A recorded interview on Prototyping Places
Matthew Connell and Deborah Turnbull
Friday 10 December 2010 @ 11:16am
Transcribed 13 December 2010 @ 10:30am
Edited Transcript © New Media Curation 2010

Deborah Turnbull (DT): In the context of the book chapter that we’re writing [it] has suggested that we...dialogue or conversation around our chapter theme, that it might help flush out the more interesting parts of our task which is curating Beta_space inside the museum.

The first question I want to ask you is how your task as a curator of computers is different or unique to curators of other objects?

Matthew Connell (MC): ...It became apparent to me when I came into the museum and became a curator of computers and mathematics (my official title)...I had to come to terms with the notion of material culture, the museum being an objects-centred culture, and the notion of material culture being at the basis of a lot of what we do. Now that idea is that material culture or objects represent the values of the culture that produced and used these objects and that we can then provide access to those values and beliefs through exhibition or our interpretation of those objects.

When I looked at the artefacts that I was then going to be the custodian of, I was immediately conscious that…there was something missing. Now most of the objects in our collection were the boxes of computers, some had screens, some had teletypes, but they were essentially central processing units, memory devices, peripherals that go with a computing system, that’s if they were bigger systems. These were what I inherited when I got here and then we brought in smaller machines like personal computers and devices that had computers embedded in them. In all cases, I knew that I really only had half a computer in each case...

DT: Because it’s [the object that is] collectable.

MC: That’s right, so we were collecting the hardware and when people talk about the inside of a computer...this I also inherited, there was a discussion about looking into the inside of the computer, people were looking in the back of the electronics and taking the casing off and thinking that this was the inside of the machine. I was conscious that there is an extent to which the hardware of the computers is sort of arbitrary; the real essence of a computer isn’t an object. In fact, I’m not even sure what it is, what’s a programme, and where is it? …Because we had media that contained software; there were discs, there were tapes, there were cards, there were even printouts of source code, but are they the software? They were sort of…

DT: They were the materials…

MC: The material representation of it, yes. So I had this problem in being a curator of computing that the 'stuff' and the object of my collecting was half stuff, half something else…

DT: As yet unidentifiable to you…

MC: That’s right, and providing access to the box I didn’t feel was right either...

DT: Perhaps we should go on to the second question which is how was this problem, the problem of showing the whole computer, met by becoming involved with Beta_space?

MC: The issue came up before we came to Beta_space, because we did a big exhibition called Universal Machines: Computers and Connections where we took down an exhibition where we had defined computers as electronic programmable calculating devices...which was intensely unsatisfying to me, and yet very much of its time [the 1980s]. There was also a lot of stuff about showing the insides of computers as a machine, where I knew that the inside of a computer was really in through the screen, particularly by that time as most of them had screens by then. And, to understand computing you didn’t really get much from looking at the box...not [entirely] devoid of cultural signifiers, but the real stuff of computing is around the interaction [with] the machine. By then it was, and it’s always really been about the interaction with the machine.

DT: It’s a design quandary as well, isn’t it? Interaction with the machine?

MC: Yes, so the other thing is when we did the [new] exhibition, there was an imperative within the museum to talk about this new technology which was redefining who we were in effect. Living as we are in an information age, we’re saying that this technology, this information technology is emblematic of who we are in this particular time….[the] information age. And I was very interested in how going back to the basics of material culture, how this technology reflected the values and beliefs of the producing and using culture.

DT: Did you want people to be able to touch [the objects]…?

MC: I wanted people to be able to play…

DT: …and experience?

MC: …and experience; people wanted to do new things too. The rapid rate of change within information technology and the extreme rapid rate of obsolescence made it very difficult for us. The traditional exhibition medium, is a slow medium. It takes 2 years to conceive and build a big new long term gallery.

DT: [Before we] lead into the third question...which is how has the way that the BSpace project evolved… let’s just focus back on how Bspace helped you to address this problem of showing the stuff [within a museum context that is typically slow moving, when obsolescence is an issue]?

MC: We wanted to show ‘the stuff,’ we wanted to bring in new material, we wanted to rise above the rapid obsolescence problem without having to buy in new technologies and set them up, try to make them available, and [make them] work. Our strategy for that was to try and find partnerships in universities…where we would have access to late prototype research equipment.

MC: … we went to a number of places, found people who were interested, and brought in examples of works in virtual 3D environments, 3D television, robotics, artificial intelligence-based chat-bot machines. The…idea was that as [researchers] progressed their research, we would get the next version of what they produced. But, there were issues there. [Of] all of those projects...a number of them done for the opening exhibition...none of them ultimately delivered the next generation of research... and for a number of reasons.  One thing [that became] know[n] is that there is actually a mis-match between the museum’s objectives and a research environment’s objectives...Part of the problem is that researchers build things out of sticky tape and love it when things go wrong because then they can all leap in…

DT: <laughs>…and fix it!

MC:…and analyse what went wrong and there’s half a dozen PhD students who can’t wait for something to go wrong. In a museum environment, the general public, by and large, don’t accept…and can’t work with...a system [that] breaks down…

DT: This is an interesting point because the point where it’s ok to fail or it’s ok for something to break because we learn something...is a big part of Beta_space, it’s a big part of any experimental space, but Beta_Space in particular inside the museum because it’s managed to function now in its capacity for 6 years… [So] you’re saying then that when these two environments came together, they’re opposite, but they are coming together in terms of  Beta_space. How did it [this evlove]…?

MC: What Beta_space had to offer more than previous [research initiatives], which broke down because ultimately they lacked value for their university department…and they lacked value because what they originally wanted from the partnership was to have their work in public, and that worked,  but it only worked for about 6 months…

DT: Yes…and then it became…

MC: …there. It became just [present] and it became a maintenance issue. And research departments aren’t always spectacularly stable <laughing> it’s often based on grant money, people graduate and leave…too, government grants are subject to shifting research agendas from the research councils.

So all that buys into it and [this preliminary research model] came undone. But at the most basic level, there wasn’t enough value in what we had on display in the museum for those people [the researchers] to keep returning…and that was because in a lot of instances they had hoped to start doing some evaluation of their work in a public space. But none of them, ...physicists or scientists or engineers...understood the move within the research field towards evaluation as a means of judging the value of a piece of research rather than peer review. None of them really had any evaluation techniques, none of them really knew how to set up evaluation criteria for their research let alone how to then somehow extract that from the public. Some of them tried to do a little bit of it, but they were not used to it.

When Beta_space was conceived with Ernest Edmonds, I was initially uncertain. Basically I alerted Ernest to... what I know to be the problems. And he said, well let’s go through them one at a time and see how we can address them. And that’s what we did.

DT: Can you name them…?

MC: Yes.
1) The works that come in have to be far enough along in their development that they’re not broken…and don’t need constant supervision.
2) They have to be fairly simple, there can’t be a huge amount of instruction required for their operation [or] engagement with the program.
3) The people who bring them in, the researchers, need to recognize that the museum is not a research laboratory. They need to understand the culture …and the environment in which they were operating. So there was a need for them to know that we had to do a certain kind of presentation, and they had to understand that there were rules we needed to abide by, safety standards we needed to abide by…

DT: …but also operational standards…

MC:...yes and operational standards because we were doing a huge number of other projects…For instance, it was difficult for some people to realize that if something did break down, the museum workshop were not ready to put down their tools and run and fix an artist’s work up.

DT: So those were the issues that you [two] identified?

