The video art was
titled She'll be Right, and
was a work by an artistic duo called Clark Beaumont. It involved a
reworking of aspects of the Australian films, Muriel's Wedding
and The Castle. Both
of these films represented Australian identity by exploring the
ironies and hardships that the Aussie “battler” confronts in
modern everyday life. Thus the soundtrack was familiar to me,
“Heslop, Heslop, Heslop!” was a cry I had uttered myself in high
school drama class whilst preforming the scene of the troubled
brother playing football with himself in the backyard in Muriel's
Wedding. So I stood in the
Boxcopy's room, peering at the videos through the gloom, showing the
two female artists parodying this scene in order to “return to the
site of identity production”i.
It certainly returned me to the site of identity production, because
I and my peers had all quoted both movies at some length, for the
films engaged directly with the Australian psyche.
The
videos all showed the same looped series of clips that the artists
have re-performed, albeit at differently timed intervals. This was a
little confusing to me, because it was simply the same video on
different screens, with the screens set at different levels around
the darkened room, giving me the sense that the artists or curators
were simply padding the exhibition out. And as much as the videos
were a nostalgic sojourn into the formation of individual and
national identity, they lacked any applicable creative significance
for me. I could have got the same impressions from simply watching
the original films again, and having the artists re-performing them
simply reinforced the power of those films as formative identity
markers for the Australian character, and failed to engage me with
the works on an artistic level. Thus I would disagree with Emily Lush
when she writes that She'll be Right
offers “a new framework for the way we approach our projected
selves and engage with our mirrors.”ii
It simply offers an old way to engage with our appropriated
identities and feel warm and cosy as those familiar and
non-threatening identities are relived.
I
was unable to spend much time in Boxcopy, because it felt like a
closet, and after viewing the looped videos for several minutes, I
determined their nature and grew bored and found nothing else to
engage my attention in the darkened room. The lonely assistant sat at
her desk, face illuminated by her laptop, (absorbing and projecting
an identity within the internet most likely).
It
is great to have ARI's that support the roles of emerging artists in
Brisbane, itself an emerging Art-city. It is also great for artists
to be given the opportunity to freely express their ideas creatively
and have a platform to show them from. She'll be Right
is a strong reminder of the contours of the Australian identity, yet
it failed to excite or inspire me.
iLush,
E. 2012, I'll be Your Mirror, Clark
Beaumont She'll be Right, exhibition
overview, Boxcopy, Brisbane.
iiLush,
E. 2012, I'll be Your Mirror, Clark
Beaumont She'll be Right, exhibition
overview, Boxcopy, Brisbane.
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