Dole / Dolour: An Allegory for the Fifth Corner of the World

σκότος ἐγένετο ἐπὶ πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν

In the evening
after work,
shadows fall
across the world.
And the city quiets
And calms itself.
And now the city is ours
The weak and broken ones
Come out to play
Take over the city.

---

Went to the Top Gallery in the Salamanca Arts Centre, a small room torn brick, convict sandstone, rough wood. A room that echoes the cries of those worked to death in the old days. Drunk and trapped. The scrap heap. Dolour -- endless unhappiness. This seemed an more than suitable place for these particular art works.

I went, as an invite to see an exhibit of photographs by Liam James passed across my facebook feed. The exhibit was called “Dole / Dolour: An Allegory for the Fifth Corner of the World.” I was instantly intrigued by the title, and normally I do not like photography as art. This is simply my hang-up and I apologise to photographers the world over. For me too often it is simple point and click, a mechanical reproduction of an object, allowing no understanding of the maker, of the ideas behind the work.

With this exhibit more was involved. Not simple happy snapping, not facile photoshopping. The photographs were all well thought out and the artist seemed to have something to say, and to know what that was.

These are the photographers of a maker, rather than a reporter, or a decorator.

---

Don’t be told what you want don’t be told what you need
There’s no future no future no future for you

---

Dole / Dolour, sorrow, emptiness, no future for you. There is a time, about the age of twenty five, when many us, (those of us that think and do not just follow) come to the conclusion that all the word worlds of teachers and parents -- that one can be what you want, that is just takes perseverance and commitment -- were no more than big fat lies.

Work will not save us, love will not save us, our future dream is a shopping scheme.

A future rolling forward of endless cycles of waking up, coffee, work, lunch, work, Friday nights drinks down the local, all leading to the goal of self imposed debt bondage. Marriage, house, children. And finally pointless, stupid, inexorable death.

Liam faces this future squarely, without flinching. His wonderful, well staged, well coloured, crafted photos bring these feelings of relentless boredom, of pointlessness to our gaze. His works shows how all this drabness is wrapped up with a system of objectification. And how it is that many of us desire, more than anything, our own slavery, fighting as passionately for slavery as for liberation.

The subjects of his photos aret mostly young men and women, and they avert their eyes from the gaze of the (assuredly elder, assuredly judgmental) viewers, looking up, down or off in the distance. Looking one thousand yards past the viewers into a doleful future.

When the subjects do look at the viewer, it is with irritation, with anger.

The artist, in his statement, wants to search for a new national identity, this is an important goal, as all around a reinvigorated national identity of spite and fear rises. This triumphalism gives birth to, and counters the art works, sets the scene, frames the works, and holds us in it's embrace as we step outside the gallery, back into a world of objects, processes, statistics, and prices.

This is an interesting and provocative exhibit. An exhibit which on first glance appears simple, but over the days and nights will slowly chew into your brain and make you question the world of objects.

Dole / Dolour: An Allegory for the Fifth Corner of the World is on display until the end of the month, until 30 October. You can visit a web site that Liam James maintains.

RACT Insurance Tasmanian Portraiture Prize

I went to the RACT Insurance Tasmanian Portraiture Prize award night. This competition is the result of a highly successful partnership between RACT Insurance, Clemenger Tasmania and Tasmanian Regional Arts. Looking at the variety of works on display, one can safely say that the future of portraiture is safe in Tasmania. This exhibit is more vibrant and daring than similar prizes.

This award takes a different path than most portraiture award. A few things stand out to make this award unique. Quoting the Conditions of Entry, “The submitted work must be a titled portrait of a living Tasmanian.” This has the effect of making the prize a local prize. This can be both good and bad. Good in that it supports local artists, who due to the nature of the world tend to get swamped by the sheer size of the north island. Bad in that it feeds on an isolating tendency. What you wish to give weight to is, of course, up to you; but for me I would support the idea of a prize that seeks to support and nurture local artists. As we live in a world based on the idea that big eats little, sometimes little needs a helping hand. How else can little mature and start devouring.

Due to the nature of portraiture it often behaves as a sort of aorist medium; an exploration of the past, the contemplation and mulling over of a life, of past achievements. To overcome this tendency the RACT Insurance Tasmanian Portraiture Prize conditions stipulate that the artist must be under thirty. As youth are inherently forward looking, this stipulation is fabulous, in that it provokes a disruptive alchemy. A work like this year's winner would not be allowed in the Archibald Prize, due to the condition that the painting, “Must be a portrait painted from life, with the subject known to the artist, aware of the artist’s intention and having at least one live sitting with the artist.”

A third aspect that to me makes the prize unique is the emphasis on submitting a short (300 word) artist statement, describing the reasons the portrait subject was chosen. This statement is an important part of the process, as it helps determine the intention of the artist, and if the finished work has accomplished that intention. It allows us to understand the inspirations that flow around and artist, and their works.

There is no point in trying to describe all the paintings in an exhibit of over thirty works. I will only mention the works that won awards on the night.

Jesse Hunniford won the inaugural Packer's Prize for the work “Am I a Man or a Puppet?” This work, described in the statement as “a visual and physical journey into childhood and paternity through textiles and the act of making”, is an example of how the artist statement and the work -- a photograph of a hand puppet -- combine to create a new form of portrait. It is also important to note that a work such as this may have not been allowed in many other Portraiture Prize competitions.

---

---

The Sponsors Choice award went to Tilly Cough of West Launceston for the work “Dad.” A beautifully rendered pastel drawing of the artist's father. A work that seeks, -- here I am paraphrasing from her statement -- and succeeds in finding the flaws and roughness of her subjects, the imperfections that make them perfect.

---

---

The 2014 runner-up prize was awarded to Shannon Terry from South Hobart, for her work “A small idol of mine.” A pencil drawing of her cousin Sarah. Shannon said, “The lens in which she views the world is one of which I admire immensely. She holds strong views in politics. Symbolically, the grey I create serves to remind us that there is neither a black nor white perspective in life”

---

---

The winning work this year was by Cameron McRae, of Hobart, with a work he called “David Foster enters the Burnie Betta Milk Wearable Paper Art Prize.” This was a cheeky, satirical, amusing look at recent events in Tasmanian political history through the medium of portraiture. Again, this sort of work would not be allowed in some other competitions. Which makes one wonder if a trip to next year's Archibald Awards is actually a good thing or not.

The paintings will be on display in Hobart at the Long Gallery until the 5th of October. It will then travel to the Sawtooth Gallery in Launceston, from Friday 31 October until Saturday 22 November. Finsihing the tour at the Burnie Regional Art Gallery, in Burnie from Friday 12 December until Saturday 31 January. This exhibit of young Tasmanian talent is definitely worth a look!

One could argue that the last 20 years of history have been an attempt to destroy our spirit of co-operation, our spirit of optimism. The youthful, daring, amusing, satirical, experimental nature of the works on display prize can act as an antidote, a pharmakon, a charm, to protect what can be protected from this world-historical fear.

I will leave the last word to the winner, “I said that if I win I would be able to insure my car, so this a win all around.”