MC:…that was [some] of the issues, also
4) I knew and Ernest agreed, that the museum might need to bend as well, that internally how research is conducted and… [it’s] imperatives are not something that was recognized internally within the museum.  So that was something that we had to establish; [each] organization had to show and demonstrate an understanding of the other.  Internally we had to bend a bit to know that we were dealing with experimental works that might [require]…a bit of leeway. We couldn’t schedule things 6-12 months in advance, which is what people like to do in the museum. There needed to be flexibility in our ability to work, but we designed the space and the operation to work that way.

Also, the security demands normally placed on visitors needed to be relaxed in some way to accommodate the Beta_space people. This didn’t happen overnight.  It had to be something we started [a] process on. [Initially] I had to field complaints and issues and smooth things out until people got used to you guys…

DT: And how long do you think that took…[did it happen] within the first 2 years?

MC:… I noticed early that security people…knew about the Beta_space people and all you had to do [to come into the museum] was say that you were with Beta_space…there was a level of accommodation that this was a program within the museum, it was maverick, in some respects it was a nuisance, [again largely because] the schedule wasn’t set a year in advance <laughs>…

DT: …well, we tried <laughs>, but it was ever-evolving. So you’ve already started answering the 3rd question which is how Beta_space started to change the culture in the museum, but what about how it might have changed the way you approach your own practice? In terms of how you’re talking about the objects and what’s inside them or what they inherently embody, how did Beta_space…interrupt what you were doing, present a new method or possibility, an answer to this problem you were already having? So that it changed your own practice…has this happened yet?

MC: Yes and no, it’s certainly happening and has happened. There’s 2 things [that have influenced my practice], there’s the influence of [programs like] Beta_space and there’s the influence of information technology.

DT: Right, on who?

MC: …In a way, I believe that the issues that I encountered as a new curator, because I was dealing directly with information technology, has spread from the boundaries of my curatorial jurisdiction into everybody’s field…these are issues that we face the world over, that … digital technologies are so pervasive, that the same things that are happening to me and my field are happening to everything; it’s just changed the way we understand museums.

It’s changed people’s literacy, its changed people’s expectations; we were once a museum that was renowned for it’s interactives, [based on] the Exploratorium model. But we didn’t just use them for science, we used them everywhere…as a major component in every exhibition there were interactive forms in there to help you to engage with whatever was being delivered through that exhibition. It tended to be touch-screen and button-based. A lot of them were quite didactic…and there is still a sort of residue of that…

DT: …so they still had the nature of the museum?

MC: Yes, but of course today we don’t need to go to a museum to press buttons. So the interaction, that sort of interactive is sort of, is almost quaint and dated…

DT: It could almost be in a museum.

MC: Yes, and some of our pieces are [indeed] almost museum pieces. So the nature of interaction has changed: 1) because it’s interacting with new technologies and new literacies; and 2) people don’t need to come here to do button-pressing.

Now, though, we’re interested in what interaction means in the context of a museum and where it sits in relation to the viewing of artefacts within showcases, which is an old form, some say it’s a dead form.

DT: I prefer to say it’s one form [of showcasing objects].

MC: Yes, but it’s a traditional form and one that had validity in certain cases. But we have the new audiences… that have different expectations, different literacies and they come tooled up with different devices as well.  So the museum is interested in seeing how we can respond to expectations around interaction, around learning…

DT: so the museum culture has changed in response to their audience and what their audience is demanding.  How has Beta_space … assisted with that?

MC: Well the question is: has the museum changed?

DT: Well, they’re trying to, but as you say, it’s slow.

MC: The museum sees the imperative to change. The museum is, as other commentators have said, like an ocean liner. As you know, ocean liners take a bit of time and space to turn around, or turn in.

DT: <laughs> that’s right…

MC: So when Dawn Casey got here, the new director, I think there were…plenty of internal discussions about where we were going and how we should respond and there were some contested areas in the museum about how we do our exhibitions, questions about how we collect and questions about curatorship generally. When Dawn came in, she was adamant that this needed to be discussed openly and with a broader community.

So we invited a number of stakeholders in from across the community, academics, government…

DT: and this was the Future Forums?

MC: Yes, people form various audience groups, and staff…came in to talk about what they thought were imperatives for the museum in light of all of these changes that not many people were refuting.  The outcome of that discussion is that there was belief that the museum needed to recognize the change in our approach to interaction, that interaction needed to move away from button pressing…

DT:…and toward?

MC: …and toward conversation and communication and activity.

DT: …and collaborative? Or singularly?

MC: Both are valid. There are people who, we’re happy to encourage, we’re happy for people to do things on their own and explore things on there own, but we know that some people come to the  museum as a sort of social experience. We also know that people are very keen to not just receive ideas, but also to pro-offer their own thoughts and ideas; and that if new awarenesses take them or they disagree with things that are in the museum, they like the opportunity to stake a claim to their own ideas.

In many ways, as I look at it now, we’re now attempting to re-build the museum, if you like, as a place where we evoke the espoused ethos of social media. I say espoused because I’m not sure that social media…

DT: …is esteemed?

MC: …the thing [is], there’s more to social media then what it claims to offer. In some ways it delivers it, in some ways it doesn’t, and [in other ways it] delivers… things outside of what it offers; but nevertheless, what social media might offer a museum is an [openness], with an opportunity for an audience to say what they think…so that there’s less distinction between the real exhibitions and the virtual exhibitions, or what happens online and what happens on the floor here.

But we do want people to come here, we still have a floor, we still have a space, and we still have our artefacts in our collection, we have a great deal of engagement with our collection through our website and we would like to integrate that activity and allow it to extend to direct engagement with the artefacts, but also to engage in the activities that are involved with artefacts. We are a museum whose collection is sort of based around the idea of making things.  We are a museum that says people are at their most human when they’re making things.

DT: That’s a marvelous way to look at things because if you [consider] design, technology, fashion and science it’s all creative.

MC: That’s right, so in the simplest ways, I think you could define us as being a museum along those lines…all museums are trying to say [this] to people…

DT: …[trying to say] we do this?

MC: …[Museums] are a place where people go to find out about how to be a human being, every museum …every art gallery has their own take on that.  My own view comes from [the writings of] Neil Postman who is a Professor of Communication in the United States… it’s a compelling idea and one that I think is true. And when people come here and…look at the artefacts and objects we are, at a very, very simple level, [asking] what does it mean to be a human being? And as I said before, each museum has it’s own take on that, so…a Natural History museum tends to say we are at our most human when we tend to fit into the sort of cycle of life and taxonomy of living things, that we are essentially and expression of biology. And, I think an example that Postman uses is with a Holocaust Museum we are saying we are at our most human when we are devising ways of exterminating races or when we’re endeavoring to struggle against that.

DT: So preservation versus eradication?

MC: Yes, hmmm, but here; as a Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, our [old] moniker our older title, we’re really a museum that says we are at our most human when we’re making things.

DT: How does this relate to Beta_space do you think? [Because] Beta_space in some ways embodies what you’re trying to say, [but] in a microscopic way…

MC: The beautiful thing about Beta_space, to me, is that it is a place of experimentation. We’re a museum of design and this is a prototyping space; we’re a museum of science and this is an experimental space, it’s also a place where we invite our visitors to comment on what they see, and not everybody gets to comment at great length, but some visitors get the opportunity to say what they think and maybe in new rounds of Beta_space we’ll extend that capacity for comment.

