Reading Lips

The Artswipe
Sign Language 2007
Mobile phone moment

With the looming election, I felt it time to get back to basics and explore some nationalistic themes - usually a hot topic here at The 'swipe. A favourite moment in recent times (say, the last month or so) has been the introduction of the Australian Citizenship Test, which is so important it even has its own Wikipedia entry. In case you've been living under a rock (let's say Uluru in this instance, or Ayers Rock if you prefer) applicants for Australian Citizenship have to pass an Australian citizenship test. As summarised by Wikipedia:

The objective of the test is to prove an applicant's grasp of English language and understanding of Australia’s "values", history, traditional and national symbols. Citizenship applicants will need to study a booklet produced by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. The computer based test will consist of 20 multiple choice questions drawn randomly from a pool of 200 confidential questions. The test will only be available in English. Applicants will have 45 minutes to complete the test. The material is drawn from the official guide "Becoming an Australian Citizen" published by the Australian Government department of Immigration and Citizenship. Applicants must obtain a mark of at least 60 per cent to pass but must also answer three mandatory questions correctly. Applicants will need to pass the test before they can submit their citizenship application.

OK, so that's the official line. I agree Australian values are important. But who sets the tone for what is characteristically Australian knowledge? Obviously the whole thing is designed to ensure migrants 'assimilate' into the Australian way of life. That good old fashioned 'A' word: assimilation. It's like a cross between ass and simulate and something Australians know a lot about: the simulation of assholes.

So I was wondering what questions I'd want included in the test, so that it is a true snapshot of Australian life. For instance, is there an Australian art question? Surely there should be something about Brett Whiteley as he's the only Aussie artist apart from Pro Hart that non-artsy people know about. So the question could be:

How did Brett Whiteley die?
A: face bitten off by a grizzly bear
B: auto-erotic asphyxiation
C: heroin overdose
D: thrown from rollercoaster at Luna Park

You may think of others, say some pop culture inspired ones:
What type of bird is Ossie Ostrich?
A: Ibis
B: Plucker
C: Kookaburra
D: Ostrich

Or even something about indigenous culture:
Which word are Aboriginals not likely to hear from the white fella?
A: sorry
B: pardon
C: apologies
D: all of the above, but especially A.

Or perhaps something about Kylie Minogue:
Complete the name of this Kylie Minogue song, "Confide in ___"
A: Michael Hutchence
B: Molly Meldrum
C: Mel Gibson
D: Me

If you have multiple choice questions you'd like to add to my "Getting your Aussie L Plates" database, just comment at this blog or send an email to: theartswipe at hotmail dot com.

Just one thing before I go, I'm no racialist but really there is nothing worse than being the only person in the room who can't speak the language. This happened to me recently when I found myself at a speed-dating event for the deaf. Everyone was talking in sign language. How did I find myself there? I hear you ask. I was told really hot people are sometimes deaf. NB. Marlee Matlin. The only bit of that night that I could understand was the screening they had afterwards of select Home and Away episodes, which came in both spoken and sign language. Look, I believe Home and Away is a good start, but the deaf should think a bit more carefully about the politics of effective assimilation.

Dry Me Kangaroo Down, Sport

The Artswipe

Dry Me Kangaroo Down, Sport, 2007

Another mobile phone moment

Welcome to the month of May, I have really nothing to say. So here's a picture I took yesterday in the toilets at work while drying my hands. It can be awkward enough finding yourself in the toilets with a colleague, making small talk and all. It can be harder to fathom when they come to work dressed as kangaroos and emus.

Mufti Days have never been my forte.

Cultural Currency

The Artswipe

Cultural Currency (I [Heart] The Shire) 2007

Mobile phone memory

The Artswipe has really been getting into the suburbs lately. Who hasn't? It's the suburbs where you're gonna find that piece of literary gold or visual motif that just ties you're whole oeuvre together - you know - culturally speaking. Actually no, I don't know what I mean, but cultural currency is very now, and I hear it's all taking place in the suburbs. Or at least it's in suburbia where you could stop someone in the street and ask if they know what cultural currency actually is. Just to prove a point, I stopped a little old woman on the street and asked her if she knew. Poor old dear just gave me some spare change. Bless her cotton socks.

The Artswipe
Cultural Currency (Hard to Breathe) 2007
Mobile phone memory

Going down on the South has always been a dream unrealised. So yesterday I took a trip down to Cronulla Beach, in Sydney's southern suburbia badlands aka the Sutherland Shire. It's been years since I've had a Chiko Roll on the white sand dunes of Cronulla, had a surf with the old gang, used the old metal detector to find a quick buck. Oh those were the days. But wait, there's also those times I avoided being raped in a carpark by a pack of guys expelled from Northies pub for being too drunk - overhearing them referring to each other by their nicknames: Whopper, Tyson-T, Mad Cunt - was almost enough to make me beg them for it! Christ, the Chiko Roll gets a bit fucking boring after awhile.