I want to thank my pal Ian Milliss for helping me to clarify my thoughts (like turning butter into ghee)

To see some other media related to this exhibit: Tasmanian Times, The Hobart Mercury non-story, and an amusing example of victorian prudeity from The Advocate.

Tell Tales

So on a beautiful full moon night, one of those nights when the stars hide away and the moon swollen and full makes the world glow silver; I drove into town to see Tell Tails, a new performance piece by Bridget Nicklason-King.

The sort of night that is the power of women.

Tell Tails was a show inspired by Bridget’s granny. One can imagine the performer as a child listening intently as her grandmother told wild stories of adventure, danger and love. All completely true…and then some.

Old, old, ancient the stage is, older than writing. And the sparse, black stage is a new universe, a unique self contained world. This evening we were expected to believe that we were on the beach, on the edge of a wild salt sea. A churning sea made of broken glass. Tossed and smashed by fierce waves the empty wine bottles shatter and shatter again, until they are ground into dust, into sand of the beach. And the sand can be melted, reformed into glass, endlessly rocking.

And like the poet who uses the flowing, alternating vowel to create emotions, or as the cunning raven who picks up objects to alert and inform the others, so too the performer uses flowing alternating gesture, motion, to grasp ideas, to create meaning.

Not quite mime, rather something more like to dance, to an art of motion. Not quite a narrative. Rather Tell Tales was like a strange utopian burlesque. Music and dance. Comedy, clowning, cabaret, chaos. Wine, sand, and popcorn.

House lights off, a spot light, and Bridget Nicklason-King starts off the show hiding under a red sheet. Strange, protean, shapes under the sheet. A cluttering noise and we see her, bound, trying to come out of, trying to free herself from, this tattered worn and well used gladstone bag. Like a child being born? Does she wobble around like a baby foal unsure on its feet? Or is this a ecstatic, drunken, dance? One review, not seeing the bag as a uterus, saw it as Pandora's box “releasing its torrent of horrors before collapsing into the last rays of hope.”

Both views I am sure are right in their own way, and at the same time wrong. Wrong in the sense of not being concrete, not being complete.

But here is the point where the work may cause a divide. If you want your art, if you want the theater experience, to be all wrapped up and tidy, if you want all the various strands to come together in a neat bowpackage -- this work is not for you. If, however, you do not mind having to add structure, to fill in the spaces, if you understand that art, like life, is not neat and tidy, but rather fraught with errors that extend and liberate us; if you think that the genius and the fulfillment of art is to play, than this is a work for you.

The supporting staff around Bridget did a very good job, the set design, lighting, and sound blended together to support the performance, and were always discrete.

The only negative I can find is more a problem with the space. Bridget ended the show swimming in the broken glass sea. However due to the line of sight, I was unable to see this very well. I could, however, hear -- which in many ways is not a negative at all, but further to the idea of having to add elements to the show.

To find out more about this performance piece and Bridget Nicklason-King you should click on this link.

Speaking of magical islands.

---

hands up don't shoot

This being my response to Ferguson, and the over the top police response. the video at the end was filmed by Peter Charles Macpherson

---

---

My lumps my lumps my lovely baton lumps

After Los Angeles riots
After Rodney King
A commission investigating
The beating found that
Police were perceived
An occupying army.
Not community members.

I had no alternative
But to elevate the level
Of our response.

Hands up -- Don't shoot
Hands up -- Don't shoot

Recent high school graduate
Starting technical college,
Visiting his grandmother,
Shot at least six times,
Including twice in the head.

Hands up -- Don't shoot
Hands up -- Don't shoot

Walking home, unarmed, no record
Three minutes later
A hail of pistols shots

UPDATE 7 P M
Few details have been released
It has been confirmed --
A police officer
Shot and killed
A male subject.

Lifeless on the street
Hours after the shooting -- uncovered.
A photographer captured
The street scene -- a dead boy
On his stomach, his right cheek
Hard against the asphalt.
A long trail of blood
Flowing his head.

Hands up -- Don't shoot
Hands up -- Don't shoot

The situation was tense.
A large group gathered and
Confronted police
Obscenities and chants
Crips and Bloods arm in arm
United righteous anger.

Hands up -- Don't shoot
Hands up -- Don't shoot

On the grizzled brick walls
On the concrete flyover pillars
Spray painted dissent
The only good cop
Is a dead cop.
No justice, No Peace!
Hey hey, Ho ho
Killer cops have to go!
And in reply Officer Boar
Grunts out “Bring it,
You fucking animals! Bring it!”
Several times-gunshots could be heard.

Hands up -- Don't shoot
Hands up -- Don't shoot

Unarmed no criminal record
How many times this same song?
It was at least six shots
As many as eleven
It was more than just a couple
More than just a couple
I don't think it was many more.

Hands up -- Don't shoot
Hands up -- Don't shoot

Yet there were two in his head.

Hands up -- Don't shoot
Hands up -- Don't shoot

Schools were closed down
As the tear gas cannisters
Banned as chemical weapons
In war time banned flew.
Activists from Gaza tweeted
Tactics against the gas.
Notorious hackers Anonymous
Shut down the city's website
For much of Monday.
A random shot in the air.
And the airport was closed
To provide a safe haven
For law enforcement activities.
Armoured trucks patrolled.

Hands up -- Don't shoot
Hands up -- Don't shoot

Fat white men middle aged
Born and bred in fear.
Gun shop owners gleefully
Reported a surge in sales --
And they are buying
Home defense shotguns
Personal defense handguns
For conceal carry

Hands up -- Don't shoot
Hands up -- Don't shoot

Recent high school graduate
About to start college
Why y’all got my son out in the street?
His mother cried. Frightened
Cops, poorly trained,
Pawns in the game,
Out of their depth,
Restrained her. Officer Brute
Said -- You can’t see your son.
You need to calm yourself down.

Hands up -- Don't shoot
Hands up -- Don't shoot

Bottles and rocks.
Sound cannons
And clouds of tear gas,
To disperse the crowd.
No medical support on call.
Frightened poorly trained
Old time cop riot
Inflames -- Again & Again
Flames as the shop burns.

Hands up -- Don't shoot
Hands up -- Don't shoot

Reporters chased away,
Mocked, abused, roughed up,
Arrested. Get the fuck out of here
And get that light off,
Or you're getting shot with this.
Amnesty gassed,
Forced to kneel.
Your press pass
Officer Porker grunts
Don't mean shit.

Hands up -- Don't shoot
Hands up -- Don't shoot

Burning chemical smoke
Rises and billows Golden
Arches glowing. Casting weird
Shadows the rain slick streets
Glowing and smearing the lights
Crowds roll and surge
High tech cold red dot
Power demon eye points
Sniper rifle on his chest

Hands up -- Don't shoot
Hands up -- Don't shoot

---

Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys

---

So being that sort of person, I first read about the new memoir by Viv Albertine, Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys, in a Guardian review, shortly after it was published by Faber & Faber in May of this year. After reading a few reviews I decided to see if my local library had a copy. I was pleased and annoyed that I would have to wait several weeks for my turn to read the book.

