art
Syndey CBD Laneways Art Installations
In the centre of Sydney there are a series of installations called By George Hidden Networks.
It finishes in February, so get a move on if you want to see it!
We came across the Laneways art project (By George! Hidden Networks) whilst looking for something to go and do for free in the centre of Sydney one Sunday. As it turns out – we had already seen one of the installations when we were walking through the streets behind Ivy Bar – Angel Place – with all the Birdcages.
Some of the installations we a bit wierd – but that’s art!
Pictures below
Himself
Getting Our Kit Off… In The Name Of Art?
Spencer Tunick – Does that ring any bells? Thought not… The photographer who gets people to take their clothes off and to be naked in very public places? En Mass? Yeah – That’s Him…
Update – Here
Well, Mr Tunick is coming to Sydney in a few weeks for Mardis Gras, to photograph the people of Sydney nekkid at the Opera House, and we kind of think well why the hell not – its a free morning out – we probably won’t do it again for a while…
According to the website its part of GLBT Mardi Gras Festival, so its not like there will be any competition – not! I think that everyone will be after stripping off for the day… wouldn’t suprise me if there are plenty of people who will just stay without for the day after the scenes that we have seen on a Sunday on Oxford St.
On the NMG website they say:
“New Mardi Gras, with the assistance of the City of Sydney, is pleased to announce that contemporary artist Spencer Tunick will be making a series of installations titled ‘The Base’ in Sydney on 1st March 2010 as part of the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras.”
If you want to join in – then there is an information page on the Mardi Gras site about it: Spencer Tunick
V says don’t have nightmares
Himself. x ( )( )
Some Links If You Are Interested – May not be work safe!
Sydney Festival, Mind the Gap and more
Team OurLittleJaunt have been a bit quiet on the Western (Southern) Front for the last few weeks but it’s all in the name of research, of course.
So before I render you goggle-eyed with a description of the things we’ve been up to, I’d like to share a few thoughts with you.
Mind The Gap
I use the underground most days, at least to get to work. Here they call it ‘the train’ (I once referred to it as ‘the tube’ and someone laughed in my face). On the platform between the edge and the train is the ubiquitous scrawl ‘Mind the Gap’ but the other day I saw a poster on the platform.
‘Mind The Gap Between the Train and the Platform’, it screamed, ‘Last year, 100 passengers fell down The Gap, sustaining injury. Make sure you don’t become a statistic!’
Now this might well be true. But why does it NEVER HAPPEN WHEN I’M THERE? I could do with a laugh. It may be worth noting that this warning appears at King’s Cross station which I think explains a lot. There should be a notice upon entering King’s Cross station full stop.
‘Mind the beer and the casual sex. Last year, 100 men fell down The Gap due to being unable to see/walk properly. The other 468 didn’t even make it down the escalator’
‘Scuse me, can you spare some change, please?’
Sydney’s a big city and so you expect a bit of this. The other day I was shopping in the city alone and was asked this question 4 times by different people. Finally, I was sitting in Hyde Park waiting for Himself to join me when a woman approached and asked me the same. I replied snappily, sick of being pestered, ‘For God’s sake, I’ve been asked for money by five different people today!’ and she retorted ‘Well that’s not my problem, is it?’
I must admit to being somewhat taken aback at her response, so much so that I was unable to come back with a witty rejoinder. Having said that, she didn’t get any money either which was probably enough of a blow for her, without then being subjected to my wrath.
When we got here, Himself and I made an agreement that we wouldn’t give to beggars – anywhere. Harsh – maybe, but where do you draw the line? Who is most ‘worthy’ to receive a few dollars? Why is person number five more deserving than the four others who’ve asked us that day? How do we know?
Ideally, I would love to afford to be able to skip round like the Easter Bunny with a basket of cash, throwing out $50 willy nilly to those who really needed it – who wouldn’t? It’s not that it doesn’t BOTHER me to see ladies old enough to be my grandmother sleeping on a pile of rags or rooting through bins outside McDonalds – of course it does. But the issue, like so much of this world, is not a case of a quick fix bung of money, it’s of course about housing, education, employment and in some cases, rehabilitation from whatever daemon needs exorcising.
I remember it touched me deeply in India to see the desperation in many of the beggars’ faces and it was something I never got used to, although I imagine I would in time. Here, people seem harder, less ‘desperate’ if you like, more chancing their arms and seeing what they can get away with. I don’t know if that’s a fair assessment of the situation and it’s probably hideously politically incorrect but it’s the feeling I have.
Moving on….
Fings Wot We Have Seen
I have no doubt that A will give you a deeper insight into the following events / acts but I thought I’d give a light overview.
