Natural Selection #7

Issue 7
Natural Selection
Issue 7 : 2010
www.naturalselection.org.nz
Issue 7
Natural Selection
Guest Editors:
Judy Darragh
judydarragh@xtra.co.nz
Fiona Gillmore
fionagillmore@yahoo.co.nz
Louise Menzies
louisemenzies@gmail.com
Editors
Gwynneth Porter
Dan Arps
editors@naturalselection.org.nz
Proof readers
Debra Orum
Hanna Scott
Victoria Passau
Guest Designer
Fiona Gillmore
Designer
Warren Olds
warren@naturalselection.org.nz
Subscribe for free at
Many thanks
Gwyn, Dan and Warren for letting us do this!
All our contributors for making such a hot issue,
S/F, and our amazing proof readers who gave up
a whole heap of their time and eyesight for us.
ISSN 1176-6808
0.2
Issue 7 : 2010
Fiona Gillmore: While I was in my final year of Masters, in 2008,

I went through a semi-obnoxious period (I was obviously single at
the time), where I felt really annoyed at certain differences between
what women and men can get away with, and I remember having a
conversation about the word rogue the fact that there was this word
for a loveable arrogant guy who could be off doing whatever, being
with lots of different people acting badly, but getting away with it,
but that the equivalent idea didnt exist for a woman.
Louise Menzies: Is a rogue like a cad?
FG: Yeah but I see a rogue as a type of good naughty.
LM: A womanizer who gets away with it?
FG: Ha, ha, no. Hes not necessarily a womaniser. He could be, but I
kind of see it more as this allowance to be cheeky and arrogant, and
get away with it.
LM: Is XXXXXXX a rogue?
FG: No XXXXXXXX isnt a rogue Um let me think of a rogue.
LM: ZZZZZZZZ?
(laughter)
FG: No hes not a rogue. Hes quite cheeky, though, and hes reasonably
arrogant, but hes a gentleman at the same time.
LM: A rogue isnt a gentleman?
FG: Uhhh God Im trying to think of a good one....
LM: YYYYYYYYY?
FG: No, hes not smart enough to be a rogue! But youre right,
hes close.
(laughter)
FG: VVVVVVVVs a good rogue actually. Hes very smart and he

seems to get away with being quite arrogant.
LM: So its about it being confident and arrogant and charming.
Judy Darragh: Charming. Very important.
FG: But someone who also does some pretty shitty stuff and gets away
with it cause he is confident and arrogant and charming.
FG: Um, I wish I could think of someone famous that we could actually
use or someone that everyone knows. Oh, I know, HHHHHHH is
kind of like a rogue. So, you know, he does bad shit but people still
love him.
point, I ended up in Allan Smiths office one day being pissed off about
the fact that I couldnt think of any female equivalent for a rogue.
If you start with the sexual comparison theres the wanton woman
or words like slut or whore hussy slag, trollop. But there
isnt actually anything that even comes close to an approximation for
rogue.
LM: That also includes a being self-assured, charming, arrogant,
confident, and what was the other word?
JD: Cheeky.
LM: Lets not forget smart.
FG: Yeah, so, Im still looking for it, a word for a woman thats like
these things.
I thought that this would all be a really great kind of idea for an
article and so when we came to think about people that we wanted
to be involved, that was my first thought and (as is my sense of
humour) I thought that he could write under the name of Ellen, with
an E rather than an A. Part of it was that I thought lets not be precious
about the discussion of what it meant to be a woman, or you know just
a slightness rather than a heavy handedness.
For me, and this is how I think about it, how can you have an
interesting conversation, when maybe the opposite spectrum of the
same idea isnt it the same room? To me it would just make it so much
more interesting and I think that was where I was coming from with
having Allan in there...I guess its more of an open question mark
but for me it was really important to have that open question mark
because that seemed to be missing from the previous conversation of
Feminism. Either that or some sense of friction, or just the ability to
open the conversation up a bit more
Once we started to talk about him contributing to the magazine
though, the discussion moved on from that initial enquiry, and he
became interested in writing something different, and, for me, Id
moved on from the fact that he was male and that might have qualified
his article somewhat. So, it was through the course of conversation,
that his piece turned into what it was. It wasnt a direct discussion on
the gender of language anymore.
LM: Is this idea still unresolved for you? Obviously all of us are capable
of being a bit like a rogue and its fine, but theres still a lack of that
word. What do you think about that now? I still love the idea of that
article, Allan writing about rogues.
FG: Yeah I think it constantly bugs me. Especially when Im around
some of my quite strongly opinionated male friends.
JD: Theyre always loveable too, arent they?
JD: I know what the word is.
FG: And he does kind of do the dirty on people or whatever, but its
allowable somehow. And somehow he gets the ladies as well. So maybe
hes a good example. Well, sort of. I mean, hes not attractive to me,
but anyway. So I got really annoyed, about this situation and at one
FG: What?
JD: Its Fiona.
(a lot of laughter)
************************************************************************************
JD: This talks about a lot of other things as well. I think the fact we
are looking for a word to describe this person that we havent got in
our language is a lot of what the text and images that weve got in this
magazine is I think theres a lot of searching going on, in what were
trying to do, or describe, or discover, through words and labels and
images and descriptions.
FG: And so its bringing to mind, how do you keep a conversation

going when you dont necessarily just want to have it happening in
the black and white? You know, like I dont necessarily want to have
a conversation about, say, my situation at work, specifically being
a woman at work, because that already divides me, but I still want
change to happen.
LM: Yeah, its hard to get somewhere, just by saying this shit sucks.
0.3
JD: So why all these women?

LM: Wed been talking for a while about possible projects, hadnt we? There was an interest to work together, to find an outlet
for some of the things we were all interested inthings which focused, in a way, around representation.
JD: It all started with conversation didnt it? Its an ongoing need really isnt it? To talk about where women sit, where womens
work or womens voices sit generally in a lots of things; in the arts and beyond. Its often something that comes up when I get
together with other women. Its always something you end up talking about. I think the point was to naturalise something,
wasnt it? Not necessarily to make a direct point. We talked a lot about feminism and where that exists now and how that
performsIs it still a dirty word?
FG: One of my problems with the first wave of Feminism, was that it didnt seem critical in terms of the work ... and I didnt
like feminist the word, because it seemed really exclusive and not in a good way. I mean this is speaking in total broad strokes,
but it just seemed like if you were a woman making art then that was great. I think Feminism needed to happen the way it did,
but we need to rethink it now. It needs to be in context..and I think conversation is a good way to do it. A dialogue, rather
than a monologue, around women making work.
LM: So how do you find a culture around what making work as a woman might be? How do you find a way to express
that or talk about it? I think my sense of what would happen if you made an issue expressly with women was a way to keep
thinking about these kinds of questions. Would there be a quality that doesnt come through in other contexts or under other
conditions? I cant say I was sure what to expect.
************************************************************************************
LM: Whats it like if you dont have to focus on the difference? Whats it like if you just make a project that is just trying to
express something, in a less conscious way? I remember thinking that the magazine could be like making a group show, that
it might be just about getting people to make work, and so our approach was to ask people to either respond to the invitation
directly or to share what they were working on at the moment. I guess from my perspective I just wanted to see what was
going to come out of that and for it not to have any polemic to it.
JD: I think the conversation has to continue because thats how you change things. If you dont talk, then nothing happens,
but if you talk about things, if you keep talking, thats how things change.
LM: Community.
JD: Yeah! That dirty word. That used to be a dirty word in the eighties. Community.
FG: Im not very good at community though.
(laughter)
LM: Why arent you good? Dont you stay in touch with your friends?
FG: Ha ha, no. I totally stay in touch. I just dont network very well whatsoever. I work very well in terms of close connections,
you know, like on this kind of project, but Im not a net worker. Im definitely not as good at networking as lots of people
that I know.
JD: But this a tradition of sorts, isnt it? Of women supporting communities with unpaid labour, and all that kind of thing,
like, I dont know, I find myself at the school all the time helping out, doing lots of stuff which is mostly done by women. All
the mums are there helping out, you know, cause in part thats our position.
What Id just like to think is that weve contributed something further with this, that weve continued the conversation. We
need to keep very aware all the time of our position and what is changing around us, economically, politically. I think you
always have to be aware of your position, if you like, and to speak from it.
0.4
Contents
........................................1.
Beth OBrien, Quiet decisions/specific intentions 15.07.09

Beth OBrien opens the show and takes us for a ride.
........................................2.
Laura Preston & Narrow Gauge, Parallel lines // Project making

Laura Preston opens the floor to Narrow Gauge, discussing the
venture S/F , flux, collaboration and all-round-pretty-great
publishing and design projects.
........................................3.
Sandra Kassenaar, Faugh a Ballaugh/Cowabunga Part 1

Sandra Kassenaar presents her war cries series as a collection
of page works. Tulta Munille! Fire at their balls!.
........................................4.
et. al. Domestic Violence Act 1995 (NZ)

Domestic violence and child abuse are widespread in New Zealand
communities. As the Domestic Violence Act states, domestic
violence refers to physical, psychological and sexual acts which
usually form a pattern of behaviour by the perpetrator. A broad
definition of domestic violence includes: physical abuse, sexual
abuse, and psychological abuse. Psychological abuse is defined
as including: intimidation, harassment, threats and (in relation to
a child) causing or allowing a child to witness (see or hear) the
physical, sexual or psychological abuse of another person.
Further information and support can be found on the following
sites: The New Zealand Violence Clearing house - http://www.nzfvc.
org.nz and Womens Refuge: http://www.womensrefuge.org.nz. Call
0800 REFUGE for a direct connection to your local refuge. If you
are worried about family violence in your home or community, there
are many agencies around the country that can provide information,
services, and support. If you are in danger or someone you know is
at risk of serious harm, contact the Police on 111.
Selected OHP graphs (were) originally used as part of thats
obvious! thats right! thats true!, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o
Whaiwhetu, 2009, (et al).
........................................5.
Allan Smith, Know how can do: E, F, G, K busy with the elephant;
or, calculate, evaluate, improvise: Eve Armstrong; Fiona Connor;
Gaelen Macdonald; Kate Newby
With no global axis to plot against Allan Smith forms his own
alphabet and discusses the language of the a(four)mentioned artists.
Step into the conceptual drawing room....
........................................6.
Amy Howden-Chapman, A conversation with my favourites

Ever wondered what Lydia Davis eats for breakfast?
Amy Howden-Chapman holds a discussion with Davis, Jill Lepore
and Nicholson Baker on why we want more, and when its all
too much.
........................................7.
Kirsty Cameron, Little Audreys Walk of Shame

Kirsty Cameron watched and waited. She saw and thought and
walked and wrote. And came across this.
........................................8.
Fiona Jack, Page for Helen

Helen Crawfurd (ne Jack) was a prominent figure in Scotland
throughout the Red Clydeside period as a suffragette and human
rights activist. She initiated and edited Page For Women in the
official communist party newspaper The Communist in 1922. She
was also Fionas great grandfathers sister, and her great work is
remembered here with Issue #7s very own page for women.
........................................9.
Layla Rudneva-MacKay, Blue Face Schoolgirl

Layla photographically recalls an event that occurred in art class as
a teenager at high school. Her camera now revisits a moment which
defined her as an artist.
Issue 7 : 2010
0.5
........................................10.
Tessa Laird, Kundalini Rising

Tessa Laird takes a moment out of her progress through the rainbow
to awaken the kundalini.
........................................11.
Kah Bee Chow, Untitled

Kah Bee Chow looks into the whiteout phenomenon, demonstrated
here on The New Zealand Herald, 30 November 1979, two days after
the Erebus disaster.
........................................12.
Alexis Hunter, Letter to a dead French woman

Alexis Hunter writes a letter from France. A rundown house, the
Madame who lived there has gone what was she like?
........................................13.
Jan Bryant, Image/War

Jan Bryant spent time thinking about the absorbing and apolitical
nature of the everyday, aesthetics and play in Kathryn Bigelows Hurt
Locker, Lee Millers Prison Guard and Alex Monteiths Composition
with Royal New Zealand Air Force Red Checkers.
........................................14.
Rosanna Albertini, Brown, Blue, Again and Laura Owens luminous

way of going sane
Rosanna Albertini went to visit Laura Owens in her studio, where
she discovered animal and human stories alive in paint, moist,
vaporous, woody or foggy, vanishing and subtle.
........................................15.
Jessica Stockholder, Flooded Chambers Maid

Jessica Stockholder shares some thoughts on her recent public
work Flooded Chambers Maid in Madison Square Park, New York.
........................................16.
Chris Kraus, Maureen Stiles

Los Angeles writer and founder of the Native Agents series shares
an excerpt from her forthcoming book. Set in the southwest US at
the height of the Bush era, Summer of Hate is a novel about (among
other things) flawed reciprocity and American justice.
........................................17.
10 questions: Ani ONeill, Ema Tavola, Liz Maw, Lisa Crowley,

Asumi Mizuo.
We put the tough questions to some smart ladies. Ever wondered
what art is really for? Read on.
........................................18.
Maddie Leach
Apple farming, a full moon, and the Jewish history of Cork are
just some of the topics mind-mapped in a series of diagrams by
Wellington artist Maddie Leach.
........................................19.
Kate Newby, I dont belong in this world

Kate Newby shows us how to have fun at work.
........................................20.
Fiona Gillmore
Womens issue(s)? Bah! Tits and ass can only get you so far.
........................................21.
Gwyn Porter, Rosemary Johnsons Cloud Works, 1975-1976: The

opposite of neglect
Growing up in Christchurch I remember Rosemary Johnstons Cloud
Sculpture at Christchurch airport. Fibreglass clouds floated in a glass
atrium. Gwyn also remembers, and has an affinity with clouds.
........................................22.
Sriwhana Spong, Sylph

Sriwhana Spong moves in mysterious ways.
........................................23.
Mikala Dwyer, Outfield

In Outfield (2009) an installation by Sydney artist Mikala Dwyer, the
forms circling the gallery suggest strange sciences and rituals.
0.6
Issue 7 : 2010
........................................24.
Judy Darragh, Reverence

A book found in a secondhand shop. The past owner has underlined
and highlighted the text in an array of fluro markers, accentuating
and decoding the words and meanings.
........................................25.
Ruth Buchanan, Biographies

Emily Dickinson favoured to host from a distance while she might
sit in the palour the guest would be invited to take a seat in the
drawing room. Dickinson is just one of the figures Berlin-based,
New Zealand artist Ruth Buchanan has hosted in recent projects, as
she asks how artistic agency is formed through artistic legacy.
........................................26.
Nicola Farquhar
Caught up in human company, Frank OHara once found a portrait
show seemed to have no faces in it at all, just paint. Portrait or not,
Nicola Farquhar suggests a painting is a head that has thoughts,
and like us has a sometimes tender and sometimes terrible desire
to exchange and be understood. Meet Farquhars paintings Rene,
Samantha, Claire and Caroline.
........................................27.
Sandra Kassenaar, Faugh a Ballaugh/Cowabunga Part 2
........................................28.
Nina Hoechtl, Una Lucha Mixta

Meet the Mexican wrestlers Faby Apache, Mascarita Sagrada, Sexy
Star, Billy Boy, Polvo de Estrellas, Mini Histeria, Pimpinella Escarlata
and Gato Everyday, in this blow-by-blow account of a mixed fight by
Nina Hoechtl vamos a las luchas!
........................................29.
Roxanne Hawthorne
Roxanne Hawthorne recounts every gig shes been to from memory.
Though she has no doubt there will be some missing from this epic
list, especially during the eighties. Rox cant remember much about
that time, full stop. Even so, shes at No. 290 and counting.
........................................30.
Sarah Hopkinson, Airless Rooms, Stony Corridors

Sarah Hopkinson responds to Michel Butors Passing Time, a novel
recommended to her by Saskia Leek, whose paintings accompany
this text.
........................................31.
Francis Upritchard, Tasha

London-based Francis Upritchard models figures posed in dreamlike
pauses or suspended and silent as if mid sentence. Courtesy of Ivan
Anthony and Kate McGarry.
........................................32.
Fiona Connor, Thinking about the seventies in Los Angeles,

553 Mariposa Avenue, Los Angeles, site of Womanhouse 1971,
Mille Wilson, Rm. A211A CalArts
Fiona Connor sends us pictures all the way from the sunny shores
of Los Angeles.
........................................33.
Louise Menzies Radiant Recipes

The School of Radiant Living was an open movement teaching
holistic philosophy, spirituality and physical health, centered in
Havelock North from the 1930s through to the 1970s. Founded and
lead by Herbert Sutcliffe the movement grew rapidly in the first half
of the 20th century to include schools throughout New Zealand,
Australia, Canada, the United States and Hong Kong, where courses
promoting emotional and spiritual awareness were developed and
taught to members. Radiant food was also part of the programme,
featured here in a series of pages taken from the schools magazine,
the Radiant Messenger.
........................................34.
Rachel Shearer, Sound dairy

AKA Lovely Midget, sound artist Rachael Shearer slices up some
sound and hands it to us on a plate.
Issue 7 : 2010
0.7
1.1
PARALLEL LINES // PROJECT MAKING

Laura Preston and Narrow Gauge
S/F street view, 2009.
Laura Preston: Id like to discuss your ideas on the project

as your latest venture presents an interesting model and
different way to think about creating a situation for the access
and dissemination of contemporary art and design. Would
you say your activities at Split/Fountain (S/F) are project
orientated? If so, what is your concept for the project? How
is the shop operating as a point of difference, so to speak?
a garment that is also a camera obscura, a portable veiled

chamber that, through a small rivet hole, allows the wearer
to view a projection of the outside world on their chest.
We presented poster projects by Dutch designer Sandra
Kassenaar2, New Zealand artist Fiona Jack3 and New Zealand
designers Luke Wood, Jonty Valentine of The National Grid4
with Max Lozach. Most recently we launched Five Prints5 by
Amsterdam based designer Radim Peko, printed as editions
of 13 in phosphorescent ink.
Narrow Gauge: Split/Fountain1 is an open idea that is still

developing and changing; it operates variously as a design
studio, publishing project, bookstore, distribution centre, and
exhibition space. S/F is different from most other art project
spaces in Auckland because it is so ambiguous; it is only open
on Friday and Saturday, exhibition projects are irregular, a lot
of people come in and ask what are we? When we opened
at the end of 2008 we had a very small stack of publications
that we presented on a large industrial shelf. The space had
a very lowkey start and since then we have slowly grown
our collection. Most of the publications we stock are not
available anywhere else locally because we are interested in
representing small and independent publishers, artists books
and projects by designers.
What was the impetus for S/F? How personally determined

is the project?
S/F began with a conversation between Narrow Gauge6 (a
design studio and publishing venture founded in 2008) and
gallerist Michael Lett7 while working on a publication project
together called The Estate of L. Budd: Catalogue of Extant
Works. Sharing an interest in independent publishing, we saw
a need in our area for an alternative venue to local bookshops
that appeal predominantly to mainstream sensibilities with
books from high volume publishers and distributors. S/F
was founded with the intention of it being a platform for
facilitating collaborative projects and for showcasing art
publishing happening both locally and internationally. We
also saw S/F as a means to align Narrow Gauge and Michael
Lett publishing projects with work we like and admire and
Our activities are project orientated in that we invite artists

to produce work specifically for S/F, printed matter, posters,
artist multiples, editions etc. Projects this year have included
a multiple by LA artist Chris Lipomi called Sweatshirt,
Issue 7 : 2010
2.1
them to create work that is autonomous and experimental,

free from the restrictions of a client. I am influenced by a
European design model that respects the innovation and
integrity of designers and doesnt see them simply as an arm
of marketing. For artists, S/F offers an opportunity to engage
with different material sensibilities and allows for a lighter,
freer output. For instance the multiple allows engagement
with a wider, often younger, student audience. At present,
students are an important component of S/Fs clientele,
they are interested in pushing the parameters of design as a
discipline as much as art.
How are you determining the focus of the S/F project in
terms of building relationships with its local context as well
as linking to audiences elsewhere?
The location of S/F on Karangahape Road is important for us
in terms of our close proximity to many galleries and artist run
spaces including, Gambia Castle, Rm, Artspace, Starkwhite,
Two Rooms, Ivan Anthony and of course Michael Lett Gallery.
Fiona Jack, My Fellow Citizens, ink on card, 2009.
The project space is a way for us to engage with local, as well

as international artists and designers, and we are looking to
develop our website further as we see this as a way of gaining
more international presence.
as a way to develop networks and contacts for our own

publishing ventures.
I moved back to New Zealand at the end of 2007 after
spending eight years working and studying overseas; I
completed my design training in the Netherlands at the Gerrit
Rietveld Academie8 and then the Werkplaats Typografie9
and after that I moved to the USA to take up an offer of a
fellowship position at the Walker Art Center10 in Minneapolis.
When I returned to Auckland my immediate response to
the local situation was that there appeared to be a paucity
of independent publishing projects that encouraged and
sustained open criticality around design.
How are you shaping the project? Are you modelling S/F
on any other endeavours you have encountered? Are there
other artistic practices that inform your ideas?
Dexter Sinister11 in New York (the compound name of designers
David Reinfurt and Stuart Bailey) whose work we represent at
S/F, similarly operate as a design studio, publishing imprint,
bookstore and distribution centre. As well as producing more
traditional media, books and publications for arts institutions,
Dexter Sinister develop performative projects involving the
live public production of documents at a specific site. Other
independent project spaces I am interested in include: Vitamin
Creative Space12 in Beijing, which operates as an independent
How does the main focus of the venture the distribution of

the publication relate to your concept for the project?
Our aim is for S/F to represent a broad perspective that
is responsive to the various models of multiplication
and distribution of artists ways of working. We want to
explore existing modes of art publishing as well as possibly
suggest new ones. As Michael Lett and I are actively
producing publications, it made sense to establish S/F as a
distribution outlet.
What is it about the publication as a format that is effective
for you as a practitioner? How does it relate to your own
social and political concerns as an artist and designer?
I am interested in the publication format as a space for
communication; it is effective because it is selfcontained,
can be massproduced and passed around. Judith Hoffberg
conducted an interview with Lawrence Weiner where he
talked about not seeing the book as a fait accompli but as a
questioning structure, I have similar views. I am interested in
design and publishing as a medium for critical activity rather
than a commercial language.
In having worked with curators in previous exhibition and
publication projects, do you think your activities at S/F
are curatorial in approach? Could you talk to this further;
considering your perspective on the role of the curator and
how you play out and expand on the expectations of this role
at S/F?
There is a strong curatorial aspect to our activities at S/F,
Michael Lett and myself are obviously involved with choosing
publications for the shop as well as inviting artists to exhibit
work in the space. However, so far exhibition projects have
been fairly spontaneous. My idea of design includes various
roles extending beyond the production of objects, such as
editor, printer, curator, organiser. When I invite designers to
initiate a project for the space, I see it as an opportunity for
Radim Pesko, Five Prints, phosphorescent ink on paper, 2009.
2.2
Issue 7 : 2010
space, gallery, publisher, production unit and curatorial

group. Also in Beijing is the alternative storefront space
Arrow Factory13 that seeks to advance artistic collaboration,
exploration and experimentation across different cultural
contexts and viewing publics. In Istanbul there is BAS14 an
artistrun space initiated in 2006 by Banu Cennetoglu that
collects and produces artists books and printed matter.
Sort By15, an online initiative that proposes a selection
of autonomous and selfinitiated material by designers,
founded by Guillaume Mojon (Zurich) and Francessca Grassi
(New York). Bookshops I like include The Books16 in Seoul who
initiate projects and exhibitions related to the publications
they represent, Stand Up Comedy17 in Portland which stocks
a range of designer clothing and publications and put out a
shop publication called SUC StatesmanRecorder profiling
artists and designers whose work they represent. Boekie
Woekie in Amsterdam18 which has existed as an independent
platform for selfpublishing for 23 years, and Printed Matter19
in New York which has been around even longer, opening in
the late 70s. There are many other examples.
What are your plans for developing S/F?
Our aim is for S/F to be a space in flux that continues to
make regular changes in response to a particular projects
requirements from the physical interior layout, to its online
presence, to how an artist may influence our understanding
of the project. As S/F develops and becomes more widely
known, I see the future holding greater opportunities to bring
a wider range of innovative and cutting edge artists and
designers to Auckland.
Notes
1.
www.splitfountain.org
2.
Faugh a Ballaugh/Cowabunga a poster project by Sandra

