Production Values

The Anna Nicole Show

"As Anna Nicole Smith, the unblushing celebrity whose antics were at once garish and pitiful, collapsed in her suite at a Florida hotel and casino, people sat feeding coins into slot machines five floors below. It was a very American death."
- Ben Cubby & Emily Dunn, "End of a Party Girl," Sydney Morning Herald, 10 February 2007.

These two sentences introduced today's Herald article about the life and death of celebrity train-wreck Anna Nicole Smith, whose life literally derailed the other day when she was found dead in a hotel room. Artswipe has always admired Anna Nicole because she embodied the white trash American dream more than any other. Stitched to the nines in shit for brains cheap glamour, Anna Nicole's circuitous path to fame mirrored the Paris Hilton brand except one was born into hotel money, the other died in a hotel with oil money amassed along the way. Anna Nicole's second husband, a Texan oil tycoon, was a million years her senior when she married him at 26 years of age. He dies, she inherits, and her claim to the cash is contested at Supreme Court. At the time a judge asks Anna Nicole about her situation to which she replies: "I just wanted to make a name for myself." The judge presses her: "What name is that?"

"Anna Nicole Smith," is her winning reply.

Maybe she's a little smarter than the former stripper seemed in the media spectacle groundswell following her every chemically-enhanced hiccup. Born Vicky Hogan in 1967, she changed her name to Anna Nicole at the edge of 17. Around that time Anna Nicole was busy getting married to her first (unwealthy) husband and giving birth to son Daniel, who died suddenly five months ago - a mere three days after Anna Nicole's second child was born. When she changed her name to Anna Nicole, she knew fame was all about the name. Her name. For Anna Nicole, her name was an epic neon wonderbolt lighting up the dank cesspool of famous-for-being-famous celebrity skank. Where Paris Hilton's star emits greenhouse gasses, Anna Nicole's saintly sheen could multitask by eclipsing the planet, sending us into a tailspin of darkly drrrty moments that momentarily plugged the hole in the ozone. Those not content to just look on and admire her gifts to the globe could feed coins into her slot machine. It was a very American life.

One of Anna Nicole Smith's paintings

If she knew her name could attract attention, it was no more honed to perfection than in her reality TV show, The Anna Nicole Show (2002-04). In an episode from the second season, "Something Trendy This Way Comes" (2003) Anna Nicole shows her artist side. This was the side Artswipe loved the most. You see, Anna Nicole fit perfectly into the "outsider artist" tradition, which is odd because she was not really outside of anything. She was so in. Regardless of what, where or whom she was "in," Anna Nicole's paintings sported that outsider naïvety, suggesting either arrested development or postmodern chic, you decide. If she'd lived earlier she would have been one of Warhol's superstars, and fought with Brigid Berlin for "just one more qualude, daaarling."

According to Anna Nicole, "part of having an art opening is schmoozing the crowd and sometimes the crowd schmoozes with the artist." One such schmoozer appearing on the show is David Galgano, an art dealer who apparently sells a lot of Andy Warhol work. Talking up her artistic ability while Anna Nicole nods ever so shyly, Galgano describes her work as "pure" and "painted from the gut." Having bought one of her pink paintings, he promises Anna Nicole that he'll hang it in his home next to the Rauschenberg.

Anna Nicole was a pop artist briefly during one year of her life, and Artswipe really admires that. If she'd lived longer, it's near certain she would have curated blockbuster exhibitions at MOMA or the Tate Modern. We just know if Anna Nicole made a pilates or work-out video it would have been so fucking cool that some visionary curator would have shown it on a triple projected screen at the 2010 Venice Biennale. Australian skateboarding video artist Shaun Gladwell would be so jealous she thought of it first he'd ask Anna Nicole to collaborate with him on a video work. Anna Nicole would say no because production values are not just her art, they're her life.

Why Anna Nicole's work isn't represented in all the major collections around the world Artswipe will never comprehend.

What's New in Post-9/11 Culture?

