New ideas so often come from the darnedest places, as Marcus Westbury notes in the latest Griffith Review.

Cultures emerge from the spontaneous, temporary nature of human motivations, passions, interactions and enthusiasms. They often form in rebellion and opposition rather than by deliberation and design. They are unique and idiosyncratic. They result from adaptation and evolution, and they have a tendency to be strongest in the places where no one is looking or particularly wants them to be.

I completely agree. It’s the niche, the thrill of creativity reacting against whoever that needs support. But how - given the focus shifts so easily - and how - given the creation so often forms in reaction (to something)?

Global cities increasingly aspire to cultural prestige for its intangible aura and because they believe it will drive economic growth.

Cities invest in this stuff for a bunch of reasons - cultural capital, potential economic return, etc. The big things need that support and they’re easier to support, being institutional like the government.

When Adrienne Goehler, Berlin’s former senator for arts and science, was out late last year she said a relatively small investment in local scenes (for example, local bars/galleries that aren’t priced out of the market and can then experiment with music, art or other performance) is more effective in attracting young, creative scientists, technologists and artists than huge investments in supermarkets, research facilities and so on.

Should the funding model be a little less bureaucratic and a bit more entrepreneurial: e.g. Kiva, Zopa?

I do like badges. And these ones are especially cute.

They’re from Perth. Patrick Pittman of Omit Needless Words - but also freelance writer, editor, indie publisher (zines, an ethical guide to grocery shopping in Perth), community radio broadcaster - is selling these badges through his latest thing Novel Badges. They’re $3 a go.

ONW put me on to this hilarious thing too, Sleeve Face:

one or more persons obscuring or augmenting any part of their body or bodies with record sleeve(s) causing an illusion

Here it is on flickr too. More!

I can’t imagine there are too many theatre companies that revel in walkouts. Syd Brisbane, an actor with 25 years experience who’s worked with the Sydney Theatre Company and the Australian Shakespeare Company, founded The Rabble with designer Kate Davis and lighting/production expert Emma Valente.

Their latest - a version of the Biblical tale of Herod’s step-daughter Salome (first told for stage by Oscar Wilde), radically reinterpreted for the cavernous Bay 17 stage at Carriageworks - is short on words, big on physical drama. Apparently it’s inspired a few walkouts too. I’m looking forward to seeing it this week, but this morning Syd was our guest on Canvas.

(Me and Syd in the studio)

Here’s what we played.

Neu - DJ DSL
Percy On The One - Clutchy Hopkins
These Boots Are Made For Walking - The Boys Next Door
The Book I Write - Spoon
Come Around (Lovestoned Remix) - Urthboy
How Much I’ve Lied - Jason Walker
Time of Songs - Tapes ‘n Tapes
About to Walk - Throw Me The Statue
Shadowland - Youth Group
Are Ya - Mensy
Hold Me Down (Shoes remix) - Primary 1
No Tomorrow (prod Kirk Degiorgio) - Robert Owens
Wanderlust (Ratatat remix)- Bjork
So Low - The Mime Set
Aileen - Lindsay Phillips
Like Air From Your Lungs - Karoshi
Hands On Us - The Notwist
Bright Tomorrow - Fuck Buttons
Heart It Races - Architecture In Helsinki
Blue Planet (Abacus mix) - Chaser
Crying In Her Room - Silver City Highway

As if that wasn’t a headline waiting to happen.

Western Sydney community arts manager Lena Nahlous hinted all was not as it seemed with the 2020 Summit creative strand when she appeared on Canvas last Sunday morning. Nick Pickard’s article in today’s Crikey makes it explicit, saying the Initial Summit Report censored ideas discussed and included ideas never broached.

Oz theatre reviewer (and writer) Alison Croggon said:

Some points seemed disappear completely in the process: among them, a strong call for rethinking public broadcasting and the issue of responsibility towards climate change. Others surprisingly appeared: when Mr Rudd mentioned summer schools, the entire Creative stream went blank (”summer schools? who said summer schools?”) More generally, some concerns never quite made it to the whiteboards: a major oversight in the general debate was the digital gaming design industry, supposedly an area slated for discussion.

That shift came up in Pickard’s piece too:

What has amazed the delegates is that the initial report somehow changed ideas like develop “closer links between industry professionals and schools” into “Creativity Summer Schools”.

“No-one ever mentioned summer schools,” Crikey has been told by another delegate. “And the first time I heard about the Indigenous proposals was when the report was released on the Sunday.”

This is not to mention the contentious idea (also published in the initial report) which proposed that creative endeavours be funded “through a 1% creative dividend from all Government Departments for expenditure”.

“Everyone in that room knew that Queensland had tried that idea and that it had failed. I don’t know how that got put forward either,” the delegate explained.

