rcws – no, strange dude in a ute

#‎randomconversationswithstrangers

no, strange dude in a ute, i do not want your esky, nor to shake your hand for the hundredth time. i do not want to hear you’re Aboriginal while insisting that Uluru is called Ayres Rock “after the man who found it” (found it? fuck off), or that your son wants to be a copper, “an honourable job”. i am not flattered that you think that i am “a strong woman”, that you “admire me”, that i have “powerful eyes”.

I have tolerance and patience and an open heart and home to many people, but not you. go take your drunk driving circuits around the car park somewhere else. ideally with the engine shut off and the keys in the ocean.

#oneoftheonesidrathernothavethanksallthesame #timetoleave‬

Artists, Technology, Institutions and Social Change

Art and the connected future

Last Saturday I spoke at NGV’s Symposium, Art and the Connected Future, one of the public talk programs that runs alongside their, understandably popular, Andy Warhol/Ai Weiwei exhibition. I was particularly chuffed to be invited because, given my currently dire financial situation, the last time I’d been in Melbourne I couldn’t afford the entry fee. This time not only was entry to this most excellent of shows (in both content and presentation) free for speakers and delegates, but I was also flown over, put up in a swanky hotel for the night and paid to talk – luxury! More seriously I was delighted to be part of what I imagined to be a fascinating dialogue around arts, technology and social change framed by the life and work of two of the world’s most prominent creative troublemakers. On that last point, I may have missed the mark somewhat. I’ve been in the creative digital world for twenty years now, over eight of those spent living in Australia. I hadn’t asked, but I imagine they invited me because of the work I’ve done with the-phone-book Limited, ANAT, the Australia Council for the Arts and my general technoevangelism. In retrospect I’m not sure they were expecting the techno-cynic and fully-immersed social change voice that I have unquestioningly become.

Amongst an inspiring lineup for the day (I storified the tweets for those interested in far more of the day’s excellent convo than I have given due attention to in this post), my panel session was “Technically Speaking: Art, Artists and Audiences” with Seb Chan (ACMI), Kathy Cleland (University of Sydney) and Ben Davis (an American arts critic, who had kicked us off with an excellent Keynote just before), and chaired by Simon Crerar (Buzzfeed). The questions we had been asked to consider were: How have artists been redefined by digital developments in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries? How are artists using digital and social media to shape their art, and their artistic identity? What recent developments in the digital realm have impacted the art world and the ways we engage with art? How have digital advances extended the reach and power of art and artists? Why are museums and art galleries using new technologies? What impact does this have on audience experiences?

While I hope I brought some considered responses to these areas of thought, I couldn’t help but bring things back to the role of artists, institutions and technology gatekeepers in a contemporary society dominated by capitalism. With all the destruction capitalism (and its political bodyguard, neoliberalism) wreak on arts, culture and human existence, why are we still asking the same art/technology/audience questions which simply maintain a broken status quo?

To put this in context, in January Ai Weiwei pulled his exhibition in Denmark in protest to their asylum-seeker laws… so why was the NGV’s exhibition still going ahead? This country seems to pride itself on maintaining a reputation for some of the worst human rights abuses in the Western world. I’m certainly disgusted by our Government’s treatment of innocent humans asking for help… so why is Ai Weiwei OK with Australia’s asylum-seeker policies? (I have asked, but still don’t have an answer). After twenty years in this space I’m truly disappointed with where digital culture is going as a whole. Particularly with regards increased surveillance (bolstered by physical anti-protest laws nationally and the corporate sponsorship of law enforcers), proprietary and closed online platforms (where we are the product, not the customer), and ongoing battles against net neutrality. Perhaps I’m therefore not the best person to evangelise about how artists can help institutions gain better engagement with audiences through technology in quite the way I used to.

I’ve got to admit, twenty years ago I had high hopes for the future of our digital world. I believed the internet could finally gave us all a much-needed equal voice, that it would connect niche like-minded communities across vast geographic distances and empower users to meaningfully engage with anyone, anywhere, regardless of physical or economic capability. I’ve been pondering a full article reflecting on twenty years of my role in creative geekery and the trends (both good and bad) which I have watched emerge, but in summary: the doubts which had always lurked in the back of my naively optimistic mind have sadly come to fruition. Instead of the utopian digital democracy the internet could have become, we find ourselves addicted to algorithms that commodify our character and homogenise our humanness. Instead of enthusiastically embracing innovative business models and amplifying the increased voices of the many, our media monoliths have somehow managed to both profit behind paywalls and abuse our airwaves – simultaneously! The same tools which enabled us to participate in vital social movements like Arab Spring and Occupy are equally those which threaten the freedoms of whistleblowers. Indeed in at least one of Ai Weiwei’s documentaries in the exhibition, The Fake Case, he mentions that his very name is banned from Chinese internet. What sets us free can also destroy us.

But what does all this geeky social change talk have to do with artists? For me, everything. Over the last few years, as I have shifted my existence more fully into the activism world, I quickly noticed the similarities between processes. An artist has a concept, an idea they wish to communicate, and (most of the time) a clear idea of who they wish to communicate it with. They then need to find partners and resources to enable that idea to become real and present (be that in physical form or not). Then they have to create a buzz, awareness, marketing, to bring those audiences to the work, evaluate those engagements and reflect on what was revealed and what that means for future work. Then the cycle starts all over again with a new development of the same concept or a whole different tangent altogether.

Now go back to re-read that section but replace the word ‘artist’ with ‘activist’; ‘a concept, an idea’ with ‘a cause, an issue’ and ‘audiences’ with ‘supporters’. See? It’s the same process.

One of the roles of the arts is to hold a up mirror against society. What we see reflected back at us is often unpleasant, uncomfortable, unnerving… and necessarily so, especially in contemporary times. As Alison Croggan says in “On art as therapy” (Overland):

Sometimes art makes you anxious. That is part of its job. Sometimes its therapy exists in bringing to the surface our hidden traumas, our worst crimes, our darkest, most secret desires, and then forcing us to confront them. Making art is a process of examining our psychic unease in order to see it more clearly, inflaming rather than anesthetising our discomfort and pain. Art names our terrors as well as our joys. Sometimes, in order to make things better, art first has to make them worse.

This ‘unease’ is something that both Warhol and Weiwei do quite superbly, and for which they are much loved… by some. Sadly others disagree. The Australian’s 2014 article, “Sydney Biennale Shame Risks Funding says George Brandis” (published behind a paywall) gave us a glimpse of the dark times to come (a story we all know well). Artists boycott the Sydney Biennale because one of its key sponsors, Transfield Services (now called Broadspectrum, presumably to confuse us), make significant profits from maintaining the inhumanely-legal torture chamber known as Manus Island. Brandis spits his dummy, demanding that The Australia Council punish these -and future- sinners for biting the hand that feeds (despite the fact that increasingly it Does Not Feed!). Australia Council maintains its ‘arms length to the Government’ stance… and subsequently gets fined $104.7million… from budgets that largely affect the independent and small to medium arts sector… who are the ones most likely to create work that demonstrates our social unease and challenge the status quo. Sigh.

