So. What are you doing next Wednesday?

On an early (cheaper) flight from Brisbane, as I munched a weird lemon butter biscuit and surfed the in-flight radio, I hoped I could muster some energy for the last Liveworks show - Nightime: Spotlight; ladies and gentleman we are floating in space, not just to oblige Sarah Rodigari who had asked me to submit a response to the Live Art List Australia blog. Check it

What are you doing next Wednesday? Coming to see the Martyrdom of Emily Wilding Davison at the Red Rattler, 8pm. Event. Sweet poster Mitzi.

Bad blogger

(Not sure if it was blogspot or my internet, but this was meant to go up last week..)

Thankyou Georgie for some nice tidbits on interesting ARIs in Bristol. I'd love to see some pics or something on how Kansas turned out. I was thinking about going to the UK to do some study, maybe Roehampton or Aberystwyth, but I'm alarmed at the (alleged?) 80% cut to arts funding. Will these courses even still exist!?

Wasteland, photo; Lucy Parakhina

I can blame being a bad blogger of late on making a show for the 2High emerging art festival in Brisbane which is this weekend. It's called 'The 'Martyrdom of Emily Wilding Davison' made in collaboration with Rishin Singh, Sam Pettigrew and Finn Ryan. We'll also do it in Sydney alongside Mere Women, at the Red Rattler on the 24th Nov (a Wednesday), so come. The above photo is of Hoof and Antler's Wasteland which I had meant to write about, and Lucy kindly sent me some pictures, thus I am a 'bad blogger'.

In addition to the show, and working 5 days a week in a gelato shop, I thought I had time to volunteer for the current Performance Space season, something I'm glad of because I had the chance to be involved in David Cross's Hold. It is probably the most fun artwork ever. And an audience member left the installation crying because is was so beautiful. But I'm not supposed to talk about it! It's on till Saturday at Carriageworks.

I'm pretty sure I have some lycra to sew now, over and out.

1/4 Inch = whole lot of fun + other fun stuff that's been happening and will happen.

Ambient soundscapey music stirs in me a two-fold effect. The first is of being in a movie - my surrounds depicted somewhere in a long-shot scenery montage like that part in Friday Night Lights where sparse Texan landscapes replete with monumental oil drills unfold to Explosions in the Sky. If not a montage, then the camera moving slowly down my cherry blossom-lined street (Canvendish, Enmore) like I'm on a pushbike and the camera is my eyes. Number two is aching nostalgia, not so different because the past is now a movie and only the best bits made the final cut. Or, pains are now impassioned episodes in a grande narrative and everything was as it was supposed to be. At least I cared about things back then and loved. Oh how I loved and cared. Well, these were the sorts of things happening to me when listening to Rafael Anton Irisarri (USA) play at 1/4 Inch last week. ('1/4 Inch' are performance events of sound and moving image curated by Aaron Hull for some years now). Irisarri was a kind of one-man Explosions in the Sky, building intricate and epic walls of sound with electric guitar and laptop. I have previously wondered if sound-art is experienced best by its aficionados who can deconstruct exactly how it is created, but this time wasn’t too concerned. I was happy meditating over Irisarri’s repetitions and listening out for the next inevitable and exciting progression

The diversity between the three acts at 1/4 Inch made the night all-the-more successful. Anna Chase's set was much more song orientated, layering simple melodies with a loop pedal and multitude of instruments, and pushing the notion of the voice as an instrument. Alex White worked with generative feedback. The result was a visceral and abrasive barrage of electronic noise. I kept thinking about robots fighting each other. At one point I had a fleeting glimpse that it might be about some higher human/ philosophical concept but then the robots came back. This 1/4 Inch was held at the Headland Hotel in Coledale (pretty close to my home town Thirroul and maybe something to do with my nostalgia) and it was great to see international and Sydney-based (Chase and White) sound artists down south, nevermind that the Headies bartender told a friend of mine that he'd rather listen to the dishwasher.. Great idea dude. Mic it.