Kassenaar (www.sandrakassenaar.com). A series of double
sided posters set in Churchward Brush Italic. A war cry is
a yell or chant taken up in battle, usually by members of
the same group to let the enemy know youre coming and
arouse aggression. Battle cries are a universal form of display
behaviour aiming at competitive advantage, ideally by
overstating ones own aggressive potential to a point where the
enemy prefers to avoid confrontation altogether and opts to
flee. Artist statement.
3.
My Fellow Citizens poster series by Fiona Jack. Colby Poster

Printing Co. in Los Angeles is a family run business operating
since 1946 who produce a significant portion of the
printed material that is iconic to downtown LA. Their
letterpress fluorescent posters are widely used for fiestas,
carnivals and political campaigning. Jack explains that for the
project she gave Colby a sentence and asked them to design,
typeset and print fifty posters however they wished. The
text she supplied them was the first sentence of Barack
Obamas inauguration speech. When Jack collected the posters
a few weeks later she was told that they had done something
special for her and had printed her posters on top of existing
posters from their trash pile.
4.
Itinerant Exercises: 3 Ring Circus a poster project developed for

S/F by The National Grid (TNG). Printed manually using
wooden plates made from laserengraved sheets of MDF, the
project is loosely based on an evolving venn diagram and
attempts to articulate the trajectory of the publication TNG
from its first five issues.
Issue 7 : 2010
2.3
5.
Five Prints by Radim Peko (www.radimpesko.com), are

printed as editions of 13 in phosphorescent ink. Word
sequences are set in the typeface Boijmans designed in 2003
as part of the identity developed by Mevis & Van Deursen
for the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam,
the Netherlands. The typeface is loosely based on Lance
Wymans multi-layered identity design for the 1968 Mexico
City Olympics. In Wymans font, the repeated outlines of
the individual characters referred to motifs in Mexican folk art,
transformed and used for the Boijmans typeface, they are
a metaphor for the museums new wrap-around building and
the curatorial structures expressed by this architecture.
Designed by Peko in ten weights, each font consists of three
versions: single, double and triple lines. When combined,
layered or coloured the typeface generates endless variations.
6.
www.narrowgauge.info
7.
www.michaellett.com
8.
www.gerritrietveldacademie.nl
9.
www.werkplaatstypografie.org
10.
www.walkerart.org
11.
www.dextersinister.org
12.
www.vitamincreativespace.com
13.
www.arrowfactory.org.cn
14.
www.bas.info
15.
www.sortby.org
16.
www.samusobooks.com
17.
www.shopstandingup.us
18.
www.xs4all.nl/~boewoe/
19.
www.printedmatter.org
The Normans cry at the Battle of

Hastings was Dex Aie! which is
old Norman for God aid us! This
battle cry was last used by the Royal
Guernsey Light Infantry during
World War I.
In the Middle Ages the Almogavars

used to cry Desperta ferro, which
translates from Catalan as Awake
the iron. They used this cry the
dawn before battle, while they beat
their swords on the nearby rocks
to keep them clean from rust. In the
dim light many sparks were lighted,
which scared the enemy watching
them.
The Gaelic Tiocfaidh r l!,

which means Our day will come!
is a cry primarily used by the Irish
Republican Army in their battle for
Northern Ireland to be joined with
the Irish Republic. It has become the
unofficial slogan of the Irish Republican movement and is often shouted
as Beidh r l linn!, or We shall
have our day!
A modern Israeli battle cry, the

Hebrew Kadima! translates literally as Forward!. It has become
the name of the Israel political party
founded by Ariel Sharon. Another
Israeli cry Iti! which means With
me! is associated with the Givati
Brigade.
One of many Finnish battle cries

used during World War II was
Tulta munille! which roughly
translates to Fire at their balls!.
A possible origin of the cries

Hooah! Hoo-yay! and Oorah!
is that the term is derived from the
Turkish language phrase ldrmek
that translates as kill them all,
that was adopted as the Russian
battlecry Urrah! that is still used
today. A common war cry during
World War II was Oorrah pobieda!,
meaning Oo-rah Victory!.
The U.S. Army and the Canadian

Forces shout Hooah!, the U.S.
Navy Seal Teams use Hoo-yay!,
the Argentine Navy Ua! Ua! Ua!,
while the Greek Army battle cry is
Aera! that means (Sweep them
away like the) Wind.
One of the most famous battle

cries of the Middle Ages is Dieu et
mon droit! meaning God and my
right!. This war cry was used at
the Battle of Crsy in 1346 and soon
after got adopted by English royalty
as a motto. Dieu et mon droit now
appears on a scroll beneath the
shield of the Royal coat of arms of
the United Kingdom.
Hrr na n!, Czech for At them!

was used by Hussite warriors during
the Hussite Wars. Modern Czech
infantry often uses Hur! similar
to the Russian Urrah!.
The religious military orders of The

Crusaders who fought to restore
Christian control of The Holy Land
around the 11th century used Deus
Vult!, Latin for God wills it!.
Various Gaelic speaking peoples

have a long tradition of employing
battle cries. One of many is Faugh
a Ballaugh! (correctly Fg an
Bealach), Irish for Clear the
way!.
Images clockwise, from top left : Fiona Connor, Notes on half the page, 2009,
installation view, courtesy of the artist and Gambia Castle, Auckland, photo:
Alex North. Eve Armstrong, Run Off, 2000, installation view, Dressed
and Shaken, Michael Lett, Auckland. Gaelen Macdonald, Pomps, 2007
installation view, Moment Making, Artspace. Eve Armstrong, Run Off,
2000, installation view, Dressed and Shaken, Michael Lett, Auckland.
Gaelen Macdonald, 122s x 122s, 2007, installation view Moment
Making, Artspace. Kate Newby, My poetry, for example, 2007, installation
view, Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland.
5.1
Know how can do: E, F, G, K busy with

the elephant; or, Calculate, evaluate,
improvise: Eve Armstrong;
Fiona Connor; Gaelen Macdonald;
Kate Newby.
Gallery, or a sequence of walls and a floor, as she did in Laura

Prestons After the situation: MOMENT MAKING exhibition at
Artspace in 2007. There is not enough space here to pursue
the implicit links between the office or studio desk, the private
bureau, the sorting table, as Macdonald has engaged them,
and the ubiquitous grids of bureaucratic administration; I
think, however, that her work does imply both an affection for
the trappings of bureaucracy and a subversion, at a distance,
of its big schemes. Macdonald deploys things and materials
on her working surfaces as if scoring a private syntax of
organisational intrigue; as might a composer mark up a sheet
of empty bars, using the ruled lines as a scaffold on which
to string the graphic signs of an emergent, designasyou
go system of notation. Macdonalds organisational scoring
all looks like a type of rehearsed improvisation, inflected by
chance, feeling and site. She sets up surfaces for setting things
out, for skewing things on the orthogonal, for pushing some
things into a group, for accenting the plane with incidents,
small events of cardboard, pencils, paperclips, a pile of
photographs, or folded envelopes. She implies different time
scales within the different locales of her morphogenetic fields,
as if modulating the type and intensity of attention required.
Allan Smith
In cooking, one always has to calculate, both time and
money, not go beyond the budget, not overestimate ones
own work speed, not make the schoolboy late. One has to
evaluate in the twinkling of an eye what will be the most
costeffective in terms of price, preparation, and flavour.
One has to know how to improvise with panache, know what
to do when fresh milk turns on the stove, when meat, taken
out of the package and trimmed of fat, reveals itself to be
not enough to feed four guests, or when Mathieu brings a
little friend to dinner unannounced and one has to make the
leftover stew go a little farther.1
This evening, Ive been reading W.G. Sebald comparing his
writing process to a dog moving through a field, and the
structural designer Cecil Balmond noting that the way we
enter and move through static architectural spaces is always
nonlinear, that is unpredictable and nonrepeated (and this
includes how you read those spaces as you travel through
the building2). Sebalds analogy put me in mind of Ian
Weddes discussion on walking his dog, as the animal sets the
pace and initiates the swerves, doublingsback and delays,
which turns the shared time outdoors into a complex diagram
of movement, responsive to odours and wind shifts across a
varied Wellington terrain. Balmond says that whether we think
of architecture or the engineering of cells, the fundamental
shift that is irreversibly upon us is that organisation is no
longer seen as linear, classically ordained, with a formal set
of references. Organisation forms out of itself, which is very
hard to get your head around; its selfreferential, it doesnt
have any global axis to plot against.3 Sebald says, If you
look at a dog following the advice of his nose, he traverses
a patch of land in a completely unplottable manner. And he
invariably finds what hes looking for as Ive always had
dogs, Ive learned from them how to do this. And so you then
have a small amount of material, and you accumulate things,
and it grows; one thing takes you to another, and you make
something out of these haphazardly assembled materials.4
Ian Wedde observes how years of noting and absorbing
his dogs ways each morning has rubbed off on his own
thinking: after running for years with this alert, courteous
dog, I learned to think outside the claustrophobic confines of
strategizing my day: my thought resembled running, sniffing,
and looking, more than it did planning.5 These tropes, this
sort of language, takes me right into the conceptual drawing
rooms of Eve Armstrong, Fiona Connor, Gaelen Macdonald
and Kate Newby henceforth E, F, G, K.
I thought of Macdonalds floor of cardboard tiles when I saw

Bertoluccis The Dreamers on TV a couple of weeks ago.
One of the many movies within the movie was a clip from
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Top Hat (1935). Astaire
was dancing on a gridded parquet floor, which in turn
sounded on the ceiling of Ginger Rogers bedroom on the
floor directly below; and Astaires tapping further doubled
and rhymed off itself as he kicked and rapped on individual
objects and architectural details around the room with the
soles and edges of his hard, shiny shoes. In my mind, Astaires
accenting of the room chimed with the playful syncopation
of Macdonalds work in the Artspace group show; with the
iterations of her floor of cardboard tiles, tied in to various
surrounding points of focus; deliriously in and out of step with
its own logic of assembly. The alliterative echoes between
The Dreamers and Macdonalds work also bounced around
the scene in the movie when the character Matthew moved
the cigarette lighter about the table showing proportional
matches between its dimensions and those of the patterns
of the table cloth. He speculates on being able to show
similar dimensional links with any objects on the table, the
refrigerator, the whole of the room, the fathers nose and the
rest of the world. This little monologue is like an arpeggio
or choral progression which ends up in a brief transport of
improvisational excess. Macdonald uses a similar rehearsal of
organisational parallels, alignments, rhymes and repetitions
as a baseline on which she may doubleback, breakoff or
introduce a new motif altogether.
In Sandford Kwinters wonderfully precise and busy book,
Architectures of Time: Toward a theory of the event in
modernist culture, the way he discusses the particulars of
Franz Kafkas writing style can be applied word for word to
the practice of all four of E, F, G, K. If I replace writing with art,
Kwinter says: [Art] becomes less a question of representing
a world than of explicating or unfolding the many potential
worlds complicated within every point or instant and of
tracing the routes and connective pathways between. Not the
horizontal line of development, superhighway of the grand
Event, but the diagonal line of connection and changes of
state, webwork of microscopic fissures and openings. Reality
here develops as a multiplicity of hypotheses continually
etching themselves into the concrete, a reality founded not
in Truth or given a priori, but recreated at each point anew
through minute, specific gestures, actions, or speculations.6
The improvisational materiality of both Eve Armstrong and

Gaelen Macdonald has to do with the world as variegated,
or differentiated plenum; with busy and intensely patterned
configurations that constantly branch off, subdivide,
effects things up close and at a distance. The time scales
and organisational styles in their work do differ; but the
implications of the joint projects they worked on soon after
leaving art school, are still running wild and adapting (as
John Lyall would say) in their ongoing projects. Macdonald
is a siteresponsive mapmaker; she sets herself exercises
in the connections and syntactical rhymes between things
and spaces, between gaps and edges, proximities and
distal points. It does look plotted, but in an idiosyncratic,
unpredictable, private and obsessive way rather than
worked out according to what Le Corbusier used to call the
plan as generator. The organisational intimacies of the table
top, shelf or file box pervade all of Macdonalds work. Even
when she activates a whole room as she once did in Canary
Issue 7 : 2010
In Michael Parekowhais Roebuck Jones and the Cuniculus

Kid (2001), two rabbit gunfighters facing off in tiny cowboy
costumes enact a humorous parable of a type of tensed
relationship between sculptural object and viewer; the
betweenbunny space is fraught and static, in permanent
5.2
Images clockwise, from top left : Fiona Connor, Free Literature: 1 de Junio, 2007.
Eve Armstrong, Roam, 2006, installation view, Artspace, Auckland. Kate Newby, My
poetry, for example, 2007, installation view Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland. Kate
Newby, Falling Over with Surprise, 2009, installation detail Adam Art Gallery, Wellington.
Fiona Connor, They had an idea to take out all the doors 2008, Gertrude Contemporary
Artspace, Melbourne, Australia. Gaelen Macdonald, Painting Mansions Occupation, 2002,
installation view.
5.3
Images clockwise, from top left : Fiona Connor, Something Transparent (please go
around the back), 2009, installation view, courtesy of the artist and Michael Lett,
Auckland, photo: Alex North. Gaelen Macdonald, Painting Mansions Occupation,
2002, installation view. Fiona Connor, Notes on half the page, 2009, installation
view, courtesy of the artist and Gambia Castle, Auckland, photo: Alex North.
Kate Newby, On the Benefits of Building, 2007, installation view Gambia Castle,
Auckland. Gaelen Macdonald, 122s x 122s, installation view Moment Making,
Artspace, 2007.
5.4
anticipation of a violent termination of the conflict theres

nowhere else to go, no way to slip around the figure as
blocking device. The guntoting varmints are acting out an
Event; the uppercase E denoting the occurrence as that
which is gathering reality around itself like a center and
commanding a certain measure of space.7 Macdonalds de
centering diagrams of emergence improvise a very different
type of organisational freedom. I find the term sculptor inapt
for what each of these people do. E, F, G, K arrange things,
set them out, install, group, fabricate and organise materials,
things, spaces, objects, language. The term sculptor harks
back to the labour of realising the isolated form; the unique
figure around which all attention turns.
Vattimo, we can call this the kenotic aspect in the project.

Kenosis entails a relinquishing of power, an abnegation of the
protected position. Kenosis is movement, it is event oriented,
it is temporal. Vattimo has recently talked about the kenotic
unsettling of the strong structures of Being and the controls
on interpretation that have built the history of Western
metaphysics from the ground up. Newbys walls of crumbling
bricks or unmortared concrete blocks, in combination with
her flags, stained curtains, throw away personal texts, and
coloured pieces of clothing tied to bushes, combine fragility,
casualness, weakness, and informality with an incredibly
precise sense of placement and the fine tuning of miniscule
motives. Again, as Adorno speculates on Berg: In immersing
oneself in Bergs music one feels at times as though Bergs
voice were speaking in a tone combining gentleness, nihilism,
and intimate trust to the point of utter enervation: Oh well,
in the end, its all really nothing. Under an analytic gaze
this music completely dissolves, as if it contained no solid
components. It vanishes even while still in its apparently fixed,
objectified aggregate state. Had one drawn Bergs attention
to this he would, in his own bashful way, have been as pleased
as someone caught in a secret kindness.9
Eve Armstrongs practice is about collecting, gathering,

folding, compressing, spreading, leaning and arranging
accrued material, as might a student of limited means
practising a boisterous streetside Ikebana. Armstrongs other
line of production being trading tables and social sculpture at
local and modest scale, serves, by implication, to put the dense
materiality of her physical assemblages into a conceptual
circulation. The relational works oriented to social events
imply the transience of the materials and forms of her closely
structured installations. The composite heaps, or collations
of inorganic refuse works, often seem to have all sorts of
traditional arrangements of things in mind whether flowers,
pot plants, heraldic devices, consumer merchandise, clothes
or domestic furniture which they mimic in their convivial
formality; in their humorously managed profusion. In some
of Armstrongs large, installed, climbing piles of flattened
cardboard, the rambling aggregation of the overall work
presents the graspable world as something confusing and
precarious, and although constantly requiring our prehensile
attention, its stability is only relative. The layers of cardboard,
their bent and splayed edges accenting accumulation, stack
up temporal shells or slices of a bloc of spacetime (to use
Deleuzes term) as did the crystalline encrustations of forms
in J.G. Ballards The Crystal World; each shell like a sloughed
cicada carcass, transparent to an earlier moment of time,
or to one of innumerable virtual time exposures. A series of
collages made with brown plastic tape and cut out pictures
of houses and miscellaneous objects, suggest a world in flux,
borne along slowly, but inexorably on a turgid river of base
materiality. In the year Armstrong made these works, there
had been several photos in the papers and on TV of floods
and landslides that took households, cars and civic structures
away in a turbulence of mud and water.
At first glance, Fiona Connors carefully fabricated objects

appear closer to the isolate, frozen fetish ideal than the works
of the other three Im speaking to here. It could be argued,
however, that Fionas uncanny doubles, her invasive but
dissembled architectural alterations, actually unmake the
static object from inside. The assumed and asserted givens
of a cast of objects taking over a space, inviolate in their hold
on a reliable setting, is unmanned from within. Defensive
boundaries of identity are no longer so easy to find; that is
they can no longer be confidently located, and therefore are
drained of the tensions they once kept in place, becoming
overgrown like neglected border crossings. There is, however,
a new form of tension or manic energy that often replaces
that force field of tense standoff between individual objects,
as though reality, like a faulty old film projector kept flashing
up a jerky staccato of images only slightly different from each
other. Connors perspectival tunnel of glass and aluminium
framing that she constructed to repeat the windows and glass
door of the Michael Lett gallery fourteen times Something
Transparent (please go round the back), 2009) traps the
viewer in a vertigo of reproduction. That particular work was
like a hole drilled into the ordinary world that showed us, as
a metaphysical core sample, that it was turtles all the way
down. Quiet and steady though Fionas practice may appear,
I think it actually unleashes a real instability and restlessness
into the world of relations between people and things.
There is a theological term I have discovered recently which

seems an unlikely place to begin talking about Kate Newbys
work. The term apocatastasis refers to the final restoration,
or resolution of all things at the end of time; it means nothing
is lost. Newbys work is built on the premise that every little
thing, every turn of the head, every inflection of a distracted
attention, every small intention, counts in some way. As
much as the theological notion of a future resolution of all
contradictions, of all hierarchies of value and competing
power structures implies a critique of the way significance
generally gets apportioned, so Newbys precise and infinitely
subtle aesthetics of indirection carry a similar implication.
There is a similarity between Newbys fidelity to the falling
away and Alban Bergs compositional manner as Adorno talks
about it. Adorno contrasts the selfglorification and the
insistence of Wagner to the passive, acquiescent, elusive
quality of Berg. In Berg, Adorno suggests, there is perhaps
the unacknowledged hope that only that which does
not keep a grip on itself will not be lost.8 One of Newbys
publications is called Holding on to it only makes you sick
(2008); reflecting on this idea of relinquishing ones assertive
grip on the work, on life, seems intrinsic to the task Newby
has set herself. Newby assumes a weakness, a hesitancy at the
heart of making both conceptual and material architectures.
To apply another theological term, as have writers like Gianni
Some artists have taken up highly illusionistic modelling

of objects in order to proclaim a tour de force virtuosity
through sporting with a technique; Connors mimeticism
seems much more pragmatic than that; she does not do
the beguiling demonstration of technical skill as an end
in itself. Her objects are always transitive; they are always
about stages in a process, rather than being independent
things in themselves. This is clear in Connors choice of what
she represents. Her disjunctive, selfelaborating, collaged
newspaper page is typical (Free Literature: 1 de Junio 2007,
2007); the newspaper as a vehicle for dissemination gets
folded back on itself, so that the very site of daily change and
the circulation of information gets thickened and prolonged
through repetition; through a strange stutter of time. The
same applies for her magazine racks and newspaper stands;
they are sites of distribution. Connors stands and racks do
involve an uncanny play between original and seamless copy
(some were found, some were exact copies) but what they
are, and therefore what type of processes they facilitate,
parallel and exceed their primary status as monadic objects.
Both semantic and syntactical in nature, they are points in a
system of circulation; units in a larger language. The doubling
and reduction of the Gambia gallery space (Old Buildings,
5.5
Issue 7 : 2010
2007) was also about granting a renewed reality to a context

of knowledge exchange; to a place in which people and ideas
come and go over time. Connors manipulations of the gallery
space restored to an ambiguous presence what disappears
as a rule, when the real art appears. Similarly, the collapsed
Artspace stairs (Props, 2008) replicated and displaced
the space and means of access to that gallery, so that the
audience saw again that which is always forgotten on arrival
upstairs, where the real art begins.
9.
Ibid, p.2.
10.
Brian Massumi, Parables For The Virtual: Movement, affect,

sensation, Duke University Press, Durham & London 2002,
p.7 8.
It is, perhaps, that Connors practice starts with a sense of

the dynamic ambiguity at the heart of any individuating
process, rather than the physical actors themselves; trying to
find a relational equation, an emergent space of possibilities;
dealing with what Brian Massumi calls interactioninthe
making10. Connor dismantles, in advance, the idea of a
politicised confrontational space intensified for narrative
ends. The uncertain status of her objects and the instability of
her created locales, caught up in semantic and metaphysical
ambiguities, leaves us with a sense of Borgesian conundrums
rather than any Mexican standoff between static things.
In dealing with the relational complexities of the spaces
around and between objects and within object ensembles,
by relativising the fetishised thing within an infrastructural
matrix E, F, G, K are dealing with the elephant in the room of
contemporary New Zealand sculpture. By that I mean what
gets most coverage in the generalising arts media which
we have plenty of and that is the notion of sculpture as
image, as corporate ornament; wellbehaved eyecandy;
privileged aesthetic commodity in a culture of monument
production. E, F, G, K are not alone in their attentions to
material improvisation, the temporally elaborated, the
relationally inflected, the morphological field; to the events
and emergence of organisation at different, and sometimes
competing levels. With no room to elaborate differences
or discuss offshore exemplars here, a brief list of some
important local names will have to do: Ant Sumich, Simon
Ingram, Jason Lindsay, Ruth ThomasEdmonds, John Lyall,
Paul Cullen, Isobel Thom.
Notes
1.
Luce Giard, Gesture Sequences in de Certeau, Giard, Mayol,

The Practice of Everyday Life, volume 2: living and cooking, The
University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis and London
1998, p.200.
2.
Cecil Balmond, in CrossCatalytic Architectures: in conversation,

Emily Abruzzo, Eric Ellingsen, Jonathan D. Solomon, eds.,
Models, 36090 Books, Volume 11, p.127.
3.
Ibid, p.127.
4.
Joseph Cuomo, A Conversation with W.G. Sebald, in Lynne

Sharon Schwartz (ed), The Emergence of Memory: conversations
with W.G. Sebald, Seven Stories Press, New York 2007,
p94, 95.
5.
Ian Wedde, Walking the dog, in Laurence Simmons, Philip

Armstrong (eds), Knowing Animals, Brill, Leiden and Boston
2007, p.283.
6.
Sanford Kwinter, Architectures of Time: Toward a theory of the

event in modernist culture, The MIT Press, Cambridge,
Massachusetts 2002, p.117.
7.
Ibid, p.111.
8.
Theodor W. Adorno, trans. Juliane Brand, Christopher Hailey,

Alban Berg: Master of the smallest link, Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge 1991, p.5.
Issue 7 : 2010
5.6
A conversation with my favourites