But why would I want to read such a memoir? When I was a young thing making the scene I loved The Slits, I found them to be a very interesting and brave band. So there was some nostalgia in my desire to read this. Also it is interesting to watch the turn of history. Much has changed since 1976, I thought it would be interesting to see this turn of history from the eyes of another.

The memoir is broken up, like an old fashioned record, into side 1 and side 2. Side 1 being her childhood, and youth including her time with The Slits. In this part she brings to life the grim recession of the late 70's to life. I did not live in England at the time, but rather in New England, which was going through similar economic and political crises. Albertine captures the excitement of punk, the turbulent feeling that we can make a difference, that we can change the world. More importantly she does not shy away from discussing the many contradictions, and cul-de-sacs of punk.

The book contains many amusing and interesting sketches of people I have seen, have heard, have heard of, but have never met. In these sketches we are able to see the true Romantic character of the punk ethos. Punk was the sting of the Romantic tail, struggling to bring to life the idea that enthusiasm can be more powerful than technical prowess. The final scattering of punk taught us a most important lesson, that in the end both talent and enthusiasm can be defeated by money.

Side 2 narrates Viv Albertine's life after The Slits broke up. This is a longer and more powerful section. With the breakup of the band, the author was plunged into poverty and despair. An example of how the music industry uses young people and then throws them onto the scrap heap. From here she tries to rebuild herself. As if to mock her youthful success, life generated a series of challenges. The sort of challenges we all face at one time or another. The second section of this book becomes a tale of miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, IVF, cancer, broken marriages. A series of waiting rooms and examinations, where dignity and control are stripped away.

There is a terrible beauty in a much of this. For example, the description of the death of her father was moving and made me well up thinking of the pathetic hopelessness of life. The terrible waste.

Viv Albertine maintained the punk DIY attitude over the decades, rejecting the idea of a ghost writer. This creates a fascinating, almost voyeuristic, look into another persons broken mirror. Many of the reviews I have read describe this memoir as honest, “utter honesty” from the SMH, while the Guardian prefers “searing honesty.” Raising questions of honesty opens up a myriad of philosophical questions as to the nature of truth, questions I do not feel I am capable of answering. I will say that her account feels very sincere and honest, but as I was not there I have no way of verifying her account.

Unlike some of the subject matter, her writing style is not very taxing. The book is written in a very smooth, simple style. Laurence Sterne, author of that strange work of genius, described writing as, “but a different name for conversation.” In this autobiography Viv Albertine seems to take this idea to heart. This book feels almost like chatting with an old friend over a bottle of red.

What did I learn from this book? Behind every great woman is a man trying to hold her back. This modern proverb was amply exposed in this book. Sexual violence, barely hidden contempt, emotional blackmail, domestic violence. Here we can see her honesty, this book did not shy away from showing the truth of women's lives. This constant struggle that women face has changed, but not lessoned since (let us say) 1976; more subtle, maybe, but still all-encompassing.

In the end this book seems to me to be about losing one's self, standing naked before the mirror, and then finding one's self again. Definitely worth a read. This dot point history of contemporary life, this tale of a journey through life is deceptively easy to read; yet on this simple stage Albertine allows a variety of thoughts and arguments to bubble up to the the surface.

---

Fleeing

---

A friend of mine showed me a poem she wrote. She used the image of the oars in the water, churning the water to foam. Which reminded me of the end of book nine of the Odyssey. Our hero is fleeing after having blinded Polyphemus. The phrase Homer uses is πολιὴν ἅλα polien hala. Literally the grizzled salt, but obviously Homer is talking about the churning sea water. Odyssey 9.556ff

---

So then all the day, until the sun sank
We feasted, sharing ample flesh, sweet wine.
When the sun set and the shadows came,
Lulled by the breakers, we slept on the beach.

With the early rosy fingered light of dawn,
I roused my drowsy comrades, ordered them
To board the ship, to let slip the anchor.

And they at once boarded and on their benches sat
Crouching rows, the grizzled salt sea they struck with oars.

So we sailed away, grieving in our hearts,
Glad to have escaped death, our dear friends dead.

The Dying Socrates.

The Socrates of Xenophon was more bourgeois than Plato's gadfly, more practical than the pale, barefoot, long-haired comic foil of Aristophanes. In many ways the Socrates of Xenophon is the most human. The Socrates of Xenophon does not see the taking of hemlock as a glorious attack on a corrupt, and fickle democracy, rather the taking of hemlock is the fitting end to a well lived life. This would also go a long way to explaining the willful mockery of the court that Socrates produced in place of a defense.

This is from The Memorabilia of Socrates 4.8.8. Maybe his death should be seen, similar to the trial and death of Jesus, as a sort of state sponsored euthanasia. For in the end can one be free if one is not able to say, as Roberto Durán said, no mas?

It is hard to make Xenophon sing, as he was a better soldier than he was an author, but he does have a simple, clear style which makes it easier for an intermediate amateur like myself to follow.

I have tried to capture the feel, and some of the imagery of Xenophon. I had fun, and hopefully you will too. If it does disappoint at least it is a short song.

---

And if I was to live on?
Another season or two...
Would not my life be like prison?
Unable to pay the debt of old age.
My sight and hearing lessened.
My thoughts reduced.
It would become,
Harder to learn
Easier to forget.
From the best
To the worst
I would fall.

And truly, even if I did not grasp
These changes, my life would be
Insufferable. But if I did notice,
Would not my life be constrained?
Would life itself not become
Distasteful, like poison?

The Moon

So a pal o' mine posted on facebook a quiz from The Guardian The moon in literature. One question in the quiz was a Sappho poem. Or rather a translation by Edwin Arnold, "Greek Poets in English Verse." Ed. William Hyde Appleton. Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1893.

The stars about the lovely moon
fade back and vanish very soon,
When, round and full, her silver face
Swims into sight, and lights all space

So I searched out the "original"

Ἄστερες μὲν ἀμφὶ κάλαν σελάνναν
ἂψ ἀπυκρύπτοισι φάεννον εἶδος,
ὄπποτα πλήθοισα μάλιστα λάμπῃ
γᾶν [ἐπὶ πᾶσαν]
... ἀργυρία ...

and made my own translation.

Stars around the beautiful moon
At once hide their shining forms
When her full light swells,
Making all glow silver.

MAN-MADE

We are, The Philosopher said, animals whose nature it is to be artificial.

Sitting and and at the same time hurtling 100 kilometers per hour down the highway, through showers of heavy rain, listening to Radio National, I made my way to the Schoolhouse Gallery, Rosny Farm to see the exhibit Man-Made. An exhibit of recent paintings by two local artists Peter Tankey & Aaron Wasil. Even the the Schoolhouse Gallery itself comments on the dichotomy of the natural and the artificial. The building was built as a bicentennial project and is modeled on a schoolhouse that was built at Osterly about 1890.

The works exhibited were described by Aaron as “a silent but evident struggle between natural and manufactured”; or to use a more classical structuralist metaphor, “the raw and the cooked”.

