DOMESTICITY CAN BE A STRANGE THING INDEED. AS FILMMAKER DAVID LYNCH ILLUSTRATED SO WONDERFULLY IN HIS FILM BLUE VELVET, THERE ARE MANY ODDITIES THAT LIE BENEATH THE SURFACE. THREE ARTISTS IN THIS ISSUE OF PHOTOFILE CERTAINLY SEEM TO BACK THIS UP.
In Maree Alexander's world, everyday objects take on a mysteriously erotic frisson. A jug pushes a glass into a corner with clearly erogenous intent, fruit squeezers prepare to copulate - the everyday becomes a sensual orgy. Cold, utilitarian glass and plastic are caught out in the heat of the moment, leaving one wondering what happens on the kitchen bench when we are away. "It is the animation of the inanimate that gives rise to an uncanny quality in these works," Joan Cameron-Smith notes in her essay on Alexander. "... we fulfil the moments that may follow within our minds."
The body haunts this issue of Photofile. At times, as
in the works of Helen Pynor, Peta Clancy, Ben Cauchi, Jacqui
Stockdale and Kristian Burford, it is there in all its visceral,
and sometimes gory, glory. At times it is morphing into a strange
technological presence in Second Life as seen in the works of
BABELSWARM. Elsewhere it is hauntingly absent; in a place where
the body, and all too often bodies, are an ever-present factor -
the realm of war.
There was an eerie co-incidence in the collation of articles
in this issue - that of Babel - both the place and the meaning.
Babylon was, in the times of the Bible, referred to as Babel and
was located at a place we now call Iraq. Indeed the Tower of
Babel looms large in the following pages; there is the babel in
the language of war and the babel of technology. It is literally
one of t cont...
Reality and fiction. Truth and falsehood. The authorisation of meaning. Photography seems forever caught up in the vortex that swirls between these concepts. This issue of Photofile has no formal theme, but these concerns with reality, fiction and authorisation are all here. The traditions of documentary witness are to be found in the work of the artist-run photo agency Oculi and in the harsh realties made evident in Stephen Dupont's ongoing project in Afghanistan. However, Lewis Morley is dismayed that some of the classic photojournalistic shots of the 20th century were in fact staged set-ups.
On the other hand, the imaginative fictions published here cut to the heart of very real situations. Elaine Campaner's tiny tableaux make a biting comment on Australia's detention centres and Graham Miller's dramatised portraits evoke the melancholy of cont...
The construction of identity and the sense of place are themes that duck and weave their way through this issue of Photofile. The gender gap is addressed variously by Julie Rrap, Samantha Everton, Pat Brassington, Shaun Gladwell and Ray Cook. Meanwhile top of the arts league table this year are the Venice Biennale and Kassel's Documenta; Reuben Keehan reports back on both. Further east, Juha Tolonen finds beauty in the dereliction of wastelands in central Europe and, nearer home, Adelaide's Shoot Collective take to the streets.
Magda Keaney and Gerald Keaney weigh up the benefits of MySpace, YouTube, Facebook and similar sites when they consider do-it-yourself culture. And Pedro Meyer finds democracy on line - at least when viewed from outside the western metropolises. Pursuing new media further Miao Xiaochun has remade Michelangelo's Last cont...
Will it soon be illegal to take a photograph in public? Heading up this issue of Photofile Martyn Jolly and Katherine Giles sort out the legal fact from the paranoid fiction. Meanwhile Adam Cuthbert highlights the danger of battlefield photography becoming a pornography of violence and Tarryn Gill and Pilar Mata Dupont satirise the simplistic polarising of good and evil portrayed in wartime propaganda.
Other featured artists include James Geurts who tells of his recent solo trip around the world's equator to create an image that symbolically and conceptually integrates humankind and environment. Closer to home, a poignant series by Angela Blakely and David Lloyd documents the hopes and fears of young Aboriginal people of Mount Isa while experts from various professions argue to pros and cons of US artist Jill Greenberg's controversial images of cont...