But, [for now] it’s an experiment and our visitors get to participate in that experiment. I also think it’s a great way of re-contextualizing a museum visit because people have tended to come here with a view to pressing buttons.  If their expectation of technology is that it should work flawlessly and not be difficult to use, but it’s worn out or it breaks down because it’s a fallible technological device…[we are] bringing the visitor into the experimental fold and saying “this is a prototype, we’re testing to see, to judge it’s quality and find its faults.” Then we’re hopefully creating a context in which the visitors’ expectations of perfection are lowered, but not in the sense that they become accustomed to things not working, but in a sense that its still a valuable experience, but it has a different approach to a different valuable experience.  I have this hope that this change of expectations might even be a valuable lesson for their own lives.

DT: But not everybody’s going to come to the table with that approach.

MC: No, they’re not.

DT: …and in essence when something fails or something doesn’t work how somebody expected it to [and as a result they] then learn something new or something different, this might prove very challenging or frustrating for them; but that might be interesting to the researcher in terms of how they might change or grow their system.  So can you think of a time or an example when this approach that we’ve just been talking about, was challenging for you or challenged you as a curator, in terms of your practice?...Because the way I was thinking about it…the heart of the matter is how Beta_space [might] provide an answer to some of the challenges that you’re facing….Can you think of a time when you were faced with one of these challenges and Beta_space assisted in providing an answer on a microscopic level? [A study] perhaps, that might assist] in terms of the museum [processes] as a whole?

MC: At a very basic level , Beta_space provided the answer to the conundrum, it was the problem for every previous research relationship; we had found out where the value lay within the museum for a research group. As long as [the researchers sought] data from [their exhibitions]…you have to have a process for getting it and it has to be valuable data. And Beta_space has had this evaluation program attached to [most] installations…a lot of it was extremely elaborate, and challenging…

DT: ....programmatic evaluation.

MC: That’s right, hence people’s PhD’s [associated with the space] were largely based on results that they got from Beta_space…It demonstrated that the proposed model for partnership, which had always been very problematic, was possible. That the potential for having a model of partnership that worked for all parties was possible. It certainly worked between the museum and UTS, and I would say for a large number of the works, it also worked for the general public. For some it didn’t, but our research results, some of them were very interesting. A lot of it was based around the fact that these were artworks and the artist’s expectation is that they were showing artworks to the general public in the same way you might do it in an art gallery, where the context for a visit to the museum at the moment isn’t the same as a visit to the art gallery.

DT: So there was that need to educate [the audience] that even though this was an artwork, we were looking at the systems, the processes, the machines, the interactivity, as well as the content.

MC: That’s right, but we were also looking at audience interaction. So when a visitor walks into the space, the phenomenology of their visit is that they’re walking from one thing to another to see what it is that’s going to grab their attention because there’s way too much to visit in a day here at the museum, so they’re tasting little bits. So what is it when they step into Beta_space? Is it a taste that they’re going to pause long enough to engage with the whole process? In a number of instances, the artists started the interaction slowly, almost imperceptibly;…[this was] a big mistake because if it wasn’t perceived quickly they would turn around and walk out again. If something didn’t happen right away our audience was inclined not to wait.

[Now] if they’d gone into an art gallery and they’d been set up to walk into an interactive environment, there was an imperative on them to work out what it was; but not here. With the exception of [the gaming works] it was very interesting [because] they had the signifier of gaming about them.  [They] grabbed a particular audience, younger people in particular, who felt they knew what to do straight away and they were prepared to explore.  But some things were too abstract for our [larger] audience.

DT: So they needed a recognizable attractor or … signifier to spend the time?

MC: I think at this point that in terms of understanding interaction, we need to let people know they’re interacting with something quickly because the works in Beta_space are competing with a lot of [louder] exhibitions.

DT: …You [also] recently went on a trip through North America and Europe to visit other museums to sort of “trade notes” as you said on things like collections management and exhibition processes. Now did any of these institutions stand out to you in terms of practice based research? Were any of them doing anything along the same lines?

MC: Well, they were doing things that had elements of what we had been attempting to do with Beta_space.  I was [also] interested in the broader related processes which included having real science on display, [featuring] scientists, designers, and artists working in public spaces and artists interacting directly with the public, as well as the artists’ processes; so I was looking at a broader range of activities [as well]. Beta_space encompasses elements of all of those things. [There were] not many scientists on display, but there were certainly scientific practices, scientific knowledge and scientific ideas involved in the works.

I was interested in how they catered to…more informed visitors who have a direct connection to elevated levels of discussion. A bit like our Beta_space launches where the new media arts community come in and participate, listen to what the artist has to say, participate in an ongoing discussion, [and] possibly participate in an evaluation forum. So I was looking at those examples as well.

At the Science Museum in London and at the V&A [Victoria & Albert Museum] across Exhibition Road from the Science Museum; both places have approached activity-based programs in a slightly different way…In the Science museum they had the DANA centre where people would largely come along in the evening and participate…[but] in the V&A they had the Sackler Centre…a really great space where they ran workshops; curators did more in-depth studies of the work they were dealing with, and computer workshops. It was more workshop [oriented] and less show and tell, but they did have an artist-in-residence space and they had exhibitions of the artist-in-residence works and there were times when you could go and talk to the artists in residence and that was an interesting approach.  The artist-in-residence program was supported through funding and the work that I saw looked interesting and the only [issue] from my perspective was that [this experimental space] was separate from the museum. The gallery was one thing and this centre was another.

DT: So the experimentation and learning took place separately from the galleries?

MC: Yes. They even acknowledged…that taking the programs out of the galleries was something that they were concerned about…and that they were looking at ways of taking the programs back into the galleries. But it did offer them a chance to do it [run programs] at night without opening up the whole museum, which they really liked.

When I went to the DANA centre, again [it] was separate from the museum. It was an alterative approach to discussing scientific issues and direct engagement with scientists but it was done outside of the museum. So it wasn’t changing the exhibition format in any way.  Again they’ve had some successful programs and I’ve spoken to people who have participated and they say it’s a great program, with an opportunity to go much further than you often get to go in a museum based discussion. But, it was sitting around, talking.
…
Each [institution] had a centre that was separate. It was a great space, and a great program and very well conceived and very well built and they had really thought about the design well when they did it. And I think they have a successful program. I think they also benefit from just having thousands of people turn up to Exhibition Road every morning to get into the Science Museum and the V&A and the Natural History Museum because it’s London.

DT: So this is [quite] different [to Beta_space]. The next question is how is what you saw [different from] what we, what you and I, are trying to accomplish with Cyberworlds and Beta_space?

MC: I’m trying to enrich and enliven the galleries and look at an alternative form for a gallery space. We’re actually looking to make interaction a sort of primary mode of engagement in the space, rather than a support role playing second fiddle to the objects. …We’re still committed to our collection and to artefacts, and to material culture…but I would like to see more. We already have the Thinkspace here, which is like a classroom, an [educational] experience, and a workshop space that is separate from our galleries. I would rather see it brought to the middle of the galleries [and made] more public. There’s a public [following for it].

DT: Do you think that works? From what you’ve seen and what you saw on your trip, you seem determined to bring that mode of engagement with the pure data or the pure research, into the public space.

MC: Certainly in moving away…from a mode audience engagement which is…of observation and having information delivered to them through their perusal of showcases, towards one of them engaging in conversations and activities with the option of turning to a narrative-based displays which are also there.

DT: Do you want them to be user-generated?

MC: Certainly, I would like…aspects to be user generated.

DT: That’s fantastic.