I enjoyed both painters works. The artists had very different styles, but both seemed to be pointing in similar directions. Aaron Wasil used a slick, cool style. With a simple color palette his style emphasized angles and varied points of view. The works of Peter Tankey, on the other hand, created a kaleidescopic rush of color and form. The detritus of everyday life gathered in staged, and at the same time almost random locations.

The exhibit brought together two different styles. One, almost photo-realist in style, the other more mannered. This difference reflects and reinforces the overall theme of the exhibit and allows us to see different responses to similar material conditions. differences that arise out of twenty years of friendship and shared artistic journey. Differences that arise from late night, wine fueled discussions of artistic practice. Differences that are more about style than they are about philosophy.

This worth seeing exhibition continues until the 10th August. Tues – Fri 11am – 4pm Sat – Sun 12pm - 4pm. More information can be found at the exhibit's facebook page

We live in a world that is full of change. We live in a world which does not know how to change, a world that is unsure and seemingly afraid to change. A world afraid to reflect, a world that seems to me to be similar to Europe before the First World War. So I will leave the final word to Rainer Maria Rilke. In the first of his Duino Elegies Rilke wrote:

...and the nosing beasts soon scent
how insecurely we're housed in this signposted World.
And yet a tree might grow for us
upon some hill for us to see and see again each day.

Articulated

So because of a combination of illness, poverty, and family stuff, I was unable to spend much time visiting Dark MOFO this year. This is not to be taken as a criticism of ticket prices, as they seemed quite reasonable considering what was on offer. No this is much more a comment on my own inability to look after myself. Surely a topic for later essay.

I did get to see the Memoriam by Amelia Rowe, which I wrote about here.

If you lived anywhere in the area you were able to see the light installation Articulated Intersect. An artwork by the Mexican-Canadian artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. Living in Dodges Ferry we could see the dancing beams of light from our back yard.

The family went to Okines Community House to take part in the Okines Community Gardens Winter Feast. This too could be seen as a festival of light. Hundreds of glass jars were turned into lanterns and decorated by the local children. The kids paraded down to the the aptly, if unsurprisingly, named Okines Beach. Local husband and wife duo Serena and Andy How killed it with a cover of “Ramble On”, while later Bigger Than Bill played. In the distance, searchlights danced and intersected in the waning crone moon solstice darkness. Fairy lights hung, like a failed spider web, from gum trees. Fires burnt in 44 gallon drums which had holes punched to create intersected patterns of rusting metal and flame. Light was all around; candles and flashlights, mobile phones, the flames in the hand built, bread roll baking, oven. And the light that was brought to life was overwhelmed, while teasing and dancing with the endless, bottomless, darkness of the sky, of the ocean.

In an interview with the Guardian the light installation artist noted that search lights were used as propaganda by Nazi's as part their infamous Nuremberg Rallies. As I was wandered, with the children, about Sullivans Cove, we chatted about the use of search lights in other situations. I noted that search lights were used by the Red Army in the climactic, apocalyptic battles which ended the rule of Nazi Germany. Red Army Commander Zhukov described the use of searchlights in the famous night attack by the First Byelorussian Front. “We concentrated a huge striking force on the bank of the Oder: the supply of shells alone enough for a million artillery rounds on the first day of the storming. To stun the German defenses immediately, it was decided to begin storming at night with the use of powerful searchlights. Finally the famous night of April 16 began. No one could sleep. Three minutes before zero hour we left our dugout and took up places at our observation posts. To my dying day I will remember the land along the Oder, blanketed in Aprii fog. At 500 A.M. [0300 Berlin time] sharp it all began. The Matyushas struck, over 20,000 guns opened fire, hundreds of bomber planes roared overhead. . . and after 30 minutes of fierce bombing and shelling, 140 anti-aircraft searchlights employed every 650 feet in a line, were turned on. A sea of light swept over the enemy, blinding them, and pointing out in the darkness the objects of attack for our tanks and infantry.”

We meandered along the waterfront, and stumbled upon the work by Chinese contemporary artist Yin Xiuzhen, [URL] Washing River 2014. Blocks of ice were made from the polluted water of the Derwent River. Passersby were invited to, using a variety of cleaning implements, clean the water, as the ice melted and the water returned to the river, to the barren ocean. This artwork highlights the need to clean the river.

So, after my Okine and my MONA experiences, I thought a lot about light, and noted the many relationships with light and dark and colour. As I walked around the city I noted the reflections of the traffic lights in the windows of the ships and offices, and how this light was distorted by the imperfections in the glass. I noted how the light smeared and spread in the puddles on the ground, in the darkness of river stretching out, how the lights of the houses on the mountain spread up the ridge, and then fell away into the deep frightful darkness of the unsettled forest. I noted the dust and small insects flying in and out and around and about the bright searchlight beams. And the light warming my hands in front of the burning fire in the oil drums.

Omnia quae sunt, lumina sunt. Eriugena. All things that are, are light. And I thought of light and how much we depend upon and are light. From the burning of the sun, to energy converting single celled algae.

Memoriam

So my partner got some disturbing news -- the old fashioned way, by letter -- and was suitably distressed. So I thought I would take the children out to give her some space to think and arrange herself.

So I gathered up the three kids and we all went to Rosny Barn to view the exhibit Memoriam, by Launceston artist Amelia Rowe. This was described on the Facebook Event page as “bringing together of taxidermy and personal narrative. Transforming Rosny Barn into a walk-in memento mori, into a place to contemplate the relationship between humans and animals.” In this, Amelia Rowe succeeded admirably.

The first thing to ask my children then was, what is taxidermy? From the Greek taxis (arranging the battle order) and derma (skin) - taxidermy is the arrangement of skins. We discussed the various uses of taxidermy, for example in a museum, if a beloved pet has died. Like in an episode of New Tricks, where the greyhound trainer had the bodies of her champions displayed in her office.

It occurred to me that with all the death littering the sides of our roads my children have seen, for example, more dead wombats -- two on a recent trip to Nugent -- than wild wombats.

What is meant by memento mori? We warmed our hands over the wood fire brazier. Misquoting Tertullian in his Apologeticus (33.4) we get "Respice post te! Hominem te esse memento! Memento mori!" This is the chant a slave would whisper into the ear of the triumphal general. “Look behind you! Remember you are mortal, remember you must die.” - More or less.

And we wandered about -- Would you like this or that piece in the house? -- and talked about Victorian traditions, postmortem portraits, black ribbons, mutes, and more. All these crystalline jet Victorian mournings were most likely the source of my association of the work Tinkerbell with the Lewis Carroll Duchess and Pig poem.

Speak roughly to your little boy
and beat him when he sneezes
he only does it to annoy
because he knows it teases.

I greatly enjoyed a piece called Stolen Memories. This image of the ancient, wise, cunning, majestic Crow rising skyward, carrying a trail of stolen nests, an egg in her mouth, allowed the viewer room to add layers of meaning. Trickster crow, or the crow as an omen of death?

And many of the works whispered covert to me, requesting my touch. I abstained.

When I stood in front of “A rose to remember”, I thought of Lucian's description of the place of punishment on the Isle of the Damned: “for on this ground daggers, razors, spikes, stakes, thorns everywhere bloomed like flowers.” Two rainbow lorikeets arranged on a dead, trimmed, painted rose bush.