Amy HowdenChapman
I said:
With the door open I can hear a synthesizer being played in
the apartment across the street. The sound continually tricks
me into thinking an ice cream truck is arriving. I try and decide
again and again if I should buy an ice cream, before realising
again and again that it is an impostor of a sound, and no ice
creams will be showing up.
I said:
Sometimes while Im reading I realise that Ive become just
as interested in the author of what Im reading as I am in
what they have written. Thats how I know that Ive become
a fan. Thats what happened while I was reading an article
about breast feeding called Baby food by Jill Lepore in the
New Yorker.
Jill Lepore said:
Nonbathroom lactation rooms are such a paltry substitute
for maternity leave, you might think that the craze for pumps
especially pressing them on poor women while giving tax
breaks to big businesses would be met with scepticism in
some quarters. Not so. The National Organization for Women
wants more pumps at work: NOWs president, Kim Gandy,
complains that only onethird of megacorporations provide
a safe and private location for women to pump breast milk for
their babies. (When did womens rights turn into the right
to work?)1
I said:
Breast feeding, employment, corporate power, work life
balance, I love all that stuff, its so interesting. I like how you
use breast feeding as an example of how commercial forces
ease, or pad, difficult situations and thereby take away the
impetus for broader social change. I like how you show that
woman end up fighting for a better place to pump milk
rather than for the situation of inadequate maternity leave
to be rectified. Jill I think youre great. I would like to know
more about you, are you married? I bet your husband is
pretty rocking.
Jill said (in Baby Talk: The fuss about parenthood, another
New Yorker article) something like:
Im not particularly impressed by two recent memoirs about
parenting by grown ups determined to profess their parental
ineptitude.2 Parenthood is a relatively recent invention.
These days people are more likely to receive information on
how to be a parent from books where as in the past 150
years ago, you didnt have to read a book because children
were all around you, you would parent your ten brothers and
sisters, and you would be a pro by the time you had your own
children. Because people learn how to parent from books,
they are never going to live up to what the books prescribe,
and this leads, amongst other things, to a whole bunch of
people writing memoirs about all the ways that theyve failed
as parents.
I said:
You get the impression that the people who have written these
memoirs tell you absolutely everything about their lives as a
kind of therapy, so in the end the reader can say no youre not
a bad parent, youre a great parent. Knowing that something
is a tell all account makes it totally unintriguing, whats with
that? I have no desire to read those tell all memoirs, where
people confess everything about their personal lives, but on
the other hand the skill with which you charted the history
of parenthood makes me want to know more about your life.
The fact that youre so good at knitting together history and
observations about contemporary culture makes me want to
know more about you as a person, and the fact that you dont
let on too much about your self makes me want to know even
more about you. Your articles give a little hint about your own
life, that youre a mother, but they dont gush it all out and
thats what makes it intriguing. Intrigue is the opposite of tell
all. Everyone knows you want what you cant have, and as
soon as you have it you dont want it. That reminds me of that
Lydia Davis story Boring friends.
Lydia Davis said:
We know only four boring people. The rest of our friends we
find very interesting. However, most of the friends we find
interesting find us boring: the most interesting find us the
most boring. The few who are somewhere in the middle, with
whom there is reciprocal interest, we distrust: at any moment,
we feel, they may become too interesting for us, or we too
interesting for them.3
I said:
Ive decided that wanting to know more personal information
about an author is a pretty good litmus test for how much
I like the writing of that author. For example I dive on any
anecdote or gossip I hear about Lydia Daviss life (my friend
Raphes ex girlfriends mother was really good friends with
Lydia Davis and he actually got to have dinner with her once,
though when I grilled him about what she was like he said
pretty normal really which was a bit disappointing to hear).
When I find an author whose writing is so good that Id be
interested in anything about them it is an exciting occurrence
because so often with other writers I think TMI.
I said:
True but what about when TMI (too much information) is the
subject, for example Nicholson Baker. He is always giving
TMI, that is what his work is made up of. He is a master of
digressing, he makes tasks and occurrences that the rest of us
would consider trivial and constructs monumental narratives
around them. He makes bling mountains out of the everyday
molehills. His second novel Room Temperature, is ostensibly
about the 20 minutes it takes for him to feed his new baby,
but in that 20 minutes you see his thoughts multiply and
meander and mutate.
Nicholson Baker said:
I was in the rocking chair giving our sixmonthold Bug
her late afternoon bottle. Patty was at work. I had pulled
the window shades halfway down: sunlight turned their
stiff fabric the luminous deepfatfried colour of a glazed
doughnut. Still visible from a year earlier was the faint outline
in adhesive of one of the lengths of masking tape that we
had xed excitingly over the window pains before a hurricane
that hadnt panned out; below it, a metal tube of antifungal
ointment lay on the still, its wrinkled tail spiralled back like a
scorpions, its Scotchedtaped pharmaceutical torso of typed
information so bathed in light now that I could make out only
the normally pedestrian but now freshly exotic name of the
prescribing paediatrician, Dr. Momtaz4
I said:
Room Temperature is certainly not a memoir of parental
ineptitude. Nicholson isnt telling all because he wants
forgiveness for thinking about the colour of a glazed doughnut
when he should be thinking about the lovely babied colour of
his baby. Hes telling all because hes trying to take things
that seem very familiar and look at them in a new way. He is
a master of TMI, he makes good writing, great writing from
giving TMI.
I said:
There seems to be a TMI scale. While she is giving out vast
insight and information about the world, Jill Lepore is giving
out very little information about herself. Lydia Davis gives
great insight about the world by precisely analysing thought
6.1
Issue 7 : 2010
patterns how the mind moves through ideas and how the
mind copes with receiving information from the world (she
is especially good on how minds cope with receiving giant
shocks, such as the shock of love). Because she is analysing
what brains do when they receive too much information the
inclination is to think that she is giving out TMI about herself.
In fact she doesnt give out that much at all, you never even
find out the name of her lost younger lover in The End of the
Story even though the whole novel is about reconstructing
memories of this lost younger lover into story form. She could
be analysing the movements of any brain, it just so happens
that she has best access to her own, and in doing so some
snippets of her life certainly float in. But Ive said it once and
Ill say it again, I could take a lot more. Id love to know what
colour her toothbrush is. And then there is Nicholson Baker,
sure Room Temperature is fiction but there is little attempt
to create a narrator that has characteristics that vary in any
way from himself. Nicholson certainly gives TMI, when both
his shoelaces break at the same time you know about it, but
most of the time he succeeds in executing this TMI delivering
manoeuvre. He uses TMI instead of plot, instead of getting
dragged along a narrative thread, you get dragged further
and further into his day. At the end of all that I dont feel like I
need to go out of my way to find out anything else about him.
6.
Affinity in Almost No Memory by Lydia Davis. First

published 1997 by Farra, Straus and Giroux. New York.
7.
Better Living by Jill Lepore, http://www.newyorker.com.

online/2009/10/12/091012on_audio_lepore
8.
Ibid.
I said:
I am a fan of Nicholson, but Im much more fascinated with Jill,
and Lydia. I think this may well be because they are women
and I am a woman and Nicholson is not a woman. I feel like if
I were to snoop further into Nicholsons life I could easily do
it through reading more of his books and that his books are
definitely interesting. But I dont think the desire to snoop into
Jills life and Lydias comes from the desire to become better
informed. I think it comes from a rather wonky thought, well
really more like a delusion, that if I could find out how they
as some of the worlds smartest women live, then shit, surely
that could shed some light on the ways I could best live.
I said:
Im thinking about different uses for different peoples nipples.
Nicholson said:
Even putting an idea in words, according to Arthur
Schopenhauer, is a sell out: as soon as our thinking has found
words it ceases to be sincere or at the bottom serious. When
it begins to exist for others it ceases to live in us.5
Lydia said:
We feel an affinity with a certain thinker because we agree
with him; or because he shows us in a more articulate form
what we were already thinking; or he shows us what we were
on the point of thinking.6
Jill said:
You know I think I need a god dam stopwatch at home thats
what I need.7
Notes
1.
Baby food by Jill Lepore, http://www.newyorker.com/

reporting/2009/01/19/090119fa_fact_lepore
2.
Baby Talk: The fuss about parenthood by Jill Lepore, http://

www.newyorker.com/arts/criticsbooks/2009/06/29/090629cr
bo_books_lepore
3.
Boring Friends by Lydia Davis, http://www.mcsweeneys.

net/2001/10/25davisweek4.html
4.
Room Temperature by Nicholson Baker. First published 1990.

Grove Press, USA.
5.
Rarity in The Size of Thoughts: Essays and Other Lumber by

Nicholson Baker. First published, 1996 by Vintage, USA.
Issue 7 : 2010
6.2
One day Little Audrey and her mother were standing across the
street from their house. Her mother was crying her eyes out,
because their house had just burned to the ground. She turned to
Little Audrey and said, Im sure glad your father wasnt here to see
this. Little Audrey just laughed and laughed and laughed, because
she knew daddy had come home from work early and been
upstairs asleep.
7.1
A woman who sees auras and we see what she sees,

pinky purple, greens and blues.
The nun who spent 32 years in a nunnery. As a
fourteen year old she had to get her trousseau ready to
take in with her, interlocked knickers and singlets, and
black cotton fabric for her habits, and she sneaked in a
pair of red patent shoes instead of the regulation black
lace ups. She was caught jiving in the toilets.
In Grey Gardens Little Edie says I wont leave my
mother and my mother wont leave the house.
The woman who had the face transplant after her own
face was severely disfigured by her pet Labrador. Its
been a very strange year, but I dont regret anything
she said. I can feel just about everything as I did
before. It may be someone elses face but when I look
in the mirror I see me.
A psychic who goes and sits in the womens toilets at
clubs to overhear the girls and ladies gossip and chatter,
and feeds this information into her readings. She is
friends with the bag check person on the club door,
and this person lets her go through the girls bags to
gain insight/the sight.
A girl or woman who lies that she has been raped to
cover her tracks.
Jane told me how she was out one night at a bar when
she felt a guy touch her hair from behind and yank it
away. He admitted to her that he and his mates were
having a game to smell womens hair and there were
rules: you just had to do it with your two forefingers
and they werent meant to feel it, and you took the tale
of what it smelt like back to the table.
I bumped into Antoinette outside the Indian
takeaways where she had ordered curry, I was going to
loiter outside the hall to hear the Samoan singing. She
talked of how when she was little they used to run and
walk around their house carrying a big mirror under
their chin, that reflected the ceiling, and so you felt you
were upside down.
7.2
7.3
The walk of shame, the green antique glass necklace sticking into
the palms of my hands.
Little Audrey was walking home when a big bad man jumped
out of the bushes and snarled, Take off your panties! But Little
Audrey just laughed and laughed and laughed, because she knew
they wouldnt fit him.
Barbaras ashes and the tree
A woman who is a music therapist for children with handicaps
A duck hunter
A woman who does private wrestling
A cake maker and decorator
A person with a heart transplant
A group of teenage girls sitting around talking about their clits
and one person thinking its too big or someone telling their mum
about their friend wanting to get a cosmetic clit operation
A miniaturist
Greta who stole a horse and walked it at night down the streets of
Auckland
Hilary, just Hilary
Little Audrey was sitting on the couch with her boy friend when the blackout
siren sounded, and all the lights went out. Gee, said the boyfriend, I cant
even see my hand in front of my face. Little Audrey laughed and laughed cos
she knew his hand wasnt in front of his face.
Penny in Lost in Space finds the world behind the mirrors, and the boy who
cant get out. All the mirrors on earth and beyond back onto this dimension,
which is his home. So he can see out and he can see into many peoples secret
moments but he cant get out or talk to anyone he watches. Until he finds
7.4
Penny.
Jenny picking up Dave from the 10 day Vipassana retreat and what it might be
like, in this new relationship, after this quite intense experience for him, and what
he would be feeling, and her nervousness, and both of their desire.
A mother who makes her daughter a Bjork swan costume for a party because the
daughter has asked her to, but it looks really stupid, and the daughter hates it.
An alarm installer
A cat or animal psychologist
A woman who is really into frogs
A whale watcher
A beekeeper
A storm chaser, a lady who chases storms
The chick with only one arm who drives trucks and works for Bins R Us
Somebody peeling a hardboiled egg as they talk
When I heard about Bill I went to go shopping at New World. I got into the
underground carpark with the low roof, with some light source nearby but kind
of dark and wet and I just sat there unable to get out of the car. I just sat there for
about five minutes in a weighty stupor.
The appropriated rave girls selling twisted up balloon animals in between the
blaring hip hop guy and the friends I havent seen for 20 years who are selling pork
terrine to support their writing and art.
A butterfly expert studying the extinction of the butterfly. She spends weeks
camping out to study butterflies, discovering they have disappeared.
A woman who masturbates in the morning, in a dim light, a winter morning and
she whispers herself through what is happening.
Walking home on a Friday night and outside Nishiki was a man and woman
arguing, though as I passed them it might not have been an argument, it might
have been two people having a smoke outside the restaurant after eating all their
eel donburi, but there was something about the tension in his physicality that
made me slow down.
The man was tall, in a white shirt coming half untucked and a black tie, but
young, and the woman was short and well clad, with a beanie, jeans and a rain
jacket ordinary looking, almost outdoorsy. He said I dont understand, as he fell
to the ground . you have ruined my life .. I dont understand, I cant stay
here, I cant go home .. he walked over to the van they were near and with his
arms up thumped his body against it . He kept falling on the ground. His anger
was palpable, it made him seem angular. She was remarkably calm as he agitated
around her. I couldnt understand how she might create such calamity in him. She
walked off.
7.5
A modern day Joan of Arc. Joan of Arc received a message from god while
in her garden aged 12. Teenage years are a time of fanaticism. Anja is a 17
year old from Jaroslavl, Russia. After an operation several years ago, Anja has
the sight. She dreams of things that will happen. By looking at a photo she
can tell which of the people shown has died
Passed a woman on the roadside outside Placemakers in Taylors Rd. She
was on her cell phone really agitated saying Look Ill pay you tomorrow.
Look Grey, my lifes been shit.. look Im not dealing with him
anymore she was pacing back and forth on the grass verge, like her life
was going to end.
A mother who breakdances when she is drunk and annoys her daughter.
A woman who feeds wild cats. She has a stall at the local market to raise
money for feeding them. She spends all her spare time feeding them on a
trail that she follows every night, all over the city.
A woman who dreams of floods. The suburbs are full of swimming pools.
Someone drowns.
Little Audrey got lost on a desert island. Along came a bunch of cannibals
and kidnapped her. They tied her to a tree and started to boil their pot.
Little Audrey knew they were going to make stew of her, so she looked
around at those lean, hungry cannibals and counted them. There were
nineteen. Little Audrey just laughed and laughed, cause she knew she was
not big enough to make enough stew to go around.
7.6
8.1
9.1
10.1
LETTER TO A DEAD FRENCHWOMAN

Alexis Hunter
Dear Madame
You gave me such a look! And me staring as usual into your
garden and at your house. Every time I passed too. It must
have been annoying. But then you might have been ill. The
Big C, looked like. The pale skin, the shadows around the eyes,
sunken into the face. Black hair though. Was it natural? Or are
you still (being a Frenchwoman) keeping up appearances?
I never met you in the village bar. Come to think of it I am
usually the only woman there, except for the staff, filling my
face with beer. Or wine. Or Pernod. Drunken English people,
staggering around. No Madame, I am from New Zealand.
And I work all night sometimes. Even after several Pernods
I might add.
But I have been watching your little ancient house for years.
Twenty years in fact. Marvelling at the colour of the chickens
you had running free outside, the beautiful tones and hues of
their red and gold feathers against the olive greens of your
plants. The dusty pink of the hollyhocks against the russet
brown of the bricks. The lovely curve of the roof of your house
is just right.
And you have died now. When was it? Two years, three years
I noticed the Notaire sign, For Sale, already broken on the
ground, in amongst the weeds, the door bashed in. Windows
broken. No chickens. It was raining as usual. What a sense
of desolation!
I asked at the Notaire Office about your house and the girl
at the counter said, oh it has been sold! So in a way that is
a good thing because I would have bought it and do I need
another headache? I thought, someone else will restore it.
I went inside, you know, it wasnt difficult, kicking the nettles
aside, noticing there was a little rose tree still battling the
weeds, going through the doorway, the door being off its
hinges. Someone had taken the fireplaces already. The vent
for the smoke was left sticking out like a big phallus where
they used to be. Ivy was coming through the windows. Layers
of wallpaper, flowery designs.
Oh! I thought of you, of course, trying to imagine you living
there. Were you bedridden upstairs? The back garden was a
jungle. How hopeless it must have seemed. Maybe you did
not trust anybody to fix it up for you. Suspicious of the village
men, and thinking that they would rip you off. What is that
expression in French? Take advantage that you were a sick
old woman. Maybe you had a reputation as a mean bitch. I
do not know.
I wondered if you needed help shopping, or I could have
painted your fence to help you. But I just passed by, after
looking at your garden and chickens. Noting that you had a
rooster, to keep your hens happy. That is quite French really.
An Englishwoman would think of the noise and not have a
rooster. Or not want those bits in her fertilised eggs.
Now I have read your house is going to be torn down. The
commune bought it and now it is to be a parking lot. For
disabled drivers. So one would look like a mean romantic to
complain about that.
I saw your kitchen cupboards. Not one was straight and it

was this, that made me feel the most sad. Did you hang them
yourself? Or got a man to hang them and you were angry
about them not being straight on the wall for years? Who
knows?
Michelle, my friend, has just come into the Bar Rallaye where
I am writing this letter. I mention the witchs spikes on your
roof and said Id like them, should I go to the Notaire, but
he winks at me.
Madame were you a feminist? Most probably not wrong
generation and people here seem to be very gender
orientated, mens work/womens work, like in the countryside
everywhere. But, I dont think of gender roles, instead whether
an unfit, small person is going to clamber over a rotten roof
and what someone might want in exchange for that labour.
Michelle likes the frisson of being naughty. No wonder the
French had all those revolutions, it is in their character.
I had a wonderful studio in Hoxton, in London, an ancient
Boys Home. On the ground floor there were plaques to
those who had fallen during World War I. I stayed until the
developers wrecking ball came though the window. Now it
is a large Holiday Inn hotel and looking at it pains me every
time I pass by. I look in each window and wonder if they
have ghosts there the fallen soldiers coming back to their
old home.
But why I am mentioning this place in Boot Street, London,
is that I climbed on the roof, in the rain, and took the old
chimneypots off. The sooty, freezing rain came through the
chimney, down inside my coat sleeves and over my breasts as
I held the heavy clay pots on the ladder, four stories up. All
there was to do was curse with annoyance because there was
no one there. Hoxton was an empty and deserted area then,
but had a real atmosphere of people, poor people working
and having families, in the past, a good feeling.
I put the pots on my patio in Kings Cross. But its not the
same I could have bought them at a reclaimed building
supplier. They did not bring old Hoxton with them. And that
makes me sad most of all. That history and sense of place
just disappear, and people are forgotten. So thats why I am
writing to you, when I dont know your name, Madame, of the
ancient house in Le Grande Rue.
I might avail myself of some tiles then, like everyone else.

A quarter of them have gone already. You will not mind will
you? I am an artist, and now you and your house will live on,
I will make sure of it, even if only in a ghostlike way, on the
internet. Madame, I give you my condolences not for your
death, as we will all die, but for your poverty and loneliness.
Though again, possibly you were very rich but mean and left
your relatives pots of gold.
12.1
Issue 7 : 2010
images of war
Jan Bryant
Still from Hurt Locker (2009), drama directed by Kathryn Bigelow,

HDTV and Super 16 film, colour, 131mins. Permission to use image kindly given
by Nicolas Chartier, Voltage Pictures, LLC.
It begins with a screen and a shadow in the hot, dusty

confusion of a few fraught and airless moments
You notice above all else the unfathomable distance between
locals and soldiers, a breach, untranslatable and infinite, of
unknowable differences, a lack of shared purpose, with men
watching, staring and continuing to watch, and women in
hijab watching too and then caught in the lens of the camera,
in the gun sites of the soldiers, they look away to watch again
furtively from balconies, from windows, away from the action,
from behind washing drying in the raspy dryness of the day,
cloudless and harsh, and with irredeemable remoteness, of
the Iraqis, of the Americans, heat, rubble, dust, the strange
nature of the event as spectacle and the call to prayer floats
so lightly above the dense confusion on the ground.
And then a sudden silence, absolute silence, bears down on
the thickness of the street.
A miniature robot, first as a shadow on a screen, and then
coming into view as a remotecontrolled probe in the form
of a little tank, suggestive of the vardger, that frightening
phantom double from Norse mythology that appears as voice,
as smell, as form, as warning, just before the appearance of
the real body, and as it searches, as it struggles to uncover
its target, moving insecurely over the uneven ground, dry,
rocky, accompanied only by the utterances of its own
internal workings, it reaches a pile of plasticcovered rubbish
concealing a roadside bomb, and there are jokes between
soldiers, jokes about penetration, camaraderie and the
absolute concentration on task. In the eternity of suspended
breath, this absorbs every other possible thing or concern or
activity or thought
To be immersed in the workings of a bomb disposal unit
in Iraq as it moves about its daily tasks tasks that are
extraordinary, yet remaining daily and ordinary nonetheless,
in that wonderful way of all paradox, as each moment closes
Issue 7 : 2010
13.1
down around the very instant of each tense and dangerous

act, while time is being stretched to unmeasurable limits
and within each action politics disappears, unexpectantly,
global politics, distilled into this spiny concentration of daily
acts that at the same time throws a veil of forgetting over
the failed promises of war, of bravado, of national interest
launched into resource rich corners, of ideologies moulded
into universal rights, of great and inevitable losses projected
onto this very moment, and other moments like it, by the
millions of people who protested against it in the first place, a
necessary forgetting, because in the absolute present, in the
daily measures taken to survive in the heat of each frightening
moment, these thoughts cannot be remembered this is
an experience that can support neither contemplation nor
critical reflection.
Days Left in Bravo Companys Rotation 38
Being immersed in the workings of a bomb disposal unit in
Iraq as it moves about its daily tasks is an experience that can
support neither contemplation nor critical reflection.
Days Left in Bravo Companys Rotation 37
According to Maurice Blanchot, The everyday escapes.
This is its definition. We cannot help but miss it if we seek it
through knowledge, for it belongs to a region where there is
still nothing to know, just as it is prior to all relation insofar
as it has always already been said, even while remaining
unformulated, that is to say, not yet information.1
The everyday contests truth and thus the world of the Law,
Government, the University, the sensible and the rational, of
depths and meditations, for it designates, a region or a level
of speech where the determinations true or false, like the
opposition yes and no, do not apply it being before what
affirms it and yet incessantly reconstituting itself beyond all
that negates it.2
The everyday takes us back to existence, to what is most
important, to the spontaneity as it is lived.
The not knowing beyond gender.
Blanchot insists that in the everyday the individual is in a state

of human anonymity, held in its movement without knowing
it: we have no name, little personal reality, scarcely a face,
just as we have no social determination to sustain or enclose
us.3 How does the everyday escape? The everyday breaks
down structures and undoes forms, even while ceaselessly
regathering itself behind the form whose ruin it has insensibly
brought about.4 Nothing happens in the everyday, neither
rest, nor moment for reflection. Indeed, contemplation makes
the everyday vanish, a characteristic observed also by Guy
Debord when he announced that disinterested observation
is even less possible here than anywhere else.5
The everyday wholly occupies and absorbs so there can be
no aesthetic judgement or distance.
Hurt Locker (2009), drama directed by Kathryn Bigelow,
HDTV and Super 16 film, colour, 131mins.
A film about the everyday operations of the U.S Army Explosives
Ordnance Disposal Unit (EOD),
Early in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Kathryn Bigelow (1950)
American director, popular filmmaker, painter, conceptual artist,
Once a member of the Art + Language Group (U.K.),
Jury member for Venice, Berlin and Sundance film festivals.
Still from Red Checkers (2009), Alex Monteith, five channel video and sound installation work. Courtesy of the artist.
In the everyday there can be no aesthetic judgement.
Still in uniform, floating near the bank of a canal, its

glistening, sunflecked surface and gentle caressing grasses
embracing this body, lifeless just under the surface of the
restless water, and the awful fact of a murdered man erased
so comprehensively by the title of the image, by the word
Dachau, Lee Millers prison guard, murdered during the
liberation of Dachau, and our knowingness of the awfulness
that is now inescapably tied to the anonymous guard, to
this man whose actions we cannot know, and whose guilt is
conditional upon the veracity of the photographers naming,
Dead SS Guard floating in canal, Dachau, 30th April 1945,
one day after liberation, the corpse, buoyed by the dense,
black water and now without life in the beauty of this canal,
becoming at the same time a nameless dead soldier among
all nameless soldiers from all wars that have been and are yet
to come, while also being complicit in the horror of Dachau,
which shall itself overwhelm the world, change the world, so
that this image, with its brutality located in the specificity of
its title, is still above all else a beautiful image, intensified by
the strange and compelling weaving of aesthetics by space
and phenomena, both beautiful and horrible, so that it has the
capacity to overwhelm all horror by its beauty, and now all the
more horrible because of it, and then one wonders whether
Lee Miller found the body in this position, in this state, or did
she arrange the corpse in the canal for the sake of the image?6
I implore you to believe this is true.7
Urgent cable from Lee Miller To Audrey Withers,
Editor, British Vogue, 1945.
Lee Miller (19071977)
Surrealist, photographer, fashion model, cook and war correspondent
for Vogue. One of the first people to enter Dachau as part of the
liberating American Forces.
The seductive arrangement of things.