Still reeling from the ramifications of these OzCo cuts (and the newly proposed $8.5million cuts to arts funding in SA – for heaven’s sake, why can’t we be more like VIC?!), a couple of days ago we got a whole new kick in the gut: “Catalyst” (Brandis’ personal, non-transparent, slush fund for already-doing-quite-well-thank-you-very-much-but-sure-we’ll-take-a-few-hundred-thousand-more-because-we-can organisations, and one or two well-we-don’t-happen-to-be-your-friends-but-we-promise-not-to-be-naughty artists and orgs) is pork barrelling, using drip-fed grants announcements as photo opps for their election campaigning. [I read this news as I was about to board the flight back to Adelaide. I was horrified, disgusted, and so physically upset that I worried my visibly shaking body and laser-angry eyes wouldn’t be allowed on the plane. I even spent time exploring a delicious daydream of forcing some kind of legal action against them (imagine, the arts taking down these scumbags! bliss!)… but sadly that was not to be. I’d never heard of pork barrelling before. It may be immoral and unethical, but shamefully it turns out using public funds designated for the arts is neither illegal nor breaches electoral commission regulations. They’re good at that, this Government. If nothing else you do have to admire their astonishing capacity to make you physically ill while fully complying with the law… but then they do get to write those laws, sooooo… yeah. You see why artists need to be activists?! But I digress…]

As I wrote recently, the arts are increasingly becoming commodified and we, as the creative sector, need to both be aware of this fact and be ready to act on it – whether we are indies, SMEs or the ‘I’m alright Jack’ larger, safer, arts organisations and institutions. The arts is an ecosystem and we are ALL at risk if ANY of us are at risk. Any self-determination we felt we had as a sector is being both subtly and overtly chipped away, through internal funding cuts and bully-tactics, and external proprietary platforms and the power they wield (which in itself perfectly mirrors our social condition as a whole, not just within the arts).

 

a slide from Ben Davis' Keynote featuring a fabulous quote from "The People's Platform" by Astra Taylor

a slide from Ben Davis’ Keynote featuring a fabulous quote from “The People’s Platform” by Astra Taylor

Our NGV symposium chair, Simon Crerar, kickstarted the day by proudly sharing the recent viral success of Buzzfeed’s exploding watermelon on Facebook Live. Some online felt this astonishing feat foretold ‘the key to the future of TV‘; Simon, perhaps, felt it was the exciting future of digital arts. To me, not so much, but as we observe independent, otherness, voices struggle to gain attention or support amidst the myriad of homogenised, force-fed-by-algorithm tripe that our mainstream world has become… maybe I’m wrong.

As academic Hugh Davies mentioned in his talk on Ai Weiwei, frustrated by an all-encompassing police surveillance he established a live broadcast of his home and studio… which was shut down by police after 46hours (too much of a good thing, maybe?!). Hugh’s point – these days we may struggle more with a “fear of NOT being watched”, than the fear of “to be watched is to be an activist” (latterly referring to the German film, The Lives of Others“. I’m all for ownership of the creative experience by audiences, but these days I fear the author isn’t so much dead, it’s just getting a damned sight harder finding their signal through the noise. Personally I prefer the cheeky subversion of Paolo Cirio’s Street Ghosts and the Surveillance Camera Players over complicit acceptance of the pervasive panopticon of technological giants and the masters with whom they share our most private of correspondence.

Ben Davis’ illuminating keynote dropped a fascinating statistic into this with his comparison of high arts and games engagement. Where current tracking technologies have calculated that a museum or gallery-goer may spend up to 30seconds on a single artwork, an immersive gamer is spending 72hours a session, fully engaged and hyper-stimulated. This begs the question: where is the sublime gaze lingering longest, and what does that say about our current appreciation of the arts and culture? (… at least the kinds of art one may find in your average gallery or museum). Bring on more Slow Art Days, and alternative spaces outside the hamster wheel where we can pause, reflect, take stock before continuing with a calmer, more focused mind (like maybe hammocktime, heh). We’ll need them when the global shortage of colouring pencils hits hard.

Perhaps we as artists and our symbiotic relationship with museums and galleries is part of the problem. As Ben pointed out, John Berger’s Ways of Seeing mooted that in the future museums will be replaced by the equivalent of mood boards… enter Pinterest. Tom Uglow (Google’s Creative Lab) talked of “Art Project“, ‘The world’s art at your fingertips’ and the joy of accessing astonishingly high-resolution scans of artworks from the world’s foremost collections. Yes the technology and access potential is remarkable… but does that access negate our need to experience these works in the flesh, for ourselves, with all of the user-journey that comes from the sights and smells of the physical contexts outside the doors of the Uffizi or the Musée d’Orsay? Are we risking archiving our creative collections as artefacts instead of living, breathing, contemporary influences?

I can’t help but fear that our habitual colonisation – the capture, collection and selective release of paintings or sculptures depicting the natural environment (like some kind of Royal Society pioneer with his samples, carefully harnessing the magic of reality and preserving it in formaldehyde, or with a pin, in a glass box) – has sucked the very life out of them. The very act of taking these images or shapes from their natural context (owning it, co-opting it into our everyday, a form of scientific-cyborg assimilation) removes their otherness, their magic, their rarity. Knowing that they are always there, on demand, ticks some kind of psychological box negating our desire to even remember that one day we might want to experience them – perhaps even in person.

Don’t get me wrong, I recently visited the “Santos Museum of Economic Botany” in Adelaide (note the corporate branding) and it was a rare pleasure to view their permanent collections. But consider how little access children have to the natural world in its raw context these days – we have zoos, parks, botanic gardens, but are these not just factory farms? Colonies of artefacts, preserved for posterity while we destroy every last remaining natural habitat on the planet in the search for profits? We all grieved when ISIS destroyed the Palmyra and countless precous artefacts. But are we all simply heading toward a dark age where we will no longer require the original because we have a high-resolution scan, modelled in virtual reality for us to investigate through a mouseclick or 3D Print for ourselves at home? What if our scientists, artists and institutions are just as much to blame, or at very least partly accountable, as our capitalist enemies for bringing forward the end of the world as we know it (albeit with diametrically opposed intentions)? What a terrifying concept. And if this is true, what can we do about it, as individuals and collectively? And what power, if any, do I, we, as independent artists hold in turning things around? Pointing a finger alone risks biting the ubiquitous non-feeding hand, and even that strikes a chord of fear (this post’s critical backlash concerns me, and I’m not even answerable to anyone other than myself).

And what of artists collaborating with these technological giants? Media artists are always inventing, innovating new technological solutions as they problem solve in the process of their making. What if those inventions may inadvertently cause harm if controlled by the wrong hands. I asked Tom a ‘somewhat hyperbolic question’ (his words, justifiably), “Knowing you’re essentially working for ‘evil corp‘ (despite their claims to the contrary), what barriers, if any do you place on the development of new works which could end up in the wrong hands? Are your Creative Labs no-holds-barred, or do you ever stop to consider the potential risks? Would you cut down a project in its prime if it were, say, to become the equivalent of the next atom bomb?” (His answer was that the tech is usually already Google’s IP which artists are accessing, but that yes some of those thoughts are present).

Ben’s detailed, contextual talk revealed that the concept of ‘independent artist’ is a relatively new construct. Most major artists of yore operated in studio environments with apprentices, making work to order in a manner more akin to contemporary design than what we understand of contemporary DIY makers/producers. These emerging independent artist roles coincidentally revealed themselves around the time of the Industrial Revolution; the beginnings of capitalism begets the ‘artist labourer’. So in fact the relationship between independent artist and social change warrior has never really changed since its inception (I feel somehow empowered by that!).

As an artist your projects change you, or at least, they can… if you let them. I know my lifestyle choice has changed not just my outlook on every aspect of life and my place within it, but my entire physiology (I wasn’t expecting that!). I think about my own responsibilities a great deal, so naturally left the event pondering the responsibilities of institutions like NGV, what their role in society might be amongst the multitude of threats we face today. I wondered if hosting an exhibition of major international arts activists had changed the NGV in any meaningful ways. I’ve left them with that question and genuinely hope to receive an answer… to that, and a few more they won’t be expecting.