Brothers and Sisters

Why is that when American popular culture (especially television and film) reference the present war in Iraq, it does so in an overly self-conscious, corny and clichéd manner? For some time the Artswipe has been deeply suspicious of the tendency to interpret culture within a "post-9/11" frame. Of course it's important for art and culture to reflect the political and social conditions of the present day, but frankly, it just irks me that so much cultural production becomes a beacon for a "post-9/11" paradigm shift either because such themes are deliberately implied by a producer or because said themes are unpacked by a zealous critic. Understandably most culture that is produced or interpreted in this manner derives from the United States. And sure enough, we live in a "post-9/11" world because American critics and/or publications repeatedly say so.

A case in point: if you type "post-9/11" into the embedded Google search engine of the online magazine PopMatters, you get "about 500 results". PopMatters is self-described as "an international magazine of cultural criticism", with global focus and reach, but featuring mostly US writers and published in Illinois. It usually casts a fairly sharp and entertaining eye over the landscape of global popular culture, but often gets caught up in the convenient dogma of the day, which most notably according to Artswipe, is rendering the world at large a post-9/11 vessel adrift in its own complex quagmire of contradictory politics. Then again, PopMatters ain't alone. Evidently, the phrase "post-9/11" is a convenient moniker espoused on a widespread level: if you abandon the Google powered PopMatters search engine and enter "post 9/11" into Google proper you can expect "about 46,000,000" results. If Artswipe felt "terrorism fatigue" five months ago when the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 Twin Towers attack unfurled worldwide as media spectacle, then suffice to say, Artswipe is now asleep at the wheel.

Describing culture in "post-9/11" terms is certainly not new. Surely some doctoral student somewhere is researching the origins of the term and its cultural application as we speak. But why now does Artswipe feel so compelled to speak about it? The "post-9/11" US series Brothers and Sisters premiered on Australian television on Monday night (Seven Network, 5 February 2007, 9:30pm), five months after its "post-five-years-after-9/11" US release date of 24 September 2006. Finally it is safe to say that this tv series lays claim to being embalmed in the most ridiculously saturated gloss of "post-9/11" jingoism.

Sure, I waited with bridal anticipation the entire week before it aired because I have had a huge crush on Rachel Griffiths ever since she played the fucked up slut guts Brenda Chenowith on HBO's Six Feet Under (2001-2005). Since that show drew its last epic breath, I have been in deep grief and nothing televisual (not even Dancing with the Stars) can inspire me to shake it off. But Australian advertising is insistent – it cashes in on nationalistic intertextuality by up-selling the presence of Australian actors who adorn new US or UK tv productions. Clearly Calista Flockhart is the star of Brothers and Sisters (though perhaps its undoing) but on Australian screens "Our Rachel Griffiths" is its draw card. Translation for non-Australian readers: "Our Media" heralds the work of any Aussie artist whose stardom has come about after leaving the Antipodean shores. It's about ownership – we must never to forget that Rachel Griffiths, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crow, Hugh Jackman, Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Naomi Watts, etc. are "ours", "we own them", "hands off". It's as if "Our Media" is reminding the stars more than the audiences that "we made you, we will break you if we have to".

At PopMatters, Michael Abernethy rightly notes that Brothers and Sisters is a convoluted mess of a show (despite Aussie TV critic Robin Oliver from the Herald's Guide calling it a "spine-tingling experience"). My spine certainly tingled but only because of the confusion one might expect when a vast cast and complex plot lines are being introduced in a pilot episode. When the first episode was over, I was so confused I went to the official site for the show to get the official plot synopsis. Considering it revealed more than I managed to decipher while viewing it, I have quoted it for you below (and to save me paraphrasing dull narrative exposition):

"Brothers and Sisters follows the Walkers through the maze of American life today - the pressures, limitless options and the struggle to grow beyond our backgrounds into ourselves. Through these fascinating siblings - Sarah (Rachel Griffiths), the corporate VP struggling to balance motherhood with career; Tommy (Balthazar Getty), the loyal son and seeming heir to the family business; Kevin (Matthew Rhys), the gay lawyer cautiously learning about love; Justin (Dave Annable), the baby of the family, grappling with war trauma and addiction; and Kitty (Calista Flockhart), right-wing radio host turned TV pundit who has always been Daddy's little girl - the show explores what it means to be a family in the 21st century, and how these brothers and sisters balance their own lives as they strive to accept their parents as people - flawed, contradictory and forgivable - rather than just as a father and mother. The parents are Tom Skerritt as William Walker, the larger-than-life patriarch and president of the family business, and Sally Field as Nora Holden, the opinionated wife and mother to the five Walker siblings."