Five large screens, wrapping around the space as the sky
wraps around the world and the screen wraps around the
viewer, and the image upturns land to become sky, and then
from the fear of falling to infinity, dropping with the force of
gravity that is also the sensation of gravity being reversed,
as sky is grounded and ground becomes sky, and to advance
also, as with the line of the horizon, from left to right, first
land, then sky, then smoke, moving in sequence from screen to
screen, across the space, and then in circles, acrobatically, so
that the images are simultaneously unifying and fragmenting,
and the world is fragmented by the screen, forced by the
screen into an enclosed singularity, along with the singularity
13.2
Issue 7 : 2010
that encases each pilot in the action of flying, while also

revealing the inescapable compulsion for unity that brings
the separateness of each screen and each pilot into collective
purpose, binding the images in an order of patterning that is
also the concentration of the mind on patterning, on ordering,
on formation, to reach ultimately a totality of form, space and
time through the assemblage of isolated parts.
And since these are fighter pilots who form part of a larger
system arranged by the state for war and protection,
operations abstracted to spectacle, to group formation, and
then as movement against the sky, as aesthetics of flight,
almost euphemistically, in each planes beautiful tracings,
the terror of war, hypothetical and speculative, is erased.
As progeny of former fighters whose formation, wing
tiptowingtip, was an act of survival in WW2 missions,
the threat of death is faintly remembered in the terrifying
movement of each acrobatic dive, for even while death is
being subsumed by the present folly of the sequence, and
deflected in a desire for play, it is not forgotten but folded
into the possibility of failure, or collision, or mistiming, and
what is perhaps more profoundly feared is another form of
failure sitting menacingly at the periphery of every event, the
fear of disappointing spectacles, of the unspectacular, even
of boredom, a mood that also belongs to the soldier in war,
to the extended passages of intense boredom that mark the
life of soldiers in waiting, those moments of apprehensive
aimlessness, when purpose and training promise to
coalesce as action, but are yet to happen. Waiting as
delayed anticipation.
2.
Ibid, p.16.
3.
Ibid, p.17.
4.
Ibid, p.17.
5.
Guy Debord, Perspectives for Conscious Alterations in

Everyday Life, (trans.) Ken Knabb, Situationist International
Anthology, The Bureau of Public Secrets, Berkeley, CA, 1981,
p.70.
6.
Lee Miller, Dead SS Guard floating in canal, Dachau,

30th April 1945, image link, www.flickr.com/photos/
hab3045/2197296661/page2/
7.
Cable from Lee Miller to Audrey Withers, Editor, British

Vogue, 1944. Quoted in Antony Penrose, The Lives of Lee
Miller, Thames and Hudson, London, 1985, p.179.
Deflections.
Small and illequipped Air Force whose point of being must
be continually interrogated, fighter jets replaced by aerial
acrobatic planes, war by display, combat messy and visceral
by pure vision, and the enemy by the spectator (whose
thoughts have now lost their grounded wonder and no longer
look up but out, along with the cameras site on the tail of the
plane, machinic and isolated witness to these formations, lost
even to the pilot who moves forward, while the camera looks
back and now positioned in the centre of the screen, the tail
directing and controlling the image).
In the sensuous inveigling of the everyday by aesthetics,
we are dragged spontaneously (helplessly) from quotidian
meanderings, removed from our absorption in our daily tasks,
which are neither pleasurable nor arduous, to be immersed
instead in the meditative seduction of form and play. In the
midst of the aesthetic, time frozen and time moving, and
while remembering the everyday as pure task, the power
relations inscribed in gender are legible only indirectly, and
only through the bringing of values extraneous to them.
Perhaps it is found in the division of tasks (war, domesticity),
or in the translation of form into specious qualities (hard,
soft, feminine). Gender is inconceivable here in thepurely
aesthetic and in the unthinkableeveryday, both absorbing
and totalising in their differing ways.
Alex Monteith, Composition with Royal New Zealand Air
Force Red Checkers for five channel video installation
(2009),
Five channel video and sound installation work,
Commissioned by TVNZ7 New Art Lands Series.
Alex Monteith (1977) New Zealand artist, born in Belfast,
the North of Ireland
Intermedia artist, filmmaker.
Surfer, Irish National Surfing womens champion (2001).
Notes
1.
Maurice Blanchot, Everyday Speech (1959), (trans.) Susan

Hanson, (eds.) Alice Kaplan and Kristin Ross, Everyday Life,
Yale French Studies, Number 73, USA, 1987, p.15.
Issue 7 : 2010
13.3
brown, blue, again and laura owens

luminous ways of going sane
Rosanna Albertini
Laura Owens, Untitled, 2006, acrylic and oil on linen, 80 x 60 inches.

Courtesy of the artist and Gavin Browns enterprise, New York.
art pieces were cold corpses on anatomic table. How shall we

cut them?
Laura Owens, Untitled, 2006, acrylic and oil on linen, 63 x 45 inches.

Echo Park, Los Angeles

I reached Laura Owens house and studio, lost in my mind,
walking my thoughts through large fields of colour. The
ground has waves and the sky embraces the universe with
flat, parallel orbits. Because brown and blue areas share the
same space with graceful agreement, sky, earth and water
seem to merge into each other, while animal and human
stories move across the paintings and do not care whether
they are believable or not.
A few blocks from her place a black owl looks at me from
the porch of a cottage. Its a painted stone. A blue pillow is
barely balanced on her head. She looks annoyed. Ten minutes
further a miniature castle emerges from the bushes. It is to me
as if they both, castle and owl, had escaped from the painters
dreams. July 2, 2009.
In her 1999 statement in Artforum, Laura Owens sounds
crystal clear, You really want to make the painting that
you want to be with. Not one that is constantly telling you
everything it knows. Who wants to be with something, or
someone, like that? Its more fun to be with someone who
is willing to go out on a limb, embarrass themselves a bit.
In her words paintings have a life, each of them a unique
fragment of the universe. The artist would wait for up to a
couple of years before she talks about them. In the meantime,
her paintings keep defying common sense and deviating
from the subject, which, in these days, matters so much. The
coat of what is it about? has become a heavy weight on our
heads, and forces us to bow to impersonal objectivity, as if
Because Laura Owens paintings are all untitled, I will only

mention the year they were made. About her children, instead,
Laura can talk extensively: the boy is four years old, the girl
is 18 months and she already knows what and how she wants
to eat.
A painting should fit in your life. Does it mean it should not
harm the dance of your motherhood, for the most contrasted,
uncontrollable throbs of your mind are allowed to stay in the
paintings, lain in a girl stretched out on the back of a horse,
electrifying her hands and her braids, while she crosses the
darkness that melts foliage and branches? 2003. Miniature
stars look down at her, tiny eyes hidden in a broken tree, or
were the stars in the girls eyes? Can she see through the mist,
the firmament which is in her mind?
Frankly I dont believe that the very many visual sources on
which Laura Owens has posed her attention count for more
than the little owl on the porch. Literal representation is not
her goal, nor her process. Three hands crossed near a wall
become a painted wild sprout of fingers pushing their vigor
out of their forms as cacti do; red, blue, purple with the effort
of wanting to grow, the wrists below with cuff and watch, like
plants from the mouth of a vase. Maybe they also inspired
the portrait of two women, one red haired, and the other
blond, whose busts gush from only one thin waist, sensually
expanding vertical tension until they press their red lips on
the face of the same man. I might be wrong, my own way of
seeing it.
Laura Owens paintings have a language of their own, and a
very specific feeling: one can be enchanted, along with the
artist, by a leopard crashed on a branch so heavily she seems
exhausted, one pupil looks up, the other looks down, while her
tongue is being scratched by three curved nails protruding
from her paws: perplexity. 2005.
14.1
Issue 7 : 2010
Laura Owens, Untitled, 2005, oil and collage on linen, 37 3/4 x 43 inches.
Laura Owens, Untitled, 2003, oil and acrylic on linen canvas, 6 x 7 feet.
2004: a landscape seems painted by opposite hands,

Hieronymus Bosh and Disney at the same time. Illusionary
depth without perspective: Laura Owens secretly wearing
browns and blues when the day is over. The surface becomes
moist, vaporous, woody, or foggy, vanishing and subtle. At
times, ungraspable figures of light, at other times bodies
punching out, sensuality, directly from Picasso or Gauguin,
naked bodies blown by desire. Life changes through time and
paintings should fit too with whatever happens, or they might
disintegrate as if hit by a bomb, making the animals eyes
scared and angry. 2006.
Images are not icons; the way they are painted is what counts.
Talking with Tomma Abts, Laura Owens was surprised by
Peter Doigs idea that the paint should just assist the image,
allow it to exist.
It may sound strange because I have a lot of images very
securely rendered in the paintings, but I definitely think of
the paint as primary: the paint itself has to feel alive over (or
inside) the image. If this isnt happening, then the paintings
feel very stagnant or claustrophobic. I am thinking about the
paint as paint rather abstractly most of the time.
One of the most abstract images I found in Owens recent
work is a tiny, red ladybug recurring in two paintings,
delicately held between thumb and forefinger of the left
hand: by a naked feminine creature growing leaves and wings
from her head, maybe who knows on her way to become
a swan, 2006, and by a naked baby emerging from a jungle
of thoughts. It is hard not to be dragged into the playground
of an artist who lets her senses go away from the illusion that
ideas are the natural and strong leaders of human lives.
Ladybugs are what we hold in our hands as we think of
pregnancy, birth, or the first chirping of children pulsing in
our body like music, or colours: they cannot be described.
The cautious gentleness toward the insect is bigger than
any understanding, but also brings up bewilderment, and a
questionable sense of wonder, as if a red dot with tiny legs
were the real thing, the required anchor for psychic survival. I
rarely thought a painter could be so wise, and definitely sane.
Once more I could be wrong.
In her studio, July 2, 2009: If I had to know why I was doing
anything I would have done nothing. The mind plays tricks on
you, giving the impression you do stuff for a reason, and it is
not true. Anything can be a painting, but you have to commit:
holding down and feeling your way through.
Laura Owens is a serious, meticulous worker. Starting
from a feeling, she draws and redraws, needing months
of preparation before she is able to see what the painting
Issue 7 : 2010
14.2
is going to be. Since 2003, the year of her retrospective

at MOCA (Los Angeles), to find the right time for working
has been hard. She fed her children, had mastitis. Looked
at Madonnas in old paintings with real participation,
became more interested in figures. But social boundaries,
the sentiment that good life is designed by politics and the
marketplace, in a word by those who know how to run
other peoples lives the same happens in the arts do not
touch her.
Our culture is so limited about things that are not agreed
upon: norms, spirits, things you do not see. There is a lack
of touch with whats out of daytoday. Heavy shoes
and feet on the ground, she adds, The washing machine
exploded yesterday. The plumber is about to come, no
less consubstantial with the art making than the air from
the windows.
Laura Owens, ten years ago, wrote that her paintings are
specifically American, with roots in Midwestern America (she
is from Euclid, Ohio); Its a straightforward, nobonesabout
it sensibility and a certain sense of humor. She does not have
a good feeling about the conservative, Christian environment
of her native town, agitated by gossip, with no escape in a
movie theater or a shopping mall. There werent any.
To survive you had to develop something in yourself in order
to stay sane. If somebody had seen a seventeenyearold girl
smoking a cigarette in class, in two hours everyone knew. To
get donuts after church was the main activity, along with the
videorental place. But, to get bored is good. Kids have to
develop on their own.
Police and teachers were in charge. We were supposed to
believe that yellow people start wars. I desperately wanted to
get out. Finally my parents, when I was in high school, sent
me to a summer camp for the arts in Michigan. Nobody was
making fun of me if I liked to do big paintings. It changed
my life.
Conclusion is the course of all/ At most to be perennial/ And
then elude stability/ Recalls to immortality (Emily Dickinson)
The artist can walk across the stage disguised with
moustaches, on a crosseyed papiermch horse moved by
human legs, once more telling the story of the sky meeting
the ground, before the curtains close. Whatever the mood of
the paintings, hierarchy and ideological formulas are banned
from her scenes. Andante con moto, her paint takes you from
detail to detail, figures are not irrelevant, and yet they are not
of great importance. There is air in her imaginary world, and
your brain can breathe.
Flooded Chambers Maid

Jessica Stockholder
Various kinds of geometry stretch over two sections of lawn
bisected by a walking path. On one side of the path there
are bleachers from the top of which the rest of the work can
be viewed. Across the path from the bleachers there is an
80-foot long platform that can be walked on. The surface of
the platform is composed of an irrational geometry described
with metal and resin grating, shape and colour. Behind the
bleachers there is a flower bed the patterns of which intersect
the patterning of the platform. Experience of the work
calls attention to an intersection of geometric abstraction
proposed by the sculpture with the geometry of the parks
design, and with the organic patterning that is inherent in
the grass, trees, flowers, and structure of the surrounding
buildings of the city. It allows a moment to take a turn off the
beaten path.
Pleasures can be discovered in the processes of doing.
Existing, making, and servicing needs can give rise to pleasure.
Need is linked to pleasure. Pleasure can take over as the goal
if it is not at the outset. The park exists to service need and to
give pleasure. The body is central to the experience provided
by the park and by the sculpture.
We have a need to be connected to things growing and to
the processes of nature. The order of the park intersects the
things growing there. The park is a form, a container, and a
bracket mediating our experience of nature. It mediates
nature both in and outside of our selves our nature and the
nature of trees, plants, animals, sky, and rain outside of us.
The pleasure taken in relation to aesthetic order and structure
derives meaning and impact as it relates to the place of
pleasure in negotiating our needs through the course of life.
This work and its title suggest an intersection with social life
and social structure, which is about women, but also about
men. Maids are often women. Women do a lot of service
work, waiting tables, cleaning, cooking, and servicing in
relation to pleasure too. The word flooded seems archetypal
as a description of women. Women are thought to be more
watery then men, flooded with menstrual fluid, and feeling.
Though real men are often watery too. And we are, all of us,
engaged in making.
All images: Jessica Stockholder, Flooded Chambers Maid, Madison Square

Park, New York, 1 May - 15 August, 2009.
15.1
Issue 7 : 2010
15.2
maureen stiles
Chris Kraus
Over Memorial Day weekend, Catt buys a $25 bike at a yard
sale. She uses the bike to go to the bank and the park, she
leans it outside secondhand bookstores and the Nob Hill
food coop. Its an old trick she learned during her years in
New York: if the bikes shitty enough, you dont have to pay
for a kryptonite lock, because chances are no one will steal it.
Its one more way to stay under the wire.
Instead of the Himalayas, she looks up at the Sandia
mountains. By now, the job is almost running itself. Jamies
gone back to San Bernadino, which makes everything easier.
Before leaving town, Jamie took Catt out for a drink and
asked if she could cash him out of the condo shed promised
him. This was startling. She took a deep breath and leaned
back on her barstool while he chattered away: of course
its adorable shed paid $20K for the condo but Ron
told me last night hes leaving though really what was
the difference? He says its because I go out of town so
often, but of course its more complicated His words circle
around her like skywriting And now hes moving out, and
he says if I dont cash him out his share of the house She
takes another deep breath, hes going to take me to court
Shes already given the condo away. If he doesnt want it
she can rent it or flip it. She can get Lou to cut Jamie a check
from the trust, Hank will help her think of a way to expense it.
With these questions resolved in her mind, she turns to Jamie
and says, Ohmigod, I cant believe it, you must feel terrible.
Its such a relief to have Jamie out of the way. Hed been pissing
off Virgil and Sharon, making all kinds of stupid suggestions
and acting like he was the boss. Now that hes gone back to
San Bernadino, shes able to stop by each of the job sites,
make all her calls, check the receipts and the ledgers, eat
lunch with the crew and then turn off her phone. Nights, she
plays house with Paul at the apartment on Tulane. He makes
green chili stew, they hang out and watch videos. After her
morning duties are finished, she retreats to the condo.
During these free afternoons, she tries to recall the intensity
that gripped her at earlier times in her life being in a
new place, and not knowing whats going to happen. She
remembers evenings and weekends spent hanging out at
Jeff Wrights East Village apartment with all of the poets. She
was 21, 22, she hadnt yet met Michel. She was still thinking
shed be an actress, and the only reason she met Jeff Wright
was because they were temping in the same office. She and
Jeff picked up on each others bad attitudes instantly, and
then it turned out Jeff and his little family lived on 11th Street,
3 doors away. Catt could hardly believe someone like Jeff
would have kids in such a precarious setup, and at their age
he and his wife were only 2 or 3 years older. But so did all of
the poets!
Unlike the actresses, who were all single and gathered for
brunches in West Village restaurants they couldnt afford,
the poets never went out. They moved like a Bedouin tribe
between each others shitty apartments, talking about poetry,
taking collections for quart bottles of Ballantine Ale and
painstakingly typing mimeograph stencils for selfpublished
magazines no one outside their tribe would read. The poets
knew nothing, read everything. Their parents were nurses and
traveling salesmen and shopkeepers. Theyd dropped out of
community colleges, spoke no foreign languages, but with
the help of a dictionary translated poems from Russian and
Sanskrit and Greek. Some of the girls, hoping to someday
leave the East Village, started bands.
Still, except for Maureen Stiles a boyishly goodlooking
lesbian who was hugely ambitious and devoted to poetry
the boys were the scholars. It was like theyd chosen poetry
as a career, even though there was no such career, except in

each others minds. They worked for minimum wage at a few
East Village bookstores and didnt complain. Maureen, on the
other hand, had a vision: she would speak to her time not
by turning herself into a rock & roll clone but as herself, as
a poet. Towards this end, she sold speed. Scoring unlimited
Benzedrine scripts from a dietpill doctor was the only
advantage she took of her gender. She wasnt waiting for
some PoetinResidence job that might never arrive. She was
living the life of a poet, 24/7, right here and now.
What did they talk about? Catullus, the Symbolists vs. the
Imagists, the Russian Revolution, Kurt Schwitters, Marina
Tsetayova, Herrick and Pope, American Realism. The poets
they favored most were the ones who projected themselves
out of their time by throwing curve balls into the present,
talking out the side of their mouths. The Minors. Baseball
figured big as a metaphor. Danny, an old German guy who
worked at the post office, got them all into Doblin. Maureen
whose family was working class Irish adopted John Clare,
a peasant, who, throwing himself into his native Lancashire
landscape, was the first truly painterly poet. Famous for all
the wrong things, he became 19th century Londons mascot
for all things rustic. When the fad waned, he drank his way
into a mental asylum. What about Christopher Smart? Bob
wanted to know. Born in 1722, Smart did his best work from
St. Lukes Lunatic Asylum, including a poem to his cat:
For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean
For secondly he kicks up behind
Its like, the first list poem! shrieked Rose.

