i have a disco ball fetish. this serves as extreme escapism right now when pulling almost 100 hour weeks in the process of launching multiple projects simultaneously.
we both spin round at similar rates but our music accompaniment is somewhat dissimilar. my fat fractured hyper-breakbeats still resonate with soul.
for a few brief moments courtesy of a bad mobile photo in my stock library & youtube, the pace of the day is changed. which changes it forever. quiet time, no matter how minute, is invaluable in restoring perspective.
your concept of an honest loving supportive relationship is somewhat different to mine. but you do win originality points for your reconciliation approach, perhaps not for taste. but then it's such a personal thing is it not?
thanks for disappearing once more last night to "look after your mates". i see their care was in excellent hands. the boys club lives on. i get the picture. all four of them.
my life is a bit like this at the moment. which is just wrong. i've barely had time to think, to write my blog, which is crap because there's so much to share.
they say when you die one never wishes one worked more, or saw family/friends less, or unstroked the cat, or continued to neglect grooming one's claw like toenails...
organisation & thereby the manifested lack of it is all consuming. even though i love what i do it's all i do. which makes me question what do i want to do that i don't? but there's a whole universe to love in and out there.
as soon as your head never has time to meet your tail, it's time to rethink the program. there are only 24 hours in the day after all & some of them are meant for chilling. some people need to do less, not more. including me.
i own a pair of possum socks. maybe a scarf & hat too. they're knitted as opposed to welts of skin & fur. in new zealand where i come from possums are reviled rather than loved as they mercilessly consume the soft tendrils of native plants & decimate our native forests which haven't evolved in a way to protect themselves form anything other than foraging birds or the odd lizard. we turn them into clothes [which feel good]. some maoris & some hunters use them for food. possum & puha pie.
but i love possums with a passion i have for all animals i suppose. some more than others probably. my sister & i actually grew up with one as kids. an orphan, the product of human vengeance wreaked upon the innocent creatures they in turn unfairly introduced.
our childhood friend would run up along with us as we played fly & leap up from behind us onto our legs then our backs to perch on our shoulders or head with tell tale track marks clawed in irrevocable patterns into our skin. we didn't mind.
this one i found walking on the back streets of darlinghurst, peering wistfully out into the alley from someone's city backyard. i immediately shot it. with a camera.
in lieu of a "real" blog as i'm seriously time pressured, this is what i've been doing lately. me = producer & editor for feature art doco "queer street" with outsider artist christina conrad:
in her words --
Queer Street is a 75 minute documentary.
An outsider artist takes us on a shocking journey.
She was an angry baby,
her mother fed her on boiled silver beet juice.
she had no milk in her breasts
her sister had sucked her dry.
In the body of an obsessed child the artist wept into her oat porridge,
made islands in sour milk,
thus provoking prophetic words
from the mouth of her Mother.
Mark my words child
you will land in Queer Street .
She was in Queer Street ,
gas lamps hissing.
Weirdly lit shadows leapt down dark precipitous streets
their eyes whirlpools
their hearts strung on fetid cords -
their minds hideously lit
floating in the brackish waters of
broken dreams.
This story is told - some times in bardic tongue,
some times in childlike tongue.
The artist tells of her quest to find that well of apocalyptic energy
She must find a way to conduct the flames of inspiration
Conduct the flames or die.
Bound in a common cocoon, of moral, mental and psychic conditioning
instilled by paltry dictators within a punitive educational system
righteously subjugating the hearts, minds , of their victims
obstructing the natural flow of inspiration.
the artist ruthless in her obsession to birth legends of life, death,
must find a way to express the horrifying split between
the Eternal Mother & the obsessed Artist,
Blinded by her obsession. The artist left her children, husbands, lovers
to hack an invisible jungle of lost ideas - the bloody tracings of souls torment.
To give body to the voices of those whose lives were taken ,
who died without a name
we've been reviewed by melbourne film critics at screen machine for our screening at sydney underground film festival this past weekend. very honoured to be one of the three films to be featured for the day. thank you whitney, i was very nervous when i realised that we'd been reviewed & during the public Q & A i felt inarticulate and was almost falling off the stage from sleep deprivation having to immediately run off to finish another film to premiere the following night for our art exhibition [tomorrow's blog]. reviews are daunting at the best of times.