So we talked about the art works, the youngest girl ran outside and made friends with some other girls and they played their follow the leader games. We read through the catalog and we were surprised at times by the distance between the ideas that came into our heads looking at the art, and the descriptions by the artist.

This thinking about things can be a way of looking deeper into the art work, it is a type of taxidermy, in the sense that the viewer is forced to order, to arrange, their skin in response to the art, the raw and the cooked. For art can make one a seer, a type of divinator “When you cut into the present the future leaks out.”

But we agreed that in the same way that art can be more than the traditional practice of oil on canvas, or pencil on paper, so to the viewer is not constrained by one single manner of seeing.

And then we got ice cream and drove home and my pal was, after a hot shower and a glass of wine, feeling better.

More information and contact details and etc can be found on Amelia Rowe's blog.

Violet-haired, pure, honey-smiling Sappho

Violet-haired, pure, honey-smiling Sappho may or may not have written this newly found poem. Apparently the scholars think she did. Of course, this is nothing more than educated guess work. I think it could have easily been someone who wanted to write in her style. I guess we will never know. Kharaxos being her older brother, Larichos her younger. The title is a description of Psappho written by Alkaios, an alleged lover of hers. This unsatisfying translation is mine.

---

While women chatter, Kharaxos is comeing,
His boat is full! Of these outcomes only Zeus
And the other gods know. You do not have
To think such things.

Escort me, persuade me to offer
Many pleadings for radiant Queen Hera
For the return home of Kharaxos.
She guides his ship.

You will find us well. But for the rest?
Let us leave all that to the gods;
For fair weather after a fierce storm
Quickly appears.

If the king of Olympus decrees,
A helper will, in times of distress,
Turn the course. To these people blessings
And wealth will flow.

And us? Well if he would raise his head,
Larichos, and become at last a man,
The many heavy chains on my heart would
Once fall away.

Iliad haiku

made up this little haiku sort of thing based on the two lines from The Iliad 2.342-3

For we quarrel over words,
Unable to discover a remedy.

Been here a long time.

---

pic from here

They take death as their bride

Wrench-snatched from the rapacious hands of slow to start
Imperial Germany, Imperial England Victorious gave
To ever obedient Australia this tasty morsel of colonial
Land. The Trust Territory of New Guinea.
And Nauru Pleasant Phosphate Island, a second morsel to be savoured
And shared joint exploitation ANZAC & England. Captured, bypassed
Wither on the vine. And abused by the great torn up emptied.
And in 1989 Australia was sued for damages done to the island;

Islands placed in our trust as a token
North East quadrant of sun swaying dreams.
Bird of paradise dancing warriors, emerald snails,
Fruit bats and friar birds. Crystalline
Wave against wave, shore against shore
Ruinous trust curse, for us and our children and
Our children's children.
Bismark blood and Ironbottom sound sea
Not enough, never enough to compensate
Slaughters of Flanders and the Troad.
For the damage done to our desires.

And Little Billy told Wilson and Goerge
and all the rest “
Strategically the northern islands
(such as New Guinea)
Encompass Australia
Like fortresses.
They are as necessary
To Australia
As water to a city. “

And the ruling bourgeoisie more and more seeks salvation in fascism.
And in 1942 when the inevitable war with Imperial Japan came,
A handful of diggers and a radio tower on Manus.
Air raids and bombings and then a landing, and the diggers
Dove into the bush, destroying all the could not carry
Private Coker commented
"A hand-grenade,
and run like hell,
did the trick!"

And fighting the jungle and malaria.
Lieutenant Palmer
(cited for the Military Medal)
“He was unable to walk for several weeks
For severe septic infection on his arms and legs”
“Weakness due to several attacks of malaria.”
SO
They carried him out.
And Lance-Corporal McLean
Took command the four man patrol &
Found the Lutheran Mission firmly
In Japanese hands. So they beat it out of there
Fortuitous, heavy, jungle obscuring rain
And the relentless beating sound
Of rain rain rain pounding covered the retreat.
Through swamp and jungle and cutting grass
And illness and starvation, and then on boats
The sailed the IJN cruised sea
And overland and over mountains
And final hope home Cairns in May.

The ruling bourgeoisie are trying to solve The problem of markets
By enslaving the weak nations,
By intensifying colonial oppression &
Repartitioning the world anew by means of war.

Finally February leap year day 29 1944
Diggers and Doughboys crawling up the Solomons Islands
And the Trust Territories landed Manus Island.
Guadalcanal, Milne Bay, Buna, The Bismark Sea, Lae,
Rabaul, Scarlet Beach, Kokoda. Diggers and Doughboys.
ANZAC sad sack dog faced privates fought with
Bayonet and machine gun and flame thrower and demo charge
And grenade and shovel and cannon and aircraft and bare hand.
And the things they saw and did died
Broke them 1000 yard shell shock stare.

Crawling mud, roaring insect, snake bite green hell jungle.
Pushing back venal bestial racist fascist
Anti-comintern ideology. Rolling back the fascist
Offensive. Manus Island attacked, and shortly recaptured.

Well, now time passed and now it seems.
Everybody's having them dreams.
Everybody sees themselves.
Walking around with no one else.

Dreams of a land without the others, dreams of an end to history
And end to the stresses and uncertainties of capitalism.
Dreams of an obsolete discredited ideology.
Old man old school old timey dreams of controlling the external.
Dreams that somehow it will end differently, that we can close
Our eyes and everything will somehow be all right.
Fearful thoughtless dreams, relaxed and comfortable.
RATHER -

Fascism is a most ferocious attack by capital on the mass of the working people;
Fascism is unbridled chauvinism and predatory war;
Fascism is rabid reaction and counter-revolution;
Fascism is the most vicious enemy of the working class and of all working people.

And now we can imagine on this very same spot -- wild eyed
Dare-death opium and hunger fuelled banzai attack
Shooting from the hip and shouting loud the Japanese Marines
Fall upon the position. Hacking and attacking and striking out
In all directions. Indiscriminate. And after the smoke and noise
Littered broken bodies of empty dreams the result of lies, a cynical
Grab-lust for power. Unbridled chauvinism. Rabid reaction.
Predatory war.

And then, as if a final spitting in our face
Historic irony, it was here, when we almost half-believed
In a new world, in a better world,
In a world that does not resort to war
And endless horror.
It was here on Manus
In 1950 Australia held the last trials
Japanese war criminals.

And did those geebungs and dubbos, did those inner city hooligans
Signing up for adventure, signing up for their first pair of shoes,
In fear and bravado, did they, shivering in their watery slit trenches;
Did they do all this, so much waste and horror, did they liberate
The camps so that now we too can have camps?

Lovelace & Byron

Ada Lovelace is honoured with a doodle.

---

I went to see the 2014 MONA FOMA. A action-packed, fun-filled week of music, art and shenanigans. Like all public events, and many privates ones, foma brought forth some of our modern contradictions. And the source of this article being an apparent (let us be polite and say an inadvertent) sexism.