So thats where Ginsberg got Howl, Maureen suggested,
pissing Bob off.
Fucks sake, Maureen, how can you rip off something thats
200 years old? Bob had just started working for Allan.
At 25, he was already the father of two and looked like a
Midwestern businessman.
Yeah Maureen, theres a difference between influence Simon
said snottily, and being derivative. Simon had a BA from the
University of Chicago.
Twentyfive years later, where were they now? Danny was
dead, Simon left the East Village for Harvard and worked for
the State Department, Mike had a PhD from Columbia, Jeff
was divorced and supported himself hosting house parties.
The girls were proofreaders, ambulance drivers, bornagain
Christians. Except for Maureen, the ones whod been most
successful were those whod made a clean break with their
youth. But Maureen now 20 years sober had persevered
brilliantly, and was indisputably Maureen Stiles, culture hero,
icon of queer rrriot grrrls, lesbian poet. Catt realizes shes
had a crush on Maureen for 25 years. Maureen had broken up
with numerous girlfriends, exallies and publishers but with
herself? Never.
Shit, Catt thinks to herself. Why havent I told Hank about
Paul? Catt was unable to break up with anything.
On these long hot afternoons, Catt shamelessly naps and
reads randomly. She discovers an Olympicsized outdoor
pool three blocks away, and sometimes walks over to swim
a few halfhearted laps. It seems important to stay out of the
car, move around sparingly, and only under her own steam. In
this way, it seems possible to step backwards into a different
quality of time, something more viscous and full, because
it was charged with discovery She remembers a film she
used to show to her art students, Meshes of the Afternoon,
the magnificence of Maya Derens homemade surrealism
a cheap handheld camera trailing her walk through the
florid and transient Hollywood neighborhood the way the
iris contracts when Deren steps into the relative darkness of
the creepy woodpaneled fauxSpanish room. The movie
16.1
Issue 7 : 2010
was timeless, but at the same time so irreducibly locked into

its time, cocooned from the Second World War in a quasi
Freudian bubble of symbols and signs, Los Angeles 1943
Deren uses specific cinematic devices in this film to convey
deeper meaning, wrote Lewis Jacobs, a film historian. Which
was so stupid as if meanings a noun Deren didnt use
anything rather, she willed herself into a parallel timescape
whose contours can only be seen by its inhabitants.
Falling into a similar timescape, Catt finds it easy enough to
pull out her old notebooks and work on a text about 19th
century social reformers and opium addicts. Skull fuck, dirty,
notdirty, tripping out through each others eyes, she writes.
Is this memoir or cultural criticism? No, its historical fiction,
she thinks with a laugh. As a genre, its perfect as abject and
anonymous as the City of Albuquerque, the graycarpeted
condo, the bike.
Issue 7 : 2010
16.2
Ten Questions
Lisa Crowley
What did you have for breakfast?
Its not important.
Where did you grow up?
South Auckland.
What have you learnt?
Friends agree with each other too much. One of the most important things one can do is actively and honestly
engage ones thinking with that of those around you. Intellectual community is important and it starts at
home. If you cant do that then youve got the wrong friends.
What would you consider your greatest achievement?
Having kids AND not totally losing myself in the process a clich, but clichs are such for a reason.
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
I dont know.
Who do you admire and why?
Joan Didion, for writing Slouching Towards Bethlehem.
Helio Oiticica, for making art that cant be beat.
What book last made an impression on you?
Primo Levis If this is a Man.
One thing you wish you had?
A stay at home wife would be good. The kind that didnt hassle me too much but did listen to my ideas for
new artworks when I got home from work. They would need a good IQ so they could be stimulating company
when I needed it but not one that was higher than mine.
On what occasion would you lie?
On some occasions.
Which piece of art really matters to you?
There isnt one. Some films maybe if I had to choose it would be Andrei Tarkovskys Solaris. I havent seen it
for years but remember it vividly and think about it more than any other film or artwork I can think of.
Who are you listening to at the moment?
No one.
What do you like around you while you work?
Space. Tea.
What is art for?
A lot of things, and sometimes I think the good art that is being made now is not even calling itself art.
Its happening somewhere else.
The most useful thing I have heard recently was when someone I know referred to artworks as consciousness.
It struck me as a productive way of imagining what art was and what it might be for. The way it was being used
in conversation implied that one has to find someway of connecting with or understanding what is in front of
them as an activity that is generated simultaneously by a person and by the world they live (or lived) in. It also
implied an artwork is a phenomenon that can exist independent of the specificities of its making that it can
have a universal dimension. It can tell us about the conditions of its production; time, place, ideology, culture
and politics. It can also reflect back the here and now (and the future) to us. For me the most interesting art
experience is one where I am compelled to understand an artworks genesis through the structural forces that
shaped it and to relate this to my own location in the world, (no matter how big the gap might be). Alongside
this I also want to engage with the thing itself and what it might be in its current and future incarnations. I
think the best art is made by people who are not afraid of making work that responds to the fact that power
locates one in the world (for better or for worse) and that they are also wholly open to the possibility that the
art they make will have a life beyond its own conditions of production.
17.1
Asumi Mizuo
A cheese and asparagus toasted sandwich.
In Tokyo until 13, then in Whakatane til 18.
What have you learnt?
Not to expect too much. But to be grateful...
Survived 6 years of art school at Elam, and still feel keen about art making!
Its sooooo pretty.. its soooooo beautiful. (in op-shops, leading to my
room getting filled up with junk/treasures.)
Anyone whocan go to bed at night and wake up in the morningregardless
of having to do so or not. Something I cant do.
A world atlas published in 1942. It hasmaps of Europe with legends
showing UN controlled and Axis controlled areas, and the UN controlled
and Japan controlled areas in Asia. Its the first mid-war map I came by in
an op-shop, and its beautiful.
A commercial property in CBD I can rent out.
When I cant just keep quiet and smile.
Most of the works of Tacita Dean and Christian Boltanski will do.
And lots of older photographic works.
Some 70s Japanese pop singer.
I like keeping some noise on, like TV.
What is art for?
Showing ways of understanding and seeing.
17.2
Liz Maw
high brow gruel
Napier
How has your thinking changed / what have you learnt?
My thinking hasnt changed really. Although I dont
believe in any kind of god anymore. Also I have learnt
more of the brutality of life.
Painting a good and profound Picture.
Eternity and inevitable and existence and alas oh
and eh?
Andrew McLeod (hard working, genius), Janet Frame
( great work, type of poetic writing I like, I never
care if theres a plot or not), Bek Coogan (great work,
inspired, spontaneous and witty, genius musician and
performer). Rita Angus (great work, very fine painting,
always intriguing).
You mean the last book that made an impression on

me?! Michel Houellebecq The possibility of an Island
To own my own house with heaps of space in central
Auck. ha ha I wish. I could maybe afford one in
Detroit...although not for a few years...if ever.
Probably on a variety of occasions. But not ever to
my beloved.
O gee. There are many. Mostly painting, film
and music.
Do you mean music? Om, Sleep, Him, Charon, Circle,
Bach, Shostakovitch. But a lot of different stuff actually.
Sometimes quiet.
I like to have Andrew around. I like to listen to audio
books, science shows etc on the net. dont mind visitors
either as long as I can keep working.
What is art for?
To distract people from killing themselves, money,
social bonding, elite groups...
Ema Tavola
Scrambled eggs + toast.
Musrum by Eric Thacker and Anthony Earnshaw.
I was born in Suva, Fiji and raised in London and
Brussels. I finished my secondary education in
The ability to live in two places at once.
Wellington, New Zealand.
How has your thinking changed / what have you learnt? On what occasion would you lie?
I have issues with honesty.
I do a lot of looking, observing from the outside... I
have a lot of questions, and am often plagued with
contradiction. I have learnt to own my position of
A painting called 4 Women (2008) by Sangeeta Singh;
enquiry, and not dissect it to fit into other
I bought it in Suva.
peoples boxes.
Birds... I had bronchitis recently and my ears were
Leaving Fiji to manage life solo in Aotearoa.
semiblocked, I somehow tuned into the bird
frequency, and since then have not stopped hearing the
birds. There are tui in my garden, who always make me
I definitely overuse potentially. And strategically. And
smile.. on the inside.
I swear a lot.
A cup of tea, reference material, snacks and Blutack.
I admire people who work hard, because they are
What is art for?
inspiring and make me want to work hard too. I
admire people who embed their lives in service to their
To reflect the human condition.
communities. And I admire mothers, because it feels
like shaping a childs life and experience is the most
important job in the world.
17.3
Ani ONeill
A cup of coffee from the staff room and then a chip buttie at morning tea from the school tuck shop
Grey Lynn & Ponsonby in Auckland NZ, key moments as anipper in Ngatangiia, Rarotonga also.
How has your thinking changed / what have you learnt?
That there is always more to learn there are more shades of grey between black and white.
Managing to maintain a positive attitude (even if the poo hits the fan) almost 98% of the time.
UM ,WOW & GOSH and UM again.
UM...GOSH.. UM... MY lovely Mama Polly because she maintains a positive attitude and shes nearly 93 so
shes seen lots of poo hitting fans but she keeps it all in perspective.
The Tattoo Artist by Jill Ciment
(& The History of Love by Nicole Krauss if I can have two...)
(More) Money so we can get our house built next year without too much strain :)
I really try not to do outright lies! But I think when youre being diplomatic you often dont tell the whole truth
which is kinda lying....I think I last really lied about doing something I was meant to (which I didnt but
said I did) knowing I would get around to doing it when I could... and basically had to lie to appease someones
temper therefore a highlystrung moment was averted just by saying YES when I should have said NO).
GOSH thats TOOhard to answer... usually the one that Im looking at as its in the forefront of my mind at
the time I reckonALL art is important even if I dont like it gotta give it your best when looking bathe in
it for as long as you can& soak it up... pull out the language the artist is using and have a conversation with it.
Motorbikes whizzing past outside and the hard drive humming here in the schoolstaff room.
Otherwise its Bob Marley in the car at the moment, and whatever dub husband has going off the
laptop at home.
Clean work table. All the materials and tools I need at my fingertips, art books, radio, snacks and tea making
facilities. Add a TV and DVDs if its couchbased making. Fun people and a nice shady tree if its collaborative!
What is art for?
Honouring our creative potential. Manifesting a visual language. Making the world more poetic. Poking people
in the eyes and setting off alarm bells so we dont get cornered by normality. Stimulating the SOUL. Letting it
out and letting it in.
17.4
18.1
18.2
The Israeli Embassy have requested that

the name of Shalom Park in Corks
historic Jewish district should be renamed
Jerusalem Park. Jerusalem is celebrating
the 3000th anniversary of its foundation as
the capital of Israel by King David, and the
Israelis have asked cities around the world
to mark the event by naming something
after the city.
We asked several cities and towns in
Ireland to call a park, street or plaza in the
name of Jerusalem for the anniversary
said Embassy spokesman Gerfhon Kedar.
Cork based Gerald Goldberg, a former
Lord Mayor of the city, acted as intermediary for the Israeli Embassy in their
efforts to get some place in Cork named
after Jerusalem.
Thurday May 2, 1996
Evening Echo
18.3
18.4
18.5
18.6
31.
32. I cant be alone in this world
33.
34.
36.
Rosemary Johnsons cloud works (19751976)

The opposite of neglect
Gwyn Porter
Ancillary photograph included in the Rosemary Johnson archive, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna O Waiwhetu.
When art is temporary, it makes some form of documentation

apparently necessary; to those who value documents. The
museum object might be preserved, but the ephemeral work,
of which the nonpermanent public art work is a subset, is
subject to deletion in the wider consciousness. And given
that being transitory could be seen as a characteristic of
minor (in the Deleuzian sense) practices, there is a case for
a different sort of art history that serves these practices that
take flight from dominant positions to develop new ways of
living, thinking, being, affectivity. When I learned of a German
commune where they kept a communal diary, I thought that
art history might, rather than aim to generate knowledge, be
skewed to become a project of increasing intimacy.
In the mid1970s, Christchurch artist Rosemary Johnson
made a body of cloud sculptures, their large fibreglass forms
first appearing in 1975 in an architectural commission for
the newly developed Christchurch International Airport. The
clouds reappeared in a light aluminium frame in a temporary
habitationtype work Johnston made for Cathedral Square
crowds as part of the 1975 Christchurch Arts Festival that
also gave a brass band and the magical release of birds to
passersby. There was also a work at the Womens Gallery in
Wellington offering cloud sculptures, and a performance at
the CSA in Christchurch that made the brutalist gallery space
over as a container for mist, both in 1977.
At the airport, Johnson took an outoftheway internal
stairwell courtyard space and inhabited it with a garden with
alluvial shingle floor and rounded, silvery waterfeatures over
which plump clouds were floating. Not an odd thing to do
topographically as the airport is on the site of an old river
bed, but odd in that one does not normally encounter gravel
or softness in an internal floor. The regions luxurious artesian
water supply involves the mountains making the clouds break,

and the rain that falls is then filtered down through miles and
miles of shingle, leaving all impurities behind and keeping in
the snow coldness that made it condense in the first place.
After geography classes about ribboning, braided river
forms, Johnsons installation seems like a small version of
such a closed system. Perhaps the work could be seen, more
generally, as having a tropic relationship to a closedcircuit
quality that characterises Christchurch even, to an extent,
today. The opening of the Christchurch International Airport in
1975 was an important event, implying, to residents, some sort
of arrival, a coming of age, a step in the desired transition from
insular rural service centre to small, sprawling city of suburbs.
This happened along with the adoption of colour televisions,
contemporary furniture and the attendant domestic party
scene, and odd pockets of architectural whimsy. Having
grown up in Christchurchs northwest myself, I am alltoo
aware of the looming presence of the airport as some sort
of Magicians Nephewtype beginning and end of the world
portal into which one can plunge, then emerge in another
world elsewhere, checking to see if all of ones parts have
achieved transmission.
The airport sat spectrally, poollike, at the edge of town, its
gravitational pull drawing in not just people flying, welcoming
or bon voyaging, but people who went there solely to watch
from observation decks (things that no longer exist). When
we would go out that way to pick raspberries, or to collect
waterweed and snails for our porthole Perspex fish tank,
the road at the back of the airport would be lined with cars
containing people, often alone, sometimes amorously paired,
sometimes smoking, sitting there watching the planes take
off with the prevailing northwest wind over the tops of their
21.1
Issue 7 : 2010
Rosemary Johnson, untitled airport sculpture and fountain, detail,

fibreglass clouds, Christchurch International Airport, 1975.
Rosemary Johnson, untitled airport sculpture and fountain, detail,

stainless steel mountains, Christchurch International Airport, 1975.
cars. Younger people sometimes lay on the roofs or bonnets

of their cars and thrilled as the very low planes roared above
them, just clearing the fence at the end of the runway.
Other things would bring people to the airport and its network
of facilities. For example, the US Operation Deepfreeze base
based there has been credited with introducing the idea of
recreational drugs to Christchurch, it being a method by
which hallucinogenics and marijuana (both the drugs and the
concept of drugtaking) were imported and shared. Children
stared awestuck at the huge Starlifter carrier planes whose
noses tilted up to form the loading tunnel for these spiritof
Howard Hughes monsters. The recreation centre nearby was
also the first place in which we could play Space Invaders or
Galaga, while random adults played squash.
The whole airport really became a place where one could, as a
child, go, on ones BMX or tenspeed if you were tall enough,
to while away nothing weekends roaming, having your sort
of adventures while travelling grown-ups had theirs. The only
other alternative really, in my mind, was De Larnos magic shop
in Chancery Lane, off Cathedral Square by the picture theatres
and bus stops. This sort of roaming freedom is unthinkable
today, as children seem to be supervised at most times, and
if not, parents are frowned upon if the children venture up
the street away from any protective surveillance. Joke shops
dont even exist any more in New Zealand, probably because
they promote the sort of freedom, abandon, delinquency,
the pure, destroying happiness encapsulated in gag props.
Two dollar stores are the new joke shops, a truly lamentable
fall from the paper bag to the plastic.
De Larno died a couple of years ago, his passing unnoted
in the main, his enormous library of magic manuals and
catalogues sold, heartrendingly, at clearance auction, and
now sit, overpriced in a pile at the back of an antique shop
in the city. It is the same sadness, the mourning of felled trees
that Colette wrote of, that adults encounter when the open
places they played in as children, collecting tadpoles, playing
in mangroves, are now housing developments. Johnsons
sculpture was decommissioned in the early 90s when the
airport was redeveloped and extended. The courtyard no
longer exists in the material realm; but its ghost, and me and
my brothers laughter haunts the dutyfree and baggage
claim areas.
The terminal itself, then, was a rabbitwarren of conservative
contemporary concrete spaces, good for running in; the
arrivalsdeparture areas decorated in a strange futuristic
baronial style huge circular geometric carpet patterns in
purples and reds that looked like mutated axminster, and
large pendulous hanging perspex and steel light fittings both
Issue 7 : 2010
21.2
contributed to a Tudormoderne aesthetic. This Tudorness

relates to the more proper mockTudor style that reared its
head at various times last century in the UK, the US and in
the antipodes. Its real flashinthepan came in this country
in the 1970s, where it was mainly an architecturewithout
architects style perpetrated by homebuilders wanting to
jazz up the plain box vernacular. So prevalent was this fashion
that New Zealand is cited as a real proponent of the style.
The implication of this airport style, particularly because of its
futuristic aspects Perspex globes, highkey chemical colours
and parabolic architectural flourishes was surely anywhere
but here, any time but now. Mock Tudor, generally, does
seem to have a natural affinity with Sci Fi also huge in this
period in that they both have the texture of flight from the
present. This can be looked at in light of the fantasyescapism
of the ageing and progressively mainstream hippy movement,
but also the French theory of the period, such as Deleuze
and Kristeva: architecture as machine for selftransformation;
the futurepast as the destination of the depressed subject,
rundown by the increasing pressures of the capitalist work
environment, looking not just for respite, but a place to evolve.
I have started to think of this kind of architecture as Magic
Brutalism, where there is a deviation from brutalist aesthetics
proper and a charge headlong into a fantasy castle style.
There are several similar sites of this sort of architectural
yearning that remain extant in the flesh in this reclaimed
swamp of a city. The Chateau, an overthetop Riccarton
hotel complex overlooking Hagley Park, and the Warren
and Mahoneydesigned Christchurch Town Hall are key,
concentrated examples. The Town Hall, devoted to its 60s
Scandinavian model, but unable to resist the lure of baronial
fittings, is still today the site of whackedout domestic
institutions that are Cantamaths and the Christchurch
Primary Schools Music Festival. I thought that these things,
involving thousandsstrong shoals of children as musical
performers and cerebral competitors, happened everywhere
apparently not.
It is quite amazing how many exChristchurch art people
were involved in Cantamaths. Or perhaps it is not so
surprising. This event was geared around a schools team
relay quiz competition (of the mathlete kind, although we
were not aware of this American term), but it also involved
static displays where favourite aspects of mathematics,
technology, science fiction but falling short of fantasy
were acted out in expomodel type displays that involved
the making of props, signage, posters, and scalemodels.
One year I was forced into the production of 1:1 polystyrene
model of a computer processor; at this time, these things
filled rooms, and so did our display. But in reality this event
was the delirious, teeming, unsupervised habitation and

exploration of this architectural folly. It was never more
clear that architecture is best used as if one were asleep,
or with the spirit of play and beingpresent that only a
child knows. This is the difference between real estate
and architecture.
There is also the domestic architecture of now littleknown
architect John Waters who practised in Auckland in the
70s and 80s. There are pools of his work about still, most
visibly apartment villages in Christchurch, Wellington and
Auckland. Their primary material is the white concrete block,
and he combined it with mockTudor features such as the
Juliet window, halftimbering and stained glass, and added
upthrusting towers and a staged irregularity of silhouette,
breaking the rectilinearity of the orthodox housing structure,
with features such as the porthole window. There are also
standalone residences, notably along the main road to
and from the Christchurch airport, and in Beach Haven,
overlooking the Whenuapai Aerodrome on Aucklands
North Shore.
Rosemary Johnson, documentation of Cloud Box and public,

Cathedral Square, Christchurch, 1975.
In conceptual operation these buildings, in spirit, clearly hail

back to a time when magic was still possible, and forward
to a time when intelligence will liberate us from drudgery
and unkindness. As a nine yearold boy, the architect is
reputed to have built a threestorey tower in his backyard,
the tallest structure in his suburban neighbourhood. Its
erection was supported by his proud parents, but the local
council ordered its removal on the basis of public safety. Still
today the proud complexes for example, on Brougham St
in Christchurch, east of the Mt Victoria tunnel and above
the motorway in Thorndon in Wellington, on New North
Road past the Mt Albert shops in Auckland, and in Silverdale
north of Auckland stand for something untrammelled by
common sense, and the other forces of mediocrity of Harsh
Seventies Reality.1
Johnsons airport clouds do share the spirit of magic brutalist
architecture in that, like these 70s follies, they momentarily
opened up spaces in which people could escape into
something in a different time register. She was interested in
modifying the architectural space, but she did so in a much
more expanded sense of dcor, the mists she introduced
italicising the horizontal plane, which is itself, as Chris Hill has
put it, a romantic one in many ways, like a fog hanging over a
loch. This opening up of material is similar to words or pictures
on a page2 The clouds forms hang as inviting figures of
unmonumentality, lightness, obfuscation, displacement,
envelopment, nonknowledge and gaseousness; the opposite
of concrete yet implying materialisation out of thin air. What
was achieved in the airport was something formative, some
kind of kind of timetrap, something that people of a certain
age recall hesitatingly to make sure they didnt invent it.
As a small child, I discovered this work on my own, and
didnt think of it as art, but rather as something magical
that had been put there for gifted explorers like me. The
ground was Japanese pebbles, which made sound as I
crept around secretively, and above were floating large,
light cloud forms (which to an appraising adult eye would
be identifiably suspended fibreglass). When people would
arrive at and leave from the airport, others would climb the
stairs to the observation deck and watch the plane actually
go. If you werent really paying attention you may very well
have brushed past this courtyard space beside the interior
openair stairwell leading up to the deck. If anyone spent
as much time exploring as a child might, they would also
have noticed that from this courtyard one could see down
through a window into a large dining room that had been
set up elegantly for pilot silverservice dining (such was the
reverence for air travel).
This wasnt a typical site for public art this was usually at the
front of something, in the open, with the appropriate measure
Rosemary Johnson, documentation of Cloud Box and public,

Cathedral Square, Christchurch, 1975.
of authority and permanence. The stairwell itself was so

difficult to find, almost to the point where there was the sense
that next time you came it might not exist the work does
have the fanstastic logic of the utterly preadolescent, the
daytripper. Beneath the clouds were also two tall, stainless
steel bumps, which might have been stylized mountains,
and native plants growing. The space smelled like temperate
plants, and they gave the space that characteristic coolness
that lowers the Relative Humidity to dew point so that damp
starts to emerge out of the air. Clouds are a state of water in
which the molecules are in vaporous disorder, or energetic
repose; not yet condensed, not yet raining, they are a powerful
figure of the potential to release something that engulfs; of
rain, of immanence.
It was perhaps no mistake in the mysterious development
of our language that the word cloud semantically resembles
crowd. Alias Canetti wrote in his seminal text Crowds and
Power (1960) that rain is a symbol of crowds, along with fire,
rivers, forests, sand, corn, the heap, treasure, wind, piles of
stones, the sea, specifically figuring what he calls the discharge
crowd: The most important occurrence within the crowd is
the discharge. Before this the crowd does not actually exist;
it is the discharge which creates it. This is the moment when
all who belong to the crowd get rid of their differences and
feel equal.3 If rain is a symbol of this sort of comingtogether
and blowing apart, then the cloud starts to appear as a
sign of potential, of contained levelling energy; something
to be appealed to reverently, as a powerful, sometimes
unyielding force.
21.3
Issue 7 : 2010
A little like a cruel god: All over the world, particularly where
it is rare, rain, before it falls, is felt to be a unit. As a cloud
it approaches and covers the sky; the air grows dark before
it rains and everything is shrouded in greyness. During this
moment when it is imminent, rain is more strongly felt as a unit
than while it is actually falling, for it is often ardently longed
for, and may indeed be literally vital. Even when it is prayed
for, however, it does not always appear; magic is called in aid
and there are numerous and varied methods for luring it. ()
In so far as rain has become a crowd symbol, it does not stand
as fire does, for the phase of raging and irresistible increase.
Nor is it ever as constant as the sea, and only rarely as
inexhaustible. Rain is the crowd at the moment or discharge,
and stands also for its disintegration. The clouds whence it
comes dissolve into rain; the drops fall because they can keep
together no longer, and it is not clear whether, or when, they can
coalesce again.4
Johnson said, of a slightly later commission for the
Christchurch Teachers College, that she saw the function
of the work as humanising the brutalist architecture. I see
her work at the airport as undertaking a similarly softening,
operation providing a convivial, illogical, fantastic, timeout
of time, even humorous, environment. Something, along with
overtly making spaces, that is far more common, more valued
in New Zealand art now than then. At the heart of her project
there was, I believe, a radical commitment to a social art; the
vocabulary for the articulation of this sort of priority has only
really come of age in this part of the world in recent years
since digestion of the dispersed groundswell of practices that
could, would be termed relational, social, communal.
Johnsons cloud works had other lives, as already mentioned in
passing, than in the airport. The most ostensibly social of these
works was, most likely, the work (my Cloud box, Johnson
called it) she made for Cathedral Square in Christchurch for
the Arts Festival in 1975. The unpublished documentation of
this work (its clouds more confectionary, more cartoonish,
with faceted planes, and less plump than those at the airport)
is remarkably full, several proofsheets of gorgeously coloured
Kodachrome stock, with its soft tangerines and aquas. The
festival was not centred in The Square, so the situation of this
work was an insertion into a bald, open, paved, public space
ringed by traffic that was at this point a place that odd people
gathered in, punks, gluesniffers, pigeonfeeders, evangelists,
The Wizard, derelicts, bunking teenagers, people waiting for
others The Square was the then hub of the public transport
system, and was flanked by four movie theatres and two early
opening pubs.
The cloud box structure was photographed over a period
of two weeks, documenting the human use of this strange
new arrival. The weather was inclement for the duration of
its installation, but the show went on with a programme of
activities on a small raised area between the nearby trees
(singing, dancing, puppets etc.). The New Zealand Army
Band was booked in to play as pigeons were released.
Because there was rain for much of the festival, Johnson
decided on the last days it seemed appropriate to have
flowers grow under the clouds.5 Those photographed with
the work are mostly those merely hanging about band
members, children of participants, those with time on their
hands. Two boys with crossed toy rifles were photographed
in the box from a low angle, as was a youngish Maori man in
a leather jacket and no shirt, arms raised beatifically, looking
very excusemewhileIkissthesky high.
Johnsons work at this time had an air of masses and crowds
and the formation of communities via temporary projects,
or architectural aesthetic modification. Photographs of the
cloud work she did at the Womens Space in Wellington imply
an entirely female crowd; and documentation of the cloud
performance at the Canterbury Society of Arts also evince a
crowd drawn into what looks like a magical rite involving not
Issue 7 : 2010
21.4
cloud sculptures but their actual matter, mist, lit internally. It

seems like she was attempting to do something fundamental
to the best remaining example of largescale brutalist art
gallery architecture this country has. She is recalled in a
posthumous article up a ladder, heavily pregnant, installing
work, as always lending energy, catalytically, tirelessly to the
community she was involved in.
Rosemary Johnson died in 1981 aged 40. Perhaps suffering
that fate of being more of an artists artist and 70s woman
than a market success, in her absence, her work slipped into
obscurity. The airport work was decommissioned following
airport renovations in the late 80s, there being no longer the
space or time for such follies. The work narrowly missed being
thrown out, but was rescued by the Christchurch Art Gallery
and accessioned into their collection. It languishes in need of
repairs in their Bromley store and is unlikely to be restored
because its redeployment is unlikely and the conservation
timeexpense considerable. It is doubtful that it will be restored
and redeployed could it work apart from an internal airport
courtyard space? I had thought that the lovely old, little
known water lily pond interior courtyard of the Canterbury
Museum could be a possible place to attempt a reinstallation
of the work, but I am told that this too has succumbed to
a building project that will see the courtyard filledin by a
tall building.
Johnsons work did seem to have a symbiotic relationship
with the airport site, so it would require some careful thought
to find a new space so that people could chance across it
rather than be inflicted with it. But perhaps away from the
airport the stratospheric aspect of the work might be lost.
But this isnt, I dont think, essential to the operation of the
work. A reference to air travel is a bit superficial I think it
is more interesting to think of cloud as trope for something
multitudinous, something tactical. I thought too that a
possible site for the work could be the internal courtyard
space of the Ilam art school. She did study at Ilam after all
and redeployment of the work to this other fine example of
brutalist institutional architecture could be very timely, given
that the school is in the throes of a neoliberalist restructuring
and biopolitical slicing of fat and flesh, time and living space.
In any case, Johnsons cloud works were important
experiments, an asyet unwritten early episode in the history
of social sculpture in New Zealand. Even if things stay as
they are, and Johnsons cloud works never appear again
in public space, they stand as an important experiment, an
early, underrecognised episode in our national art history.
Even just documented in photographs, their passing clouds
could be seen as representing thought bubbles, mental
explorations of the potentials of public space to be gleefully
altered, to provide timetraps for free play and the daily,
kindly reinvention of the self. Recollecting works that simply
no longer exist in habitable physical space makes the act of
dwelling in them very different. The tension is not that of the
past pulling against the present in experience of a physical
space as one stands in it later on, but rather a much more
temporally present inhabitation of a space that is retained
internally and reconstructed each time it is recalled.
There is a very full, wellorganised (she did it herself) Johnson
archive in the Christchurch Art Gallery. The Archivist said
that no one had been through it since it was lodged with
them in the very early 80s, when Johnson herself was in the
terminal stages of cancer. With her noncelebrity passing,
she slipped off the radar, and as a result, there is virtually
no art historical trace of these works: there is a passing
reference to Johnson in Priscilla Pitts History of New Zealand
Sculpture, a biographical entry in Ann Kirkers Womens Art
in New Zealand, and an article about Johnson in an issue of
the feminist magazine Spiral contemporaneously with the
cloud works, but her work does not feature as part of the
of focus is one thing, but, on top of that, within that focus

itself is a misunderstanding of the complexity of the images
somewhat tautological nature and its status as event. This is
the challenge of the person about to experience acid, and also
for the person habituated to always analyse what is going on
to suspend though and submit to immersion in an engulfing
superdifferentiated present. A more charitable reading of this
would be, as Allan Smith pointed out, that an uncertain silence
could be taken as some form of respect; a hesitation in the
historical project.6
Rosemary Johnson, untitled cloud installation,