Untitled (Kate - Rubber Band Protrait) Dara Gill

Dara Gill's first ever solo exhibition 'Unwish' opened at firstdraft last Wednesday. The title of the show is a reference to an Ernest Bloch text that describes anxiety as belonging to a ‘future temporality’ along with hope, desire and fear, according to the catalogue. In exploring the abstract and irrational temporality of ‘not-yet’, Dara’s focus is on anxiety. His theme is best depicted in a series of Rubber Band Portraits in which conventional portraiture is disrupted by, the audience assumes, the threat of a rubber band to the face. The subjects are captured as the image of their anticipatory response. In the catalogue essay Georgie Meagher (as in Bake Sale Georgie) refers to the Portraits and another work, ‘Blinding Light Box’, as a “Theatre of Situations” (Sartre). Indeed the Blinding Light Box is an experiential situation – you open a cupboard, a blinding light shines in your eyes – but the link to the projected discomfort of anxiety is a bit unclear as the work is characterised by the immediacy of your discomfort. ‘Self-Help Pulping’ is a sardonic swipe at the self-help phenomenon. The covers of self-help books are displayed alongside their pulped and cubed interiors. It kind of reminded me of a work Dara had in our Monthly Friend ‘Dead or alive’, To Roll – both focusing on the process of changing an object. In Self-Help Pulping, the process of reshaping an object becomes a deferral, an act that addresses the artist’s purported anxiety, ironically allowing the books to achieve their original intention. They also look really cool. I wish I could do this to the self-help books that have packed, nay infected - like a mysterious illness, a bookcase I left at my Mum’s house a while
ago...

Untitled (Self-Help Pulping) Dara Gill.

Stuff launching! The Paper Mill, a new artist run space in Town Hall opened it's doors to punters for the first time last week with another first, the launch of Das 500 - the online sibling to everyone's favourite street press art mag Das Superpaper. Also the Next Wave text camp reader has gone live, with a couple of pieces by yours truely. I'm not so happy with the Bromance one - should have paid more attention to that editing thing. Lastly, everyone should go to Locksmith tomorrow at 6ish for the opening of 'Wigwam for a Goose's Bridle' - an evolving installation by Alex Kiers and Vincent O'Connor investigating handmade shelter and organic architecture. Woot.

Fish-cake

Fish cake. Deliberated over tuna and chocolate but went with straight chocolate. Ocean cupcakes orange flavoured. You can eat this under-the-sea scene that took me considerable time to cook.


Bake Sale for Art giving our love to firstdraft for their studios grand opening tomorrow (see previous post).

News flash

Hi Hello. We are still here. A little dispersed yes, but the dream lives on. A little bit of news to tide you by:

Natalie and Georgie have both been doing residencies and mentorships at PACT and Bundanon through the PACT Vacant Room program. Nat is working on an exciting new work Pink Piece in collaboration with Kate Blackmore, Frances Barrett, Emma Ramsay, and Brian Fuata. Georgie is working on Kansas with Malcolm Whittaker to be presented at the (holy moley!) Anti Festival in Finland later this year. They are doing showings at PACT this Friday.

Pink Piece at Bundanon

Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore will be opening firstdraft gallery's new 'Depot' artist studios this Saturday, 24th, see flyer below. There will be performances, art, BBQ and Bake Sale are doing tea and cakes. So come! Celebrate! Say hi to the elected representative of your city!


Speaking of new spaces, Plump gallery, an intitiative from past Monthly Friend artist Willurie Kirkbright, has opened on Enmore Rd, Enmore, with the group exhibition Kindling. It was less than a month ago that I bumped into Willurei she told me she was about to sign the lease on a new building. It's this no nonsense, action over hype approach I'm sure will see this space as a valubale addition to Sydney's artistic landscape. If that wasn't enough, our friends Penguin Plays Rough are getting their new warehouse ready for the new and improved version of you favourite monthly literary event. We are excited, you should be too.

Thanks for checking in.

Love BSA.

