RealTime E-dition 14 December 2016

RealTime E-dition

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Oh what a year! As the separation of powers within democratic governments weakens, the rise of dictatorial state capitalism (in which business and government finally become one) and the conservative push for a one-size-fits-all culture suggest, we can expect hard times ahead. Our editorial image is from Dmitry Krymov's Opus No. 7, a powerful imagistic account of the fate of Russia's Jews and the compromised composer Shostakovitch under Stalin; it's featured in the 2017 Perth International Arts Festival.

In 2016 we responded to adventurous art-making in capital cities—revelling in OzAsia and Liveworks—and ranged across the continent, from the Unconformity festival in Queenstown, Tasmania to If These Halls Could Talk in northern NSW, the Darwin Festival, BIFEM in Bendigo and, in this E-dition, Artlands in Dubbo. Our coverage of experimental works gives us great pleasure, but reminds us too of the many artists denied funding because of the brutal Brandis-Fifield funding heist.

Take the holiday season to revive your spirits. We look forward to keeping you in touch with the art that sustains us in 2017.

Keith & Virginia

PIAF 2017: A VERY SPECIAL PLACE Perth International Arts Festival Artistic Director Wendy Martin and Keith Gallasch discuss works and events in her program that evince a potent sense of place—personal, cultural, ecological and political—newly experienced through art.

SYDNEY FESTIVAL: SHIFTING THE GOALPOSTS
Nikki Heywood quizzes director-coach Martin del Amo about moves, tactics and injuries prior to the opening of FORM Dance Projects' all-female football-dance performance, Champions, which will be staged with live commentary from Seven Network's Mel McLaughlin.

IN LIGHT OF DARKNESS In Light Geist at Fremantle Arts Centre, curator Erin Coates draws gallery-goers into "a series of ghostly, spiritual and cognitive encounters with light," writes Laetitia Wilson.

LOVE, MATERIALISM & METAPHYSICS In a surprising new film by John Gillies, Witkacy & Malinowski: A Cinematic Séance In 23 Scenes, the writer and the anthropologist quarrel on a train trip in Queensland in 1914. Meanwhile the driver and fireman converse absurdly about relativity while pushing their machine to the limit.

COUNTERBALANCING CHAOS At Melbourne's Substation, Gail Priest is entranced by Motorgenic, an exhibition of ever-evolving robotic music makers created by composer, instrument builder and installation artist Robbie Avenaim.

SYDNEY FESTIVAL: MAKING SCENTS OF SYDNEY
Gail Priest interviews olfactory artist Cat Jones about the origins of Scent of Sydney, a new work that portrays the city in terms of the aromatic associations its citizens have when thinking Competition, Extravagance, Resistance, Democracy and Landscape.

RE-IMAGINING 'REGIONAL'
Liz Bradshaw reports from the Artlands regional arts gathering in Dubbo that ideas practical and radical were in abundance alongside blindspots, including a telling gap between conference and festival.

THE JOY OF PULSING COMPLEXITY
Greg Hooper revels in performances by Brisbane ensemble Kupka's Piano of works by Chris Dench in which "any underlying complexity is in complete service to a musical purpose deep with feeling."

AUDIOVISION 25: ON AUTHORED SYNAESTHESIA
Has Speak Percussion "dislodged the maximising centrality of sonic eventfulness" in their Fluorophone concerts? asks Philip Brophy in his critique of the increasing dominance of theatricality over sound.

GIVEAWAY: WEINER, DVD Much more than an entertainment about a compulsive sexter, Weiner examines the 2013 New York City mayoral campaign of disgraced congressman Anthony Weiner, "captured in the fullness of his ambition, passion, intelligence, serial contrition and bizarre self-delusion."

GIVEAWAY: SPEAR DVD
Bangarra Artistic Director Stephen Page's striking debut feature film centres on tensions felt by a young man caught between an ancient, still vibrant Indigenous culture and a competing, feverish modernity played out across Sydney streets and landscapes.

RealTime E-dttions are published by Open City an Incorporated Association in New South Wales. Open City Inc is supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding body, and by the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy [VACS], an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments. RealTime’s Principal Technology Partner is the national communications carrier, Vertel.

Opinions published in RealTime are not necessarily those of the Editorial Team or the Publisher.

RealTime, Open City Inc
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