As seems to be my habit these days, I’m going to close yet another TL;DR post with some thoughts that risk biting the hand that feeds. I realise after the debate around the changing role of Adelaide Fringe and its backlash (both public and, more painfully, in certain deafening silences) that I’m going to earn myself a reputation of uneasy critical reflection. But if we don’t ask these questions, reflect these mirrors, then we are accepting of these status quo’s. I do not comply with the trajectory our society is on, and surely where is this civil disobedience more appropriate than in a discussion about Warhol and Weiwei? I am grateful to NGV for a really inspiring day and for being treated quite fabulously – spoiled, in fact. But these questions remain, and I am left needing to ask them, for better or worse, not just to NGV (although some below are specific reflections from the day) but to all our cultural institutions, worldwide. Even if you’re not hosting a socially engaged arts practice within your walls, shouldn’t every artistic institution (and indeed every institution) step up – speak out against injustices, reflect on adaptations to their own status quo, fight back against this never-ending, destructive, capitalist onslaught?

I started this post mentioning the exhibition ticket price ($26 – yes I really am that poor right now) being outside my reach, and certainly I wouldn’t have been able to afford to fly over and pay the symposium’s $70. If that was a barrier to me, what would that mean for others? Had they made efforts to seek more diversity in their audiences by removing those economic barriers other than simply a concession rate (still expensive at $22.50)? And although there was a good gender balance in the speakers, we were all gleamingly white. The auditorium itself was far from packed, and also largely white. Had efforts been made to invite broader diversity in cultural and economic background? If so, what could they have done to improve things, and if not… why not?

Should any conference held in times where we’re faced with undeniable ecological disaster, provide water in small bottles destined for landfill, not from a jug and a few glasses? Were leftovers from the kitchens that provided our deliciously decadent lunch offered to the many homeless people shivering on the cold street outside, with cardboard signs that began “I don’t want to be here…” What else can we do – as organisations and individuals – that can redirect our significant privilege to those who struggle to even exist? Sure we don’t get huge salaries in the arts, but we still have more than others. While our governments refuse to step up, hiding behind ‘austerity measures’ and immoral legal systems, it’s up to us to consider these painful truths.

And then there are the even bigger questions, imbalances from so long ago they can seem too distant to even fathom. The National Museum of Australia in Canberra has been hosting ‘Encounters’, a temporary exhibition of Indigenous artefacts on loan from the vaults of the British Museum. Shouldn’t they be returned for good, not just to Australia, but to their living custodians?

And why, when independent artists are so definitively under threat, are these institutions still asking us how we can help them to maintain their engagement with audiences, when so few of them have stepped up and spoken out against these cuts? Is it seriously the role of independent artists, digital or otherwise, to preserve our cultural institutions, when perhaps it is us ourselves who are most in need of contemporary artworld preservation?

Perhaps some of these questions can be brought forward to tonight’s Art & Activism debate – if so I would love to hear their responses. I note sadly that no independent artists are speaking, something that was questioned by our audience and is all too common at these discussions. But then when you invite indies, treat them fabulously and then watch in horror as they speak with a criticism that burns, perhaps I’m doing both myself and others a disservice for speaking my mind. Time will tell…

5 things I learned from living life as a solo, bus-dwelling, nomadic woman.

homeJames out bush: CC:BY Fee Plumley

homeJames out bush: CC:BY Fee Plumley

I’ve lived in a bus — as a single woman, travelling almost exclusively alone — for over three years. Here are 5 things I’ve learned.

1. Trust your gut

It’s late, you’re tired, you want nothing more than to pull over, stop driving and go to sleep, but you can’t quite find the right place. Right, for me, means safe, private, not pissing anyone off and — ideally if you can find it — not illegal. Safe is right up front for good reason.

There’s something quite wonderful about the connection to place you get as a nomad. Everywhere you go there’s a communication between you and that location. A deep instinct, a gut feeling, tells you if this place is OK or not. If you have even a tingle of doubt, you leave. Drive away, find somewhere else. Immediately.

It doesn’t matter that your bus is a safety shell, it matters that you’re not putting yourself in harm’s way. There are enough risks out in this big dark world that you simply don’t need to chance it. Listen to your gut. Find somewhere else. If your bottom line choice becomes ‘this place which is safe but illegal’ and ‘this place which is legal but doesn’t feel safe’, then break the rules. You’ll find, as I have, that all but the most bitter security guards/police agree that safety is more important than a bit of ninja-parking now and then.

2. Otherness is bliss: own your right to be different.

Mostly I find people love my bus and are gently curious about my lifestyle choice, but sometimes I’m faced with the ‘get off my land’ types. Instead of simply bowing to their superiority, I like to challenge this. Not to be belligerent, but because I genuinely seek to understand what causes their bigotry, and, if at all possible, encourage them to question that mindset in themselves.

In Europe nomads are labelled Gypsy or Pike, both derogatory labels used to describe lower-class, disreputable people who (simply due to their otherness) must surely be mistrusted. Nomads are no more dodgy geezers than your house-dwelling next-door neighbour who never manages to put their rubbish in the bin and always plays their music loud on a school night. Sure some travellers have the audacity to do their laundry in public, literally hanging their knickers on a tree to dry in the sunshine, but seriously… is that so terrible?

The world is full of diversity, in landscapes and in human kind. We are all oddballs; unique in our similarities, connected by our differences. Contrary to the way our mainstream media, film and TV industries would have us believe: otherness is the norm, globally. Celebrate that; own your otherness.

3. Sexism can sometimes work in your favour.

I try to be respectful and park away from residences — makeshift neighbours can be funny old protectionist beans. It’s amazing the number of times rangers or security get called to come investigate the stranger parked on a public street. I’ve been woken in the early hours more than a few times by loud aggressive banging on the outside of the bus. Not just a gentle rat-at-tat on the front door, but a booming reminder echoing through your metal home that YOU ARE WRONG. These bangs are always delivered in multiples, the community bodyguard encircling the bus ensuring you are aware of their domination.

When I, a bleary-eyed woman, open the door that aggressive masculine stance more often than not rapidly falls away. You are not the bloke they were expecting and they’re not quite sure what to do about it all any more. Their eyes say it all; they find themselves stuck between their paid role, which demands they defend the self-imposed rights of the local rate paying residents, and a deep-rooted instinct to help a woman in need.

While patronisingly old-fashioned, this is helpful for me. I don’t want to have to pack up and drive off before I’ve had a reasonable sleep — in fact it’s inappropriate for anyone (even a policeman) to ask you to drive when you are not properly rested. You could cause an accident. Run with that. Discuss the situation with them. You don’t need to play any kind of nonsense weak and feeble girly card or step up to match their aggression. Just be calm and rational — and human. Politely, but firmly, explain your situation “I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you couldn’t park here, I’ll leave first thing in the morning”. And then both do so and don’t go back there again; you’re clearly not welcomed round those parts.

4. We have a basic human right to The Commons.

Not all nomads are tourists. Not all of us are on holiday. And not all of us have budgets that enable us to stay at a hotel every night. When we Brits colonised Australia we brought with us a whole raft of English and Welsh laws… except The Commons. The Commons doesn’t really exist anywhere any more in these dark ages of greed and privatisation, but it used to mean that everyone had the right to access and use land and waterways, equally. The only stipulation was that your use couldn’t negatively impede anyone else’s right to the same use. This shared ownership was the foundation of our legal system, except, it seems, when claiming other countries as our own.