The twist: these newlyweds are psychopaths. The husband goes into a fit of ecstasy as he sniffs WD-40 before his murderous rampage. The wife, whose rapture is initially misread as fear, gets similar kicks out of being chained up as she waits for him. Their marriage is not consummated with sex as we might suspect, but with the violent murder of a ‘slant eyed’ woman. Through these variations on the idea of wedded bliss Waghorn’s film depicts a literal threat to normative heterosexual marriage.
The most arresting scene: A fairy winged bride masturbating to the sounds of her husband murdering their kidnapped victim. A sheep skull rests on her chest; its hollow eyes return the gaze of the audience. The woman climaxes, the film ends. This film is beautifully perverse.
i know some amazing women. they're so incredible they constantly blow me away & i can't believe there are so many of them. in some ways it really is a man's world. no wonder they all look so smug. i'm lucky enough to call some of these goddesses my friends, even though often i'm unsure whether i'm particularly deserving.
whilst i struggle with my own existence, the meaning of it and whether it ought to be continued, i end up coming back to the women of the inner sanctum in my life: raen, claire, clare, serena, sonja, marianne, kate, ang, ky, gina, monica, cat, jess, kathleen, karina, shell & sometimes conrad. the keepers of the secrets. there are men too but they number fewer even though typically i always liked men. sometimes it was mutual.
this is claire: the minx. the pragmatist. the comic. in my wildest fantasies i imagine us in our decrepit old age on balcony chairs gazing out together into the ether with vibrant blue rinses & cackles which soar to match.i am happy then.
but the thing is, which has been blatantly & painfully illustrated in my most recent love relationship is that there can be no future without a present. you can plan all you want but there's no point picking out the wallpaper & obsessively researching it if the foundations & roof aren't built. noone likes soggy walls. which invariably collapse.
one may as well just skip blindly down the unformed garden path back into the emotional wasteland from which we come from.
so i'm sitting facing the film edit which needs to be done in 24 hours for the opening of my group exhibition project gaia retouched with fellow punk monks clare devlin-mahoney & alex papasavvas. event = art riot for the inaugural sydney fringe festival. i suspect the only riot which will occur is my belated reunion with bed shortly after opening. for one reason or another we have been strangely parted in recent times.
pyjamas are de rigeur in this instance ie. editing. i've probably been in the same pose since 08:00 when there's a yell from the door. it's a courier not a debt collector. phew.
yesterday the same thing happened but i wasn't here. i was away in abbotsford laboriously special guest appearance editing another film [feature doco], queer street which has taken over my life the last couple of months before i limped off for a lunch meeting. i left my PJs behind that day. they pined miserably.
then i received a card via mailbox. when offered to the woman who always wants see my ID even though we may as well be lovers because i see her more frequently than any one else who deigns to be, she solemnly handed over a box. it was from canon. my missing 40D finally back, repaired with a new motherboard, six months too late. thank you to my sponsors, you know who you are. but i still want the 5D mark III...
today i get to deal with the nice asian dude with the digi signature handheld box & fluoro vest at the corner shop door. we're having an ongoing secret love affair but neither of us acknowledge it. he secretly admires my pyjamas in all their various incarnations. today recycled bootcamp wear which could have been more fittingly used for its original purpose.
i unconsciously caress my extra fat folds with increased ambivalence - it's like they appeared overnight. the postal service courier has never seen me dressed in spite of the fact he often arrives midday. that is our reality. this fits well with my age-old desire for a eurasian child. perhaps i should just jump him at the door?
with a startled excited cry [mine] he jumps back, and the opportunity is lost, not forever but till next time. i see who the parcel is from. scream queen viscera herself, the magnanimous ms shannon lark from chainsaw mafia. my wonderful US distributor & lover of things i make horror. it's a viscera film festival award. sadly i couldn't make it personally to receive in downtown LA in july this year but it's a wonderful consolation which after its photo shoot goes straight to the trophy room!
this award also goes out to my wonderful salome's picnic team, the little mobile film shot on the fly in germany has had a wonderful & unexpected shelf life. massive thanks for the original inspiraton from the festivalists at possible worlds canadian film festival for their challlenge invitation to make a one minute silent sex film. i was but one amongst many KINOites who heard their call. the film now does have sound, thanks to michael prechtl's incredible composition skills & ability to understand crazed vision.