MC: In London where I saw these situations…there was this connection made by scientists by separately devised spaces and programs…they were successful, there was certainly lots of people there, but I am interested in what the next phase is. So when I was at Linz at the Ars Electronica centre, it’s much more of a laboratory-type space in which there are real scientists at work, employed by the Future Lab, but there’s a museum program that takes place with scientists and artists doing their work…They can go off and do it in their labs and offices if they’re writing code, but if they want to use the rapid prototyping machines then they’re doing it in public and then they will explain what they’re doing if they’ve got the time to do it.

DT: Is it expected of them to do that as part of their research or is it just if [their work] carries them that way?

MC: I think its part of the deal, I’ll have to check next Thursday when I see Matthew Gardiner again, who was the Australian artist…

DT: He’s in my show, at the Australia Council…[genart_sys | a window on digital culture]

MC: Is he?

DT: Yes, he does this amazing robotic origami.

MC: Yes [they’re] beautiful…he was doing the robotic origami [there] and using the rapid prototyping machine to create all the little bones for his flowers and taking the opportunity to explain in his fairly new German to a lot of visitors, school kids, what he was doing with the rapid prototyping machine. They had learned the context in which it was displayed, which was in what direction rapid prototyping was taking us, while waiting for his items to be created, while waiting for his little flower bones to be created…but they also had a data visualization space, they had a big 3d visualization space…that wasn’t working [wasn’t running] that day; there was a bit of experimentation going on, but it wasn’t open to the public. There’s a bio-tech lab where people bring in plants, and they clone their plants, and then … come back and see them as they grown. They’ve got their original plant and then they’ve got a genetically identical plant that they’ve created themselves. Through that process they also discuss the fact that if it wasn’t a plant, they might have [also] brought in a few cells from their pet, or if they couldn’t catch a pet, they might take something from a little brother or sister…but then in fact…in principle they could bring in some of their own cells, and this was an intro[duction] to a broader discussion of cloning.

DT: Well and the ethics of that other person [they are creating]

MC: [Yes].

DT: Amazing. So a really different kind of research, but still research that was open to the public.

MC: [In terms of Beta_space] the Ars Electronica centre was to me the closest to a living laboratory, and Ars Electronica is possibly the best known electronic arts festival in the world. They built this laboratory captialising on that particular brand or that particular event being associated with Linz.  They were starting to build relationships, they were funded to do their own science but they were building closer relationships to the universities in the area; and they still have their electronic arts festival.

The director [mentioned] that when they were bringing school kids through they can’t expect the school kids to participate [with] and understand the higher level artworks that are brought in by artists from all over the world…so they work at a more fundamental level [with the kids], just with the science. And there are artworks in there; so they deal with robotics, biotechnology, rapid prototyping, and data visualization. And they’ve chosen those topics as most important for the next 5 years and then they’ll be choosing new ones.

DT: Fantastic.

MC: They have the one advantage that they’ve started from scratch, there’s not legacy [in place].

DT: Right, so it can develop as they go, because that’s kind of similar to Beta_space as well, it was conceived of by Lizzie, Ernest and you…

MC: But in terms of changing a museum [it’s more like] 100+ years of tradition within this museum and collections based museums all over the world…

DT: So then its different, so the concept of a living laboratory as introduced to a museum, this is how Beta_space stands out from the other exhibitions [that you visited in Europe].

MC: In a way, yes it does. So it’s an example…to change the museum overnight is to…

DT: sink the ocean liner?

MC: yes, [well] to turn the ocean liner on a dime. Whereas [with] the Beta_space…we need to actually prototype these activities and know that we can do them and establish from a small one how much resource we need and how feasible some of our ideas are. And it means that if we need to resource these activities through partnership, then we need to have an effective model for partnership. Again, that’s what the Beta_space has been used for.

DT: That’s been its greatest value to the museum?

MC: Yes.

DT: That sort of touches on the next question, how it stands out in terms of reaching its goals in terms of other international practice and sustaining our research queries in line with other places. So do you think we keep in line with our research practice at Beta_space? That being here’s a prototype, it’s robust enough, we’re going to evaluate it, we’re going to invite people to have a look, and then we’re going to produce a tangible outcome from that [based on evaluation], be it a published paper, a masters, a phd, a launch, a public talk…

MC: Oh I think we’ve been very consistent in that there has been quite a lot of people curating it, we’ve been very lucky with personnel; lucky with relationships between people. So it’s been based on real human relationships and there is plenty of opportunity for things like that to go pear-shaped, but it’s worked well, and it’s been remarkably consistent in that respect and it’s delivered what it’s proposed to deliver, and so for that reason it is a model for what we can do.

DT: But it’s been up and down, it hasn’t been all smooth sailing, has it? Because we were saying it’s almost more interesting when things don’t go exactly as planned…

MC: Well, we’ve learned things from those who have failed. We’ve tried to put things that are too complicated in, we’ve strained relationships by making things too complicated…

DT: …So you also went to Canada and America on your trip, and you went to the Toronto Science Centre where they have a specific interest in Beta_space. So the next question is what does Beta_space do well that makes it interesting to other institutions?

MC: One of the most ambitious projects that’s aiming in the same directions, and there’s a direct response to exactly that, engendered the need for the Future Forums here, was by the science centre in Toronto. So Kevin Von Appen is an Assoc. Director there who lead the project to do the Innovations Lab.  So they are a traditional science centre, not an objects based institution, and there’s a significant difference. Nevertheless, he was not convinced that the standard array of science centre interactives, of which there’s a fairly grand suite of things, …were really engaging the public and they were really doing their job in relation to innovation. Most of them are demonstration exploration of basic scientific principle, and perhaps if you’re pulling yourself up with a pulley or you’re making waves in water, the basics are valuable and interesting, but it’s too far away from end product of innovation now to actually be encouraging innovative behavior, which is where they needed to get from their science centre; and certainly how they needed to respond to their stakeholders and people who were giving them money to exist within government policy.

So he was interested in creating a space where visitors might have the opportunity to display for themselves, if you like, innovative behavior. That was his goal. He wanted them to have an experience of creating something, and finding their own innovative capacities, ok? And so they did out a whole floor and … set it up with lots of different activities where…you could run workshops, and you could work in groups where you could do tasks that involved solving problems. There was a lot of problem solving in there. And he came and spoke to us about what he did, but while he was here, he also came and visited Ernest and came and visited Beta_space. And the reason that he was desperate to see Beta_space was that he had heard how much we were spending to run it and he wanted to know if our budget was true. He eye-balled me and said, “is this the real spend or are there hidden costs here. Are you paying staff to participate here that aren’t part of what you claim to be your budget?” and we were able to show, we were able to point to the starving curator… I think it was Lizzie at this point <laughs> to demonstrate. And the fact that the evaluation was done by students, supervised by students, and the fact that the curator was independent and a student, in fact, and that there weren’t artist fees. In fact, the time when I showed him, the artwork wasn’t working.

Beta_space was a modest arrangement which looked more so with a broken interactive installation in it and I was trying to compensate for what I thought were its obvious flaws; and he was dismissive of the need for it because he saw what it did straight away; and was particularly interested. And then [he] confessed to me that the Innovation Lab that he had built, while it was incredibly successful and had huge numbers, huge building numbers, and people really loved it, it was straining the institution because of the resource requirements; with a lot of tedious work that needed to be done in the evening to ensure it worked the next morning.

DT: Right.

MC: So when I went to visit him they had actually closed some places because they just couldn’t….

DT: …sustain it?