Fashion Hazard Ahead

Dear the guy from film that ends in death, thank you for the ANZAC cookie. I must admit, at first I was apprehensive, I had had a bad experience with an ANZAC cookie before, but yours was delicious on the train on the way home and I could tell that people around me were jealous. So caramelly, golden delicious. Tonight being the first night I succeeded in being in the city and catching the train back to Hawthorne East, thus sparing me the $30-20 cab ride home, depending if we go via Carlton because we think it is on the way and we can share a cab. I was at the second / last Next Wave presents the Last Tuesday Society present Comfort Zone. See my comments on last week's Comfort Zone if you want, this week was the same deal, different performers.

I make this look good - Matthew Kneale and High Vis Dandy, photo - Sally Lewis.

So, High Vis Dandy is this absolutely fabulous performance/ installation work, not to mention playful and outrageous intervention in to public space (speaking of taking it to the streets). Their setup comprises of a trady’s ute, industrial sewing machine, workbench/ runway, some pretty serious traffic barriers and a variable message board (you know, big screen, ‘road works ahead’ / ‘40km speed limit’). They have set themselves the unenviable task of making orange and reflector panels look good. I have nothing against orange per se, it’s just if you overdo it you can look like a prison inmate, carrot, or Hare Krishna faithful. No such fate for the High Vis Dandy – they turn risk aversion in to a fashion statement. Tutus, tailcoats, one I thought I’d call the Sergeant Reflector Pepper vest, and turned out brocade lining! These and similar pieces I believe are the outcome of the sewing workshops the group have been holding in the lead up to the performance/install. Anyone could get involved so, ‘I can’t find one that’s nicely tailored and sexy’ is no longer an excuse for not wearing high visibility safety wear on your bike. High Vis Dandy is about more than looking good though. Aptly set up in the high fashion, aka ‘Paris’, end of Collins St, I saw the group on their fourth day of performing four daily sessions of cyclical performative actions and they had staked quite a presence alongside the likes of Rolex and Prada. It is a jibe at fashion, known to colonise any demographic towards its evil marketing ends. The Dandies take a lunch break from their hard work. A trady cliché and good opportunity for some product placement. They pout and pose and drink their Big M choccy milk like good product pinups. The work is also an elbow nudge at the dominance of ‘the masculine’ in trade-based work places. It subversively proposes an alternative identity to the Australian ideal of manliness (hard, rugged, practical) by appropriating a symbol of this manliness – the high visibility workwear – and making it over and camping it up. While High Vis Dandy was a delight to watch and certainly open to various interpretations and experience, I’m going to go with, ‘You can be safe and practical without being a macho jerk. You can dress well and be creative about how you look without being a mindless-consumerist-whore’.

High Vis Dandy, 17-21st May. Collins St Melbourne, as part of the Next Wave Festival. Artists: Jessica Daly, Matthew Kneale, Daniel Kroener, and Zoe Meagher.

You lent me your laptop and all I did with it was throw it off a bridge

Well it's a cold and shitty day in Melbourne. I'm out to Deborah Kelly's lecture later on to find out why Kelly keeps on fighting the good fight.

I got to go to the closing-night of Ashley Dyer's And Then Something Fell On My Head last night. I was interested to see whether the concept was as simple as the title would have me. Pretty pencils rained erratic yet purposeful from scaffold. The audience was split, the 2 groups sitting on either side of the 'auditorium' (not really) - one group had extraneous safety wear, white suits and rubber gloves. I received an insight from the project's dramaturg Simê Knezevic that the 2 groups were named The better equipped/ The unencumbered. White shrouds dropped from different places atop the 10 metre or so scaff and became the surface for video projections, mostly of a man (Ash Dyer) crawling and falling. More things dropped poetically, all also seemingly office related; water cooler bottles, clean paper, dirty tissues (people are always sick in offices right?). Ashley appears every now and then, in the same shirt/tie/suit pants combo of the video, and looks around perplexed and in wonderment, occasionally his body reacting to the pencils, water bottles or paper that gets too close. The lighting is moody and only some times frustrating. Designer Travis Hodgson aims for the sensory (as opposed maybe to the pictorial), flashing lights towards the audience and at times leaving us in darkness. It's both spectacular and meditative, even if I can't help thinking it is about an office worker who got lost in his daydream. There was a publication that might have shed some more light on the ideas in the piece, but these were not available to all audience members.