It’s my belief that The Commons should continue as a basic human right, and I live daily in precarious ownership of this right. Caravan parks are for holiday-making families, not for nomads (unless you maybe need to do some washing and fancy access to a hot shower every now and then).

5. Random conversations with strangers are the absolutely best thing about nomadicy.

It’s easy to feel an outsider, other, when travelling. Especially alone and especially as a woman. You know you’re already vulnerable, living on the streets (albeit in a more protective shell than a high street doorway), but that doesn’t mean you should hide away and reject possible interactions with other humans. There’s nothing I love more than sitting on my bus’ doorstep having a coffee in the morning. I smile at the locals passing by, sometimes they catch my eye and smile back, and sometimes this results in a conversation.

I’ve had so many lovely exchanges that I started sharing them online. Sometimes they result in tips about hidden gems of suggested parkups, sometimes fresh homegrown veggies, herbs and eggs still warm from their delightful chooks. Sometimes they’re homeless people wanting to recharge their phone on my solar rig, or just curious about the bus and why a woman is travelling on her own in it. The great British tradition of ‘a cuppa’ is a fantastic social lubricant, always offered and often accepted.

. . .

So do I think it’s ‘safe’ for women to travel solo? Of course I do. Sure I’ve had rare moments where my definition of safety has been challenged, but I have had those when I lived in bricks and mortar too. Despite our otherness from mainstream society, we women are not the problem. The problem is a homogenous patriarchal enclosed system which tells women what we should and shouldn’t do with our minds and bodies and tells men it’s OK to dominate, threaten and rape women simply because she ‘shouldn’t have been there in the first place, never mind wearing those clothes’.

Some people are assholes, but for every single one of those douchebags there are thirty more who are astonishing examples of the human race’s generosity, curiosity and otherness. When I was eight years old I would go tromping through the Welsh mountains accompanied only by my dog, a miniature wire-haired dachshund called Barney. When I was thirteen I would roam the streets of London while my mum was in business meetings. I have always and will continue to unapologetically walk through unlit parks late at night. I don’t own a gun, rape alarm or any other form of device which some corporate marketing company tells me will make me feel ‘safe’, I just use my common sense and gut instinct.

Buslife isn’t for every woman, or every man, that’s for sure. But it’s the only life for me, regardless of what hangs from my chest or doesn’t hang between my legs.

THE BACKSTORY

This post was originally published via the “5 Things I learned” channel on Medium, thanks to an invitation by Matt Locke of Storythings. Matt was the first person to commission me as an artist via my old company, the-phone-book Limited, a verrrrry long time ago. I’d really enjoyed his kick-off contribution, “5 things I learned working as a short order chef“, and messaged him to say so. His reply? “I’d love to read ‘5 things I’ve learned riding a bus around the world for 3 years…’”.

I’ve always known there would be a book/film/transmedia-something-or-other to come out of reallybigroadtrip. I’m even getting to the point where that’s beginning to take its own shape, but I still don’t feel ready to distil three years (and a complete change of life, perspective, everything) down to five things. At least, not yet. I thought maybe ‘5 Things I’ve learned from hammocks‘ and left my subconscious to mull it all over.

A few days later a friend posted about the #viajosola hoohah, which went something like this: 1) Solo women travellers get attacked. 2) Society tells women they shouldn’t travel alone because they only have themselves to blame for getting attacked. 3) Twitter gets involved. 4) Women respond with outpouring of why we should do what the bloody hell we want. 5) Fee gets cross and throws her hat in the ring, realising this makes a perfect “5 things” post.

What’s been so wonderful for me is that since it’s been posted I have had so many people (particularly, but not exclusively, women) contact me, both publicly and privately. They have told me how reassuring it is to have their own beliefs confirmed; how encouraging it is to hear this positive perspective just before they embark on their own solo buslife adventures; how even British Citizens didn’t know about The Commons and what we’ve lost through enclosure and capitalism.

Women have shared their own experiences of life on the road. Men have told me they’d never considered how women have to be extra-vigilant while telling me of times they too have found situations where they had to quickly devise their own safety mechanisms. Phrases like “renewed hope”, “inspiring and reassuring”, “liberating and empowering”, “reigniting the dream” have been filling up my inboxes and newsfeeds. One woman even told me that after struggling with isolation and then reading my post, she actually sat outside her bus with her morning cuppa and a smile, resulting in several delightful conversations and possible new friendships! Wonderful!

What this has helped reveal for me personally is that after all these years struggling with “Am I an artist? If so, what kind?” I’ve become reminded that I have always dearly loved writing, but have never given myself permission to own that role. “I’m not poetic enough”. “I know so many astonishing writers, I could never ever be that good”. And of course “I’m #TLDR” and all the other imposter syndrome nonsense. The multiple responses to this post have been so complimentary that I’m now exploring more writing opportunities outside my own blogs. In writing more, working with editors and reaching broader audiences than my own niche communities, I aim to hone my voice and maybe even bring in some income from it *gasp*.

Thank you to everyone who’s read that post and any of my other rantings over the years, you rock x

Fringe, or Binge?

“In 1960, fed up with the limited opportunity for local talent in the exclusive Adelaide Festival of Arts, a small group of independent artists created the Adelaide Fringe”.

So begins the Adelaide Fringe Festival’s webpage about the history of the event that runs annually (alongside the Adelaide Festival of the Arts, Clipsal and WOMADelaide) in making Feb-March the glorious “silly season” we know and love. The page goes on to detail how the festival grew from a local event to a more Internationally-open one by 1988. Growth was tremendous in every way – the number of artists, the duration of the season, the geographic spread of activity, and, of course, the revenue generated for the city.

But is all growth good?

“Capitalism creates wealth through advancing continuously to ever higher levels of productivity and technological sophistication; this process, known as creative destruction, requires that the “old” be destroyed before the “new” can take over” Observation by Economist Joseph Schumpeter [1].

Back in 1960, Fringe took the premise of a major celebration of creative culture and it innovated, devising its own natural path according to the needs and contexts of the time and the place. It saw an ecosystem which served only the elite few and creatively developed a new approach to envelop others, difference, the unknown. It worked. And not by ‘creatively destroying’ its competition, the Adelaide Festival of the Arts, either.

The needs and contexts of the time and the place

Fast forward to 2016, where the Fringe Festival brochure and website explode with over 1100 events and more than 5000 artists over a frenzied five week period. That’s some significant growth right there. But let’s pause for a moment and reflect on the current “needs and contexts of the time and the place”. According to ABS’ June 2014 stats, South Australia consists of 1.69million residents, 1.30million of them in Greater Adelaide. Currently 7.5% of these residents are unemployed; the highest unemployment rate in the country. We have no industry, no manufacturing, and a comparatively small number of residents paying rates and taxes back into the system. Thanks partly to Mad March we have a pretty decent tourism sector, but clearly not enough to underwrite the entire State year-round. By comparison, it’s worth noting that Edinburgh Fringe has a potential audience of 300million within a 3hr flight to the city, and 70million just a day’s drive/train journey away. If Australia wasn’t throttled by the tyranny of distance and the subsequent greed of our travel industry this wouldn’t even be a discussion.