MC: …they can’t sustain it, it’s unsustainable. So sustaining these spaces is an issue.

DT: It’s as important as presenting the ideas..?

MC: Yes. But there were a couple of amazing things that were in there [at the Toronto Science Centre]. They were starting to engage with artists as well and they were looking at a space because they did find that the experimental artists work was….

DT: …engaging for people? In terms….

MC: …[of] attracting people’s interest and people were interested in commenting and participating.

DT: In terms of design? And in terms of the work? And the materials?

MC: Yes, in terms of design and innovation…the works I saw were on screen, so they were still…there was an interest in the [Beta_space] model and how to frame the work, where to bring it in, how to provide context for it and how to resource its installation, its explanation and an ongoing program. And with that…

DT: We will conclude.

Dorkbot @ Serial Space, Sydney
23-26 February 2011

Click, click...click...click...BWAAAAAAMMMMMMM<this is meant to be a very loud, very sudden organ sound accompanied by a florescent pink light...both only last for 10 seconds> click, click....click, basement space, ceilings are high for a basement, oops I tripped over the near invisible ledge there <embarrassed>, and what the heck is that over there...<squinting>?

These are my first impressions of the newest Dorkbot exhibition at Sydney's Serial Space, an Artist Run Initiative sponsored by the Australia Council and run by one Ms. Pia van Gelder. Afterwards came, I'm cold, I'm wet, and it's pouring out, don't I live in Australia?...where's the bar?...ooh there it is...

Beer in hand, I asked for a room brochure. No dice. But I was directed with a wry smile towards "the human room brochure, over there, dressed all in black" whereupon I met van Gelder, the curator and manager of the space, and heard all about the exhibition and its creative process. The gist of this conversation is that Serial Space is largely a workshop space where emergent artists come together and experiment, often on themselves, with electricity. There was no particular curatorial vein past the invite to do something strange with this medium, and the artists were selected based on a call that is put out by and then culled by van Gelder.

Encouraged to have a look around, I spied a very raw space, uncluttered,  dimly lit, and host to 6 distinct works and a spot-lit ruck-sack with extension  cords running out of it. Intrigued I started off to the right, where I was met  with a copper construct atop a plinth hosting various light sources emanating  from small tubes. I was reminded of a model for an apartment building, the  white lights signifying the inhabitant's televisions (computer screens?). A  small white box that looked electrical protruded from the front of the plinth. I  cast my hand around it thinking it was a sensor, but it wasn't. I wasn't sure  what to do next, so I looked to the back of the plinth, squinted at the  minute  label, and finally gave up (after about 30 seconds). Hmmm <squint>, David KirkPatrick, you've stumped me.

I moved on <click, click...click; what the?> to the spot-lit rucksack sporting  extension cables and the documentary footage by Luke Calarco. Without  touching much, I examined the cables more closely, and watched a bit of the footage which consisted of the artist wearing the rucksack and folks running  their hands over him. He was grinning quite widely, but otherwise, I couldn't  really relate to what was happening. Hoping for a performance later on, I was blasted once again with a very loud BWAAAAAAMMMMM! and florescent pink light...

...another tiny label told me this next work was Wade Marynowski's "Death by Stereo". Apart from it's quite obvious attractor, I was curious about the composition. Here was a 90s boombox, bubbling with pink paint; bubbling due to the apparent vibrations emanating from it; there was also a dolphin lamp, covered in the same pink paint, but smoothly, neatly, and serenely. This juxtaposition of calmness and discord is only emphasised when the organ and lamp perform their duet of <BWAAAAAAAMMMMMMM! FLORO FLAAAAAAAASH>. Upon closer inspection, both the boombox and the lamp were plugged into the organ, which was placed on its side. I wanted to look further, see if there was a computer driving the sound and the light, but I couldn't without ripping the back off of the organ. Plus the <BWAAAAAAAMMMMMMM! FLORO FLAAAAAAAASH> but a combination of attractive/repellant, so I moved on <click, click...click; huh?>

After tripping on the ledge again, this time in a downwards trajectory, I was lured to a pleather pillow in front of a softly glowing computer monitor. Happy to cover my stumble, I sunk all the way to the floor, and, taking refuge in the pillow, I started to examine the components of Ross Manning's "Trapped Universe". A simple plasma screen was covered in two sheaths of plastic, one that distorted your vision, and one to frame the distortion. However, it wasn't until you closely examine the screen that you realise what you're looking at is a built construct, not a digital one. I must admit I was impressed at the simplicity with which this trompe l'orielle took place and stayed for a while examining and photographing the layers <click, click...click; oh COME ON!>.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Intrigued by a woman who was placing a boxer's heavy weight trophy belt and protective padding on attendees, I left my pleather perch, and tried to eavesdrop on what was going on. The woman turned out to be the artist, Jiann Hughes, and she was encouraging folks to try out her interactive work, "Below the Belt". While I waited my turn, I noticed she had her laptop open and upped my eavesdropping on her conversations to spying on her code. A MaxMSP patch drove the interactivity, and I could see that it was reading an inward/outward motion, likely fed to the laptop via sensors in the belt or headgear. When it came to be my turn, I fired a bunch of questions at the artist, to which she smiled and said, "give it a go, and then we can chat afterwards, yea?"...but, but...!

After gripping the headgear fitted with headphones to my ears to hear the instructions, I found that, as monitored by the boxing title belt, I could perform different breathing techniques to match the different breath techniques that boxers use depending on their weight division. Whimsically thinking about a tinned announcers voice echoing "float like a feather, sting like a bee" I tried out different breath rates. Once I was declared a feather weight (likely for the first time in my life...), I was encouraged by the film avatar, the boxing coach at a local gym who was in fact the user before me, that I could do it, I could win the title! Victory was mine! I pulled off the headgear and reported my winnings, and then true to her word, Hughes answered my rapid fire questions and we quite a geeky conversation about video timing and the software that supports it...<click, click....click; seriously what is that NOISE?!>. Having the artist there to explain the work was pinnacle to my seeing it through, though, as I tried to take off the headgear more than once. Had Hughes not been there to encourage me through it, I would have moved on as I was having trouble hearing the instructions and wanted to have a closer look at the art system. To her credit, she was never short of humans to interact with her computer.

After I thanked Hughes, I moved on to the last work, the presentation of which stole the show. An older style laptop hung on the central cement pillar in the room. It was mounted via two d-hooks, drilled into the screen casing of the laptop, which then hung off two screws drilled into the pillar. The laptop hung long, displaying colourful imagery on it's screen, and dating itself by still containing a DVD drive and sunken keyboard. Below it, a plinth displayed the guts of such a computer, artfully layered so as to create a sort of history of artefacts. This placement created quite a balanced tension between the software and the hardware of a computer, with links to the traditional arrangement of both paintings and sculpture. Not only did this trigger the art history geek in me, but the media stream was quite beautiful in its compilation, even in its name "Infomadream". I wasn't able to meet the artist, Michael Petchovsky, but if I could, I would shake his hand and clap him on the back. This is a stunning work, both conceptually and in execution <click, click...click; alright now...this was getting STRANGE. Could only I hear it?>

Having come full circle, I found myself back at the KirkPatrick work. There were a couple of guys milling around it, drinking beer, laughing, talking. I watched one of them reach over the white box that had stumped me and manually press the wide, flat, almost imperceptible button of a doorbell switch. Guess what? It emitted a loud CLICK, and the light sequence in the structure changed. A HA! That was my noise problem for the evening solved. I performed a quiet facepalm, reminding myself that if something does not respond to my movement, don't forget about simple mechanics. Sigh.