Takin it to the streets

I've let this get way out of hand. I am overwhelmed here about the prospect of writing about all the Next Wave stuff I have seen since I last reported. Yes. I should have gotten back to you sooner. But as soon as I left one thing, there was another to dash to. Now I have art fatigue, and a bit of a hangover. I'm sure you understand my dilemma(s).

This afternoon I attended the 4th and final Next Wave forum, 'Taking it to the streets'. Mostly about art in public spaces (whether existing or a public space that is created through the work). I particularly appreciated Lucas Ihlein's hand-drawn diagrams illustrating the ideal process timeline as a series of many mini-deadlines, as opposed to the less appealinng burst of high-stress, panic, waste and mindlessness, followed by the fireworks, and then fallout (debt, neglected friends etc), and then a period of recovery. This fits nicely with his larger ideals of art being a part of everyday life, existing in the real world, and yes in the art world too if you like (which is in the real world, he clarifies). But anyway, I was inspired, which is why I am here in Victoria State library at 5.30 on a Sunday Evening trying to tick off some mini-deadlines. Orchestrator of Next Wave's Chicken Stampede, George Egerton-Warburton also spoke, mostly taking us through his circuitous tangential logic (yes that works, think about it: you go on conceptual tangents only to reconnect with aspect of your original point of departure). Sorry.. circuitous tangential logic that sees the stampede of 300 chickens through a main street to Jeff Khan's backyard where they can be adopted by the public, as a necessary public action, giving visibility to livestock, commenting on the inherent loveliness of autonomous systems (not unlike meth-labs), and is a step forward in self-sufficiency and the future of Australian cultural identity. Unfortunately the RSPCA do not agree and have prevented the stampede citing that there is no guarantee that the chickens will go to good homes. These are chickens that, Egerton-Warburton says, will likely end up on cage farms otherwise. Instead there will be a 'Fucking Chicken Sound Stampede', in which participants are invited to stand in for the chickens and stamped the street making chicken noises. So come along next Sunday and have a cluck.

There. A mini deadline met gallantly. I didn't actually talk about any of the works, but the library is closing. Coming soon you will have Brown Council, Sugar Coated, the High Vis Dandies, Some Film Museums I Have Known, and more!

Mel Burn! It's hot! (actually it's pretty cold)

I know all you Bake Sale faithfuls are going to be wondering where the hell I (Meg) am this Saturday at Clubhouse. (I'm hoping my Mum will go to represent anyway, and so be one of the spare parents on offer. Yeah, I'm pimping my Mum. In a nice way. What?) I can't come because I'm in Melbourne for the Next Wave festival's Text Camp program.

For those of you in Melbourne, and also for my own benefit of noting/not forgetting, I want to mention some of the Next Wave emerging art things I've caught in the few days I've been here. The Last Tuesday Society's 'Comfort Zone' was almost worth going to just for a visit to Witches in Britches. It's a theatre restaurant. You go through a spooky foam, cobwebby, uv paint/black light tunnel to get in, I tell you, the excitement is just beginning! (I want to disclose my professional interest in theatre restaurants, as someone with a Bachelor of performance and a good deal of actor training under my belt, I was sizing this place up as a promising place of employment. Do we have any theatre restaurants in Sydney? Anyone?)

Maybe once this was a serious pub.

Comfort Zone was more than a variety night in a cool venue. The premise of asking artists to present short works far outside their 'specialty' made for some exciting, fingernail-gnawing, often-awkward, always interesting stuff. Making friendly with the Next Wave curatorial theme "no risk too great!" there was indeed a feeling that these performers could at any time fail at their attempts to do something different. Burlesque troop Caravan of Love's Eva Johansen did make a very convincing mime. Poet laureate Telia Nevile made a cute and very earnest hoola-hooper. I'm not sure what the Suitcase Royale were doing, but maybe their was a clue in them being announced as the "auteurs of Melbourne performance". They let the audience make the performance, so they didn't author it themselves. They also didn't talk and usually they talk a lot. Is that right? It is always more obvious when performers draw attention to what has gone wrong, and this could well have degenerated into self reflexive, apologetic embarrassment. But the performers were really trying. They were good at being bad , moving it from amateur to strangely artful. Whole new line up when they do it again next Tuesday.