other key team players were stephen dunstan who crafted the edit, felix pflieger & chris pur for being with me on the day & going along with the crazy australian chick who they'd only met once at the german horror film festival in their bavarian hometown. i'm so glad i made that late night phone call from my lonely little hotel room. you were not only gentlemen in the extreme but so wonderfully pliant, creative & pleasurable to work with [LOL] we shall have to try to do it again some more.
in the meantime i may keep this trophy by the door. it's quite a heavy handful & one never knows. its future employment in order to convince the mailman of my picture of our child might be required. i do like a man in fluoro.
art riot the sydney fringe upstairs annandale hotel parramatta road saturday september 11 opening is 18:00
there will be alcohol come drink my ration [i'm on antibiotics]
with conFICTION KINO regular, punk monk propaganda's victoria waghorn delivers random slices of life from around the world around her. much like the characterisation of any short film.
extract from KSZ #03 [kino sydney zine]
sketchy the cat gazed happily out into the golden hour from his balcony vantage point atop the world summit [at least in his reality].
his unprecedented arrival disturbed the swooping cockatoos who squawked their disapproval as they flew off to meet the rising sun.
leaving more than footprints, spent seed shells rattled on the balcony rails in their wake.
a solitary chair basked under the warming rays forcing the last stubborn shards of frost to run. noone rushed to sit, it was still too cold.
so my pins aren't exactly looking their best these days. i've developed a cankle this week leaving a mismatched effect in boots & most footwear for that matter. not to mention the limp. this is what lies beneath.
the question is: is it getting better or worse? it actually feels like my flesh is being eaten but perhaps that's just my overfertile imagination. it hurts. fear of hospital & medical intervention with fantasies of a future path in amputee devotism shake me somewhat although there is macarbe entertainment in the contemplation.
so i'm not sure the standard wound care with additional hypericum or rosehip oil is really cutting it. my leg is now rather swollen with purple mottling which is indicative of necrosis according to the interwebs. like every other sucker i've managed to self-diagnose myself into a state of rabid fear. this is what rabbits feel like in front of approaching headlights.
i am weak & would probably kill myself if my leg had to be sawed off. not that vanity could in anyway be justified from these unlikely shots. marilyn monroe would be horrified.
wild ruminations of a visit to hospital don't focus in the same fun way i often consider self-checking into a sanitorium for the weak-minded & fellow misfits. there's no finger painting in the flesh eating disease wing.
if this were a CYOA and you had a similarly justified suspicion of the medical/pharmaceutical industry knowing their statistics for medical misadventure armed with lashings of hastily researched knowledge. what would you do? does it involve alcohol... or finishing the film you've shot to be exhibited in three days. you can still make films with no legs right?
BTS with AWOL MONK: friend & neon animator Jack Feldstein in New York talks the talk, whilst simultaneously walking/flying.
the unabridged #KSZ 03 [sydney kino zine] version
KINO legend, neon animator & darling of the Rotterdam Film Fest, Jack Feldstein left our shores a few months back for the lofty heights of NYC. How dare he leave & is it all worth it? This is what he said.
Who are you? No really.
It'll take me...all my life to work that out...I'll never have a complete answer.
ET
Or...maybe... a package of paradoxes... who believes in going for his dreams.
Someone once described me as a man with "unbridled passion"... and that sounds right.
At school my favourite subject was integral and differential calculus. No, really. I'm not kidding. My facts are I was initially uni trained in science (pharmacology)...I left that to pursue scriptwriting and studied at AFTRS (Scriptwriting) and NIDA (Playwriting) and NYU (School of Dramatic Writing)... worked as a scriptwriter...and then after a while... did classes on Post modern and Modern art theory at COFA...which led to my neon animation filmmaking.
Personally...I was married very young and divorced very quickly after a couple of years. (No kids). I've been in a series of live-in relationships...
Now, as you know, I'm in a long distance relationship (which I'm learning ain't easy!)... with my perfect match. Madeleine.
I think the only constant in the "who are you?" question...is that it looks like I keep changing a hell of a lot.
When you grow up you want to be...
Taller. :^) ...someone who's always growing up.
You've got a very distinctive film style much witnessed over time at sydney KINO. How did it transpire? Does one need to be a technical wizard to neon-animate?
I see the world as I present it... in my neon animations. Very verbal, kinetic, energetic, quick, vivid, absurd. Perhaps, a neon animation is a peek into the inside of my mind. How I think I see things. My neon animations are perhaps representations... of what it's like to be... Feldstein.
