uncontainable in every way

what happens in the container stays in the container...

we [punk monk propaganda] had an art installation at sydney university as part of our verge festival presence this year [we also curated the opening party with major raiser]. the shipping containers were dumped on campus and we were fortunate enough to be granted one to play with for the duration of the fest.

paste-up container photo copyright: konsumterra

this is what the exterior of our container looked like thanks to much loved street artists konsumterra & boots who kindly sexed it up for us. inside was an entirely different matter and quite a separate conversation which will be pursued later. 

it all started when kate taylor started thinking in UV & i was channeling shamanistic temples. somehow by closing night we were at naked roller derby girls and paint. quite an obvious progression really. 

ky-lee menzies is not as innocent as she looks in any of the matters above. but this is a well earned beer. because unbeknownst to us by the end of the festival, all the paste-ups had to come down...

it took the punk monk chicks six hours collectively to scrape those suckers off. while i gadded about at my art exhibition opening they did the hard yards. i dropped by with buckets & grabbed a couple of peace-keeping snaps en route. the air was damp & heavy.

although these hotties manage to make the task look vaguely fun, it wasn't nearly as much as what happened the night before [see below]. and that's before we got under the lights.

a test cut of my little avant garde punk monk film G.L.O.W. will be projection bombed on the back streets of tortuga studios, st peters for in the night garden at sydney fringe festival this friday. 

it's a whole different POV of roller derby girls. uncontainable & unforgettable. 

now that we've escaped the threatened charges of public indecent exposure & the glue stains have worn off one thing is for certain: roller derby girls meet punk monk chicks are extremely good sorts/sports. at least the ones we play naked painted ladies with.

F is for fun machine. no WD40 required.

my weekend was filled with fun. fun machine to be precise.

i guess when you come from canberra you have to make your own fun. and they do. then promptly injected sydney with it in a direct frontal lobotomy strike. there is no escape. the machine cogs in motion, fun is awfully contagious.

feet tap irrepressibly, smiles expand faces & lighten eyes, arms stretch high up into the hazy rainbow sky. we all share a great cosmic joke together. crowd & band are lubricated as one. aaah, deja vu.

the outdoor winter crowd goes crazy & hop wildly from start to finish like mad tripping frogs. on the bumpy road nee much-loved carpet heated by the lifesaving crucifix-carved 10 gallon drum-fire fueled on gathered wood pallets, dancing torsos mash together emergency blanket style illuminated by to die-for lights.

bec, the sexy singing drummer gets lost in her furiously funked rhythmic vibe.

...leading chris & ramsey on a sequinned love vibe. hot pants, spandex and glitter glam are de rigeur. this is a tropical night for ACTsiders after all.

we've defrosted too. i stay till the end with my darling dry july peeps & later we skip off into the night without the need for an early morning kebab indulgence for a change. no excess alcohol to soak up. strangely good. skipping not staggering or slurring.

with buoyant energy we collectively build on the creative brief we traveled to the warehouse gig with before seeing fun machine live. although we love the EP, the band has surpassed our expectations. we're now engaged to the power of infinity. pretty much. we leave harbouring mini stage crushes.

punk monk propaganda will be heating things up even further when these fun[k]-filled foxes return to sydney for their EP launch on july 13. 

rumour has it that we're developing a projected visual stop motion narrative in the form of a film serialisation as well as projecting our poetic eye candy live on the night. we can't wait to see either. good god!


fun machine EP launch -- desert creatures
good god small club
55 liverpool street
chinatown
sydney
july 13, 2011

sweet peats hangover

 photo: kate taylor

so the punk monks picnicked at peats. after a fashion. we sweated, kicked sand in our own face, painted with light & distorted soundwaves, curated a 360 degree film installation, & bled from our ears in the sweet stickiness of the heat & good vibes which oozed like an impenetrable aura around the festival-sphere. 

we made love to the geodesic dome & paid homage to the rejenr8 & figure eight tribes who held court there. visions of the phantom menace battle scene pervade except there were much less special effects. for the most part, excluding the dome, the few days there were really rather deliciously analogue/lo fi. as orgies usually are.