Last night we went to Short Message Service. "An experiment" in which two performers (Mish Grigor and Jackson Castiglione) in a simple black box theatre take their instructions from text messages sent by the audience. A lot of these messages manifested in dialogue spoken by the performers, a short-coming I think, as one audience member texted "words words, enough of all these words". It was fun to see the two acting out your instructions, 'I am the puppet master!', perhaps some audience members were thinking. Interesting that immediately the performers were put in to a state of tension between sexual advances and insults. A reflection of the caliber of the audience? "It could have gone somewhere higher" one of my companions commented, intellectually I think she meant. "That would have been impossible", my other companion (her daughter) retorted. Indeed, the slow response time - in audience's texting speed and in filtering through to the performers, and the very minimal structure made it hard to build upon situations and ideas. So what if it was more structured? "It should have been set in a safari" suggests my companion, "that's lame mum", says Amy. At one point I was compelled to text, "Jackson, the audience is not happy with the gender politic in this show". Mish seemed a lot more passive, Jackson often the aggressor. Again, is this the audience, or the way their instructions were responded to? It worked best when the performers were forced to engage with each other, such as Jackson commentating on Mish 'as if she were a gazelle in the savanna and he were David Attenborough' (by the way, we got a glimpse of what the actual text messages where only at the end.) Every audience will of course have a different experience and it will be good to see where they take this experiment next. It's on til Saturday (22nd).


Oh! And! Controversy at Next Wave. An Age article condemns the Dachshund U.N. as cruelty to animals. The argument cites a violation of the RSPCA policy of "freedom to express normal behaviour" as grounds for this claim. I'm not sure what to think, as I haven't seen it yet. I was looking forward to how cute all the little doggies would be as stand in delegates for the countries who established the human rights commission in 1947. Aw, look at Belgium! He/she wants to eat its own tail. The article also refers to freedom from distress, but also says that owners were encouraged to only stay as long as they thought their dog was comfortable. I tend to think that keeping dogs as pets in the way we do isn't natural, nor is breeding shit out of them so the have tiny stumpy legs and long sausage bodies. It's all animal husbandry. Don't eat a cow. Don't buy a pedigree dog etc etc. There is also a chicken stampede later in the program at the end of which people are allowed to adopt a chicken in the name of self-sufficiency, and, I would add, not supporting the treatment of chickens in farms. Anyway, THIS is degenerating into a rant. Stay tuned for more Next Wave musings.

Afternoon Tea with the Folks, you are invited.

"You might be parents. You might have parents. Afternoon Tea with the Folks is a platform for those on either side of that generational dichotomy to get together and talk about where we've been and where we're headed.

Are they still waiting for you to switch from a creative work to a real profession? Do you need to apologise for that time you got ridiculously drunk on wine spritzer and ended their party early by vomiting on the dance floor? Mum? Do you? Our guest host, Malcolm’s mum Jude Whittaker is still waiting for her thank you in his Logies speech. Maybe your parent is equally anticipant about the day when you take your cat/dog/rabbit back in to your care...

This is an is an informal dialogue between young artists (not exclusively!) and parents or parent figures. If you don’t have these available we will have spares, so come anyway. Including performances from Malcolm Whittaker and July McKenzie and Cal Clatworthy (Mitzi’s Mum and Auntie), embarrassing anecdotes about you, and of course a delicious array of afternoon tea goodies. "

Facebook invite

2-4, next Saturday, free!

It's been a long time. We shouldn't have left you

Without a dope beat to step to...