Let’s face it, SA is facing a disastrous economic crisis, and while “innovation” has been the buzzword on everyone’s lips (again) it seems the only prospective solution this State Government can envision is to become the world’s nuclear waste dump. A recent Royal Commission has proudly declared that $445 billion could be pumped into the the coffers over at least 70 years and create 1500-5000 jobs. This International centre of toxicity would cost an ‘estimated’ $257 billion to set up, which is a pretty hefty cashflow injection for a near-broke State, especially on a prospective ROI of less than 50% (plus we all know what happens when estimates become reality). And then there’s the small matter of the ecology and the humans who happen to live within it. I’m no scientist, but good old Wikipedia tells me the half life of radioactive waste is somewhere between 24,000-15.7 million years. Um, can I have a cost benefit analysis on that please?! I guess if we’re prepared to take such an unfathomably long-term risk for such absurdly short-term economic goals, South Australia really must be deeply and truly fucked.

The value of arts and culture

But what do toxic waste dumps have to do with the arts in general, never mind a wacky festival of gritty otherness? As any arts worker knows only too well, the first thing to go in times of austerity measures is the arts and culture budget. Just before its launch this year, the Adelaide Festival for the Arts were warned of a $1million cut to its funding, and they’re far from the only victims. That news coming on top of Senator Brandis’ $104million heist on our Federal funding body, the Australia Council for the Arts, last year explicitly demonstrates that Australian arts and culture (especially the Independent) sector has never been so truly fucked.

The perception that arts/culture has no commercial value ergo it has no value at all has been allowed to continue for far too long. Museums and Galleries are supposed to be free for the public [aka: art matters, people!] yet funding to enable their existence diminishes year on year, whereupon they’re criticised for not having better business models [aka: art is irrelevant to the public purse, even if it’s the Government’s decision to cripple any potential business model]. Arts Organisations battle to maintain core revenue for infrastructure (buildings, staffing, etc) as well as funding artistic programming. At least Arts Orgs have the potential interest of Sponsors and Philanthropists, though, with their promises of big names and shiny buildings. In the luxurious case of the meagre 28 Major Performing Arts companies (who already control around 57% of Australia Council-managed funds), they are both Federally sanctioned from cuts and eligible for “Catalyst“, Brandis/Fifield’s new slush fund. If the meek shall inherit the earth it seems that our future planet won’t have a great deal of high arts content…

So what of Independent artists, those who form the very basis of events like Fringe, trialling new experimental concepts, building experience and reputation that both delivers in its own right and incubates the necessary talent pool for the entire arts ecosystem? Well we clearly don’t often get a look-in when it comes to Sponsorship and Philanthropy, and certainly don’t benefit from tax breaks or subsidies. Nope, we have to scrabble for tiny (and ever-decreasing) pots of project funds and a handful of fellowships. If we talk about money at all we get criticised for being too commercially focused… which is ironic given that those comments are typically more about the struggles we all face than the profits we [never] make.

Independent artists are frequently labelled “doley bludgers”, which is laughable when you consider how little income can be sourced either from welfare or highly competitive funding rounds. In tragicomic hilarity this debasing moniker is rarely applied to those in receipt of mining corporation subsidies, mainstream media payoffs, legal tax loopholes for corporations and the global banking system (although the latter is significantly more apparent in the Northern Hemisphere). And don’t get me started on the billions we dole out on the militarisation of a country that’s never seen an international war threat on this land since the one we whitefellas started when we colonised it.

No, Independent artists are not doley bludgers, we’re a necessary part of a highly committed, deeply networked ecosystem. Every Independent artist I know around the world works several (part time, low paying, high demand) jobs while still being expected to work “for exposure” at commercial events desperate to up their cool ratings or corporate responsibility rankings. That those unstable paid roles are generally in education and social/community development roles is further damaged by Government cuts to those areas too. We whinge but we comply, scared of biting the hand that feeds. But if the hand is Government funding and mainstream appreciation of the arts, it’s important to point out that it is not actually feeding. This mythical hand is more realistically a drug dealing pimp: the first hit’s free; no you can’t do that, especially not there; thank you I’ll take my 30-50% of your labour now plus tax deductions… and don’t you dare complain or we’ll cut you off…

“It’ll never change” we say. Well no, it bloody well won’t if we don’t DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

Adelaide Fringe Festival

All that context might not seem relevant to many audiences of the Adelaide Fringe Festival, but it’s important to understand the ecosystem we all operate within. Especially when a bit of public controversy kicks off around a few ‘private’ facebook feed posts and impassioned face to face conversations at the grassroots level, between artists simply trying to protect themselves and their peers from falling down the same deep pits of self-funded fringe productions.

Basically, a few exchanges over the weekend are turning into a much more public-facing dialogue prompted by an article in InDaily yesterday, in which I’m quoted – along with other Adelaide Fringe Festival artist-friends Alexis Dubus (UK) and Tomas Ford (WA) and others – about a survey I’ve drafted. Later in the day The Australian followed up with another article on the same issue, with several radio interviews doing the rounds and even a UK network jumping on board. Last night the standard arts buzz had turned into a blur of actively engaged socio-political discussions. (What? Art and politics? Be still my beating heart!)

Honestly I think it’s a great thing that these conversations are more prominent – and why I want to work with Fringe to develop, distribute and analyse my survey so we can find out what audiences want too. In doing so my hope is that we can perhaps provide an opportunity to inform those audiences who might love the city’s festivals but be unaware of the situation Australian arts and culture currently faces, and more importantly, what they can do to more proactively work with us to protect it.

The contention is that the significant growth of Fringe over many years has been far too focused on a short-sighted Capitalist strategy which completely guts the grassroots heartbeat it was originally designed to pump. Sommat’s gotta give and we need to decide -collectively- how that change can be manifest for the betterment of both big names/budgets and small indies/low-no-budget productions. If we do this right, we can also remind the State (and hopefully by precedent, the country) that art and culture has an important value both within and additional to economic bottom lines.

Gentrification

Every single year of the eight years I have lived in Australia, we have had the same discussion in Adelaide at the end of the Mad March Festival season. “Is Adelaide Fringe still actually a fringe event?”; “Why do so many big names and big budgets always have to take over niche events?”; and of course everyone’s favourite, “Why does Adelaide’s entire cultural calendar have to happen in the same damn two months of every single year?!” Not to say this is exclusively an Adelaide thing, it’s not. I grew up in UK with Edinburgh Festival as the highlight of my year from the age of 13; god knows they have struggled with the same debates. Perth Fringe World, which has grown at an astonishingly rapid rate in only a few years, was fraught with similar outpourings this year. And yet growth continues… but at what loss?

We know the cycle, and it’s far from just a festival-centric one. The dirty end of town is ignored by commercial interests until the creatives move in and turn ugly to beautiful, empty to buzz, derelict to designer. At which point commercial interests are piqued, property rents soar and the creatives are evicted, only to move on to the next hovel and start the cycle all over again. Gentrification is the curse of creativity, and we are our own worst enemies for complying. Yet comply we do. Over and over again.

Much like the gentrification model of urban restructure, profiteering sharks are never far from creative buzz. In broad terms, from every festival I have ever known around the world (which are many), where there is a DIY energy it won’t be long before some entrepreneurial type pops up promising a return on investment. What this mostly boils down to is all the unpaid/low paid energy of the many being siphoned off by the smug few (… hello Capitalism). I’ve known festivals where the volunteers (often in Management positions) work themselves into a frenzy and end up emotionally and physically wrung out, promising to never do that again. But those up top don’t care – plenty more eager volunteers ready to step into their shoes next year. And so the cycle continues. Yes festivals are an incredible opportunity for significant exposure and work experience, but if the rewards aren’t shared equally it simply cannot be sustained.

Some of the bigger venues in the Fringe lineup have that reputation. I won’t name names but I bet any of you who know this scene will know precisely which venues I’m referring to. Stories of crappy treatment at both paid and unpaid staffing levels have been rife for years. But what upsets me even more than this ongoing DIY-abuse cycle is that these days some venues don’t even bother to thinly disguise their core interest: profit from booze, not investment in the artists or an all-encompassing, sustainable, Fringe culture ecosystem.