Christchurch Society of the Arts, c.1975.
E.L. Doctorow in The Book of Daniel spoke of the complexity

of the image in a way that may as well hint at cloud forms;
things that break and float gaseously but with prismatic
capabilities, that seem to transcend but then fall again to
earth; things that are at odds with simple textual reductions
(art history is so unbearably truncated in the main): I worry
about images. Images are what things mean. Take the word
image. It connotes soft, sheer flesh shimmering on the
air, like the rainbowed slick of a bubble. Image connotes
images, the multiplicity of being an image. Images break
with a small ping, their destruction is as wonderful as their
being. They are essentially instruments of torture exploding
through the individuals calloused capacity to feel powerful
undifferentiated emotions full of longing and dissatisfaction
and monumentality. They serve no social purpose.7
mainstream history of art here, most likely because there is,

as yet, no history of social sculpture in this country.
This art history focusproblem has perhaps been best

articulated by Agamben in his Notes on Gesture in
Means Without End in which he writes that the project of
art history, myopic and psychologising, is to establish the
science of the image. Art historys error is not just to focus
on images primarily, but to try to singularise and define their
operation, to keep them static. Gesturality exists, according
to Agamben, for a society to reclaim what it has lost its
gestures, its pure means: And it is so because a certain
kind of litigatio, a paralysing power whose spell we need to
break, is continuously at work in every image; it is as if a silent
invocation calling for the liberatio of the image arose from the
entire history of art. () What characterises gesture is that
in it nothing is being produced or acted, but endured and
supported. () The gesture is the exhibition of mediality: it is
the process of making a means visible as such. It allows the
emergence of the beingina medium of human beings, and
it thus opens the ethical dimension for them.8
New Zealands art history is far from programmatic, domestic

sculpture being particularly badly accounted for, such a
problem arising perhaps out of the almost nonexistent late
nineteenth and early twentieth century Pakeha scene for it in
newly colonised New Zealand. Documentation of postobject
work, installation and social sculpture, for which there were
active communities in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch,
is, with the notable exception of Wystan Curnows and
Christina Bartons scholarship, particularly dire; so bad in
relation to Christchurch, it is almost as if virtually nothing
happened. Art history is constructed in a notoriously patchy
way, with the unfortunate veneer of thoroughness, reflecting
the interests, milieus, enthusiasms, of those constructing it, of
course, but there are market forces at play that sway interest.
Work that creates spaces or situations that are sets for human
inhabitation and interpersonal relatedness or group activity
runs up against a particular problem in art history in that
art history favours the discrete and, as a result of being, to
different degrees, ephemeral, often goes by the wayside.
Having no emphasis on an end product is of course like market

kryptonite, but it was more likely the change of fashion in the
80s that precipitated Johnsons clouds nonappearance in art
history. Johnsons involvement in the womens art movement,
with radical feminism, would have pegged her for pass
unless she had reinvented herself for the new environment.
This is a huge leap for anyone to make, perhaps impossible
when involvement in the concerns of the WAM was so sincere:
breaking out of the confines of the self into community for
the work of women. Gentle human qualities were not virtues
in the selfconscious sophisticationoriented provinces in the
80s frankly, her feminism was just too first generation than
second, the former outmoded savagely by the latter, which was
more literary than interested in staging simple expressions of
female jouissance. Hippyness in any shape or form was just
so terribly undesirable (traded in for an acutely individuated,
powerful, chemical subjectivity) that many babies were
thrown out with the bath water in terms of what was
radically valuable.
This sort of art historical blindspot manifests in an abiding

interest in easy figurative hooks, and in straightforward,
selfannouncing, languagebased conceptual premises.
There is a tendency, in art historical writing, to truncate
discussions into summaries designed to be useful and easily
and quickly digestible, but the consequences of such brevity
is that the means of a work is shut down with the goal of
emphasizing, even manufacturing an end. This narrowness
By the time the 80s rolled around, the airport work was
perceived by a younger generation of artists coming through
as too simple, too based in the local landscape and therefore
as too provincial, and too generally cheerful at a time when
seriousness was de rigeur. There was also a discomfort with
a certain camp quality in the clouds that had not yet become
acceptable or interesting critically. Eu Jin Chua referred
interestingly, in a recent essay about moving image on the
Rosemary Johnson, untitled cloud installation,

Christchurch Society of the Arts, c.1975.
21.5
Issue 7 : 2010
Rosemary Johnson, proof sheet of documentation of Cloud Box and performances,

temporary sculpture commissioned for the Christchurch Arts Festival, Christchurch Square, 1975.
internet in Aotearoa, to Eve Sedgewicks idea that campy

objects arent simply subversive (which is the way that they
are usually interpreted via the tools of negative critique)
they are also the products of an intensity of affect and feeling,
even love, directed towards neglected or hostile materials
which are therein reconfigured and refurbished.9
of revolution is to remain unseen, unidentified, amorphous,

not understood. This anonymity is a method, they write, that
is suited to our present hypersurveilled time, in contrast to
the Black Pantherstyle, formagroup, publishamanifesto,
appearinpublicthreateningly model of Johnsons time.
Perhaps, in this way, her work was futuristic?
Chua continued in his discussion to raise Sedgewicks

account of reparative practices which, to me, resonates
with the humanising ambitions of Johnsons aesthetic
modification: Reparative practices are minor, local acts of
art and thought that suggest that effective critique may be
possible without a sense of paranoid and antagonistic or
if you like, exterioristic negativity. Reparative practices are
temporary and local rather than totalising or encompassing;
they are enfolding and assimilative rather than merely
antagonistic; they are responsive rather than reactionary10
Perhaps it is this amicable tone that made Johnsons work so
unfashionable in the 80s, yet makes this body of work seem
an antecedent to the more affirmative social practices of the
late 90s?
Clouds might propose a sort of radical invisibility that has

precedent in feminist discourse, featuring, at times, a fierce
resistance to language in the attempt to protect the female
self from forms of patriarchal dominance or inscription. This
forms part of an over arching pursuit of understanding the
care of the self something not separable from the care of
others. Johnsons cloud works may have been intended as
lighthearted in some regards, but they can also be seen as quite
hardcore: for happiness, against assimilation, examination,
even contralanguage. In feminisms, the personal may have
been/is political, but it also may be private. It is argued by
Kristeva, for example, in her exploration of Lecriture feminine,
that one of the characteristics of patriarchal culture is a will to
disclosure, to appear, to register, to draw all into knowledge.
For example, bemoaning the relative invisibility of Johnsons

clouds might be inconsistent with the possible, even latent
politics of the work. Given that Radical Feminisms project
was not to storm the cannon as much as establish alternative
structures, what attracts me to Johnsons clouds is that they
might symbolise cover from behind which freedom from the
controlling gaze of power can be enjoyed, clouds being the very
figure of obscurity. There is a very good argument advanced
in Hardt and Negris Multitude that one of the best methods
Mary Shelley wrote that there is nothing I shrink from

more fearfully than publicity. () Now that I am alone in the
world, I have but the desire to wrap night and the obscurity
of insignificance around me She writes of a love of that
privacy, what no woman can emerge from without regret
But remember, I pray for omission for it is not that you will
be too kind, too eager to do me more than justice but I
only seek to be forgotten.11 Shelley calls it a weakness that
she has to be in print. Cloud figures stand mutely, potently as
Issue 7 : 2010
21.6
detonations, dematerializations, figures for nonknowledge:

joyous things watched on hills they also assist in understanding
of pure happiness and its relationship, or antipathetic non
relationship to language.
If you will forgive recourse to the world of men again but to
the excellently oddly feminine mens theory that shows hope
for philosophy to Agamben, gesture is silent, as it has nothing
to say.12 Perhaps gesture is too busy in the pursuit of pleasures
of a kind that mobilises the spirit. Foucault, in his History of
Sexuality III: The Care of the Self, argues that the pursuit of
pleasure has been systematically, politically, discredited, as
if it poses a huge threat to the strength of the individual.
This strength is quite distinct from the overall care of the
self, from the craft that is techne, the technology of the self,
which is analogous with the radical becoming proposed
by which people can save themselves from the oppressive
biopolitical conditions we experience. In silence, there is the
complicity necessary to become with others, and in solitude,
to transform the self, engaged in the events present which
necessarily precedes thought.
Barthes put forward a theory of pleasure that speaks of a
drift characteristic to clouds: The pleasure of the text is not
necessarily of a triumphant, heroic, muscular type. No need
to throw out ones chest. My pleasure can very well take the
form of a drift. Drifting occurs whenever I do not respect
the whole, and whenever, by dint of seeming driven about
by languages illusions, seductions, limitations, like a cork in
the waves, I remain motionless, pivoting on the intractable
bliss that binds me to the text (to the world), Drifting occurs
whenever social language, the sociolect, fails me (as we say:
my courage fails me). Thus another name for drifting would
be: the Intractable or perhaps even: Stupidity.
However, if one were to manage it, the very utterance of
drifting today would be a suicidal discourse.13
Bataille, under a subheading suicide starting his essay Pure
Happiness, puts forward so well the reason to be careful,
suspicions, measured, with language, linking nonknowledge
with a drifting happiness:
Pure happiness is in the moment, but pain chased me from
the present moment to waiting for a moment to come, when
my pain will be relieved. If pain did not separate me from the
present moment, pure happiness would be within me. But
presently, Im talking. In me, language is the effect of pain, of
the need that yokes me to work.
I want to, I must, talk about my happiness: from this fact an
imperceptible misfortune enters me; this language that I
speak is in search of the future, it struggles against pain
be it miniscule which is the need within me to talk about
happiness. Language never has pure happiness for its subject
matter. Language has action for its subject matter, action
whose goal is to recover lost happiness, but action cannot
obtain this goal by itself. If I were happy, I would no longer act.
than recollective space what the cloud has to say or not say;
or to enjoy a day cleared to play in sight of the cloud boxs
imperative to lighten up, to be vulnerable. Perhaps I dont
need them. I could just lie on the side of a hill with another
and look up, together, high (clouds are the very figure of high
ness) above what Lingis calls the rumble of the world. The
recalled scrunch of shingle reminds my thinking to degrade
the concrete with unattachment, and to do so fearlessly, as
my higher self might if I would let it.
Notes
1.
Ref. The Dead C, Harsh Seventies Reality (2LP, Siltbreeze,

1992).
2.
Chris Hill, as yet untitled, selfgoverned thesis project,

unpublished, 2008, n/p.
3.
Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power, Farrar, Straus and Giroux,

New York, 1984, p.17.
4.
Ibid, p.812.
5.
Johnson is here quoted from her own handwritten notes

about the work in the Christchurch Art Gallery archive.
6.
Allan Smith, from correspondence, January 2009.
7.
Cited in WJT Mitchell, Picture Theory, Chicago and London:

University of Chicago Press, 1994, p.35.
8.
Giorgio Agamben, Means Without End: Notes on Politics,

Minneapolis and London, University of Minnesota Press,
2000, p.54, 578.
9.
Eu Jin Chua, A Minor Cinema: Moving Images on the

Internet in The Aotearoa Digital Arts Reader, Auckland: Clouds
/ AUT, 2008, p.141.
10.
Ibid.
11.
Quoted in Jacques Khalip, A Disappearance in the World:

Wollstonecraft and Melancholy Skepticism, Criticism 47.1,
2005, p.85106.
12.
Agamben, op. cit, p.59.
13.
Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text, New York: Hill and
Wang, 1975, p.19.
14.
Georges Bataille, The Unfinished System of Nonknowledge,

Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press, 1990,
p.224.
Pure happiness is the negation of pain, of all pain, even of the

apprehension of pain; it is the negation of language.
This is, in the most senseless sense, poetry. Language,
stubborn in refusal, is poetry, turns back on itself (against
itself): this is the analogue of suicide.
This suicide does not reach the body: it ruins effective activity,
it substitutes vision for it.14
I am left with an impression of clouds as representing a
continual process of sublimation and condensation and
falling and evaporation and rising again; a constant cycle of
knowing and not knowing, of silence and language, signal
and noise, of birth and death that is required to be living,
growing in the sense of dying (change) often enough to be
reliving daily. I would love to see these forms again in the
flesh, in the company of others, to contemplate in real rather
21.7
Issue 7 : 2010
22.1
23.1
23.2
WOMAN
TWIGS
BALL
This is a registration of a talk given in the context of the 2 day workshop The Negative Line: Artistic Practice and the Diagrammatic that took place in an AV studio.
A white table with apple green legs is positioned in front of the windows and blue-screen blue curtains, to the right of the table is a dark blue, hi-gloss mobile display
unit with a 35mm slide projector placed on top of it. Chairs and audience members are scattered throughout the room. I enter and sit behind the white table with
apple green legs and begin reading:
All things swept sole away

This is immensity.
Poem number 152 by Emily Dickinson
Poem number 657

I dwell in possibility
And another:
Disappearance enhances
When Emily Dickinson hosted guests at her home in Almherst, Massachusetts in the mid to late 19th Century
she preferred to do so in a particular manner, rather than sitting together in one room she favoured to host
from a distance; the guest in one location, Dickinson in another. For example, while she might sit in the
parlour the guest would be invited to take a seat in the drawing room.
If you will stay in the next room, and open the folding doors a few inches Ill come down and make music
for you1.
Using the architecture as both a way to intensify the point of appearing to a public and simultaneously
diminish it, in that by distorting this system of relations, or a normative understanding of communication,
Dickinson initiates a specific and subjective protocol. The space and the elements that construct it the
doors, the windows, the furniture, the stairs and the way in which light hovers through these spaces, catching,
blinding and warping become not only the vessel in which the intersections of private and public or visible
and invisible meet and touch and turn away, but also a space of transformation. This precise mode of
address used by Dickinson enacts a transformation that must have been felt by all 3 parties, effecting a change
to Dickinson as self, guest as other and the domestic as space.
The doors, walls and windows with flickering curtains become costumes, parts of a theatre, and the
relationship between revealing and concealing is massively disrupted. Or rather, one could say, it becomes
irrelevant to attempt to understand a and b as having such and such a relationship, rather one perceives an
interplay of relations crucially effected by the surroundings. The domestic dwelling becomes a space for
suspended, suspenseful discourse.
Dickinson is at once a magician, at once a dancer.
Surely, there is nothing like being choreographed in such a peculiar manner the first time you call on
someone at their home simply to pass some time together?
Disappearance enhances.
As Diana Fuss has written, Dickinson, through her use of and demand placed upon both poetic and physical
space, acted as a director.
Oh! Miss Dickinson has a wonderful eye for time!
This eye for time was manifested on the page via the use of the dash and in rooms via the use of the screen.
Both become visible markers or keys for a pause, but a pause that is placed with an acute awareness of
its power. Seeing time she controlled time as if space, through various physical gestures that remained
invisible hovering but perceivable. Through this seeing time she was able to show it to her guest and later
her readers through her precise use of and conflicting relationship with address.
I guess I believe it is she there, sitting in that other room, playing the piano to me.
This is the process of viewing: one often likes to hide.
In the first pages of My Emily Dickinson by Susan Howe, Howe writes:

As poetry changes itself it changes the poets life. Subversion attracted [her]. In both prose and poetry she
explored the implications of breaking the law, just short of breaking off communication with a reader.2
If the diagram and even the diagrammatic seem to have a strong relationship with communicating, with
modes of address, what manner of address do they suggest? If the diagram has a relationship to exposure,
or entering the state of being exposed what does it show? One thing I would suggest it shows is that perhaps
this emphasis on exposure also brings up a problem of unspecified circulation, circulation in and of itself.
By saying the problem of unspecified circulation, I suggest that forms of diagramming can be easily coopted by and into a normativised understanding of what sharing space could be this co-option reduces
the idea of sharing space to giver -receiver hostguest provider-user etc. This allows the moment of
exposing, or the thing that is exposed to be lifted out and away from its surrounding, from the half folded
doors that were used to assist its density and variation of exposure, from its sense of pause or trepidation,
from the very specific frustration that produced the desire to communicate or address in this mode in the
first place.
This could be a problem of aesthetics, but equally a problem that relates to an emphasis on action over
movement.
Letter number 280.

I should have liked to see you before you became improbable.
I found you were gone, by accident, as I find Systems are, or Seasons of the year, and obtain no cause but
suppose it is a treason of Progress that dissolves as it goes.
Could we dissolve progress?

This is not to say that I believe that directionality or clarity should be destroyed or removed, that there are
not ways to reshape and counter use the diagram, but sometimes, often, many times this specificness, this
object and frustration and object is disregarded when such co-option takes place. And then what, what of
transformation?
In 1971 Tania Mouraud made a work called Can I be anything which I say I possess?
The constellation that Dickinson proposes in her insistence on instigating her subjective protocol elaborates
on and incites a very different kind of circulation, demanding a recalibration of intensities, visibilities, a kind
of scattering, a kind of risking, a kind of generosity. Confronting this subjective logic with something like
a public realm in space and through time, Dickinson defies any kind of scripted rhythm; through subjecting
subjectivity to such space, a contingency is made.
At this point, when we are disorientated by roles and voice and positions, and things like implication,
perception, movement and action all jostle for attention through the full intensity of theatricality and
obliqueness, at this point, perhaps, this could be agency, this could be an agency that exists beyond you,
beyond the work.
Like the accidentally gone systems or seasons The Negative Line could be a weather pattern, a kind of hot
wind, that shudders, that ignites and also settles from time to time, often, many times, always, in that it
activates the necessity for a movement beyond an agency pre-inscribed or pre-scripted into a work.
It might be the differentiation between movement and action.
The Negative Line could be the point when one uses a mask, and just as one disappears, one is transformed
through this gesture of masking, however, what we meet when faced by the mask is not simply a mask but
also a face and a facing.
The Negative Line might also be about the process of making an image or one could say The Negative Line is
a mode of address.
This is not say it means everything or it means nothing, but it might be about saying: there is little confidence
in The Positive Line.
Back to Susan Howe:

Perception of an object means loosing and losing it. Quest ends in failure, no victory and sham questor.
One answer undoes the other and fiction is real. Trust absence, allegory, and mystery. No Titles, no number,
this would force order. No manufactured print, no outside editor. Conventional punctuation was abolished
to add Dashes which drew liberty of interruption inside the structure of each poem. Hush of hesitation
of breath and for breathing. Empirical domain of revolution and revaluation where words are in danger,
dissolving, only Mutability certain.3
Though we are danger, I am, as I implicate you, of appearing to create a kind of opacity that encompasses
everything, this is in fact not the case, this is an open display for particular viewership.
This is a wilful instigation of specification.
Prose fragment number 30

Did you ever read one of her Poems backwards, because the plunge from the front overturned you?
I sometimes (often, many times) have A something overtakes the Mind.
1. A Sense of an Interior: Four Writers and the Rooms that Shaped them, Diana Fuss, Routledge, 2004.
2.My Emily Dickinson, Susan Howe, North Atlantic Books, 1985.
3. Ibid.
Stand up from table and remove papers from it,

place them on the window sill, move to the right
of the table and slowly begin tipping it up, until it
is vertical and resembles my physical dimensions.
Walk around the now upright table to the mobile
display unit, wheel it around so that the tabletop
can become a projection screen, turn the 35mm
slide projector on and project image, reach into the
shelf of the mobile display unit, take out a piece of
beige A3 paper with blue words printed on it, hold
it in front of my face, the words describe the image
projected onto the table and read:150gr., Arctic
off-set, Sky Blue with The Shadow of My Head.
*See There are people watching expecting to hear
absolute silence, zlem Altin, Tent., 2006.
Renee
26.1
Samantha
26.2
Claire
26.3
Caroline
26.4
Michelangelo from the 1987 cartoon

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
cries Cowabunga as he enters
battle.
The Human Torch in the Marvel

comics Fantastic Four sometimes
uses Flame On! while his teammate, The Thing yells Its clobberin time!.
Frank Herberts science fiction

novel Dune, written in 1965 was
made into a film and inspired a
series of Dune video games. In the
Dune Universe, the Fremen often
shout the name of their messiah
Muaddib or Ya hya chouhada!
which translates to Long live
the fighters!.
In 300 the Spartans use Haroo!

as their battle cry while King Leonidas cries out This is Sparta!.
The graphic novel 300 by Frank
Miller is a fictionalised retelling of
the Battle of Thermopylae. The
story was later adapted as an action
film, directed by Zack Snyder
in 2007.
In Paul Verhoevens 1997 film

Starship Troopers the sergeant
shouts Come on you apes! You
wanna live forever?!, this is a
reference to the phrase Come on
you sons of bitches! You wanna
live forever?! used by Gunnery
Sergeant Dan Daly at the Battle of
Belleau Wood in World War I.
One of many battle cries used in the

online game World of Warcraft is
the nonsensical cry Wooot!.
In the Japanese anime Tokyo Mew

Mew, when the girl Ichigo Momomiya transforms into a Mew Mew
she shouts Mew Mew Style! Mew
Mew Grace! Mew Mew Power in
your face!.
In Redwall, a series of fantasy

novels by Brian Jacques published in
1986 all species in the universe have
their own war cry. The cry of the
Guosim is Logalogalogalogalog
while the Otterclans in High Rhulain
shout Eeeee ayyyyy eeeeee!.
In the Warcraft game-series the

Horde usually orcs has the battle
cry For the Horde! or Loktar
ogar!. Many Horde fans are known
to use this cry in the online games.
J.R.R. Tolkiens Middle Earth in

Lord of the Rings has many different battle cries. A traditional battle
cry of the Dwarfes and used by
Gimli runs Baruk Khazd! Khazd
ai-mnu!, dwarfish for Axes of
the Dwarfes! The Dwarfes are upon
you!. Aragorn shouts the much
shorter Elendil! which was the
first name of the High King of
Gondor and Arnor.
UNA LUCHA MIXTA1 ndaleeeee! (Go for it!)