BEEP TEST: Thanks all for participating, especially our friends, a few randoms from the park, and one person who heard about it on FBi radio. It was great to claim a bit of park for our 'intervention' no doubt park goers were thinking, 'what are these people running for? It's obviously some sort of competition, if not against each other, then for personal achievement. But alas! I am not in the race. I miss these random opportunities to flex my competitive streak in front of lots of people, as were so abundant in my school days. I wish I was doing a beep test'.
Some pictures to see here and look out for your photo and results being sent by cat meat and candy soon.

Awards ceremony

We have our next Monthly Friend coming up.. this month. Not one, not two, but three events as part of our EDUCATION WEEK at Clubhouse! Bake Sale are organising 2 very-useful-for-emerging-artists talks from very experienced and wisened arts people to address everything you wish you knew about writing applications, budgeting and how to grow up to be a real artist with a sustainable long term practice and lot of fans. You will learn all this if you come.* Furthermore, we are working with Malcolm Whittaker to host an 'afternoon tea with the parents' on Saturday 22nd May. We are inviting young artists to attend with their parents to shed some light for their adoring folks on what it is they actually do and why they don't have any money. If you want to come and you don't have a parent/ spawn to attend with, we will have some spares so please come anyway. The afternoon will feature a ukulele performance from Mitzi's mum and of course a delicious array of afternoon tea goodies.

So yeah. Education week. Fun fun fun. HYPE HYPE. Stay tuned.

*Bake Sale for Art accepts no responsibilty for failing to fulfill these outlandish promises I am making.

Right about now

Draught' at University of Sydney's Tin Sheds Gallery (148 City Rd, Camperdown) is closing this Saturday. So, you are rapidly nearing the end of your chance to see this fine exhibition of work by 9 former firstdraft directors. So, why not go this Saturday when Cy Norman* will be playing sounds collected from the gallery's air conditioning ducts and modified throughout the duration of the show? Due to gallery restrictions, the sound work was unable to be amplified in the Tin Sheds throughout the show, but Cy has uploaded his creations here. Hear it live in the gallery between 1 and 5.

'work in progress' -Cy Norman

Performance Space's Clubhouse program kicked off last week and my what fun we've all had! On Wednesday Barbara Campbell laboured for 3 hours over a steam press custom making punters News Haiku T-shirts, T-towels and tote bags. Proudly sporting my own Haiku shirt, the following evening I attended Malcolm Whittaker's 'a lover's discourse' - a lecture performance on Whittaker's awkward understanding of love. At the end we were given an address and profile of a stranger on the other side of the world and instructions to write this person a love letter. I am still contemplating; will I? won't I? More amazing stuff coming up at Clubhouse - performances, music, forums - and it's all free.

A big thanks to all who bought lammingtons. It was a big success. Apart from the rain. Still waiting on a few payments to work out total funds raised. I'll keep you posted.

rainy lammington pickups

Finally, it's time to start getting excited (and fit) for Monthly Friend 'Beep Test' . It's a beep test. 28th March. More info coming soon.

*I feel oblige to declare a conflict of interest like Kyle Sandilands never would, that I am in a relationship with Cy Norman.

Bake Sale for Haiti

Flag waving might be fun, but helping other people is even better! So BSA are organising a good ol' fashioned lamington drive to raise money for the Haiti earthquake relief effort.


Here's the deal: Order your delicious home made lamingtons in multiples of 6, it is $10 for 6 or $6 concession by the 30th Jan. Then come to the markets at The Hub, King St, Newtown, on Saturday 6th Feb and find the Bake Sale for Art stall. Swap us your money for cake, stay for a chat and an iced tea maybe. Then we give all the money to the Red Cross. Email Meg: megan.garrett.jones@gmail.com for an order form.

You know, The Hub. Oh, sorry, not really for those outside Sydney inner west.

In other news, the Tiger Two Times faction of Bake Sale are geeing up for the Tiny Stadiums Festival in Erskineville. We will be remounting Nature League as a durational performance set within a number of greenhouse structures to be built in an alcove just back from the main street. Keep an eye on the SMH Metro, we might just get a mention.