The recent festival included a performance of the Ada Project. The Ada of this project is Ada Lovelace, a Victorian era mathematician who worked with Charles Babbage to design a mechanical general-purpose computer, called the Analytical Engine. As Ada Lovelace died in 1852 this was an amazing intellectual achievement, even if was never realised.

Sadly there is a preoccupation with her famous father, Lord Byron. A father who was disappointed to sire a daughter, and who left Ada and her mother only one month after the child was born. Rushing off to fight for Greek independence, he like so many others soldiers over the generations, died of fever in camp. He never saw the enemy, let alone fire in anger. It is all rather pathetic, and more than a trifle appropriate.

But let us see some examples of this phenomenon:
It’s the first time I’ve seen an industrial robot dance to an opera about Lord Byron’s daughter, who was diagnosed with hysteria as she died of ovarian cancer (The ADA Project)

An industrial robot, inspired by the life and work of Ada Lovelace, gifted mathematician and daughter of Lord Byron. Lovelace predicted computer-generated music 100 years before it eventuated.

The Guardian, if only parenthetically
They are inspired by two things; first the movements of the machine, and secondly the life of Ada Lovelace, a Victorian mathematician (and daughter of Lord Byron) who Shawcross tells us developed a prototype computer called the Difference Engine.

Prepare to be mesmerised by The ADA Project: four musical commissions inspired by the life and work of Ada Lovelace (1815-1852), the gifted (yet troubled) mathematician and daughter of Lord Byron

There is no arguing that Ada Lovelace was in fact the child of Lord Byron. And I understand the use of this sort of short hand, allowing the reader to quickly orient themselves. There is no doubt that Lord Byron is a famous name, full of bad boy intrigue and eroticism. All this does work to quickly frame Ada Lovelace, but it does it seem to me, if not wrong, at least not right. As Byron abandoned the mother and child, he could not be called her father; as being a father is more than spreading one's seed. Indeed Byron was no more than a negative, a hole in the life of Ada Lovelace. Her mother, embittered by the rut and forget policy of the famous poet, gave Ada a rigorous education in mathematics and science. This was a vain attempt to keep her away from poetry, and all romantic ideas. Ada's mother felt poetry to be a source of insanity. Ada developed ideas of poetical science, ideas which allowed her to ask the right questions about the role of the Analytical Engine, and the relationship between the machine, the individual, and society.

Although some historians doubt her contributions and abilities Ada Lovelace is remembered as a great mathematician, one of the best of her generation. She devised, and again some reject these claims, the first computer program, an algorithm for calculating Bernoulli numbers. - - More importantly she was able to contemplate the idea of the general purpose computer. The idea of a Turing complete machine that can solve any equation. This seems like little when it is written down, but this idea is what allows us a computer to generate music, film and all teh other content that goes with it. Lady Lovelace, with Charles Babbage, also conceived of the idea of the stored program. A calculator is a computer, but one that can only do one thing, to get it to read email would require much effort, and modification. The modern computer allows me to write this with my typesetting software, while changing windows to view my email, or to further research Ada Lovelace.

If we were to compare Lord Byron to Lady Lovelace in their relative importance to our modern world, there is no comparison. One wrote a few good, and some very good poems that allow us to see the mindset of England after the Napoleonic Wars, one of them worked to develop ideas that are only now coming to fruition.

As an aside, and with perhaps some irony, the US Defense Department created a language called Ada This language was defined as ANSI/MIL-STD 1815A, but note the numbering -- 1815, the year Ada Lovelace was born.

To get some idea of the achievement of Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, we can look at the contradiction that surrounds her unpleasant death. Aged 37 she died from ovarian cancer, her doctors had resorted to blood letting, and came up with theories that too much science her made her hysterical, causing this debilitating disease. Being an aristocrat, Lady Lovelace would have had access to the height of modern medical thought. These are some of the contradictions of a world, still in the infancy of industrialisation, where Ada Lovelace is imaging machines that can create music, while contemporary medical science is still resorting to sympathetic magic, and superstition for cures.

The final word I leave to Ada Lovelace, to allow the reader to get a feel for her visionary imagery and work: "The Analytical Engine weaves algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves."

to mix art with activism

In the distance is the city, hidden from view.

K9 moved back into the combat area – Standing now in the Chinese youth sent the resistance message jolting clicking tilting through the pinball machine – Enemy plans exploded in a burst of rapid calculations – Clicking in punch cards of redirected orders – Crackling shortwave static – Bleeeeeeeeeeeeeep – Sound of thinking metal – “Calling partisans of all nations – Word falling – Photo falling – Break through in Grey Room – Pinball led streets – Free doorways – Shift coordinate points –”

Nova Express. Burroughs

As a result, therefore, man (the worker) only feels himself freely active in his animal functions – eating, drinking, procreating, or at most in his dwelling and in dressing-up, etc.; and in his human functions he no longer feels himself to be anything but an animal. What is animal becomes human and what is human becomes animal.

Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, Estranged Labour. Marx.

---

My four days of mona foma.

I was fortunate enough to get a festival pass to the 2014 mona foma. And so my thoughts.

Fishing boats high hot summer evening - wave upon wave fractal innumerable myriad. Ole timey working working places. The mystique of the proletariat. Sail boats sailing along the the setting sun wind.

So what did I like about the festival? The bands, the music. While I did not love everything I saw, and while I was not able to see every event, I have to say there was nothing I saw that was terrible; nothing I saw did not deserve to be there.

But the absolute highlights for me had to be Sun Ra Arkestra, The Julie Ruin, and the Ada Project. There were several acts that I was unfamiliar with and I was very glad to have had the exposure. I also greatly enjoyed The Ada Project. So much so that I saw it four times!

There was, as I said, very little I did not like. And the things I did not like, were more my perception as opposed to the music being made. For example I am not a great fan of the techno dance sort of sound. So I tried to understand the acts in what they were trying to do, more than what I would have liked them to do.

It is to the credit of the hundreds of staff that organise these events that very little went wrong. There was a slight hiccup on the first night, when the scanner had difficulties reading my ticket. But on subsequent days there was no issue. I am sure there where a few back stage dramas, but as a viewer I knew nothing of that, and things seemed to flow quite easily from one act to the next. Food and drinks were plentiful if a tad pricey, but not so much that one would think it was out of the ordinary. If one did not care about alcohol, and wanted to get a juice, there was no line and it was easy to purchase. I did notice some very long lines, but as it was not me waiting...

So at best only minor things went wrong, at least from an outsiders point of view, so any complaints are more in the category of quibbles and not complaints. Hats off the the many staff who worked on the stalls, and collected tickets and etc, as much as the musicians, this regiment of staff should be seen as integral to the smooth functioning of the festival. Or as Brecht said in his poem A Worker Reads History, “Caesar beat the Gauls. Was there not even a cook in his army?”

What would I change? I found the MAC Backstage room to be a stuffy, anxiety creating venue. This could have been just me, as the room was often filled with people, digging the music, bopping and having fun. Some people have complained about the ticketing and entry for the Faux Mo nightclub. I admit I did not attend this so I can not comment, but will note it as something I heard.

