Photofile - Back Issues

Post Punk

I must say that I have had an interesting few months since the last Photofile appeared. First off there was a long lunch with the infamous performance artist Stelarc, whose latest endeavour has seen a third ear grow on his left arm. It was a warm day in a moderately crowded restaurant and when Stelarc removed his jacket a gradual hush filled the room. It's not every day that you dine with a man with three ears.

That led to talking with Stelarc's partner, cont...

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Distortions

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 cont...

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The Erotic Imagination

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.

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Guilty Secrets

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 Afghanist cont...

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Dream Girls, Strong Women & Bad Boys

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 cont...

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