Tag Archives: australia

Prison Islands of Oceana

Prison Islands of Oceania – 2015

“History never repeats”, but don’t you think its odd that Australia once a prison Island for colonial England has a policy of imprisoning immigrants and refuges on a smaller island just outside its own borders?
Prison Islands of Oceania
Its commonly thought that victims of sexual abuse may follow there parents behavior and abuse others in a similar fashion, I question whether this is Australia’s period of awkward adulthood there is a growing sense of ugly patriotism which unfortunately can only be seen as racist codswallop. It’s unsurprising given our colonial history that we think that imprisoning struggling   people on islands is acceptable but is it.. really ?

Its this country’s policy to imprison “illegal emigrants” or refugees on a small island that is  technically outside of the arbitrary border we imagine exists somewhere outside of our island home. It is also the governments policy  to not speak about the  tactics used to enforce police and  govern all of the above infrastructure under the  general banner of  “operational matters” . So much for transparency and democracy right?  Its a perfect example of how not to do open government.

But wait it gets worse there have been allegations of child abuse in  prison facility’s..( yes  australians put  refugee children in prison ) and those in power responded by:
a) Abusing the woman put in charge of investigating the prisons and;

b) threatening to make it illegal to report child abuse in these facility’s

all of the above have driven me to make and open source the above map, available here as a pdf – feel free to reuse or modify  Map of prison islands.

Just so you know whats happening down this end of the planet, its really not pretty ,it must change. consider this a message in a bottle.

*please help *

Clementine Ford -ted talk on rape culture

Clementine Ford deserves a cheer squad ! so I’m adding her to my list of women I adore.
Quietly I have been stalking her on twitter..
But here I go I have a fembot crush on her because:
She’s Australian, feminist, smart and articulate !
She writes a great deal and I love to read her articles but this ted talk on rape culture with its particular attention Australian culture and media made me want to put her here. Watch it  those are my orders !

classic bites:

  • “shame cave” – enough said!
  • “your vagina is not a vehicle” (and even if it was rape is not stealing a car its  jacking one with the owner still in it..and possibly trashing it while making them watch )

Theres nothing quite as wonderful as a feminist who can  not only speak plain english and not academiac bs (kudus for never using the word hegemony) but can also make one laugh.

I always felt detached from the idea of rape culture , it’s the internet right ? they must be talking about america.  My own personal experience of rape culture revolves around kicking around  places like second life and online games. I forget how much this is also a real wold problem and a cultural phenomenon that extends way beyond the internet and gaming culture.

Reading through the comments makes it clear that the issue needed further clarification. Some mammals are more visual and respond to simple diagrams, so I put together this flow chart – I may have forgotten something but I hope its useful

rape flow chart

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Her blog in case that wasn’t enough.. you know it wasn’t

http://clementineford.blogspot.com.au

Why australia must teach children how to code in school

Theres no question that we live in a digital age.  Just go out to a coffee shop in any australian city, half the humans will be there pretending to  “relax”  while obsessing over there twitter feed or facebook status or simply checking their emails or checking in.

There’s an opportunity here, an opportunity to teach your young how to make the technology of the future.  We cant be the lucky country forever, so lets try being a clever country.

Internet culture has changed humans  lives,  you don’t sit and consume mindlessly we interact with our media and entertainment, you make it. In the words of  Amanda Palmer “we are the media”.

I don’t expect the stuffy blue tied old guys who run the country to understand . but some one out there with a modicum of foresight surely can see that teaching children to code will give them the building blocks to create there own future.

For those who use computers on a daily basis, those who make the web as it is know that code makes all of that happen, in code we trust . Tell me, suited faceless men who’d rather  dull small minds with bible thumping than sharpen them with skills or the ability to create something marvellous, ground breaking or perhaps life saving.  tell me how thats even remotely logical.

 

Fiona hall - big game hunting

5 most subversive contemporary women artists of Australia

The guerrilla girls told me that women are poorly represented in art history back in 2001 . Things haven’t changed that much and being the arse end of the universe (strayla mate ) really doesn’t help.  However, I Object to this article because most of its women were not born this century, nor are they australian  have  kind of tripe that passes for art criticism in some news …(should I call them vendors ? ) snail news?  whatever.
*the list is not remotely ordered 

Offending article: Some dude telling me who’s a subversive female artist..right.

  • 1) Fiona Hall  – Its hard to find words but she’s always shifting mediums,  from her early soap carvings to her installations she never fails to delight me. Always contemporary, always questioning .

    Fiona hall - big game hunting

    Fiona hall – big game hunting

  • 2) Tracey Moffatt – brave ,she takes no prisoners from her early works which cause Australian critics to  ask questions about authorship which are still relevant today eg : “If she didn’t press the button is she really the photographer ?
    To these beautiful mashups  like “other” that question identity culture and otherness in ways that make me laugh and cry simultaneously .

    OTHER by Tracey Moffatt from Momentum Worldwide on Vimeo.
  • 3) Emily Kame Kngwarreye – “I did batik at first, and then after doing that I learned more and more and then I changed over to painting for good…Then it was canvas. I gave up on…fabric to avoid all the boiling to get the wax out. I got a bit lazy – I gave it up because it was too much hard work. I finally got sick of it…I didn’t want to continue with the hard work batik required – boiling the fabric over and over, lighting fires, and using up all the soap powder, over and over. That’s why I gave up batik and changed over to canvas – it was easier. My eyesight deteriorated as I got older, and because of that I gave up batik on silk – it was better for me to just paint.” 
  • 4)Patricia Piccinini – It’s hard for me to include her I never saw her as a maker and in that, she challenges the very assumptions of craftsmanship in art. She is  more of an art producer than an artisan. However the recent controversy over the  “sky whale” really won me over. I’m not sure if I can think of a more subversive act than a massive floating whale with pendulous breasts hanging over the nations capital.
  • 5) Linda Dement  –cyberflesh girl monster need I say more?  I had the luck to be present at one of her performances at  Canberra School of the Art where she hung upside down in goggles and a swimming cap and told all the lecturers and senior academics art history is bullshit.  Her middle name is subversive . Not to mention theres no wiki page for her.

 

 

important

Copyriot .. I wanna riot

copyriot
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more about Emily Pankurst > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmeline_Pankhurst
Copyright in Australia :http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/why-creating-memes-is-illegal-in-australia/story-fnjwmwrh-1226758121774

Although I’m all for artists right to make a living I sincerely believe the Australian government is a dinosaur incapable of making laws for this century . Incapable of understanding the nature of the digital world . Scarily ready to give our rights away to the highest bidder. We need to fight this we need a riot.. a copyriot

Unable to do much about it  I thought I’d start my own meme #copyriot  -If you think the laws are prohibitive restrictive and outdated feel free to use the term in your art whether it be writing, song, music or interpretative dance tag it !

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v

VNS matrix – file #002

“we are the modern cunt
positive anti reason
unbounded unleashed unforgiving
we see art with our cunt we make art with our cunt
we believe in jouissance madness holiness and poetry
we are the virus of the new world disorder
rupturing the symbiotic from within
saboteurs of big daddy mainframe
the clitoris is a direct line to the matrix
the VNS matrix
terminators of the moral code
mercenaries of slime
go down on the alter of abjection
probing the visceral temple we speak in tongues
infiltrating disrupting disseminating
corrupting the discourse
we are the future cunt”

original : http://www.sysx.org/gashgirl/VNS/TEXT/PINKMANI.HTM

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*needless to say my spell checker really hates me writing cunt cunt cunt cunt  ! These files are trawled from memory, fragments of files 404’s , things that were never archived buried under data. stolen from the mainframe .