Nina Hoechtl
The lights dim in the arena and focus on the ring in the
center of the room. At the same time four luchadores2
enter and run to the ring, followed by four more. The TV
commentators announce each wrestler, their introductions
booming throughout the arena. Today it is a UNA CAIDA
sin limite de tiempo3 with Faby Apache, a luchadora from a
well known wrestling family, accompanied with Queens song
We will rock you. She has long, brown hair and is dressed
in a yellowblue leotard with silver and blue gloves and black
boots. The audience claps to the rhythm of the song as Faby
hoists herself over the ropes, climbs to one corner of the ring
and receives applause. The next one is Pimpinella Escarlata,
an extico4 with Celia Cruzs La vida es un carneval, who
has shorter, partly blonded hair and wears a pink leotard, that
reveals her back. She wears makeup and makes elegant, soft
movements as she enters the ring, throwing kisses to us as
well as to her rivals, who respond with yells. Puuuutoooo! (Fag!)
scream a group of people close to me, Beeeeeesssooooooo!
(Kiss!) from a little bit further away. People laugh and a woman
jostles her kid on her knee. The next one to be announced
is Gato Everyday, covered by a full red, black and white
body suit and a mask, who enters with El Chombos Gato
volador, reaching out to shake hands with several people in
the audience before hoisting himself over the ropes. Before
he climbs to the corner he does a forward roll in the middle
of the ring. Meanwhile, the mini Mascarita Sagrada, shrouded
in smoke, enters with Enigmas Sadness Part 1. His body is
covered by a full white body suit, featuring a design in yellow,
red, green and black across his chest, mimicking prehispanic
patterns. He wears a white mask with black details around his
eyes that reach into sharp points at the side and on top of his
head, and a white cape covered with red padded shapes over
the shoulders like scales.
Chequea como se menea. He has shoulderlength curly hair

and wears a black bodysuit with silver pattern, a matching
wrap around his waist that is open to the side, and a black coat
that he takes off as soon as he enters the ring. The woman
next to me explains that they are a couple and smiles about it.
Meanwhile, Polvo de Estrellas, an extico, appears with Chers
Believe. His makeup is gold and silver, resembling a flash,
and he wears a silver wig and boots, with silver sleeves to
match his magenta and silver velvet bodysuit, showing his
arms and cleavage. As he throws off his wig, Mini Histeria
enters with a metal song I do not recognise. He wears a black
bodysuit with silver patterns that remind me of a skeleton,
and a mask that covers his face. Climbing the ropes he shows
off his muscles. He is quite a lot taller than the other mini
Mascarita. Mini Histeria, as the audience knows, is one of the
rudos (the bad ones) and the first four are the tcnicos (the good ones).
The referee begins the count, but they all start to fight before
the official start of the whistle. The rudos attack the tcnicos,
swinging at them wildly, but the tcnicos duck and the rudos
hit each other instead. The tcnicos seize the moment and
throw the rudos out of the ring. But soon they are back to
fight again. Polvo attacks Pimpinella, while Sexy Star goes
Now it is time for the second team to receive their cheers:

Sexy Star with Wisin y Yandels Sexy movimiento enters
in a black bodysuit, showing off her arms and her cleavage,
with red flames down the sides of her legs, and a white and
red domino covers her face. She takes off her black cape
covered with white stars, and dances along to the rhythm
of her raggaetn theme song, climbing the corner of the
ring to greet her fans. Billy Boy follows her, with Don Omars
28.1
Issue 7 : 2010
Meanwhile, Pimpinella squares off against Mini Histeria and

with dramatic gestures, chases after him, driving him from
the ring. Beeesoooo! Beeesoooooo! the audience screams.
Pimpinella is outside the ring and kisses a security guy
Otrooo, otroooo! Disgusted, he wipes off the kiss with his
hand, but at the same time giggles about it as much as the
audience does. In the ring Faby and Polvo face each other.
The other luchadores rally the crowd: Faaaaabbbyyy!
Poooolllvooooooo! Faaabbyyyy! Polvo loses the fight, but as
Billy Boy enters Faby is prepared. She bounces off the ropes to
slap him across the chest with the back of her hand and drives
him out of the ring again. Faaaaabbbyyy! Faaaaabbbyyy!
Faaaaabbbyyy! is heard from everywhere. This is too much
for Pimpinella who runs into the ring, shaking the hips to also
ask for applause. But Polvo and Billy Boy quickly interrupt
the extico, grabbing him and tossing him around. Pimpinella
escapes, climbing the ropes to jump on top of Mini Histeria,
hugging and kissing him at the same time. Beeesoooo!
Puuutoooo! Arriba los maricones! Dale maricn! (Horray for
the fags! Let him have it, fag!) Mini Histeria frees himself to leave the
ring only to realise that Pimpinella had been faster and as he
turns to the audience he receives a passionate kiss. Without a
doubt, Pimpinella is satisfied and the audience, too.
after Mascarita. My eyes move from one to the next. By

now Mascarita is trapped in a corner and Sexy Star kicks his
back. In the center of the ring Polvo and Billy Boy take Faby
between them and throw her against the ropes, where she
then gets kicked by Mini Histeria. She falls down and Billy Boy
rolls her out of the ring, jumps after her, grabs her hair and
pulls her towards the front row of the audience. Some yell
aggressively: Chinga tu madre! (Fuck your mother!), while others
cheer him on. At the same time, in the ring, Gato is trapped in
between Sexy Star and the ropes. Polvo joins her to kick Gato,
who slides towards the ground. But as soon as Polvo realises
that Faby is on the floor, he runs in between the two tcnicos,
kicking them both. Qu es esoooooo? (Whats this about?) asks a
lusty woman next to me. While the referees back is turned,
Faby kicks Mini Histeria the crotch. As soon as she is upright
again, she receives a warning by the referee and Polvo uses
the situation to slap her on the bottom. The audience giggles
and demands Otra! Otra! (Another one!). Meanwhile, Sexy Star and
Billy Boy face Gato. Together they throw him at Mini Histeria,
who kicks him from behind and drives him from the ring.
To retaliate, Sexy Star and Billy Boy toss Mascartia against
the ropes. As he runs back to attack them Polvo jumps in
between, and Mascaritas head bounces off Polvos bottom.
The audience calls Que la baile, que le baile! (She should dance, he
should dance!) Polvo shakes his hips and enjoys the attention.
Issue 7 : 2010
28.2
Back in the ring, Gato and Billy Boy face one another. The
rudo catches Gato off guard with a takedown, grabbing
his leg and twisting it. The tcnico rolls out of the lock and
reverses it, so that Billy Boy is now caught with his arm
twisted. He escapes the arm lock, but Gato hooks him by the
elbow and throws him to the ground, this time locking his arm
behind his back. Billy Boy twists his body and escapes again.
Now Faby enters the ring, immediately attacked by Polvo,
whom she drives from the ring. Realising that Billy Boy is on
the way to jump on her, she turns away and the rudo falls
to the floor. As she tries to bounce off the ropes Sexy Star
kicks her from behind. ndaleeeee! (Go for it!) call part of the
audience. Faby goes down, Sexy Star demands applause and
shakes her left, naked shoulder before entering the ring. She
kicks the tcnica in her back, grabs her hair wildly shaking
her head. Ms fuerte! Ms fuerte! (Stronger! Stronger!) demand the
audience. Faby gets up, and the ruda holds her from behind,
as Billy Boy prepares to jump on her face. But as he moves
in, the tcnica turns to her left and Sexy Star receives the
jump instead and goes down. Faby salutes proudly and claps,
gesturing for Pimpinella to enter the ring, who rouses the
crowd by waltzing around. Now Polvo is in the ring too, and
as Billy Boy slaps Pimpinellas naked back, Polvo kicks him.
But Pimpinella grabs Polvos arm and throws the extico into
the center of the ring. Billy Boy holds Pimpinella from behind,
but she kicks Polvo with both her legs, frees herself, and grabs
the tcnicos arm to throw him over her shoulder. Meanwhile,
Mini Histeria and Mascarita are now facing each other. The
audience gets louder and louder.
but soon they are up again. Faby grabs Sexy Star, thrusts her
upside down and throws her on the floor as to lie on top of
her, holding her arms and locking the rudas legs in between
hers. The referee counts to three and Faby and her team win.
Billy Boy runs to Sexy Star, checking on her as the referee
pulls the tcnicos away, and declares them as winners.
Today it is a satisfying result for the audience. The lights turn
on. A group close to me stands up to scold the rudos as they
return to the dressing room. The rest cheers joyfully for the
tcnicos as they get ready to leave. However, there are more
luchas to be continued: Vamos a las luchas(Lets go to the luchas...)
Notes
1.
Una lucha mixta (a mixed fight) is part of lucha libre

(free wrestling or free fighting/struggle). Lucha Libre refers
to professional wrestling involving varied techniques and
moves. On September 21, 1933 lucha libre made its debut in
Mexico City.
2.
Lucha libre performers are known as luchadore/as (singular

luchador/luchadora) (male and female fighter/s).
3.
One round (literal: fall) without time limits.
4.
Since the 40s exticos and luchadoras, with their first masked
luchadora La Dama Enmascarada in the 50s, are part of the
luchas. Even though luchadoras werent allowed to fight in
Mexico Citys arenas from 1957 to 1987 they kept on wrestling
outside the capital. Extico is used to describe male wrestlers,
the majority of them are gay, who crossdress and/or display
mannerisms usually coded as female. The term extico is
related to the term raro, a commonly used word that roughly
translates as queer. Since the 50s, Minis, midget wrestlers that
appropriate the roles of successful luchadores, wrestle too.

Mascarita bounces off the ropes and jumps on the rudo, who
graps the tcnico and twists him around by his neck until
Mascartia then catches Mini Histeriass head between his legs
and throws him from the ring. As Mascarita is about to climb
back up the ropes to jump down on the rudo, Polvo catches
him instead to throw him to the floor. So Polvo climbs up the
ropes, and with the referees help, opens his arms elegantly to
the side, and jumps on top of the tcnico as to land with his
bottom on top of his head. The referee begins to count to three,
but at two Mascarita escapes and Pimpinella kicks Polvo from
the ring with a patadas voladoras. Pimpinella climbs up the
ropes to jump from the corner on top of Polvo. The audience
claps wildly and Pimpinella animates kisses as the crowd
cheers for the tcnicos. Meanwhile, Gato and Mini Histeria
face each other. The tcnico applies the ltigo, throwing Mini
Histeria to the floor, turning him over and holding him down
with a toque de espalda. The referee counts until three and
Mini Histeria is out! The audience whistles. Billy Boy enters,
and grabs arms with Gato, who bends down, but the rudo
turns around to lift Gato on to his back, and over his head, to
apply a desnucadora invertida. Billy Boy, with Gato hanging
headfirst off his back, falls backwards. Gato lands on his back
and Billy Boy grabs his leg, pushing into the air, so that the
tcnico cannot get up. However, Faby runs into the ring, and
with a patadas voladororas on Billy Boys chest she frees
Gato, who rolls out of the ring. Faaaaabbbyyy! Faaabbbyyy!
Faaaabbbyyy! Meanwhile Sexy Star climbs up in one corner
to jump on top of Faby. Both lie on the floor, but soon they
are up again. Sexy Star is faster and lands a patadas voladoras
against Fabys head, who falls down again. The ruda demands
applause, but instead most of the audience boos. So, kicking
the ropes, she runs back to Faby applying a tabla marina.
Faaaaabbbyyy! Faaabbbyyy! Faaaabbbyyy! The tcnica
frees herself, and they run at each other, slap each other in
the face and fall on their backs. The referee checks on them,
28.3
Issue 7 : 2010
01.
Elton John Sydney 1971 (I was 3!)
02.
Elton John Western Springs, Auckland 1974
03.
Boz Scaggs Western Springs, Auckland 1978
04.
Tower of Power Roxy Theatre, LA 1979
05.
45.

Beastie Boys Powerstation, Auckland sometime

between 19861989?
46.

Chaka Khan Powerstation, Auckland sometime

between 19861989?
Split Enz Town Hall, Auckland 1979
47.

Phoebe Snow Powerstation, Auckland sometime

between 19861989?
06.

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Logan Campbell

Centre, Auckland 1980
48.

BB King Powerstation, Auckland sometime

between 19861989?
07.

Pretenders Logan Campbell Centre, Auckland

1981?
49.
Adeva Horden Pavillion, Sydney 1989
50.
Public Enemy & Ice T Auckland 1990
08.
Stray Cats St James Theatre, Auckland 1981
51.
Taj Mahal Bumbershoot Festival, Seattle 1990
09.
The Swingers Auckland 1981
52.
Black Uhuru Bob Marley Day Festival, L.A 1990
10.
Larry & The Ladders Kid Creoles, Auckland 1981
11.
Devo Logan Campbell Centre, Auckland 1982
53.

The Mighty Diamonds Bob Marley Day Festival,

L.A 1990
12.

Elvis Costello and the Attractions Logan Campbell

Centre, Auckland 1982
54.
Shinehead Bob Marley Day Festival, L.A 1990
55.
Tippa Irie Bob Marley Day Festival, L.A 1990
13.

Alastair Riddell The Esplanade Devonport,

Auckland 1982
56.
Burning Spear The Greek Amphitheater, L.A 1990
14.

Simon & Garfunkel Western Springs, Auckland

1983
57.

Freddie McGregor The Greek Amphitheater, L.A

1990
15.
David Bowie Western Springs, Auckland 1983
58.
U Roy The Greek Amphitheater, L.A 1990
16.

Russ Le Roq (aka Russell Crowe) The Venue or

was it Kid Creoles? Auckland 1983?
59.
Marcia Griffiths The Greek Amphitheater, L.A 1990
60.
Shinehead The Greek Amphitheater, L.A 1990
17.
Dragon Mainstreet, Auckland 1983
61.
Eek A Mouse L.A 1990
18.
Talking Heads Sweetwaters, Auckland 1984
62.
Van Morrison Hollywood Bowl, L.A 1990
19.
Tom Tom Club Sweetwaters, Auckland 1984
63.
Doc Matin Underground Rave, L.A 1990
20.
Eurythmics Sweetwaters, Auckland 1984
64.
Straight Jacket Fits LA 1991
21.
Pretenders Sweetwaters, Auckland 1984
22.
Simple Minds Sweetwaters, Auckland 1984
65.

Public Enemy, Anthrax & Primus Paramount

Theatre, Seattle 1991
23.
Jo Boxers Sweetwaters, Auckland 1984
66.
Bongwater Seattle 1991
24.
The Police Western Springs, Auckland 1984
67.
Sound Garden Capital Theatre, Olympia 1991
25.
U2 Logan Campbell Centre, Auckland 1984
68.
Fugazi Capital Theatre, Olympia 1991
26.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse Western Springs,

Auckland 1985
69.
Meat Puppets Seattle 1991
27.
Elvis Costello His Majesty Theatre, Auckland 1985
70.

Janes Addiction Lollapalooza Festival, Seattle

1991
28.

Tears For Fears Logan Campbell Centre, Auckland

1985
71.

Butthole Surfers Lollapalooza Festival, Seattle

1991
29.

Violent Femmes His Majesty Theatre, Auckland

1986
72.

Siouxsie and the Banshees Lollapalooza Festival,

Seattle 1991
30.

Screaming MeeMees Quays Nightclub, Auckland

1983?
73.
Ice T Lollapalooza Festival, Seattle 1991
74.
Cherry Poppin Sugar Daddies Seattle 1991
31.

Dance Exponents Auckland 1980s (somewhere,

sometime)
75.
Dead Moon Seattle 1991
76.
Nirvana Logan Campbell Centre, Auckland 1992
32.
The Wailers Whangarei 1987
77.
Red Hot Chilli Peppers Mt Smart, Auckland 1993
33.

Twelve Tribes of Israel Ellen Melvin Hall, Auckland

1987
78.
Rickie Lee Jones, Town Hall, Auckland 1994
34.

Numerous bands from working the bar at The

Gluepot between 198689 such as : Straight Jacket
Fits, The Chills, JeanPaul Sartre Experience, Sperm
Bank Five, Able Tasmans, The Legionnaires, Hunters
& Collectors, Hammond Gamble, Mick Jagger
(a one off concert), The Tall Dwarves
79.
Solid Gold Hell Auckland 1994
80.
Superette Kings Arms, Auckland 1997
81.
Lanky Kings Arms, Auckland 1998
82.
Massive Attack Auckland 1998
44.

The Residents Powerstation, Auckland

sometime between 19861989?
83.
The Dirty Three Luna, Auckland 1998?
84.
Derrick May Hercog, Auckland 1998
Issue 7 : 2010
29.1
85.
Pitch Black The Gathering, Nelson 1998
86.

Non Place Urban Field The Gathering, Nelson

1998
87.
120.

Scratch Perverts & Roots Manuva Forum, London

2001
121.
Mr Scruff 93 Feet East, London 2001
Soundproof The Gathering, Nelson 1998
122.
Goldfrapp Montmartre, Paris 2001
88.
Short Fuse The Gathering, Nelson 1998
123.
Tony Allen & Frederic Galliano Paris 2001
89.
Springheel Jack Powerstation, Auckland 1998
124.
Fabio Shoreditch, London 2001
90.

Alex Patterson (The Orb) De Bretts, Auckland

1998
125.

Lee Hazelwood & Jarvis Cocker Royal Festival

Hall, London 2002
91.

Basement Jaxx & DJ Sneak Powerstation,

Auckland 1999
126.
Roy Ayers Ronnie Scotts, London 2002
92.

African Headcharge & OnU Soundsystem

Powerstation, Auckland 1999
127.

Gotan Project Big Chill Festival, Eastnor Castle

2002
93.
Rockers HiFi Powerstation, Auckland 1999
128.

Cinematic Orchestra Big Chill Festival, Eastnor

Castle 2002
94.
Roni Size Auckland 1999
95.
Grooverider The Ministry, Auckland 1999
129.

Lemon Jelly Big Chill Festival, Eastnor

Castle 2002
96.
Bomb The Bass Auckland 1999
130.

Funki Porcini Big Chill Festival, Eastnor Castle

2002
97.
David Kilgour Kings Arms, Auckland 1999
131.
The Bees Big Chill Festival, Eastnor Castle 2002
98.
Unitone HiFi & HDU KRd, Auckland
99.
Digi Dub Auckland 2000
132.

Tim Love Lee Big Chill Festival, Eastnor Castle

2002
100.
Phase 5 KRd, Auckland 2000
101.

Carl Craig & Coldcut Ellerslie Racecourse,

Auckland 2000
133.

Jerry Dammers Big Chill Festival, Eastnor Castle

2002
102.
Non Place Urban Field Auckland 2000
134.

Norman Jay Big Chill Festival, Eastnor Castle

2002
103.
Herbert The Box, Auckland 2000
135.

Charles Webster Big Chill Festival, Eastnor Castle

2002
104.
Freq Nasty Auckland 2000
136.
Mr Scruff Big Chill Festival, Eastnor Castle 2002
105.
Kid Loco Auckland 2000
106.
Dimmer Auckland 2001
137.

Fila Brazillia Big Chill Festival, Eastnor Castle

2002
107.
Stephen Malkmus Powerstation, Auckland 2001
108.

Mr Scruff Big Chill Festival, Lulworth Castle,

Dorset UK 2001
138.

Will Oldham & Sparklehorse Barbican Hall,

London 2002
139.
Low ATP Festival, Camber Rye 2002
109.

Kruder & Dorfmeister Big Chill Festival, Lulworth

Castle, Dorset 2001
140.
Shellac ATP Festival, Camber Rye 2002
141.
HDU ATP Festival, Camber Rye 2002
110.

Bonobo Big Chill Festival, Lulworth Castle, Dorset

2001
142.
Smog ATP Festival, Camber Rye 2002
111.

Rob Da Bank Big Chill Festival, Lulworth Castle,

Dorset 2001
143.
Shipping News ATP Festival, Camber Rye 2002
144.
Dead Moon ATP Festival, Camber Rye 2002
112.

Different Drummer Soundsystem Big Chill

Festival, Lulworth Castle, Dorset 2001
145.
Wire ATP Festival, Camber Rye 2002
113.

Plaid Big Chill Festival, Lulworth Castle, Dorset

2001
146.

Bonnie Prince Billy ATP Festival, Camber Rye

2002
147.
The Fall ATP Festival, Camber Rye 2002
114.

Bent Big Chill Festival, Lulworth Castle, Dorset

2001
148.
The Breeders ATP Festival, Camber Rye 2002
115.

Herbert Big Chill Festival, Lulworth Castle, Dorset

2001
149.
Fisherspooner London 2002
150.
Laurie Anderson, Barbican Centre, London 2003
116.

Treva Whateva Big Chill Festival, Lulworth Castle,

Dorset 2001
151.

Gilles Petterson & Norman Jay The Domain,

Auckland 2003
117.

Crazy Penis Big Chill Festival, Lulworth Castle,

Dorset 2001
152.
Jurassic 5 Brixton Academy 2003
118.

Norman Jay Big Chill Festival, Lulworth Castle,

Dorset 2001
153.

The Dirty Three & Cat Power Shepherds Bush

Empire, London 2003
119.

Channel One Sound System, Aba ShantiI SS, King

Tubbys SS, Norman Jay etc Carnival, London 2001
155.

Horace Andy, Ranking Joe & Ahsley Beedle etc

Cargo, London 2003
156.

Kool Keith & Kutmaster Kurt ATP Festival, Camber

Rye 2003
29.2
Issue 7 : 2010
157.
Aphex Twin ATP Festival, Camber Rye 2003
158.
Sluta Leta ATP Festival, Camber Rye 2003
159.
Public Enemy ATP Festival, Camber Rye 2003
160.
Thirstin Howl ATP Festival, Camber Rye 2003
161.
Carl Craig ATP Festival, Camber Rye 2003
162.
Farmers Manual ATP Festival, Camber Rye 2003
163.
Jim ORourke ATP Festival, Camber Rye 2003
164.
The Magic Band ATP Festival, Camber Rye 2003
165.

Rhythm & Sound Djs ATP Festival, Camber Rye

2003
166.

Boozoo Bajou Big Chill Festival, Eastnor Castle

2003
167.

Dubtribe Soundsystem Big Chill Festival, Eastnor

Castle 2003
168.

Cinematic Orchestra Big Chill Festival, Eastnor

Castle 2003
169.

Jimi Tenor Band Big Chill Festival, Eastnor Castle

2003
170.
194.

Ralph Myerz and the Jack Herren Band Big Chill

Festival, Eastnor Castle 2004
195.
Bent Big Chill Festival, Eastnor Castle 2004
196.

Quantic Soul Orchestra Big Chill Festival, Eastnor

Castle 2004
197.