I live in my head and a neon animation is the view from there. There's a film called BEING JOHN MALKOVICH. That film resonates with how I make neon animations. Artistically, I started off as a scriptwriter...and made my living that way for quite a long while. At the core of me...I'm a passionate writer. ...A definition of a neon animation...might be the physical projection of how I, as a writer, think. ( There's the science part coming out!)
Technically it's time consuming...but that's irrelevant. It's totally the content that matters to me.
Where do you take inspiration from?
Things I'm passionate about. Which I seek out in the world. Often they're in the conceptual/ideas realm.
You're pretty much a one man band. Your films are often completely & wonderfully self-created/contained from script to screen. If you were to collaborate with anyone who would it be and why?
I am collaborating with people. Here in New York. But also prior.
Through KINO SYDNEY I collaborated with Dan/Luke Simmonds (Meatpig)...and their song Neutron Betty...on THE ATOMIC ADVENTURES OF JACK KEROUAC..and that the New Yorkers/Americans really get into that one...so I'm grateful and appreciative for that...
My next neon animation "YOU'RE ONLY AS SICK AS YOUR SECRETS" is a project I'm creating in conjunction with a brilliant tragi-comedy duo I've met here. (Rick and Jenny) .
I'd like to say...that I'm a humanist, pluralist, relativist. ("All men are brothers" and other wildly unfashionable concepts)... And so I've always considered myself a citizen of the world. Rather than of a particular nation. I know that's idealistic and unrealistic and naive...but I can't help it. It's the way I think. So a city like New York...with its remarkable diversity and the forcing of differing cultural co-existence by dint of proximity...suits me in a way I hadn't quite realized previously.
The world, my friends...is simply a fascinating place...
An observation I continue to learn here.
And this ties in with the next question.
photo by: catherine davies
You're in New York. Why? What's happening there that isn't here? *pouts sulkily*
First of all... let me say SYDNEY is wonderful!
So now we've got that out of the way...my science side will come to the fore.
It's merely a numbers game. The USA has over 350 million people. Say 0.5% of them are artists. That's 1.75 million people. And many of them flock to NYC. New York is the USA center for indie art. It's a world center for indie art. That's historical. So apart from the Americans who gather here...artists from all over the world do too.
The density of artists here is astonishing...creating a vibrant cultural environment.
Artists bring new and original ideas. Thus the rate of new ideas here...is mind-blowing. A person, if they look, will definitely find what interests them. To me...new/original ideas are incredibly inspiring. Because I then get passionate about the new idea/thing...and want to collaborate with it.
My particular interests/passions are psychological/humorous/intellectual/literary/ironic/paradoxical/conceptual (etc). As I've mentioned before...it's the content of a thing that counts most to me...(I'm a reductionist...it's what they are saying that matters to me)
Look...I'm blabbing on too much attempting to write some analytical thesis.
In short...due to the sheer amount of people/artists here...I've easily found others whose work fascinates me.
So in my neon animations...I'm collaborating with...
A monologist Asian/American gal who entertainingly and nuancedly and intelligently monologues about racism. The comedy duo who are psychologically brave and honest and confronting in their tragi-comedy. A guy who is hysterically comic...(born that way)...and whose delivery makes anything I write far funnier then when I do it.
But also in my playwriting...one of my plays is being workshopped for possible production. And...some of my short plays have been picked up to be performed in unexpected places like Macy's... and even nite clubs...around New York.
I have also been approached by NYC bands and singer/songwriters to make music videos in neon animation for them. BOTANICA...commissioned me to make "YOU MIGHT BE THE ONE" which is being screened on MTV Europe (where they're well known because they sing in English, French and German)...and what's great is their check didn't bounce! :^)
Is the film culture in the States that much different to Australia. Can the KINO DIY spirit survive and be sustained in the cinematic Holy Land?
DIY...or indie culture...which I am a true believer in... relies on the individual. It's irrelevant where that individual is. He/she could be in Antartica!
If you had a film survival kit what would it include? Is it much different to life?
Not any different to life. Keep going and don't drop dead. :^)
Will we see you at SYDNEY KINO again? How do we follow your trail? Is there any of your work online...
Of course I'll be back visiting...you can see the music video YOU MIGHT BE THE ONE here...