The Artswipe
Cultural Currency (Ride) 2007
Mobile phone memory

Memories fade. There's only the here and now. Or Eternity by Calvin Klein if you're, like, in a real hurry and don't have time for past or present. So I'm at Cronulla reminiscing about the old days. I've got my old tapedeck with me. You know the ones which take about ten double D batteries and has separate play and record buttons, which have to pressed simultaneously to record your favourite song. Don Henley's Boys of Summer was one of them back in the day. Today it's just the news. And what news it was! A tsunami warning and the beach is evacuated. I'd expected at best a little race rioting - but a tsunami - who knew?! "Ocean beaches along Australia's east coast have been closed after the Bureau of Meteorology issued a tsunami warning today. Coastal areas from northern Queensland to eastern Tasmania were placed on alert after a large earthquake which measured 8.1 on the Richter scale jolted the Solomon Islands this morning. All of Sydney's ocean beaches have been closed," as one report noted.

The Artswipe
Cultural Currency (Car Parks Aren't Safe) 2007
Mobile phone memory

The jaunt down memory lane didn't exactly last long enough to help solve the cultural currency riddle. I could stay on the beach and maybe drown with a tsunami that's bound to probably suffer a bout of performance anxiety, which is in fact what happened as it didn't reach Australian shores. Shopping malls always make great places to seek shelter from disappointment, an apocalypse or your usual garden variety zombie infestation. George Romero knew it when he made Dawn of the Dead. Following his lead, I made my way to Miranda Fair. It was there I learned that cultural currency has a uniform. A white t-shirt that says "I [heart] The Shire" and a tie featuring the Australian flag. Not the Indigenous one, the other one. You know, the blue one with the Union Jack and a bunch of stars on it. The one flaunted with gay abandon in the front yard of about every second house you pass on the way to the beach. Quick, SMS and say you love me, that you call Australia home, that you'll be there when I need you most. Like the time I could barely breathe through the grief I felt, we all felt really, when the Crocodile Hunter of my [heart] found solace in his own franchise in the sky.

Inventing the Wheel

The Artswipe

Church of the Poison Mind, 2007

Mobile phone snap

So the NSW State election is over. Yes, I resisted casting a vote for the Australians Against Further Immigration party. I just can't get behind that. You see, I was handed the 'How to Vote' form and I couldn't get past the letters AAFI. Wondering if this party might not prefer starting a global rumour that Australians Are Fucking Idiots, I decided I'd rather die with shit in my mouth than vote for a party that doesn't understand how the colour wheel of life is, well, the best kind of wheel. (Wagon Wheels are good too).

After seeing this poster on a church-like building near where I voted, I started thinking more about colour - both in racial and aesthetic terms - and decided I would start my own Artswipe campaign to make immigration more important than ever before, if only to annoy the white type of Aussie Christians who take it upon themselves to create hybrid faiths that link cultural intolerance with religion and bad banner making. Then again, I haven't seen a pink church before. (Actually I'm not even sure if it is a church). Being that pink is so charged in meaning for chicks, fags and the occasional metrosexual, maybe we can give this little church - or whatever it is - the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps we should all inject cultural difference with a fresh coat of pink paint. Maybe this was not, after all, a church of the poison mind. And maybe, just maybe, it was not populated with a true blue crew of white washed rednecks adorned in green and gold.

Quiet Riots

The Artswipe

Australia Day, 2007

Pen on paper

Welcome to 2007 kids! May it be happy for one and all. To kill two birds with one stone: best wishes on Australia Day. Reach for the Southern Cross stars with newfound nationalistic sentimentality like never before. While you're there have a case or three of VB on me.

Of course, on Australia Day, Artswipe will let you fly whatever goddamn flag high as you like. If you do, make the riot quiet - like a schizophrenic's internal dialogue. The intricate subtlety, powerful aplomb and somber sobriety of an internal dialogue can go a long way in proving that reconciliation is not just for Catholics. The Artswipe hasn't been sleeping well since the Cronulla Riots, which happened just over a year ago on that titular southern Sydney beach. And so if you want to riot amongst yourselves, you should have saved it for the post-Christmas sales because after Christmas Artswipe astral travels into a deep dark multiliquor shaded karmacoma and can't be woken for anything – not even some cut-price fingerless gloves from Prada or Collette Dinnigan macramé fancywork.

So Artswipe's blog is back in town. I know you've missed me. I promise 2007 will be Artswipe's coming of age, an age of coming as it were.

Stay tuned: during the week Artswipe will offer some commentary on Nicole Kidman's tepid turn as Diane Arbus in Fur. Artswipe also hopes to do a quick run around town and take in some art shows in their last days, to stave off that bitter feeling of neglect art experiences during the Christmas shut down. Maybe even shed some Oscar tips.