there'll be a more complete wrap later, once we've collated footage, images, etc and all sat together for a new year pow wow/debrief. however the ABC just did a story on the expansiveness of the art experience which is peats & profiled us [punk monk propaganda] featuring a much sleep deprived interview with me on the home strait of editing "15Mb of FAME" our crowd sourced film festival initiative. somewhere in the life-saving air-conditioned shadows, steven patiently waits.

so this is all about puff & ponce on the back of the wonderful punk monks collaborative efforts and muchos hard work as i run out the door to escape the urban swell and heat. time to mix up the scenery before chewing mammothian chunks into the year.

kudos to the peat's ridge punk monks & family. they are:

clare devlin mahoney

alexander papasavvas

kate taylor

ky-lee menzies

steven kastrissios

andrew berman

anna slowiaczek

alexander sovronsky

james crawford

jacqui stanton
domonique turner

15Mb of FAME [Peats Ridge 2010] 

it really was a supreme team effort. life at some points may not have gone on without a well placed gin & sparkling pink grapefruit juice. and this is one of our results: 15Mb of FAME. the culmination of 48 hours or so of crowd sourced punk monk driven lurve. power to peats ridge festival [waves at victoria johnstone] for having the vision to let us play in such a wonderful playground. we're looking forward to hitting rinse repeat again next year.

suburbs spawn existentialism

BTS with AWOL MONK: talking to heremaia rudkin about the "what if girl"

extract from #KSZ 02 [sydney kino zine]

ironically this month's behind the scenes featured filmmaker whose amazing almost bus stop romance originally captured my imagination at newtown flicks is featured in #KSZ02. the zine was released last night on the night of kino#37 where steven kastrissios who featured last month in BTS with AWOL MONK for issue 01 had an equally enigmatic almost bus stop romance short film screen as his first ever KINO film. stop the zeitgeist bus! the trick is whether there's a trifecta... tune in next month & see.

heremaia rudkin despite being disarmingly handsome is a quintessentially bashful kiwi boy made good. although he’d never admit it.  

we shared some locally brewed beers last wknd on an erskineville pavement under the sun & talked about the recent success of his no/lo-budget film WHAT IF GIRL which was awarded the panavision industry prize at the recent cool kid on the festival block, newtown flicks as well as playing in the shortlisted “audience bites back” finale night which featured the most popular film from each previous sesh. 

upon seeing the film i made a direct beeline. he oozes a polished yet casual KINO sensibility asking big questions in small format. his film is, dare i say, like him likeable. extremely identifiable. in a savvy understated eastern suburbs kinda way. despite being an inner west fest, the dilemma universal.

a graduate of NZ film school, heremaia dabbles in video production by day to pay bills but his passion for story telling takes him into the wonderful world of film at night. and yes his nan helped finance his short. hello australian film industry.

newtown flicks is the test fest for the film & it’s an undeniably great result & infinitely valuable springboard. newtown flicks provides a respected forum & veritable hotbed of talent lurking beneath the cinematic radar while gallantly competing this year with the competitive film calendar by going head to head with the 57th sydney film festival. a scheduling nightmare but still viable due to the scope of the programme. closing night was near full with all bums accounted for on seats.

encouraged heremaia now looks to his new town to provide the stimulus & setting for many more films with an avant garde music video in the works & a very different story. We talk 7D. canon has really hit the indie filmmaker sweet spot — there’s an observable trend. every other indie filmmaker is ditching their large format HDV cameras & downsizing/upgrading to the canon DSLR with HD video range.

his challenge [a problem common to many emerging financially-strapped filmmakers] however is to build a tribe to work with.

like the born-again pimp i am, i tell him about the new cine religion at fraser studios one monday a month & he promises to come. one thing there is no shortage of in sydney is a film subculture coupled with a community which supports & nurtures fresh talent. whether or not he does come, there is no “what if” about heremaia's promising screen future.

NB. images used are copyright the filmmaker [heremaia rudkin]. thanks to heremaia for use of pics]

BTS with AWOL MONK is a regular behind the scenes segment which can be found in every issue of kino sydney's zine produced by punk monks clare devlin-mahoney, alexander papasavvas & kate taylor with contributions from other kino lovers. [#ksz]

but where are all the pretty horses?