When a popup venue is designed with the feature attraction being the sale of alcohol and sells tickets just to enter the site for that purpose alone, you’ve gotta wonder what’s going on. When they also leave limited space for an all-encompassing Fringe experience (forbidding the use of Fringe Festival Artist Passes to fill empty seats, berating artists for giving away comps to artist colleagues despite empty seats being available, and prioritising the distribution of their own venue-specific programs over holistic Fringe programs) you’re likely to question what little respect they have for the broader Fringe ecosystem. But when ticketholders can’t even get in to see the shows they have paid to see because the venue is at full capacity with people who are mostly just there drinking; or when a city-wide blackout causes shows to be cancelled and the site refuses to pay the artists whose shows were abruptly cut off; or when big shows are flyering ticket lines with free seats because they can afford to…. oh come on.

I understand that these people invest a great deal of money into making vibrant city popups and that the Capitalist way is to prioritise their own significant return on investment. But I can’t help question: who do we do this for – the artists, the audiences, or the profits of venues? Not all venues act like this, yet all venues have their own bars and necessary commercial interests. Some appear to be team players and others less so. Fringe festivals are by their very nature built upon grassroots energy. When stories or evidence of imbalances occur they stick out even more than they would at a more overtly commercialised event. Yes there are many amazing shows and spaces and humans and a crazy amount of choice for audiences, but as with all life there are also sharks who care more about their own profits than they do the overall ecosystem. They just ruin it for everyone, which for some means they simply won’t return.

Audiences

Something’s not right here any more.
When I first came here in 2009 it felt like a genuinely experimental and exciting creative hub, with audiences seeking out tucked-away venues and subversive shows.
Having visited Adelaide before, I was blown away by how much this sleepy town got behind the weird and the wonderful offerings that Fringe threw at them.
Seven years on and those people seem to have vanished.

…

I’m not sure what can actually be changed at an open access festival that’s now seemingly allowed greed and complacency to dictate its direction, but part of the change has to be the attitude of Fringe-goers, who need to re-evaulate the meaning of “fringe.” I don’t want to be a hypocrite and be the one telling punters what they should be watching, but audiences choosing soulless, mass-produced bollocks over thoughtful, innovative works in quirky spaces is what has now turned the Fringe into what it was initially rallying against.
And when the enormous venues choose to throw out hundreds of free tickets (because they can), sometimes to people actually waiting in the box office queue to buy tickets for smaller shows that need their custom, this only creates an atmosphere of entitlement among Adelaide audiences, believing they should now get their entertainment for free. Time and time again, flyerers have been approached by folks who want a free ticket or are simply not interested.

[excerpt from Alexis Dubus’ facebook post]

While we all love to joke about the tumbleweed that exists outside of the annual Feb/Mar explosion, it is simply not true that nothing happens in Adelaide outside of festival season. There are a crazy amount of cultural events that happen year round, some are part/whole funded but many many more run on pure passion. The thing is that you have to go and seek them out far more than when they land on your doorstep thanks to the major efforts of a festival or big bucks promoter.

Adelaide has this bizarre ‘never book in advance’ attitude that I have never seen anywhere else (made all the more bizarre because we often do rock up on the night in our droves). As mentioned in the InDaily article, this results in us often losing out from big international names who, unfamiliar with our little quirks, simply don’t dare absorb the risk of expensive empty venues. These audiences moan about being seen as a small country town, but their actions do absolutely nothing to suggest they are anything more than exactly that. I love the intimate size of this city, it’s my Australian home and I regularly stand up for it against national criticism of the place. But we are our own worst enemies, and we need to accept that if we act like spoilt brats, becoming lazy and entitled in our expectation that art should come to us, we will continue to miss out.

So yes, I agree with Alexis that a large part of the problem lies with audiences; where are the audiences who want to think, not drink? However, I don’t really blame them for being this way. My finger points to the much bigger threats I started the post with: a broad societal misconception that arts/culture has no commercial value therefore it has no value at all, and the gentrification affect of commercial enterprises looking to cash in on cultural capital. Plus I have another wagging finger aimed at the heart of homogeneity: mainstream media.

There is a desperate lack of cultural criticism in the arts, and I don’t mean people who whinge (there’s certainly no shortage of them). As journalists and photographers are laid off, mainstream media relies heavily on puff pieces scraped lazily from press releases, and ‘reviews’ sourced via social media or volunteers. It’s an ongoing concern that I’m extremely familiar with from 20years in the media/experimental arts world (where we are simply too weird to bother writing about) and have had many passionate conversations about since living in Murdoch-land.

Adelaide local, Jane Howard, has been working tirelessly to kick this nonsense in the face for many years. Not only does she write professionally for Guardian Australia (and many other mainstream and journal outlets) but she recently called out a rather shonky ‘competition’ by Aspire Magazine, resulting in them changing their terms and conditions and creating a paid position (Go Jane!). And as if that wasn’t enough, she’s even published the secrets of her trade, all the more laudable given how little paid opportunity there is for a skilled craftswoman like herself in this undervalued arena.

Not only is mainstream media vital for the promotion of the arts (especially so for indies who can’t afford exorbitant advertising rates) but without a serious critical discussion around artworks and cultural practice, audiences can only witness a shallow veneer of our vitally rich and meaningful sector. How, when denied such awareness, can they even begin to appreciate Fringe as anything more than a few pretty pink fairy lights and the novelty of stilt walkers and fancy new bars for a few weeks? Perhaps given the homogeneity of mainstream culture we can’t blame the audiences at all.

Solutions?

So, what do we DO about all this? I’ve got a few ideas of my own from many years of festival engagement at all levels (including running them) and across many countries. Obviously I have also been actively engaged in recent discussions with ‘grit fringers’ and trying to keep up with the avid commentaries flowing from social media posts and media articles (when they’re not deleting them… ahem). Here’s a few ideas starting with direct actions we can take immediately and a few proposed models we can explore and reflect on over time.

1. Hold a Fringe Forum. The first thing we need to do (as I have proposed every damn year I’ve spent at Fringe, knowing what happened in Edinburgh and watching the same slow motion car crash happening here) is to actually get together and talk about it. Not a mud-slinging match, but a serious, open discussion featuring representatives from Festivals Adelaide, the Fringe team, the major and minor venues, big name producers, and independent ‘grit fringe’ artists. If needs be I’ll help organise it, webcast it and live-tweet it so we can get the broadest possible open-minded, ecosystem-centric dialogue and action plan kickstarted.

2. Survey artists and audiences. This is my first Fringe as an artist, so I’m guessing this happens anyway, but as the InDaily article mentioned* I’ve drafted a survey that asks the kinds of questions I’d like to know the answers to and I’ve shared with with a few other artists who have added suggestions. I have no interest in working against the Fringe, there’s a wonderful opportunity here to collaborate. Certainly with FringeTix designed how it is, only Fringe HQ get the contact details for audiences so it’s nigh-on impossible for the artists to get in direct contact with the people who attended their work (another bugbear of mine but that’s not for this post).

If Adelaide Fringe is going to continue to exist on the international indie’s ‘most desired festivals’ list, we are going to need bold shifts internally and an actively engaged public who are prepared to put their views out there. Even if their view is ‘we don’t care’ at least we can all pack up and stop wasting our energy. Not that there’s anywhere else to go as most countries struggle with the same concerns, but why bother investing good energy into places/people who don’t give a shit?