Pickard’s source noted it wasn’t all negative:

“The summit has created a motivated group of diverse people who realised that we all have a lot in common,” another attendee has told Crikey. “Everyone realised that other people outside the stream were saying they needed the arts.”

Another attendee, the prolific (check his CV) Marcus Westbury, posted a blog entry saying much the same thing a week earlier.

Meeting people. The summit was a rare opportunity that brought together a wide range of people from across the creative, arts, cultural sector. Contrary to popular belief we don’t all hang out together all the time - particularly outside of narrow artform communities. It was both inspiring and practically quite useful to meet those people, realise that several issues cut right across the boundaries or artform or medium and begin to pull together a bit of a community going forward.

Understanding the power of symbolism has been crucial to Rudd’s government. But with this and the frankly bizarre delineation between gay unions and straight marriage - I’m married and certainly not “before God” - the government is showing the first signs of stumbling.

It’s true I guess. Sometimes I get half way through the day and realise all the clothes I’m wearing are from Incu and half the best jokes music I’ve heard came from Chris Wu at Popfrenzy.

Designer Vince Frost, uber editor Jess Scully, Sydney Festival director Fergus Linehan front up with Chris and the brothers Wu for a blow by blow from Time Out’s Sydney Style Council.

Chris on Sydney:

Until last year, I had been to the beach maybe twice in ten years, and then I moved to Coogee. Not that I go swimming or anything, but reading the papers by the sea or just seeing it from far away is kind of nice which I would have never thought. Maybe next year I will actually touch the sand.

He gave Cyclic a plug too:

Cyclic Defrost is also a local zine that is worth consulting because the articles are well developed and the subject matters usually diverge from mainstream musical trends and are written with a lot of heart.

Time Out must be giving the rest of the city’s tired looking street rags a real fright. Decent features (mostly), interesting, frank stories. What next?!

ICE director Lena Nahlous came in to FBI this morning to talk about last weekend’s 2020 Summit. She took part in the summit’s creative strand, and was one of a small number interested in (and demonstrably capable of) talking about digital media, creativity (as distinct from The Arts), and the audience out there for art drawn from outside the big institutions; art and stories from migrants, young people and women.

A Victim - Omar S
Around the World - The Death Set
Track 6 - Fabulous Diamonds
My Life (feat. Newham Generals)- Dizzee Rascal
You Are a Runner and I Am My Father’s Son - Wolf Parade
Water Curses - Animal Collective
Dancing On Our Graves - The Cave Singers
Footwork - Guilty Simpson
Shall We Take a Trip - Northside
Shut Up and Be Young - Parades
Magic Doors - Portishead
Goodbye Goodbye - The Lost Mariachi
I Feel It All (Escort remix - Feist
Marwurrumburr - Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu
Weapons - Son Lux
Counterpoint - Cleptoclectics
Eraser - No Age
Great Escape - No Kids
Arrabida - Portable
Slow Motion World - The Longest Day
Ethiopio - Noze

Often I find these sit in a shopfront stunts contrived - like the infamous Jabba/Regurgitator band in a bubble one a few years ago - but Hiromi Tango, currently holed up in the new window space at Redfern’s Grantpirrie, matches the wonderful colour anarchy of Japan’s Harajuku girls with the reflective self-assessment that has to come with sitting in a shop front, among your thoughts, for days on end.

She was described as “very enthusiastic” in an Auckland Festival performance last year: “she would have liked to have slept in her shop and be there 24/7.” The current one, ‘Am I Here, Can You See Me?’, has progressed a long way since the pic on Grantpirrie’s website was taken.

I took this photo on my mobile this afternoon, and I think Hiromi was bustling around behind the mess of tags, thread and letters.

Visit soon, Hiromi heads to Melbourne for Next Wave in May, where the Queensland Government’s given her $10,000 to set up another public performance piece.

Brisbane sound artist/musician Tom Hall put together a series of processed field recordings in reaction to one of Hiromi’s earlier works in the Brisbane Arc Biennial. It’s available for download here.

Sydney artist-run spaces and the work shown in them (at least last Thursday’s delivery) got dissed in an opinion piece by art blogger and broadcaster Andrew Frost in the SMH on the weekend. Frost’s not happy with what he sees as as a trend “towards the low key, personal and comic, as artists retreat to the quotidian value of their lives to find a connection with their audience.” It’s true, that is what’s out there. But having seen at least a couple of the shows he’s talking about, there was no shortage of wonder (say in Tim Moore and Tara Marynowsky’s show at Chalkhorse, Surry Hills), though the pieces were on the small and observational rather than State Of The Union scale. Doesn’t David Noonan have that end of the market wrapped up in his (admittedly gorgeous) Roslyn Oxley show across town?