Lesson learned, I settled in to watch Calerco turn off the footage of him performing, strap on the cable ridden rucksack, and weave some conducting wire under his left armpit and around his shoulder. Seems like we were going to be getting a performance after all....

Stop by Pia van Gelder's Serial Space to talk about the next iteration of Dorkbot, she is the 'Overlord' after all...

 

 

 

 

A Draft Review by Deborah Turnbull
© New Media Curation 2010

In a world so distracted by the GFC (Global Financial Crisis) how is it that Sydney seems so unaffected by it; especially in our somewhat decorous field, the arts?

According to Twitter account @theartmarket, written by Sydney Arts aficionado Vasili Kaliman, the Bank of Ireland is considering the sale of its art collection, valued at 64millionGBP, and the Saatchi Gallery in London is reconsidering its donation of works totalling 25millionGBP. Despite these aesthetic upheavals, Sydney's art wealth still seems vibrant, our major collections, in tact. I haven't, as yet, heard of any back door sales, and when you hear whispers of a commercial gallery closing, the artists represented are quietly re-homed into adjacent stockrooms with little, if any, negative press.

I still couldn't help contemplating the financial when spurred on by my social media to attend the re-opening of the White Rabbit Gallery in Sydney's city suburb of Chippendale. It seems that despite the GFC last year, this space has been beautifully converted from an old 3-storey knitting factory, costing more than any government start-up grant I'm aware of. Now a privately owned and operated gallery specialising in the collection and exhibition of contemporary Chinese Art, White Rabbit Gallery has received more than a lick of paint. Indeed, the collection is owned by billionaire financier Kerr Nielson, operated by his wife, Judith Neilson, and managed by their daughter Paris. Ah, having billions explains the amazing decor then, but it's not only their fortune on display here.

 

The yin and yang themes of fortune & waste, opulence & the mundane occur at every level in the new hang. Amidst the ground floor full of National Art School hipsters, each more artfully dishevelled then the next, there were politicians from the higher echelons of both China and Australia. Upon entry one is greeted by a very elongated, very bald, nude, leering Chinese man cast monochromatically in bright red. Beside this exaggerated icon is a pig dancing on its hind legs. This is Chen Wenling's Red Memory (2007) and Happy Life series (2006-7). It is simultaneously meek and overwhelming, existing both off the grid (the man) and within scale (the pig).

In opposition, the far side of the gallery is taken up with a 3-story sculpture made up entirely of discarded containers. Standing as a rainbow of rubbish tapering from the ground up, it is visible at every level. Its base is surrounded by both cast-off containers and photographs of the dumps in China where the containers were collected. Drawings abstracted exactly what stares you in the face. The apex stops suddenly at the 3rd floor, a bloom of discarded lids. It was literally the multi-coloured elephant in the room, and constructed by Judith Neilson's own art tutor, Wang Zhiyuan, and is titled Thrown to the Wind (2010).

If the ground floor was the well-coiffed intellectual beard for the evening, the upper floors contained the entertainment. From neon rimmed basketball hoops to paintings emulating neon bars, there seemed something for everyone on the 2nd floor. Ai Wei Wei's hand-painted porcelain sunflower seeds lay in a well-lit mound, reminding us that not everything is as it appears. This seemed a recurrent theme in Han Jinpeng's Mona Lisa from Clear Sky to Rain (2009) and The Milkmaid in a Sandstorm (2009). These gilt-framed flatscreens show the artist starring in the da Vinci and Vermeer classics as an agent attacked by the weather. Over 7 and 5 minutes respectively, very damp and very windswept portraits of each protagonist emerge as a clear link to the trouble the weather is causing in our otherwise civilised society. Each time the subject battles the elements, intent on holding the portrait together, but in the end, each painting ends up radically different from where it started. They are absolutely fantastic.

Trompe l'oeil seemed the theme of the 3rd and 4th floors, from amorphously shaped alien beings swooping about the room, to be-spoked wheels of plastic emulating dream catchers, to hand painted bottles featuring major internal organs, to larvae-like lampshades and paper xylophone clones. Though they seem the remains of a popular culture trying not to identify with any one medium, they are recognisable enough so as to be plausible remnants. Together these works mark the essence of the show, lauded on the White Rabbit website as emulating the common theme of change, the common perspective of ziwo, "I, myself".

One of the most intelligent juxta-position of works is a series of digital film clips and a triptych of ceramic sculpture. Before entering the screening, there is a sign marked: WARNING! Course Language and Lewd Content! The videos screened within may offend some viewers. Granted, there was some animated prostitution, parent-approved adultery, crime, and monkeys doing violence to monkeys in the digital; but, ironically enough, right outside that exhibition is a triptych of 3 ceramic cast urinals featuring smooth hairless female genitalia. By the time you realise where the plug is situated and why a tap might replace a flushing mechanism, you understand the subtext; fetishism. If I'm correct, these works certainly are an intriguing match, as one medium portrays repressed sexuality and pack behaviour quite violently, where the other accepts the detrius of sex quite innocuously, almost in the form of sanitised navel gazing. Note the position of the sculpture.

Whatever your predilections, take in the new hang at the White Rabbit Gallery.

http://www.whiterabbitcollection.org
Find them on Facebook or Twitter.

 

 

 

 

I have been fortunate enough to have been invited to participate in the EXPERIMENTA UTOPIA NOW International Media Arts Biennial, courtesy of KWON MILLER PRODUCTIONS and their fabulous art! Now might be a pertinent time to remind my avid fans <you know who you are...> that The Nauru Elegies @ Blindside Gallery concludes this Saturday 6 March @ 5pm.  Friday night we are having a huge blow out at Shed4 Warehouses, where Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky) will perform the score to The Nauru Elegies with a live string quartet.  A VJ will perform both before and after Mr. Miller's concert, for those of us who need to shake a little booty! Tickets available at www.moshtix.com.au!

Below is my cheeky take on Secret Diary of a Call Girl, only a bit more formulaic and reflexive than Billie Piper's portrayal in the BBC adaptation of the blog and books of the British escort Belle du Jour. It's quite a bit less sexy though...

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Sunday 14 February 2010

Well my new media-philes...it's Valentine's Day and it seems my heart, once again, belongs to new media arts installation :D I'm in Melbourne for the UTOPIA NOW Media Arts Biennial, EXPERIMENTA's major project that exhibits one year and tours the next, in fact, set to tour Australia over 2010. And why is this important to us, dear readers? It's because the DJ and the architect have made it into said Biennial with The Nauru Elegies project. I have decided to write a shorter blog post each day I'm in Melbourne to commemorate install week for my first (hopefully of many!) Biennials. <hope><hope>

Now normally I would insert a happy satisfied sigh here, but upon leaving Sydney this morning to install a quite significant exhibition for my wee venture, I actually realized that Aram, my usual tech and partner, was actually not coming with me. Now I knew this logically, but this morning as he slept in while I readied myself with the insane amount if things I had to do before I caught my flight at 1:15pm - with 6 mounted posters, 2 projectors, 2 projector plates, a forgotten knapsack from the sketch exhibition for the architect, and my own luggage in tow - I actually realized how terrified I was that he and his calm demeanour and enormous brain and infinite patience were all not going to be with me in Melbourne this week and I entered a sort of state of shock. Not because there aren't reasonably fantastic techies associated with a media arts biennial (particularly one hosted by EXPERIMENTA), but because mine wouldn't be there. It came to me in a shocking and violent epiphany just how much I've come to rely on Mr. Dulyan as an install force. So much so that I have sacrificed many a pair of shoes and beautiful dresses in the February sales to have him work on my last show with me; a seemingly break-through exhibition, and I so badly wanted him involved that I am still making payments to his boss for his time <hi Greg! Love you Greg!>.