(* without asking permission to post a ‘private’ facebook status or interviewing me, by the way, but hey I know enough about digital culture to know that nothing online is private).

3. Create a genuine, year-round, holistic cultural ecosystem, part one: spread the love. It has been said So Many Times, but what if allthethings weren’t on at the same time? I understand there’s a desire to generate an extreme buzz, and a belief that one audience/artist trip can cover all tick boxes. But what this year undeniably demonstrates is that South Australia is simply neither a large enough or wealthy enough population to sustain it (especially under increasing austerity measures and unemployment). I heard rumour that Clipsal was down 20,000 attendance this year… while they’re not typically a core arts audience that still has to ring some alarm bells.

The Garden of Unearthly Delights and The Royal Croquet Club are big enough events with big enough budgets and revenues to exist in their own right. What if we let something like Adelaide Festival (and Clipsal, if it must) run in March, GOUD, RCC and their associated big bucks productions run in June, and Fringe run in September? It would spread out both cost and cultural exposure for audiences, allow the Fringe to be a ‘grit fringe’ again, and the big players can still hit up the winter season… when let’s face it, it’s not even bleedin cold here!

I’d also add that any true ecosystem would naturally have to pay it forward… what if a percentage of profits made by the more commercial events (which often don’t even stay in the State) actually got reinvested into a slush fund for local SA cultural producers? Invest in the stars of the future, stabilise a faltering economy, enable bold, risk-taking, experimental and emerging work to develop and be nurtured in a safe, mentored, fully resourced environment.

4. Create a genuine, year-round, holistic cultural ecosystem, part two: reinvent the model. In recent discussions I’ve learned about two innovations to the traditional fringe model which reinforce the basic grit fringe intention.

Edinburgh now has a “Free Fringe” which functions much more along the busking model. A hat passed round at the end gathers donations – if you liked it, throw some pounds in. All artists have to pay something back too but in time and energy not money – in return for being listed as a free fringe show you have to offer your time to support other free fringers. In a country where philanthropy has been slow, this comes with a certain amount of risk… but it’s worth considering.

Then there’s the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals model, which is frankly brilliant. It’s based on a lottery system, so all prospective artists apply but rather than being curated they get selected by pulling names out of a hat (it’s probably slightly more glamorous than that in reality, but nevertheless maintains the edgy, open-access beauty of grit fringe diversity). Venues don’t charge hire fees, all events charge a flat $10 fee to audiences but pass around a hat at the end – if you liked it you can throw in whatever you like which goes to the venue (who of course also make bar sales).

5. Create a genuine, year-round, holistic cultural ecosystem, part three: Fringe as infrastructure.

  • Mentor program for Critics. Many years ago I was Chair of a media arts network in the North West of England. As I’ve mentioned above, media arts never got mentioned in mainstream media because it was ‘too weird’, so in an effort to confront this misconception we resourced a mentoring program with student journalists from the North West. These budding critics were treated to private views and discussions with the artists about their final work, but also had access to the development process (with media arts, concept and development is often as, if not more, important than outcome). So what if Fringe creates a mentoring scheme which trains cultural critics and publishes their work as a core part of the Fringe year?
  • Sponsorship and Philanthropy. As also mentioned above, Sponsorship and Philanthropy are sorely inaccessible for indie artists and smaller venues. Fringe HQ could negotiate overarching deals based on the specific needs of each artist/venue. Sponsors/Philanthropists gain the big-brand association of “the Fringe Festival” plus an up-close and personal relationship with the smaller producers if they want to see a different side of cultural practice. This could even go as far as booze partnerships, with Fringe HQ securing cheap deals with wineries/breweries or big bottle shops like Dan Murphy’s. All venues purchase a low-cost bulk of quality provisions from Fringe’s stash. They can then add a decent markup to go toward venue costs, while avoiding the ridiculous $10/12 per drink costs for audiences (no it’s not that bad everywhere, but in some cases… hmmm).
  • Marketing & PR. With a program featuring a smaller number of events/artists, Fringe HQ marketing teams could have more time and focus to properly augment the promotions of the indies. Yes it’s important that we artists put our own efforts into our own marketing, and yes the artist’s tent at the Fringe Club has been offering sessions on social media etc, but a little extra help on the ground and some more in-depth professional development in the form of pre-fringe training would add a significant boost to the indie ecosystem. In combination with the critic’s mentoring program and the weight of Fringe HQ groundwork with mainstream media promotions, both artists and audiences win, bigtime.
  • Insurance Club. NAVA, Guildhouse and others offer an annual membership fee that includes significantly reduced insurance rates. Overseas artists are likely to pay extra as a foreign insurance company is more likely to increase the ‘risk association’ of working abroad. What if Fringe HQ took on the mantle, offering a special deal along the same lines as accredited membership for anyone who wants to take up additional cover for their materials/tech/selves/professional indemnity and public liability?

6. Create a genuine, year-round, holistic cultural ecosystem, part four: unionisation. Yes I used the U word. We don’t have an artist’s or cultural worker’s union in Australia, at least not outside the equivalent of an Equity model for actors. What if we did? The MPAB only became the wealthy little stockpile that they are because they essentially created their own little union, AMPAG. They got together, threw in some collective $$ toward a consultation, then lobbied hard – and won! Sure we indies don’t have nearly as much clout or buddies in politics to easily grease palms, but we could certainly better organise ourselves, both for Fringes across the country and general indie-centric campaigning. Because otherwise our only option is compliance and that’s clearly not working! Someone else also proposed a small venues union too (although I think he used the work ‘coalition’, but same difference), where the needs of the smaller spaces could be heard alongside the demands of the bigger ones.

OK, this last idea is my big one. I’m a big believer in RADICAL change. The arts needs it, the country needs it, the world needs it: Let’s DO THIS!

7. Let’s be the first State in Australia to provide a Basic Living Wage. In case you’ve never heard of this, the idea of a basic living wage (or Basic Income, or Guaranteed Minimum Income…) is hitting the headlines again thanks this time to Switzerland. The Swiss case is exploring offering a basic stipend of the equivalent of AU$3400 a month to every citizen, but it’s not the first and I damn well hope it’s not the last.

As with criticisms of The Commons model (where everyone gets equal access to land and waterways providing their use doesn’t prevent anyone else’s equal right of access), cynics believe if people are paid ‘money for nothing’ they won’t bother working, but the research points clearly to the contrary. Previous trials have seen citizens proactively do things like invest in their own education, establish new businesses, relieve themselves of crippling debts, pay for medical care or treatments, or thrive instead of struggle in unpaid primary carer roles.

In a State that keeps going on about Innovation and Sustainability, the basic income would put us firmly on the map, reduce welfare costs, enable self determination, and more than likely increase the population. We are widely known as being the ‘Startup State’ because we’re small enough to safely trial new concepts, but those businesses rarely stay once the trial has ended.

From the arts perspective it would create a safety net for artists wanting to develop work without going back to welfare or the decreasing funding bodies, and it would provide spare change for audiences who would be much more willing to then invest in something unknown. I’m not an economist, but I would dearly love for the idea to be even considered at a State (or even City) level and if I can help enable that process in any way, I’m in.

“In 1975, the Fringe changed to Focus. The idea was to bring focus onto the development of our own culture in South Australia.”