The smithies, working in the forecourt to create looped beats and a metal sculpture, were a great hit. As much as the work they were doing was interesting in itself, they also provided a focus for the gathering crowd. I was a bit surprised as to how little the forecourt was used by the event. To my mind there seems no reason why it could not be filled with local performers, buskers, fire eaters, spoke word artists and the like. This would provide an outlet for local artists, as well as giving them a bit of encouragement, and would also give spectators more fuel to allow them to speculate, and recharge.

And of course the main change I would make, would be to somehow make the event more woman friendly. I would like to see, in future festivals, something like one day of the four day festival be given over to only female artists. I know that some will say “ Do we have to have this discussion again?” While others can say the exact same thing, but with a slight change in emphasis and so “Do we have to have this discussion again?” But one only has to look at the program and see the overwhelming preponderance of male artists. Well over half were male, or male dominated performances. With only a few breaking this penile mold. The fact that The Julie Ruin was one of the few shows bent towards women proves in a rather ironic way this truth.

I know that such a suggestion would be controversial. But to me any back lash to the idea of creating a more gender balanced event would again prove the truth.

What did the festival make me think about? One thing that jumbled around my brainpan was the idea of the distinction between (for lack of better words) music driven and word driven music. Music driven seems to flow more organically and more freely, more like the proverbial river. With lyrics there seems to be more of an architectural feel, the music is built up around a scaffolding of words. Maybe a thing to do would be to investigate incorporating improvisational lyrics into songs.

I was to a certain extent disappointed with some of the electronic boyz and the sounds they were making. It seems to me, and I am happy to be proven wrong, that with all the computing power at hand, with the vast of array of electronics willing to due the maestro's bidding that something better than a constant pumping 1,2,3,4 beat could be found. It seems to me that we have the ability to make electric music that sounds like angels signing. There is no need for a beat, as the computer will never miss. I want something to dance to that is different. Of course the crowd went wild, so who the hell do I know. I did, for example, like the poly-rhythmic sounds of HIVE, their use of old and new ways to produce music.

In a similar vein the festival made me think and cower in wonder at the process. A puff of air, the vibration of a string or skin, the rush of electrons. More a way things happen, than a thing. Nothing but vibrations. Resonance. And I can not even find the words to describe the flow of images and thoughts that crowded my mind, like the crowded venue floor, surging and swaying. From almost nothing comes music, in the way that a monsoon is little more than warm moist air rising from the ocean, so to the music is simply the vibrations moving through the air. And both the storm and music emerge from the chaos become so much more.

Over the four days of the festival the temperature rose and fell here in Hobart. Dangerous climate conditions caused distress on the mainland. Bushfires burnt up the east coast of the big island.

Daily the news spoke of increasing confrontation in the northern seas. Shots were fired across the bow of ships filled with children.

Compassion is becoming a dirty word. The assault, the counter revolution, is gathering pace. Education and disability care, and education are all in the firing line. Same sex marriage is being brushed aside, howled down in a mocking chorus of convenient morality. The “be excellent to one another” idea of Jesus is being ignored, and in America anyway there is talk to rewriting the bible more in line with tea party politics.

We are trading our freedoms for the idea of an illusionary choice. Are we to control the machines, or are we to be controlled? Are we to simply be an adjunct to the machine, or the machines to liberate us. Computer technology in many ways starkly shows the Marxist idea of alienation, of working people building a productive capacity is which is then used against them. A vast network of control that can constantly monitor citizens. The greatest, never tiring, surveillance network every made. Is this to be our future? Should we not make the machines work for us? Maybe lower the hours of work to only 20 hours a week, allowing more time for creation of life, family, of art.

The PM is off skiing in France, while the media slumbers contently after a long and tiring campaign of social control.

We live in an age of urgencies. We are hurtling headlong into a crisis, into the abyss. I felt that foma missed the opportunity to highlight these urgencies. I did not see all the bands, so I may have missed some important things. Most of the acts I saw at best only hinted at, or spoke indirectly about what is to be done. From what I saw only The Julie Ruin seemed willing to discuss directly the problems we face, and to offer some sort of a solution.

The solution being to mix art with activism, to build community.

Bloody Mainlanders

A physical system can have as many resonant frequencies as it has degrees of freedom; (according to wikipedia)

Kharon: Have you watched the bubbles in the water, gathering and dispersing? And the bubbles gather into foam. Some last for only a short time, some burst as soon as they are born, others a long time. In no other way could it be. So it is with men.

Hermes: You comparison is not inferior to Homer, when he compared men to leaves.

Kharon 19.1 ~ Lucian of Samosata.

---

Hobart had recovered from the heat and had returned to that raw river front feel that we all know and love and admire. I check the news in the morning to make sure we had not gone to war while I slept.

I had not planned on writing about the Colin Stetson show on the last drab gray Sunday afternoon of 2014 mona foma. But then I read in the Guardian that “his thing seems to be to play, at deafening volume, a few notes over and over, drench them in reverb and the repeat relentlessly for what seemed like hours.”

A little harsh I thought. While Colin plays a few notes (more than a few!) over and over, and while they were drenched in reverb, and while it did repeat relentlessly, to make this criticism is like saying than Jimi Hendrix just played a bunch of notes real fast, or that Bob Dylan writes a bunch of rhymes. True, but missing the depth. And of course I understand that not everyone can like everything.

So if Colin Stetson plays a few notes, adds filter (directly to sax and man), and repeats what can we say about his music. The first thing we most note, is that he meant to bring two saxophones to play, but the bass sax was misplaced coming out of Sydney Airport. Bloody Mainlanders, always trying to sabotage Tasmania! If he had the instruments there would have been more variety.

To me this show captured the mystery and power of music. A puff of air, a vibration, carried by electrickery, waves shaking the thin eardrum film of skin, nerve impulses surge and spread that mass of hot blood loving brain fat. And this puff of air has the power to transport, to transform. This puff of air can recall memories, can inspire dreams and tears, can move one to abandon, can drop one into despair.

For myself I was carried away with this strange, bubble popping sound, this flowing Dantesque soundscape of wailing cries in the distance. I was standing off to one side, and could look behind the performer and see out the industrial windows to the harbour outside. The wild wailing of the sax, the occasional sweeping roaring rush of agony or ecstasy (for at a distance, with no context, they can be confused) released from some sort of unknown depths surrounded me as I watched the birds circle and hover. The birds were reflected back and forth, up and down, darting, sweeping, moving through the air. Like the waves of sound formed from a puff of air, rumbling down the shiny metal tube, glowing yellow red in the false light of radiating waves, the birds split the air and swam in a atmospheric sea of freedom we can only dream about, only for a moment touch.

And he played one tune called “Dream of Water,” and all my dreams of stepping into rivers and the bubbles forming foam fell and tumbled. A sound track to dreams. A column of air. As many resonant frequencies as degrees of freedom. The birds circle and then -- that is all.