Champ that he is, Aram then busied himself with the business of organising me. He carried bags to the car, bought parking passes, found out about airport parking, got us brekky, got me money, advised on how to re-pack my suitcase to better protect the smaller projector and short throw lens, performed HILARIOUS impersonations of airport luggage staff and how they would load my things on and off the plane, and then advised me to ring my friend Gracie to drive me to the airport to avoid a $300 parking cost (Aram never did learn to drive a stick-shift...). Amazing, right? And Gracie and the Fiance now have a car for the week...win-win! What I haven't yet told you is that when Gracie and I got to the airport, Aram was surprise-there to help me with my bags, the excess baggage fee, and loading the posters and projectors onto the over-sized items carousel. He then stayed with me in the airport at my gate telling me funny stories about how his boss' daughter plays hide and seek in such a way as to always let the seeker know exactly where she'll be when they're done counting to 10. This and other funny stories ensued while we waited for my plane to load.

Now, everything got here ok and it's all good and I had a lively evening watching a UTOPIA NOW film titled Second_Skin on the lives of Gamers and the different communities that crop up around them (both virtual and in the real world). Before bed I texted Aram to see how his day was and we had a discussion on a subtext within the film, the one where the virtual gold farmers in WOW have a physical reality in outsourced Chinese companies, with young folks literally working in physical sweatshop-like conditions; a conversation which was quite enjoyable indeed! I can now go to sleep with that satisfied sigh as, in fact, my techie is with me after all. <sigh!>
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Monday 15 February 2010

Another day, another day of install! The gallery today was great, we got it painted largely; except for the edging which I'll go in early to do tomorrow. There's this outside gate that shuts at an as-yet undetermined time which makes staying late difficult. I should know, my bags were trapped there last night, victims of early Sunday closing time in Aussie-land. Thanks for the PJ lend Ms Needham! The staff and volis are lovely. We all did, though, tend to err on the side of worst case scenario (I think this is the wrong paint - ha! that was me! And it was! - there's something wrong with this projector, that wall needs edging and more board added to it, those posters look better, and you checked every one, right? those posters aren't hung evenly...). Now independently, these issues don't sound that bad, but continuously over the course of 9 hours and 2 tins of paint fumes later, there were so many little issues like this, that by the end of the day, it's as though a meteor was expected by all of us to hit only that part of the building, leaving a gaping maw of wires and charcoal paint; but then again, media installs are a tad stressful. Wasn't I the picture of immobilized shock at the week ahead just yesterday morning? Isn't my little research initiative about simplifying the install of technical artworks? My, my Ms. Turnbull, my, my. Sometimes this reflecting on my practise stuff is a bit of a sonofabitch!

On the upside, I wasn't immobilized by shock even once today, and I also had to shift 3 plinths, 2 rolls full of posters, and a didactic poster very susceptible to wind currents down 6 crowded city blocks. Thank god for Daine Singer and Blake the voli is all I have to say :D I was, in fact, delightfully reminded of my voli days at the Grafton Regional Gallery, when I helped out with installing touring shows like Art Express and the Archibald Prize (the one where Craig Ruddy won!).

So after a few more paint fumes were inhaled we all decided to chill and disperse about 5pm. I went to the gym and then met the architect for dinner. The gym was in one of those labyrinth malls that I didn't think existed outside of North America. I seriously found the way to my Northcote accommodation in the dark 35 tram stops from the Melbourne CBD and 3 blocks in not knowing the address or street name and I could not find my way out of this mall! I had to ask a barrista for directions...mortifying! The workout was amazing, but dinner in a dicey dumplings place whilst plotting the Asian leg of the Nauru Elegies tour was an even bigger adrenaline rush...oh it's grant time people! So many ideas, so little time, even less money!

More tomorrow... Now, I sleep! Xx
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Friday 19 February 2010

Well obviously it was a bit ambitious to think I could write something witty and intelligent each day when I'm doing 10-11 hours days on install, attending talks and having dinners, dinners everywhere. Pfft, I hate respecting my limitations.

Let me sum up the last few days:

1) tape and paint a white gallery charcoal (I annoyingly kept calling it blue, eep!)
2) cover windows with plastic, then cardboard, then marvel at the builders construct MDF walls = gallery transformed
3) bring ladders, plinths, posters, sculptures and mini-catalogs from disparate parts of the Melbourne CBD often in heavy foot traffic and following Blake the super awesome voli quite closely
4) go to the gym - breathe, breathe
5) go to the architect's talk and meet all sorts if interesting people - hi Ester! Hi Helene!
6) paint the gallery some more
7) cut and construct cardboard covers for the interior gallery windows- thanks for saying back to help me Annie Annie!
8) finishing touch ups of paint, wipe the walls and skirting boards free of dust, sweep and mop the floor, re-adjust the spots ever so slightly...and we're done!
...9) oops, pick up ice!

Ok, so now we know why my body is tired and why I consumed a LOT of food over the past week! I even got ladder legs, which the builders empathetically let me know happens to everyone; it's not that attractive to have bruising all cuts all over your legs at shin level from leaning on various ladders, but good thing I brought my R'n'R jeans with me, very suitable to wear under my Marni mini-dress for the launch!

A few things that have stayed quite pronounced in my mind are the questions the artist (and architect) asked me over the course of our few days here:
1) is it normal to have 3 assistants helping me assemble my models? - my answer: probably not, but what a wonderful perk!
2) why were we selected when the program was already set? - my answer: because you're work is outstanding, the collaboration between an architect and a DJ quite interesting, the subject matter very timely, and the opportunity to do a large scale concert with said DJ too good to pass up
3) what are the internal politics of the art world in Australia? - My answer: ...errrmm, more wine?
4) what other funding can we apply for while the work is touring with EXPERIMENTA to grow and change the project, so we can get it into Asia? - my answer: I have a few grants I'm looking into that include a tour of Asia..." CUT TO OPENING night with my lovely colleague Melinda introducing Annie and I to her artist Michael...funnily enough, they are doing some shows in Asia....hmmmmmmm....

See my fellow new media spies? My networks are far-reaching indeed!

 

Wow, I'm tired. Are superwomen allowed to be so?

The show by the DJ and the Architect I hosted over December and January have scored me all sorts of contracts and I'm so busy, I can barely help organize their new exhibition in Melbourne; Experimenta's UTOPIA NOW! Media Arts Biennial...how cool is THAT?!?! As happy and as grateful that I am in my recent successes (I was also able to garner an audience with PHM Director Dr. Dawn Casey to discuss <assistant> curatorial opportunities at the museum...whoo hoo!), I just can't seem to side-step my numbing, hysterical fatigue that makes me scream at security guards that won't let me park at my own work and boyfriends who grab my stomach chub (sorry guys, sorry Aram).

<how was THAT for an opening paragraph? How can you NOT read on...>

Amidst all this activity, and the wonderful day I allow myself each week to clean my house, do my laundry, watch television, and go to my favourite happy dance class at the gym; I've noticed that there are a lot of interesting things happening on TV.  <Now when I say TV, I don't mean the one at my house with rabbit ears...I mean the TV shows that Aram downloads and we watch on the big screen at the studios...its wicked fun!> The dishes, laundry, vacuuming, and class full of grown men & women attempting to do hip hop are all pretty much the same.