BTS with AWOL MONK: - talking to steven kastrissios about the horseman

extract from #KSZ 01 [first issue sold out may 2010]

steven kastrissios is a man of immense paradox. BEHIND THE SCENES he’s gentle, humble & wry. we’ve become great friends since we met in 2008 at a night of horror international film festival.

but his multiple award-winning accolade ripping feature film THE HORSEMAN which he’s just sold for international distribution reveals a guy ritchie on steroids meets early rolf de heer auteur. his characterisation brutal. bad boy bubby has left the building & moved into pest control. *sideways look*

the horseman story is one of fairytales. the kind with blood, sweat & tears. lots of blood. this is no holds barred action with gritty realism. steven envisaged it & succeeded. in the cinema i’ve seen people leave. in horror. i did some quiet gut wrenching of my own.

made on the wings of a short prayer based on his feature screenplay to garner interest, the brisbane exile then made this, his first feature in true blue indie fashion.

instead of a big fat greek wedding his parents invested their house against the now defunct 10BA cert [since replaced by the producer offset] to support his dream & his sisters eloped. well almost.

the gamble paid huge dividends since the end of 2006 when a small multi-tasking crew used one location in oh so many ways to stretch budget till the lycra was all spent & producer rebecca dakin could cook no more after a brilliantly choreographed 4 week shoot for what is technically a no-budget film. by australian standards.

as the awards rained down, steven returned to newly adopted sydney from a successful session at texas’s SXSW 2009 to wrap the marketing material for distributors & consider the calm before the prevailing storm.

we discuss the current climate for making films. “noone returned my calls before either” he says as we ruefully discuss my plans for his shiny new 5D mark II & share fantastical post-apocalyptic visions for future projects.

he leaves after drinking wine to catch a plane for his sister’s engagement party. like the prodigal son/brother he is, he has returned & she got her dowry back.

NB. "the horseman" images [including production shots] are copyright kastle films. thanks for letting me use them steven. the rest are copyleft/creative commons courtesy of yours truly.


for details re: the horseman australian theatrical release later this year please check kastle films.

BTS with AWOL MONK is a regular behind the scenes segment which can be found in every issue of kino sydney's zine produced by punk monks clare devlin-mahoney, alexander papasavvas & kate taylor with contributions from other kino lovers. [#ksz]

liquid light show launch

friday evening last. the hopetoun. kate & alex bring the wonder of the punk monk propaganda psychochemical experience as first experienced at their curated ALGAE RHYTHM 0:02 in the final days of the warehouse.

the first of many future collaborations with sydney band, hailer & the launch of the liquid light show event calendar outside of the confines of our own studio run walls... needless to say it was a huge alchemic success.

fellow punk monks; clare, felix & michael were there to soak up the iridescent matmos & record the experience for all posterity long after i disappeared into the night.

pix by punk monk, michael prechtl.

have dogtag, will SUFF [© @shoes_off]

thursday night. factory theatre. the third sydney underground film festival kicked off with the bang of a free bar & an incredible opening political prankster-saluting feature film [yes men fix the world] supported by tres cool industrial short pochsy & western spaghetti mash-up cattle call.

the pink flamingos & a handful of punk monks [including our new wonderful newly recruited german paparazzi] ran amok amongst the diverse crowd of subversive dogtagged filmmakers & lovers everywhere whilst the endless pizza & wine corks popped.

punk monk propaganda tribe have three short films playing which are the happy result of some collaborative KINO fun:

the sleeper [AUS] - kate taylor [sunday 18:30]

salome's picnic [GER] - victoria waghorn [saturday 18:30]

chick addict [AUS] - victoria waghorn [saturday 18:30]

come see us & support no-frills independent cinema. if not in the theatre we'll undoubtedly be at the bar pimping our wares & excitedly clutching our scratch 'n' sniff card for john waters' delightfully tasteless trangressive cult classic, pink flamingos which screens tonight at 20:30. eggs, eggs, EGGS!!!

[pix by punk monk felix pflieger]