Editorial 1 November 2017

Performance Space’s Liveworks Festival of Experimental Art proved once again that it can challenge and exhilarate, generate intense debate, and party. This week we look at Eisa Jocson’s Corponomy, LabAnino’s This Here. Land (image above), Tetsuya Umeda’s Ringo, Mark Harvey’s Helping Hand, Lz Dunn’s AEON and Jen Jamieson’s Let’s Make Love, a fine constellation of works that expanded our sense of what is possible, formally and emotionally. Next week we’ll conclude our Liveworks coverage with responses to Justin Shoulder’s remarkably inventive Carrion and Geumhyung Jeong’s challenging 7 Ways and her strangely enlightening Oil Pressure Vibrator. While Liveworks offers hope through creativity, the Australian Government delivers despair, whether in its escalating, utterly callous maltreatment of refugees and those refused that status, and its nonsensical clinging to the Adani Carmichael coal mine venture. As we head towards Christmas, there’s no time to party. Art is not enough. Make your voice heard now. Keith & Virginia

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Top image credit: Andrew Cruz, This Here.Land, LabAnino, Liveworks 2017, photo Heidrun Löhr