It's not the only thing I've been doing lately, watching TV, but the few things I've watched have been quite intriguing; ranging from head-scratching, to spot-hitting, to hilarious, to being so socially reflective that I can't believe Joss Whedon's shows keep getting cancelled 1 season in <I miss you Firefly!>. Perhaps he should cut out the cheesy romance segues and focus on his critiques of how technology has become tantamount to breathing in contemporary society...eh? EH?

Take, for example, some of the fluffier competition. How about a show close to my own heart: Cougar Town. Have our imaginations seriously ceased to evolve in the romance department so much so that the hottest fantasy we can come up with for women is being in our 40s, divorced, collagened up, not as smart as generations previous, and panting over younger men? I saw an article in the Sun Herald this past weekend that had sourced the careers, neighbourhoods, and haunts of said demographic in Sydney. Apparently they hang out in my neighbourhood (well, just up the road actually)...and a quoted speed dating service was cited as having said that their Toy Boy night is the hottest selling product with a 95% sell out rate. Eep...isn't my boyfriend 7 years younger than me? Don't worry, I'm apparently not a Cougar ‘til I'm 40 (8 blessED years away :D). The funniest thing about this show are the supporting characters, these emasculated men who hang about waiting to score with the one eligible woman in the neighbourhood who isn't the stereotypical dumb blonde. They score with her a lot...

Now about Mad Men, how beautiful is Christina Hendricks? And I'm not just saying that because she is a voluptuous red head who's character has done more than a little for my self esteem this past year...she's actually pretty seriously and fabulously bad-ass. As for the show, this is a show about when men were expected to be aggressively male and women who are expected to be coquettishly female. If it's historically accurate, in America these identities were intrinsically tied to an economy which grew out of advertising. These men! They earned the household wage, ruled their homes with a firm hand, shagged about on the side, drank and smoked to deal with the pressures of being the sole wage earner (often at work), in fact they are the very embodiment of why the Women's Movement in the West reared it's feminist head when it all got out of hand. Funnily enough, the one character with feminist leanings <played by Elisabeth Moss> is not cast as pretty; she's wicked smart though, that cunning kind of smart that seeks out the weakest man in the herd, messes with his head, sleeps with him before any of the other secretaries arrive for the day, and scores copywriting assignments on the DL saving more than one account for the firm.  She is one of the best things about the show, and at best she's considered interesting by her male colleagues for donning more stereotypically masculine characteristics.

Some of the other female characters smoke and drink wine while pregnant, or use the washing machine for activities other than washing clothes, some of them even have affairs...but on women in the 50s, these actions are not portrayed as attractive or powerful, and at this point the show becomes rather didactic <yawn>. On the upside, there's also so much antiquated technology scattered about the set, it's enough to make me form a fist and grasp it to my chest while grinning. Give me a Bakelite radio, a fan over an air conditioner, and a typewriter over a laptop any day (well...at least on set...I'm not sure I could technically live without my iPhone at this stage!)!

It's also rather brow furrowing to consider a workplace where women would go to meet a husband rather than earn a career. Seriously, the characters in the show are hanging to take a man's name, rather than earn a name for themselves...are there other options to life that working for a living? If so, je ne comprend pas. My dad never taught me that part while we got up at 5am to do my paper route from age 9, and my mum left it up to me always saying I should do whatever makes me happy. After all she did; and she was trained in secretary school from age 16 and met my dad on a beach while vacationing with her friend...5 years after her first husband died of a heart attack when she was 21. Then she travelled from England to Canada and America, bearing my father 7 children and keeping us all relatively sane before embarking on a retail career at the age of 58. She's pretty damn amazing if you ask me, with one of her most famous quotes being, "life's never boring, dear." She still has a Manchester accent :D

Amidst the snooty wit of Frasier; the sex, violence, drug/people trafficking and drunken disorderliness of The Wire, and the married, comfortable humour of How I Met Your Mother, Joss Whedon's DOLLHOUSE has some relevant things to say about contemporary society. Clearly it's fractured and emotional because its lead by strong women who are able to dominate, subvert, and control their male counterparts into protecting them in their fight for survival while simultaneously working for a feared male figurehead. The most intriguing part of the show is how people become the vessels for emergent technology. Errant members of society are wiped of their personalities (which are backed up on hard-drives) and programmed with docile space-holding personalities that paint, do yoga, sleep, shower, and occasionally keep falling in love with each other no matter how many personalities you submit them to. They're kind of like well-behaved zombies that thrive on "treatments" (the personality transplants) rather than braaaaaaaaaaaaaains!

The personalities are decided on by corrupt clients (a dominatrix here, a wife there, a toy boy over there, an assassin further over there, no no, to the right...) and the trysts are facilitated by the vile Rossum corporation whose R&D department are interested in the active architecture of one's brain and what it can survive in any given situation. On each job a "doll" goes out on, they are guarded by a male handler, whom for the female dolls, become father, brother, and lover figures. Though there are female handlers, the storyline between them and their charges aren't explored.

It is no coincidence that the female protagonist is the only character able to multi-task to the extreme, breaking down the boundaries of her cranial compartments and allowing up to 40 personalities at one time, including folks with homicidal, sociopathic, and martial arts tendencies. After all, of the two genders portrayed within the show, women are the ones who display more aptitude for multi-tasking. Echo, said protagonist, is cognizant of each personality at all times and can switch them about at will. She is a fully functioning schizophrenic with no need for medication. In fact, her malfunction makes her stronger, better, well-rounded, and more heroic for being conveniently flawed. Is she a better role model than the femme fatale portrayed by Christina Hendricks? Hmmmm....it seems a weakness is still required for her to be desirable, though she never does tell her handler how she feels about him. <poor hot hot Paul>. Well, her second handler, after the father-figure one betrays her and she moves on to the lover lover...typical!

What I love about Joss Whedon, is that he'll take a story line that's working well to the ultimate extreme. He's no stranger to strong women in lead roles; Buffy, Faith, Willow, Cordelia, Fred (and her fab demi-god, alter-ego Illyria) Zoe, Inara and River spring to mind across Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly. God, he's so much fun when he goes off the deep end, how could he not do the same thing when it came to the tech theme in DOLLHOUSE? The pinnacle moment is when the genius in the show finally creates a tech so all-consumingly fantastic that it makes EVERYONE a violent butcher doll! Well, everyone except the few fat-cats who want to control the wasteland the Earth becomes. <The zombies get braiaaaaaaaaaaaains afterall!>

In this global community of enforced classicism, it's no surprise that there springs to life an underground faction who fashion a symmetrical input devise onto their faces, hack tech and upload it into their brain at will; removing any skills they don't need in that given moment, wearing their pride around their necks on USB keys that look alarmingly like trophy teeth. This tech allows them all the skills of a ninja with none of the practise or discipline; all the dialects of every language without immersing oneself in the culture or learning the verb tenses; it's a life achieved by shortcuts, and the humans trying to keep up with their addiction to technology are exhausted.

Now, the analogy is clear. I get it. I feel the exhaustion myself. But there has GOT to be a balance to how we gals are portrayed on screen, so that we can navigate our lives with said balance with our plucky side-kick, technological gadgetry! <must we be heroes ALL the time, gentlemen?>

... and Cougar Town cannot be it.

WATCH THIS SPACE for further updates on the life/technology balance...