Silly me, how did I miss it? Obviously, considering my "post-9/11" introduction, the younger brother as Iraq war veteran is what caught my eye the most (well, second to my lust for Rachel Griffiths). But seriously, I thought he was dead - a casualty of war - because it seemed as if he was being regarded in the past tense. Clearly I nodded off in the split second where his character is introduced. You see, the show revolves around Kitty, the dumbfuck right wing radio diva whose heart of gold accommodates the brightest shades of red, white and blue, even if she's despised by her mother, Nora, for her political views. In the episode's most dramatic moment, Kitty and Nora have a showdown, and Nora explodes because of the heartache a mother experiences when a son is fighting in a war she doesn't agree with. Together they acknowledge that Kitty had a hard time living in New York when the World Trade Centre was attacked, especially because poor Kitty lived just down the street from Ground Zero. Nora was there for Kitty then – she felt her pain because it was everyone's pain. Re. the war in Iraq – the pain feels more like abuse than grief. Kitty suspects the strain wedged between this mother/daughter relationship is not politically driven: "I don't know what it's about but it's not about the war". What a corker of a line! I must use that one whenever anything is described as "post-9/11". It's almost as good a line as the one Kitty says repeatedly to various family members when they challenge her: "It's not about my politics".

Perhaps, then, Brothers and Sisters works on one level at least. It reminds me why I am so vehemently opposed to US right wing propaganda. I'm with Nora: Kitty is a nasty piece of work and undeserving of a mother's genuine love. Even though it's probably preaching to the converted and even though Kitty is probably redeemed somehow (such is narrative convention) I must marvel at this "post-9/11" melodrama for explaining the denial mechanisms embedded in right wing views: how everything is simultaneously about and not about the war; about and not about "my politics". Maybe by next episode it will explain why we are meant to believe Kitty is 31 years of age, when Calista Flockhart looks every bit her 42 years despite her undoubted penchant for cosmetic enhancement.

The Horror of Her Nothing to See

Nicole Kidman and Ty Burrell in Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus

Recently I did myself an art favour and saw Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus. When you can't be fucked walking through a museum, an art biopic can really go a long way in providing some aesthetic nourishment. And yeah, that's the kind of meat and potatoes one needs to grow big and strong amidst the beige tones.

I remember a bit about Diane Arbus from art school - she was, like, one of those crazy art ladies who suffered, probably from her own eccentricity bottled as genius and marketed by art dealers as the "real deal". Maybe her work pushed the pioneering envelope in a world where women might not paint or sculpt (or at least they didn't get credit for it). But women seemed particularly suited to photography because pushing the button on one of those camera device thingies can really help reinforce off-kilter freak-fetishism. A sense of rarified otherness. Women do photography well because, well, as an overly democratised medium - readily accessible to the masses during the rise of twentieth century consumer cultures patented by monopoly magnet Kodak and good for promoting the ideology of the "say cheese" smile - photography was seen to be better suited to women than more serious art pursuits like painting or sculpture. During modernity mass culture was feminised by Marxist theorists like Andreas Huyssen simply because of its very reproducibility. And nothing connotes reproducibility more than the seemingly disparate entities of women and photography.

Maybe I just wandered off the point, who knows. As it turned out Fur was so boring - and not really a biopic in the traditional sense - that one couldn't help wandering off into some theoretical reverie. The opening credit sequence elegantly establishes how the film ultimately privileges style over substance, and hey that's fine - I can be as shallow as the next person. Steven Shainberg, whose previous film was the overhyped Maggie Gyllenhaal vehicle Secretary, imbues Fur with such self-conscious silences to build mystery, tension and suspense that it feels like a pop-up book; it was that motionless, not to mention stark in its technicolour three-dimensionality. I may not know or remember much about Diane Arbus (I was surprised to learn here that her Christian name is pronounced Dee-anne) but I do recall the visceral, high octane power of her imagery: that one photograph (not in the film) of a freaky kid holding a hand grenade in Central Park gives me nightmares whenever I fall asleep in public places. (My psychiatrist calls this kind of thing "pre-terrorism-era-tension" in a journal article she published on this very phenomena). Arbus knew how to solidify and mould oddness into a shape that may belie description, but could still speak volumes - even if she repeatedly exoticised the freakish Other in the process. With Fur, oddness is more a fashion statement like bourgeois ennui is for most contemporary French art films.