Mathew Herbert Orchestra Big Chill Festival,

Eastnor Castle 2004
198.

Noiseshaper Big Chill Festival, Eastnor Castle

2004
199.

Faze Action Big Chill Festival, Eastnor Castle

2004
200.

Junior Murvin, Horace Andy, Junior Byles, Cornell

Campbell & Johnny Clarke Cargo, London 2004
201.
The Egg Shoreditch Street Festival 2004
202.

Ralph Myerz and the Jack Herren Band Cargo,

London 2004
203.

Lee Scratch Perry & Mad Professor Studio KRd,

Auckland 2005
204.
Keb Darge 420 KRd, Auckland 2005
John Peel Big Chill Festival, Eastnor Castle 2003
205.
SJD Transmisson Rooms, Auckland 2005
171.

Nightmares on Wax Big Chill Festival, Eastnor

Castle 2003
206.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds St James Theatre,

Auckland 2005
172.

Quantic Soul Orchestra Big Chill Festival, Eastnor

Castle 2003
207.
Cat Power Maidment Theatre, Auckland 2005
208.
One Self & DJ Vadium Galatos St, Auckland 2005
173.
Truby Trio Big Chill Festival, Eastnor Castle 2003
209.
SJD & David Kilgour Kings Arms, Auckland 2005
174.
Hexstatic Big Chill Festival, Eastnor Castle 2003
210.
Sola Rosa Leigh Saw Mill 2005
175.
Howie B Big Chill Festival, Eastnor Castle 2003
176.

Freddy Fresh Big Chill Festival, Eastnor Castle

2003
211.

Iggy Pop & The Stooges Big Day Out, Auckland

2006
212.
The Go Team Big Day Out, Auckland 2006
177.
DJ Food Big Chill Festival, Eastnor Castle 2003
213.
The White Stripes Big Day Out, Auckland 2006
178.

Channel One SS, Aba Shanti I SS, King Tubbys SS,

Norman Jay etc Carnival London 2003
214.
Kings of Leon Big Day Out, Auckland 2006
179.
Theo Parrish Shoreditch Club London 2003
215.
The Magic Numbers Big Day Out, Auckland 2006
180.
Francois K Body & Soul, Tribeca New York 2003
216.
Common Big Day Out, Auckland 2006
181.

Junior Byles & Johnny Clarke Oceans Hackney,

London 2004
217.
Soulwax Big Day Out, Auckland 2006
182.

Yo La Tengo Shepherd Bush Empire, London

2004
218.

Talib Kweli Splore Festival, Tapapakanga Regional

Park 2006
183.
The Mean Streets London 2004
219.

Hexstatic Splore Festival, Tapapakanga Regional

Park 2006
184.
Trans Am ATP Festival, Camber Rye 2004
220.

The Nextmen Splore Festival, Tapapakanga

Regional Park 2006
185.
Mogwai ATP Festival, Camber Rye 2004
186.
Papa M ATP Festival, Camber Rye 2004
221.

Cuban Brothers Splore Festival, Tapapakanga

Regional Park 2006
187.
Cat Power ATP Festival, Camber Rye 2004
188.

John Peel (DJ Set) ATP Festival, Camber Rye

2004
222.

Pitch Black Splore Festival, Tapapakanga Regional

Park 2006
189.
Tortoise ATP Festival, Camber Rye 2004
223.

Fat Freddys Splore Festival, Tapapakanga

Regional Park 2006
190.

Stereolab (DJ Set) ATP Festival, Camber Rye

2004
224.

Bonnie Prince Billy Hopetoun Alpha, Auckland

2006
191.
Lightning Bolt ATP Festival, Camber Rye 2004
225.
P J Harvey Civic Theatre, Auckland 2006
192.
Coldcut Big Chill Festival, Eastnor Castle 2004
226.
Treva Whateva Auckland 2006
193.

Senor Coconut & His Orchestra Big Chill Festival,

Eastnor Castle 2004
227.

DJ Shadow & Mos Def St James Theatre,

Auckland 2006
228.
Coldcut St James Theatre, Auckland 2006
Issue 7 : 2010
29.3
229.

Damian Junior Gong Marley St James Theatre,

Auckland 2006
230.
Spank Rock Big Day Out, Auckland 2007
231.
270.
De La Soul Powerstation, Auckland 2009
271.
MGMT Powerstation, Auckland 2009
Diplo Big Day Out, Auckland 2007
272.

Chris Knox, Shane Carter, Bellbirds etc

Kings Arms, Auckland 2010
232.
Luciano Big Day Out, Auckland 2007
273.
Dimmer & SJD Coyle Park, Auckland 2010
233.
Lily Allen Big Day Out, Auckland 2007
274.
Al Green Civic Theatre, Auckland 2010
234.
Peaches Big Day Out, Auckland 2007
275.
Groove Amarda Powerstation, Auckland 2010
235.
Hot Chip Big Day Out, Auckland 2007
236.
Jurrassic 5 St James Theatre, Auckland 2007
276.

The XX Laneways Festival, Britomart, Auckland

2010
237.

Joanna Newsome & Bill Callahan (Smog)

Hopetoun Alpha, Auckland 2007
277.

The Dirty Three Laneways Festival, Britomart,

Auckland 2010
238.
Steely Dan Vector Arena, Auckland 2007
278.

Chris Knox and the Nothing Laneways Festival,

Britomart, Auckland 2010
239.
Bob Dylan Civic Theatre, Auckland 2007
240.
Nightmares on Wax Galatos, Auckland 2007
279.

Echo and the Bunnymen Laneways Festival,

Britomart, Auckland 2010
241.
David Kilgour Dogs Bollix, Auckland 2007
242.
Mad Professor Soundsplash Festival, Raglan 2007
280.

The 3Ds Laneways Festival, Britomart, Auckland

2010
245.
Shapeshifter Soundsplash Festival, Raglan 2007
281.
Yo La Tengo Transmission Room, Auckland 2010
246.

Dub Syndicate Soundsplash Festival, Raglan

2007
282.

Lupe Fiasco Splore Festival, Tapapakanga

Regional Park 2010
247.
Slum Village Foo Bar, Auckland 2007
283.

Basement Jaxx Splore Festival, Tapapakanga

Regional Park 2010
248.
SJD Galatos, Auckland 2007
284.
Pavement Town Hall, Auckland 2010
249.

Pharoahe Monch Splore Festival, Tapapakanga

Regional Park 2008
285.
Mahmoud Ahmed Womad, New Plymouth 2010
250.

Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra Splore

Festival, Tapapakanga Regional Park 2008
286.
Eliades Ochoa Womad, New Plymouth 2010
251.

Opensouls Splore Festival, Tapapakanga Regional

Park 2008
287.

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble Womad, New Plymouth

2010
288.
Dub Colossus Womad, New Plymouth 2010
252.

Kora Splore Festival, Tapapakanga Regional Park

2008
289.
Ojos de Brujo Womad, New Plymouth 2010
290.
Nortec Collective Womad, New Plymouth 2010
253.

Module Splore Festival, Tapapakanga Regional

Park 2008
254.

Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra

Barnett Hall, Piha 2008
255.
Andrew Bird Comedy Club, Auckland 2008
256.
PJ Harvey Civic Theatre, Auckland 2008
257.
Roy Ayers Sale St, Auckland 2008
258.
Sola Rosa Montecristo Room, Auckland 2008
259.

Headless Chickens Reunion Gig Powerstation,

Auckland 2008
260.
The Nextmen Coherent, Auckland 2008
261.
The Ting Tings Big Day Out, Auckland 2009
262.
My Morning Jacket Big Day Out, Auckland 2009
263.
Arctic Monkeys Big Day Out, Auckland 2009
264.
Neil Young Big Day Out, Auckland 2009
265.
TV On The Radio Big Day Out, Auckland 2009
266.
SJD Spielgeltent, Auckland Festival 2009
267.
The Tenniscoats KRd, Auckland 2009
268.

The Cuban Brothers Living Lounge, Auckland

2009
269.
Spiritualized Powerstation, Auckland 2009
29.4
Issue 7 : 2010
Airless Rooms, Stony Corridors
he imposes upon them. As we realise the hopelessness of the

anticipation that alleviates the tedium, the reader begins to
question whether the past is even worth retrieving in the first
place, whether it is worth the effort.
Sarah Hopkinson
In order to diminish the distance from my own reality I must
plunge back into my winter, set out a relief map of myself so
as to trace the pattern of shadows cast by my days over one
another, forward and backward to the present moment I have
outlived myself.1
Jacques Revel, young Frenchman, export clerk, diarykeeper,
mapreader, amateur detective, labyrinthwalker, begins
writing seven months after his arrival, but starts his diary
from the first day of his year in Bleston, an unremarkable
city in the north of England. To account for the breach, each
page is headed by two months, the first corresponds to the
month in which Revel is writing and the second, in italics, to
the month he is writing about, then each subparagraph is
headed by the specific date of the diary entry. This would
seem straight forward enough if Revel was simply attempting
to catch himself up, however, he returns to the same events,
places and conversations over and over with slight variation,
introducing new content before it is due and mingling present
thoughts with recollections, with a mission to solve a crime
that we are for the most part unaware of, and never wholly
convinced exists. The book inhabits a disjointed, distorted
temporal plane as the protagonist goes back to pursue his
lost time (and subsequent truth, clarity, meaning), and at the
same time is swept forward by process of his pursuit.
Passing Time is a novel about the problems of memory,
among other things. Revel labours under the impression that
if he can piece together the fragmentary, scattered moments
of his past and extract secrets from Blestons history, which
he believes to be somehow linked, that they will, quite simply,
make his life more meaningful. So, he revisits moments,
events, conversations, and physically revisits sites, that he
believes have bearing on the unfolding of later events until his
entries become so circular, so monotonous, so homogenous,
that his temps perdu, his year in Bleston, appears condensed,
or somehow abridged: All of those weeks seem to be
contracted into a single immense week, a dense, compact,
confused week. The past appears to consist of that unvarying
motion.2 Revels diary is not the musings of a man lost in
nostalgic reverie, he suffers no epiphanies, nor flashes of
memoire involuntaire, instead he consciously, forcibly dredges
his memory for clues that will appease his increasing senses
of meaninglessness. Revels psyche, as discharged into the
page, is riddled with doubt, anxiety and frustration (at times
so much so that it is difficult to read) as his memories prove
inadequate and refuse to cooperate, to fit into the structure
Revels diary remembers its traditional form the structure and

conventions of a detective novel (exemplified in the narrative
by the book, The Bleston Murder), but it lacks an identifiable
crime to justify a linear, causal form. To compensate Revel
assigns meaning to apparently meaningless things and events,
leaving the reader with a perplexing multiplication of would
be redemptive/revelatory moments that perpetually recur
throughout, including but not limited to, the reading of The
Bleston Murder, initial visits to the Old Cathedral, New Cathedral
and Museum, his first meeting with George Burton, Christmas
with Horace Buck, a certain lunch at the Jenkins, the burning
of the map of Bleston, the accident on Brown St and the
alwaysnotquitereached date of February 29th.3 It doesnt
take long for the narrative to collapse in upon itself as the
tenuous cause and effect between past and present unravels
(and even becomes inverted as Revel starts to believe that his
actions in the present have altered those in the past), spinning
instead a diaphanous and gnarled web based on an ever
changing interplay of its parts, fragments separated by zones
of darkness:
the sequence of former days is only restored to us through
a whole host of other days, constantly changing, and every
event calls up an echo from other, earlier events which caused
it or explained it, or correspond to it, every monument, every
image sending us back to other periods which we must
reawaken in order to recover the lost secret of their power,
for good or evil, other periods both remote or forgotten,
whose density and distance are to be measured not by weeks
or months but by centuries, standing out against the dark
blurred background of our whole history4
a whole series of resonances of varying intensity separated
by broad intervals of silence, like the harmonics into which
the timbre of a sound is broken up.5
Saskia Leek, 3 days alone, 2006, medium oil on board, 20.8 x 29.3 cm,
Courtesy of the artist and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, purchased 2006.
(the) fundamental pollution of the air, the exudation, that

terrible sour noxious breath that Bleston exhales, insidiously
stupefying, paralysing and depressing the soul, relentlessly
clouding the mind, that iron grip so seldom and so
imperceptibly relaxed6
Bleston, that city of doom and oblivion, hounding me
relentlessly, that hydra, that octopus disgorging its black ink
over us, so as to make us unrecognisable to one another and even
to ourselves7
Saskia Leek, Knights End 2007, oil on board, 27.5 x 35.5 cm,
Courtesy of the artist and Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney.
Issue 7 : 2010
30.1
For Revel, Bleston is a beastly antagonist that conspires

against him, continually frustrating his efforts for sense
and clarity with its elemental forces, its ubiquitous fog and
blurring darkness. Revel blames the city for his failures, his
inability to make his world work for him, and it is the central
and pervasive source of his increasing senses of alienation. To
combat Blestons stifling shadow, Revel becomes obsessed
with light, a recognisable symbol of mans power to create
order from chaos, and fire, an element long associated with
violent purification. Revel reads the flames devouring Athens
in the last tapestry in the museum, the red sky behind Cains
city on the Old Cathedral, and the uncannily high occurrence
of fires in Bleston (at the fairground and his restaurant,
The Oriental Bamboo) as personal messages, clues in an
increasingly bewildering and contradictory battle between
his ancient binaries of light (good, knowledge, authenticity)
and dark (evil, blindness, inauthenticity), in which he is both
arsonist and alchemist, who will, with his newly acquired
knowledge, banish Blestons shadows and turn its grimy dust
to gold.8
fire, started by the very flame which had burnt the map of
Bleston in this room, that flame denatured, corrupted and
contaminated by its long journey through your veins, which
you had succeeded in taming and turning against me9
As the book progresses we see evidence that Revel is aware
that his paranoia, the notion that Bleston is consciously
opposing him, is unfounded and illogical, but paradoxically
blames Bleston for his mental state, putting his hallucinations
down to the contagious effects of narcotic exhalations of the
Saskia Leek, Untitled, 2009, oil on board, 36 x 28 cm.
atypical. In an attempt to reconcile the two and compensate

for the connection his actual past lacks, Revel imposes a
mythological structure on his own life, assigning his friends
and colleagues traits of the lead characters regardless of
whether they conform or not, and assigning himself various
roles, usually that of the tragic hero, depending on what
narrative strain he happens to be stuck on.
...little by little I came to feel that my bad luck was due to
some malevolent will and that all these offers were so many
lies, and I had to struggle increasingly against the impression
that all my efforts were foredoomed to failure, that I was
going round and round a blank wall, that the doors were
sham doors and the people dummies, the whole thing a
hoax.11
Saskia Leek, Blue/Yellow Net, 2007, oil on board, 27.5 x 35.5 cm
Slee (the river that snakes through the city), his weariness,
and the contagious influence of the wretched weather.10
Of all the places he visits and revisits in Bleston, there are
two sites that hold a particular kind of fascination for Revel.
The first is the stained glass window in the Old Cathedral that
depicts the biblical tale of Cain and Able, a magical heiroglyph
of the first murder. This is the same Murderers Window that
features as scene of the crime in the novelwithinthenovel,
The Bleston Murder, that Revel, believing it to be more fact
than fiction, uses as a vade mecum for his own mystery. The
second is the Museum, home to a series of tapestries that
weave the Greek myth of Theseus, conqueror of the labyrinth,
slayer of Minotaur, friend of Pirithous, beloved of Ariadne
and Phaedra. Revel is infatuated with these two archetypal
narratives, he trusts their veracity because they are ancient,
cohesive, and in representation he can see and hold them,
they are contained, static, finite. Conversely, he mistrusts his
own story because it can only be scattered, fluid, anomalous,
For Revel the stories of Cain and Theseus, as well as The

Bleston Murder, are beacons (both guiding lights and danger
signals), in his attempt to uncover something deeper, more
original, more authentic; they are potential sources of
meaning or underlying truths that have been necessarily
obscured. Simultaneously the metanarratives put Butors
book en abyme, into an unstable but ultimately productive
wrangle between the two opposing structures (centred and
uncentred), between surface and depth, myth and reality. If
we follow LeviStrausss on myth, it is Revels own imagination
that builds and projects these myths and eventually his own
text that dismantles it: the unity of the myth is never more
than tendential and projective It is a phenomenon of the
imagination, resulting from the attempt at interpretation; and
its function is to endow the myth with synthetic form and to
prevent its disintegration into a confusion of opposites.12 At
the end of his diary, with the realisation that his two worlds
are eternally irreconcilable, Revel is forced by his own hand to
see that authenticity can be nothing but mythical like all of
his ideals and binaries, it empties out to nothing in the end.
Theseus labyrinth is spatialized in the city of Bleston, or
more precisely in Revels experience of the city. On his arrival
Revel purchases a map from Ann Bailey (the Ariadne to his
30.2
Issue 7 : 2010
less difficult, discrepant and unruly. So, Revel leaves ostensibly

more wretched, weary and bitter than when he arrived.
However, one cant help but feel that redemption is possible
for Revel, just not in the form he would have liked or could ever
have imagined. While Revel strives to shape his experience into
a tidy narrative arc and provide a legible resolution, his own
hand unwittingly, radically unwrites the optimistic ends of any
such traditional interpretative pursuit. Revels diary provides
a far more accurate account of a contemporary condition
marked by the doubt, anxiety and uneasiness wrought by
the erosion of a classical structure that, if we think through
Jacques Derrida for a moment, is governed and organised
around the desire to find a centre or fixed origin, teleos,
arche, aletheia4. Rather, in the act of writing, Revel discovers
the play of the world and the innocence of becoming a
world of sign without fault, without truth, without origin which
is offered to an active interpretation.15 Revel may start the
labyrinth in search of a centre but somewhere on the journey,
with all its false hopes and dead ends, he begrudgingly comes
to recognise the unruly, contradictory nature of his world, its
empty signifiers and means without ends.
Saskia Leek, Third Wish, 2007, oil on board, 27.5 x 35.5 cm

Theseus) to help him navigate the maze, but he gets lost

immediately, fooled into thinking (again) that experience can
be clearly represented in grid and line, flattened, transcribed,
mapped. Of course, when depicted in the map the city makes
sense (just as the myths and biblical stories make sense in
representation) it has a centre and clear trajectories that
Revel can follow, however, when he starts to use the map,
translating it into the space of experience, the city again
becomes uncentered, labyrinthine.
...have written two sonnets; in the first, a man is supposed to
be making his way through the dusty and stony corridors, and
he hears a distant bellowing in the night. And then he makes
out footprints in the sand and he knows that they belong to
the minotaur, that the minotaur is after him and that, in a
sense, that he too is after the minotaur. The minotaur wants,
of course, to devour him, and since his only aim in life is to
go on wandering and wandering, he longs for the moment.
In the second sonnet I had a still more gruesome idea the
idea that there was no minotaur that the man would go
on endlessly wandering. That may have been suggested
by a phrase in one of Chestertons Farmer Brown books.
Chesterton said, What man is really afraid of is a maze
without a centre. I suppose he was thinking of a godless
universe, but I was thinking of the labyrinth without the
minotaur. I mean if anything is terrible, it is terrible because it
is meaningless.13
Revels Bleston (and by extension his universe) is Borges
monstrous building built around a monster that is now
monsterless and thus insensible, illogical. Revel begins his
diary after burning the map of the city, an iconoclastic attack,
and comes to see writing, that rope of words, as the thread
that will lead him from the maze, however, he eventually
comes to suspect, as the reader does, that his diary is double
crossing him. The text itself becomes a labyrinth, a mirror,
tapestry, that grows and alters as he builds it and in doing
so asserts its own autonomy moving from an unsuccessful
report to a successful thing.
The book finishes as it began, with Revel on the train at
Bleston station. His time is up and he has not made sense
of the city, his memories or his life, he has not got the girl
or solved the crime, or at least not in the way he intended.
His diary, that he was relying on to answer the question of
his year in Bleston, the mirror in which he would trap the
city, remains incomplete, unfinished. His constant deferral
and displacement of his experience into the realm of memory,
myth and fiction, has alienated him from the people around
him, distracted him from living, from being in the world and
the journey into his past has failed to make his present any
Issue 7 : 2010
30.3
Notes
1.
Michel Butor, Passing Time, (trans. Jean Stewart), Faber &

Faber: London, 1961. p.242.
2.
Ibid, p.35.
3.
February 29th is the midpoint of Revels year in Bleston, but a

date he never reaches in his diary. For Lorna Martens this date
is symbolic of the unreachable, empty centre or redemptive
moment of Butors novel. See Lorna Martens, Empty Centre
and Open End: The Theme of Language in Michel Butors
LEmploi du Temps, PMLA, Vol. 96, No. 1, Jan 1981,
p.4963.
4.
Ibid, p.262.
5.
Butor, p. 260.
6.
Ibid, p.64.
7.
Ibid, p.219.
8.
Martens, p.52.
9.
Ibid, p.241.
10.
Ibid, p.114.
11.
Ibid, p.48.
12.
Claude LeviStrauss as quoted in Derrida, Writing and

Difference (1967), The University of Chicago Press: Chicago,
1978. p.287.
13.
Jorge Luis Borges and L.S Demos, An Interview with Jorge

Luis Borges, Contemporary Literature, 11, Summer 1970.
p.318, also quoted in Laura R. Kubinyi, Defense of a
Dialogue: Michel Butors Passing Time, Boundary 2, Vol.4,
No.3, Spring 1976. p.887.
14.
Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference (1967),

The University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1978. p.292.
15.
Ibid, p.292.
32.1
32.2
The sounds had been manageably cut into large rectangular blocks
they are firm, gelatinous, milkywhite, opaque. Half a metre by
half a metre by one metre. A crew of roadies help stack them into
place inside a huge weathered white hall. Heavy work each block
requires two people to stack them on top of each other. Ladders and
scaffolding are required to stack the blocks up to the roof around the
edge of the space. Grunting and squeezing blocks into odd corners.
When the sounds are all arranged we close the doors and leave it for
later.
Earlier that morning before light, we heard the men saying prayers,
then their panting and rustling as they run past the building we sleep
in. By midday their bare feet stamp the earth so hard that the thumps
reverberate off the hills behind echoing through our throats and chests.
She has the same name as my great, great, great grandmother. When
she asked I told her I can use sound to describe textures. Patuparaiehe,
she said, I heard them they came around me singing they sounded
like greenstone becoming crystal.
I had my heart set on clean pure sound but there is a fluttering in
my speakers. Ive checked the cables, connections, everything with
electricity flowing through it in the room, but I still cant bring to light
which part of this chain is whispering uncontrollably.
3.1

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Issue 7

Fiona Gillmore: While I was in my final year of Masters, in 2008,

FG: VVVVVVVVs a good rogue actually. Hes very smart and he

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JD: I know what the word is.

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Kirsty Cameron, Little Audreys Walk of Shame

Fiona Jack, Page for Helen

Layla Rudneva-MacKay, Blue Face Schoolgirl

Tessa Laird, Kundalini Rising

Kah Bee Chow, Untitled

Alexis Hunter, Letter to a dead French woman

Jan Bryant, Image/War

Rosanna Albertini, Brown, Blue, Again and Laura Owens luminous

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Chris Kraus, Maureen Stiles

10 questions: Ani ONeill, Ema Tavola, Liz Maw, Lisa Crowley,

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Gwyn Porter, Rosemary Johnsons Cloud Works, 1975-1976: The

Sriwhana Spong, Sylph

Mikala Dwyer, Outfield

Judy Darragh, Reverence

Ruth Buchanan, Biographies

Sandra Kassenaar, Faugh a Ballaugh/Cowabunga Part 2

Nina Hoechtl, Una Lucha Mixta

Sarah Hopkinson, Airless Rooms, Stony Corridors

Francis Upritchard, Tasha

Fiona Connor, Thinking about the seventies in Los Angeles,

Louise Menzies Radiant Recipes

Rachel Shearer, Sound dairy

PARALLEL LINES // PROJECT MAKING

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