MC ZULU (Beck’s Bar)
(No, this is not the name of Maccy D’s latest offering but I think it should be. ‘I’ll have a Mc Zulu please, with extra cheese. Hold the gherkins’).
Two Saturday nights ago (16th), recovering from The Mother of All Hangovers, Andrew and I finally got up (about 19.30) and dragged our sorry asses into town to see what we could see. We ended up at The Barracks where Beck’s Bar plays host to live acts during Sydney Festival, mostly of the DJ variety. It’s a nice open air / venue with a courtyard area with tables and chairs as well as a covered dance floor in front of the stage. There are quite cool moving light projections onto the face of the building.
On this particular evening, our ears were treated to the dulcet sounds of MC Zulu. A man with a large megaphone and a little pack attached to his belt which enabled him to incorporate ‘FX’ into his impressive display of what can only be described as…. well, shouting.
Telling an Irish friend about the incident (I’ll call it that) and MC Zulu, he questioned, ‘What? Was he as white as me, like?’ Part of me wishes that had been the case as it would have been the irony laced icing on top of an already rather nutty fruitcake – but alas no. The highlight of that evening was a minute steak sandwich from the food bar. And even that was decidedly average. We gave up.
ISY SUTTIE (Seymour Centre)
Look out for this one. I’d never heard of her before but apparently she played Dobby in the British sitcom ‘Peep Show’ – as we don’t watch TV I guess we were at a disadvantage here. Anyway, she was really good. Original, amusing, quirky, sweet and very talented. A bit sweary but not offensively so.
Her act is called ‘Love Lost in the British Retail Industry’ ( this is an exerpt from this year’s Glasto – not the best quality as videos go but it gives you an idea). It seemed to hit the spot with the audience which I was a bit surprised about because there were so many references to British culture, which I thought may lose them- along with the use of accents (generally Aussies don’t hear the difference in our accents).
She was easy with the crowd, relaxed and light. I didn’t get the impression she took herself too seriously, which was a breath of fresh air after Mr Zulu and his giant megaphone. She comes across as a very happy girl who loves what she does. And what she ‘does’ is a sort of monologue where she plays a few different characters interspersed with random tuneage – the sort of silly songs you make up in your bedroom on a boring Sunday afternoon when you’re grounded and left alone with a room to tidy and a guitar for company. She’s been compared to Victoria Wood but I think the only reason for that is the musical aspect of her performance and the variety of accents she uses. She’s got a style of her own and has channelled a gap in the comedy market where (at the risk of sounding like an erotic fiction writer,) she’s slipped in effortlessly. She’ll go down a storm next year at Edinburgh (as she did this year I’m led to believe) – watch out for her appearing on an issue of ‘Never Mind the Buzzcocks’ near you in the not too distant future.
GRAND MASTER FLASH (Beck’s Bar)
I’ll leave Andrew to tell you about this as it’s his ‘thing’ but I enjoyed it in the end and I know it made his week. If I write about it I’ll just make a fool of myself as I know relatively nothing about his work.
Andrew wore his ‘Ketamine – Just Say Neigh’ t-shirt (don’t ask – if you have to explain it, it just isn’t funny…), which got several ‘laugh out loud ‘responses and someone demanding a photo of it. Maybe they just thought he was really Louis Theroux and didn’t want to say…..
BY GEORGE! LANEWAYS ART (George St)
On Sunday, we were feeling rather subdued for reasons I won’t go into here, but we wanted to do something and get out in the fresh air. I have been intrigued for a while about this which we have seen advertised on various websites. We decided to go and find these art installations which are dotted around back alleys off George Street (one of the major thoroughfares through the city).
I cannot work out whether I think it’s a load of a**e or quite funky. I do think that the people who make up blurb such as;
‘I Dwell in the City’ explores the interactions between us and the places that we live and work in. The work echoes the lingering traces of all the people that have been and passed through this place, that over time have transformed the very nature of these buildings. The question raised then, is what kind of effect is the city having on who we are, and who we are becoming, and ultimately how it feels to be human in this world that we’ve built? It is perhaps in these strange traces of tenderness then that offers hope, as they slowly but steadily take root and crumble away at the hard nature of the city,’
must be laughing uncontrollably into their shishsha whilst doing so. It looks like a blob of fluff-ridden strawberry Hubba Bubba on a wall. I desperately want to ‘get it’ but I am struggling. Have I no soul?
Maybe not.
That’s all for now, off to see DJ Yoda. Will be uploading piccies shortly.
Recent Updates
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- Weekend in the Australian Blue Mountains
- Free Ben and Jerrys In Manly, Sydney – April 20th 2010
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