Diane Arbus

Child with a Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park, 1962

The oddness of Fur doesn't lie in its attempt to represent the atmosphere of eccentricity pervading the life and work of the artist. Rather it's in the way it opts for an allegorical (read "imaginary") narrative to draw out the atmospheric nuances of weirdness we can only imagine went on in Arbus' private fantasies, however public she may have made them in her work. The film charts the growing boredom Arbus (played by Nicole Kidman) experiences in her role as wife, mother and photographic assistant to her portrait photographer husband, Allan Arbus (Ty Burrell). That bit apparently is true. But to stave off some seemingly pre-feminist dissatisfaction, Arbus drifts from her husband and grows increasingly attracted to her new neighbour: a former circus freak named Lionel (Robert Downey Jr) whose particular oddity is that he's covered head to toe in hair, as a result of the rare condition hypertrichosis. This is the part of the film that comprises the "imaginary portrait". While it's not explicitly stated, Lionel is based on Fedor Jeftichew, the famous sideshow performer who was better known to late nineteenth century circus audiences as Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy.

Fur, then, is a conflation of two real-life stories to create some strange hybrid, deconstructed truth. A non-truth to be sure because when master narratives are broken down, nothing survives the carnage, not even truth. If Fur was a novel, it might resemble the kind of postmodern historical fiction Kathy Acker produced; stories that would be populated with divergent historical, literary and popular culture figures. If the filmmakers had been that honest and just said in the press notes: "We want to show what might have happened if Diane Arbus time travelled to 1884 and plucked Jo-Jo from the circus: first for a photo shoot, second for a good roll in the hay, and third for her own morbid self-discovery." But this is an art film and audiences are meant to accept that the bedroom wall of Arbus' psychological space was plastered with posters of freaks like Jo-Jo, which served as inspiration for a body of photographic work which would ultimately render her an iconic American artist of the twentieth century.

Another reason why Fur is simply a prickly exercise in film spectatorship is because Nicole Kidman makes me really uncomfortable, to say the very least. I know it's probably just me who thinks she's the most mediocre actor of her generation - really my opinion is beside the point - but why, GOD WHY does she keep getting all the plum film roles when clearly her idea of acting is embodying her characters like some little reedy wisp of a woman whose idea of 'motivation' is oscillating between a breathy babywoman voice and a stern iciness better suited to glazed donuts than womenfolk. In Fur, Kidman embodies Arbus as much as lice may have Jo-Jo's dog hair - with such an itchy and irritable devotion that I spent most of the film absent-mindedly scratching a phantom itch.

And really, that is what Fur is all about: the scratching of a fetishistic itch. Freud's idea of fetishism was all about the substitution of the part for the whole because of a seemingly deep-seated psychological lack experienced at a young age and attributed to the witnessing of a woman's lack of a penis - the horror or her nothing to see. A fetishistic synecdoche, fur (which, technically speaking, is hair in this film) represents a body part standing in for the whole. But interestingly, Lionel's whole body is entirely covered in hair, making the theory of fetishistic substitution an awkward one. Perhaps then, it's the eyes which are the body part fetishised here? The eyes of the all-seeing photographer who has special visual access to all things bright and beautiful, weird and wicked. In his review of Fur, Village Voice critic J. Hoberman argues, "Kidman acted around a prosthetic proboscis to win an Oscar for her impersonation of Virginia Woolf in The Hours; as Arbus, she's all eyes."

Now I know why Kidman is so popular, so meaningful to casting directors: she makes magic out either her eyes or nose. It's not unsurprising she followed The Hours (2002) some films later with Bewitched (2005). The spell cast by the twitch of her cute little nose in Bewitched erased all memory of the pre niptuck whopper she was packing in The Hours. And if what they say about big noses is correct, it sheds new light on the horror of her nothing to see.

Fedor Jeftichew AKA Jo-Jo the Dog Faced Boy

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.