In a while...YOU'RE ONLY AS SICK AS YOUR SECRETS will be posted online. I'll let you know.
first off a disclaimer -- let me just say that usually my leg looks slightly more attractive sans swelling & blister which has mutated into a somewhat necrotized lesion. if i had've known i'd be blogging this, i would have also moisturised prior.
this is not the result of a strange midnight encounter [as i originally thought] with a hot water bottle but an unconscious liaison with a brown recluse spider AKA fiddleback [my second this year] in my sleep.
moral of story: if you want a good night's sleep throw away the pills and hunt down your local spider for a DIY tranquilizer kit. oh and insure your legs before, not after.
we met dan on the beach at sunrise. he brought a large bag. we strung up his naked body then we cut him. we cut him good. note the puncture wound on the lower right. right after making him shave off his beard & hair. then ruining his clothes. all for art's sake.
the results can be seen very soon as usual suspect punk monk propaganda art collaborators AKA alex papasavvas, clare devlin-mahoney & yours truly stampede artriot as part of the sydney fringe.
punk monk propaganda recently met with the watershed as featured artists for the very soon to be officially launched sustainable bike library sponsored by sydney city council and marrickville council. collaborative consumption: it's an incredible initiative which continues the inner west on its upwardly mobile grass roots trajectory.
clare, alex & i faced the fun task of determining our design theme & being hands on with paint & brushes being limited to a monchromatic palette [so the bikes all match]. we even played with a few stencils here and there[no mean feat on a cylindrical surface]. we set up a frame in the kitchen of the corner shop which serves as punk monk HQ and got to work on our travelling haiku concept after shortlisting our handwritten collection we'd written together.
baiku is the end result of our wistful creative toil & will be unveiled following the public launch tomorrow with the other artist contributed bikes [friday september 3rd] where we'll have morning tea with the respective mayors, clover moore and sam iskandar and celebrate local government supported initiatives to keep our city and space a lttle more progressively green.
the bike library runs out of the watershed in newtown 231 king street and these incredible bikes with/without trailers can be borrowed for errands, adventure, shopping or taking the kids [big and small] for a group excursion. they're a bit like a travelling circus. the bike library charges a one off joining fee of ten dollars for residents and businesses alike and bikes can then be borrowed for periods of up to three hours for free.
the watershed
218 king street
newtown, sydney
02 9519 6366
the greener screen... everyone's pimping their eco warez these days & film being an incredibly wasteful industry is a prime candidate for a major production overhaul. emerging trend spotters & pioneers of issues to champion, NSW prime film educator/facilitator, metroscreen, was in on the act this week running a series of proactive green screen workshops from their always humming beehive hub.
the greener screen is all about sustainable practice in the creative screen industries & goes far beyond the mandatory lip service corporates often deliver whilst mincing words between other contradictory indulgences.
from the reduce, reuse & recycle mentality emerges practical working solutions from pre pre-production, through to the marketing & distribution of the final project. people are starting to become not just interested so they can stick another logo on their credits and pat themselves on the back whilst crossing boxes but actually genuinely make a difference & minimise cost/waste simultaneously, ID inefficiency and produce both a film and modify impact ecologically in the long term. it is possible. i was there, on the fringe. there were others. we ate delicious vegetarian finger food together.
punk monk propaganda were the invited installation artists for the metroscreen event which we snapped up since it has a little bit of everything we love all at once. in association with the bower we created an art work from entirely salvaged items to enhance a cooperative eco-interaction environment. clare & alex conceived & shopped.
on the day, alex diligently demonstrated that being a scout has excellent rope work advantages later in life & together we made this mutant incarnation... we considered calling it something obscure & typically wanky but "why run when you can barely balance" seems to have stuck & seems strangely appropriate.
green screens don't just have to be for bad mashups or CGI laden films. if you reduce saturation they can be B & W. is that a bastardisation of eco i wonder?
for further future forward metroscreen events contact kate taylor, network co-ordinator.
creative dysfunctional colour child + renegade fringe dweller of possible worlds. a bonafide cinephile + lover of magic. founder of punk monk propaganda: an active mutating experimental film tribe + socio-political art collective spawned from sydney's industrial fringe.
all images/content copyleft punk monk propaganda 2005-2012 unless otherwise stated. if you wish to repost or use anything from this website please credit me & pass on with love/respect. creative commons is the future. thanks!
