEO
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Excerpt Exhibition
Devon Ackermann UNTITLED
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Excerpt Exhibition
Susan Fereday Cabinet
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Excerpt Exhibition
Charlie Kirk Shibuya
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_LINKS___ CONTRIBUTORS
EDITORS Amy Marjoram
http://amymarjoram.com
Lucas Blalock
http://lucasblalock.com
Kate Robertson
http://kate-robertson.com
Catharine Maloney
http://catharinemaloney.com
Muggezifter http://runningfromcamera.blogspot.com
Creative Director
Sanja Pahoki
http://www.sarahscoutpresents.com
Laura Gulbin
Daniel Palmer
http://danielpalmer.com
Kim Guthrie
http://iphotographstuff.blogspot.com
Jessica Williams
http://paperheart.org
Daniel Munn
http://danmunn.com
Ka-Yin Kwok
http://artabase.net/artist/723-ka-yin-kwok
Alex Kershaw
http://alexkershaw.com.au
Rachel Stern
http://MsRachelStern.com
Zhong Ling
http://flickr.com/photos/kulucphr
Claire Richardson
http://linkedin.com/pub/claire-richardson/34/332/3a8
Secretbetweenus
Secretbetweenus eBay seller
http://laurajane.com.au
SUPPORTERS Lou Hubbard
http://sarahscoutpresents.com/lou-hubbard
Louis Porter
http://louisporter.com
EXHIBITION SECTION Heather Lighton
http://heatherdiaries.blogspot.com
Janina Green
http://janinagreen.blogspot.com
Ann Woo
http://annwoo.com
Paul Knight
http://paulknight.com.au
Yvette King
http://artabase.net/artist/1906-yvette-king
Bettina Hamilton
http://artabase.net/artist/3596-bettina-hamilton
Devon Ackermann
http://artabase.net/artist/3525-devon-ackermann
Michael Meneghetti
http://propagandawindow.com http://youtube.com/michaelmeneghetti
Susan Fereday http://susanfereday.net http://sarahscoutpresents.com/susan-fereday Charlie Kirk
http://flickr.com/photos/charlie_kirk 55
_THANKS___ Thank you to all the contributors and readers of Excerpt magazine. To everyone involved with Excerpt magazine we are incredibly grateful. We now look forward to our next issue launching in February 2012. We want as many people as possible to be involved in this project and welcome you all to contact us. We are always seeking potential contributors, editors of segments, ideas, recommendations and feedback. All segments of the magazine are open for people to suggest topics and content.
_PROPS___ Charis McKittrick for her stellar media advice Scott Borys for IT support
Our contributors have kindly provided content without receiving payment and they retain copyright over their material. If you wish to reproduce any parts of Excerpt magazine please contact us. Please subscribe via our website or join our Facebook page to stay in touch.
Keith Wong – the ultimate right hand man Leon Teague for his patience and love
Amy Marjoram & Kate Robertson
[email protected] SUBSCRIBE – IT’S FREE www.excerptmagazine.com FOLLOW US www.facebook.com/excerptmagazine
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