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/australia-culture-blog/2014/jan/20/mofo-festival-concludes-with-john-grant-mylo-and-death-metal http://ancarinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/brass.jpg

Heavy Discipline

With their diseases and orgasm drugs and their sexless parasite life forms—Heavy Metal People of Uranus wrapped in cool blue mist of vaporized bank notes—And The Insect People of Minraud with metal music. Nova Express 112 ~ WSB

---

Until day four of mona foma I was ignorant as to the existence of Psycroptic. It has been a long time since I have seen a metal band play live. Needless to say I no longer make the scene metal-wise.

But the great thing about festivals, about these sorts of anthology of acts is that one gets to hear things they did not know that wanted to hear. Even though I no longer make the scene, I still enjoy listening to good metal. To me it is one of those types of music that forces you to move. Metal is still the best fuck off to parents and squares everywhere music, to all authority!

The band had just started their set as I walked up the street towards Macquarie Wharf. Louder and louder the music rumbled and echoed, calling to me. I was a bit wary when I walked into old MAC2 warehouse cavern with a tech-death metal playing. But I chose to keep an open mind. I wanted to judge the band on what they are trying to do, not what I would have liked them to do. I am glad I did.

Before the end of the song I had moved my way to the front of the crowd and was, if not head banging, at least grooving in my own way. For after all were not the Sex Pistols a type of metal band?

Psycroptic is a Hobart band, they have released five albums to much acclaim in the metal community and have won an international fan base playing tech-death metal. I know this because after the show I was waiting in line for a coffee and spoke with a fan.

Technical metal refers to the technical ability of the musicians. The Guardian described this type of metal “death metal with complicated bits in the vein of prog rock.” This is not the sort of band where one can recruit a friend because they look the part, one has to be able to play their instruments. If technical ability is the key, then Psycroptic deserve their position as leaders in this type of metal.

Drummer Dave Haley first captured my attention with his relentless, powerful, driving drum work. Brother Joe Haley played guitar, and like his brother he played with a savage power and speed. A replacement bass guitarist was needed for this gig. He was introduced as Sam. Like the rest of the band he was a demon on his instrument. Thumping bass lines and jumping about with the best of them. Lead singer Jason Peppiatt rounded out the band. He strode about the stage exhorting his troops to battle, inspiring frenzy in band and crowd alike. The younger ones in the front rocked hard. Long Lacedaemon hair giving them strength. The singer reminded me a bit of Brad Pitt in the movie Troy. And to my drug addled rock and roll fantasy mind his death metal screams and wails echoed down the ages the screams of the Danaans before the walls of Troy. The angry refusal to follow those who are your inferior. Screaming out the pain, horror and sorrow of ten years of futile war.

Screaming and hollering the rage and energy of working people.

I still have problems with this type of music -- but to have been there, to have been in that moment, I would not have missed it.

The Julie Ruin

Men make art, Men make music. For women to make art and music is in itself (sadly still true) a political statement. For women to make killer rock and roll with a Smash The State, Smash The Patriarchy power that The Julie Ruin brings to the stage is a revelation, a revaluation, and a revolution.

On the third day of visiting the 2014 MONA FOMA I was lamenting to myself the lack of political engagement of the artists. Sure there were many cool things to see, and hear, and taste, and there were many cool folk to mingle with and to chat. But in terms of anything that faced the urgencies of our time, there was very little.

And I wandered about the auditoriums and court yards and thought of Nietzsche:

This future speaks even now in a hundred signs, this destiny announces itself everywhere; for this music of the future all ears are cocked even now. For some time now, our whole European culture has been moving as toward a catastrophe, with a tortured tension that is growing from decade to decade: restlessly, violently, headlong, like a river that wants to reach the end, that no longer reflects, that is afraid to reflect.

Where was this music? Where was this reflection?

Art is enough singer Kathleen Hanna told the crowd, mix art with activism, with community building she further suggested to the audience. She discussed the need for unity, the need to get over that that false leftie sort of idea that we should be pure, and we should constantly cut down those who; for example, still drink milk in their fair trade tea, as opposed to the purity of soy milk. This is all crap and what is needed at this time is unity.

The band spoke warmly and honestly to the audience, and they were able to engage the usually passive Hobart crowd. Anyone that missed this show, missed a lesson in music and a lesson in politics and most vitally the missed a lesson in how music and politics can be fused as we dance round the grave about Kapital.

On a side note I thought it was of interest that the keyboard player was a bloke, was this a happy coincidence or a statement on the fact that many times there are bands in which the keyboard player is the only woman.

During the final song of the set the crowd was able to witness all the actual nature of class and gender relations in our “ freedom.” Two young women, rock and rollers and full of passion and energy, and desirous of change hurdled the barrier, into that special space between audience and performer, that space reserved for the elite few photographers and their bully boy escorts. Of course the big burly he-men bouncers pounced and man handled the women back into the seething mass, where they obviously belong.

One could see exactly what The Julie Ruin were saying. Any divergence, any deviation of the rules can not be allowed, can not be tolerated. There can be no dancing, save in the nominated places. Much like the horrid free speech areas which are popping up all over the Western World, which do no more than silence dissent.

HIVE

Hermes: Can you see the crowd dear Kharon?
Kharon: I see a rolling tumult, a life full of confusion, and their cities like hives - each one has a stinger to sting their neighbour.
Kharon 15.1ff ~ Lucian of Samosata

New York based experimental composer Tyondai Braxton played two performances at MONA FOMA on Friday night; I only say the first show. He led a party of five called HIVE in a brave new world of composition and looping experimentation.

Five space age, futuristic tables lined up in a row. Each with a matrix of holes cut into them. Slow clouds of aerosol rose, twisting and helixing, up to ceiling. The murmuring forest sounds of the expectant crowd rises and falls, punctuated by staccato beats of laughter and coughs, and tinny mobile phone tunes. Outside the sun fell and entered the river stream, while lights came on one by one in the houses, on the hill, across the river. And darkness spread over the ways of the world.

The performers climbed onto their tables and settled in, like cosmonauts in the capsule of a Soyuz rocket. And there was a pause and a hush as the band members organised themselves, arranging scores, making themselves comfortable, fiddling with electronic bits and bobs. Apple laptops glowed waking from sleep mode.

And then a beat and a rhythm, which quickly rushed into focus and tore around the room like a cloud of locusts devouring the villagers grain supply.

An assortment of noises ply upon ply. Clicks and clacks and beats and bumps. Sitting and basking in the extreme-summer heat, the cicada rests on the spear point of Athena and sings loudly, while we gather in parks and bars and cafes and clubs and schools and law courts and sing endlessly. Kalahari computer tenderhearted Khoisan sounds vie with simple stick on wood sound in the noisy emporium.

Indeed I am mesmerised by the flashing drum stick cutting the dense smoking air. And the bass drum sound surged like a crashing wave on the sea side shore, and the bass vibrations made the hairs on my dance, and made my insides move and squish.

No lyrics, no singing, bar some half heard sounds which may or may not have been speech. Wide varying smoke and light constant changing and intersecting, a sixth member of the group. No interaction with the audience. Just the five perched like the singing cicadas on the spear point never smiling, always grim focused. Only the layered texture of sounds. And I turned over in my mind, thinking to myself about the various ways and roads of freedom. Some can find freedom in precision, other in improvisation. And as abrupt as that the show was over.