So (finally!) in conclusion, as the Fringe’s website states about its own history, 21 years after it decided to “bring focus onto the development of our own culture in South Australia”… isn’t it time to do exactly that again? Let’s not fight and squabble about who gets the most attention; let’s not whinge about the venues and punters who are more interested in binge drinking than creative culture. Instead let’s work together to build a genuine, year-round, holistic cultural ecosystem for the arts by recognising the value of the gritty, edgy, core of fringe culture outside of meagre dollar values. Let’s do this sustainably, reinvesting a percentage of those more commercially focused activities back into the people and places which make Fringe the diverse, eclectic, gloriously messy space that we all love so dearly.

P.S. Alexis Dubus still has two Fringe shows on, both of which are fabulously crafted pieces of artistry: Alexis Dubus Verses the World at Tuxedo Cat (last night tonight) and Marcel Lucont Is at Gluttony til 13th March. My work at Fringe Festival is hammocktime at Gluttony, a project that gives you permission to pause and reflect on what really matters in life. We have one weekend left – Fri, Sat and Sun from 12-6.30pm. Come along, you might like it, or at very least GO SEE SOMETHING YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF… because it might well become the next big hit and then you can be all Hipster about it x

[1] Gilpin, Robert (2000). The Challenge of Global Capitalism: The World Economy in the 21st Century. Princeton University: Princeton University Press. Introduction. ISBN 978-0-691-09279-9.

REBLOG: The Power of Pause [hammocktime]

One of our guides, Ines, with a guest reclining in #hammocktime

One of our guides, Ines, with a guest reclining in #hammocktime

I’ve been a media artist for two decades. I mostly make lengthy, complicated work, where I tend to be responsible for the form and invite others to make the content. hammocktime is different. It’s my first solo artwork, and my first work as an artist at Adelaide Fringe. It’s simple, subtle and potentially powerful. Given my typical veer toward digital, large-scale, longer-duration work, I’ve struggled to believe it is enough, but battled to let it be itself regardless. I’m still tweaking this and that, but I’ve managed to avoid letting myself attack it with the sledgehammer of reinvention despite so many panic attacks driving me to want to. Imposter syndrome is a bitch.Its simplicity is what has worried me. Criticisms of ‘but you can buy a hammock and use it for years for the same price as your half hour in one’ are common. Yes, you can – and you should. But hammocktime is about more than just lying in a hammock. Would people get that? Would it work? Would people use the opportunity, the permission to pause, and let themselves commit to 30/45mins of reflection? And if so, what effect would that have on them? Would they understand the social change aspect within it? Would that have meaning for them if they did? Is that nod to social change prominent enough, without being preachy?

hammocktime isn’t for everyone, it’s not meant to be. I’ve always said with media art, still a niche artform, you don’t aim for the masses, you aim for those who get it, and, if lucky, let their engagement catalyse a natural ripple effect. hammocktime is aimed at those who know the world is broken and it hurts them. They try to be the best humans they can but all this capitalist destruction of our daily lives, our independence, and our planet has far reaching physiological ramifications. Activists have an extremely high burnout rate, and a far-too-high suicide rate. hammocktime is a gift to them and others with the same heavy hearts.

It says “hey you, yeah, the world is kinda scary. but in order to get through it, you have to take care of yourself and you have to think positively, act positively. here, come lie in a hammock, I will be here with you the whole time. I will help you enter a short period of relaxation, contemplation, reflection, and then I’ll just sit here in total silence with you while you take yourself wherever you want to go.”

That’s it. That’s its simplicity.

One of our guides, Guillaume, shading a guest with a parasol as they recline in #hammocktime

One of our guides, Guillaume, shading a guest with a parasol as they recline in #hammocktime

For those who get it, they take that gift and they 100% allow themselves to let go. The relaxation injects them with something akin to a powernap boost. The social change questions confirm the positive potential in any dark surroundings. The bringing together of all the guests’ one word answers at the end presents a collective shared consciousness of the will to believe in something better, and a subtle nod to the actions we can take individually and collectively about those thoughts.

While so often over the last few years I have desperately yearned to grab people by the scruff of the neck and yell furiously in their faces “don’t you fucking SEE?” I know that’s not the way to enable change. So I’ve been trying to find a way to trigger the same impact but through love, generosity and empowerment. The hammock is a trick, a distraction. Everyone loves hammocks, so many of us own them but so few of us give ourselves permission to use them as often as we should – or for as long as we should. The same goes for meditation. Many people try meditation but give up because their brains won’t shut up. They don’t realise that the brain doesn’t shut up – if it did, you’d be dead. Meditation isn’t about stfu it’s about learning to pass through.

In the guided intro we don’t do a body scan or deep chakra breathing, we simply drop mentions of the elements you may or may not want to consider as you drift off. Breath, body, distraction, sound. Then silence, your silence, where you can listen intently to the noise in your own head, or to audiences/performers in one of the nearby venues, or the not-so-silent disco next door, the pop up street festival stage outside Gluttony on the weekends, people chatting as they walk down the path next to our site, and in the 45min evening slots can return to the one consistent – our acoustic musician in our space. Or you can play with that cacophony, make your own live remix, adjusting your own sliders and channel controllers.

If you let go, totally release yourself to your physiological connection with your hammock, your trees, your soul, you can go somewhere truly beautiful, and truly your own. And all this is just a device, a way of thinking about and approaching life. We give you a card at the end, the same promo business card which may have gotten you to our space, and tell you to put it somewhere that stress occurs – your office computer monitor, your car’s visor. That image behind the text is those trees you gazed at for 30/45mins, those words “STOP! #hammocktime”, a trigger. Look at that card in times of stress and it’ll take you back, a reminder that there can be calm in any storm, if you choose to find it.

It’s been a slow start for us at fringe, partly because we’re running on the smell of an oily rag without marketing budgets or paid staff, and partly because getting people to give themselves permission to take pause is bloody hard (ironic given that’s kinda the point of the project!). I’m not running the project to make a fortune, I’m running it because I feel it’s needed. Sure it’d be nice to (at very least) cover costs, pay myself and reward my amazingly generous volunteer guides and musicians with more than just an artist’s pass, but we still prefer that all three hammocks are full for every session – so if you’re an artist, it’s worth checking in to see if we have any available slots and we’ll let you in for free (donations welcome!).

Free marketing is always a huge boost for niche projects like this, and the attention of famous people is a rare and beautiful luxury. We had a rather special guest at last night’s 45minute session; Hugh Sheridan (in town with his band California Crooners Club) came along … and he absolutely loved it. He got the simplicity, the need for positive reinforcement and active social change. He got it so very deeply that he actually thanked me for making the work. Through his and many other responses to the work I’m finally beginning to shrug off imposter syndrome and believe that hammocktime’s simplicity is in its truth. It works. People come in stressed, hungover, busy-minded. They leave, relaxed, smiling, grounded, wearing that gentle gaze which comes from a deep inner sense of calm. Even if that wears off, it was there… and it can be there again (with or without a hammock).

I’m very proud of this little piece of ‘activation through inaction’ and even if we don’t win the attention of the masses, I don’t care. If the people who come get it, my work is done.

We’re open Weds-Sun throughout the Festival from 5-9pm for 30min sessions, with late-night acoustic musician sets on Weds, Fri and Sat nights from 9.30-10.15pm. We’re also calling for more guides so that we can add earlier daytime slots from 11am on weekends – ping if that timing suits you better as a guest and I’ll let you know when they’re scheduled. Book online via Fringetix, or chance your luck on the door at Gluttony (we’re down the left hand side when you walk in the front entrance, look for the bamboo screening between Silent Disco and The Carry On). $20/23 for 30mins or $30/33 for 45mins.

Long missive, but heartfelt. Come try it, everyone, you might like it x

[Originally posted on http://www.hammocktime.cc/the-power-of-pause.]