After the Honeymoon

Skanky Jane's MySpace Tribute to The Artswipe, 2006

It's been one hell of a crazy year. I started in blogland as a reader (mostly reading The Art Life blog for my fix of artworld gossip) and when I decided to go global with The Artswipe, I never realised it would make me over into such an important world leader... But you know, stranger things happen all the time.

Perhaps the strangest thing to happen this year, is that I got married. And to a fan! I never thought I'd marry a fan as the whole thing just conjures a major Kathy Bates in Misery moment. But well, Skanky Jane persisted and when she made me an artwork representing our dominant culture institutionalisation I just knew it was meant to be. (After having a performance art moment early October 2006 which featured a combination of Skanky Jane and an organza blindfold, she started organising the wedding... What a BRIDEZILLA!)

Skanky J and I were meant to be... she understands me more than most, and does whatever I ask. I even asked her to take a bath before our Aspen honeymoon, because well, skank sometimes needs a clean. We never fight as most married couples tend to do after ten minutes of marriage. Before she goes to work, she leaves me a comment, and I reply. Some say marriages rarely work when the bulk of your communication consists of leaving notes for one another. But when they're really well written notes, you can fantasise that reincarnation is on your side this time, and that well, thank Christ you got the "reincarna-karma-remix" of Virginia Woolf over Virginia Andrews.

And ironically the name Virginia always makes Skanky J giggle because she's obviously thinking about vaginas. That dirty girl needs to take those dirty pillows to the laundromat immediately! Artswipe is a clean teen! As if reading Skanky J's dirty mind, another MySpace fan "Vibrator" lured me into a dark world of wall socket promiscuity by offering this beautiful visual comment (see below). Never have Double A batteries been so worthy of a Double D titfuck. And as I am a life support system for a soundtrack, I have added Lene Lovich's song New Toy as this week's http://www.myspace.com/artswipe profile song.


It's that time of year when The Artswipe must see more of the world. I have submitted my leave application form to Blogspot Dot Com and while they're hesitant to see me go, they understand that no one can stand in the way of experience. So I will be nomadic over January visiting trailer park conventions to see what I can bring home as a late wedding present for the little Mrs.

Thanks to all for reading this year. I will post a postcard or three over the holiday season and will officially re-launch late January 2007. And if you get lonely, remember that Skanky Jane will keep the home fires burning.

Christmas Wish Fulfillment

Betti Pugh of Wales is responsible for climate change

Artswipe has really been going down on the silly season, so apologies if you've been experiencing abandonment issues due to my irregular movements here at blogspot dot com. As most of you have really learnt a thing or two from my special brand of pedagogical blogness, I have been feeling real pressure to come up with something new in a world so secondhand. And all I can think about is some Christmas commentary.

I love this time of year. Christmas albums emerge and you watch middle-of-the-road American singersongwriters deep throat new arrangements of Sleigh Bells for Santa. Suburban street electricity gets amped up while neighbours war over whose fairy light studded anal rope looks best with or without climate change chic. Inhale those greenhouse gases baby! Then there's shopping for presents you want for yourself but try out on others so the novelty can wear thin before doling out the cash for a repeat purchase in the January sales. Carols by candlelight is always moving and this year I will dedicate everything I sing to Belinda Emmett.

Christmas is all about family, and this year Artswipe is going to try harder to workshop lifesize replicas of the family I want to call my own next year. They will be cut from goldleaf and glue with just a little twist of papier-mache. I'll arrange this family like a nativity scene and cradle their mild-mannered muteness. I can't decide if I want to be kin to Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes or Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Of course it would be nice to let Madonna and Guy take me in but Kaballah is Jewish which means no Christmas presents. And since my art cave rebirthing experience has unleashed what my therapist calls "infantalised eggnog flavoured wish fulfillment" I may as well enjoy Christmas the way I used to when I was actually a child. Meaning, I will fucking scream if I don't get a new fucking iPod or fucking palm pilot this year you people who have taken it upon yourself to call yourselves "parents." You're not my parents! If you were, you'd cut the crap about Santa not feeling so flush this year and spill the consumer culture booty somewhere near where the world is cut in two by what is usually called an "equator", but what I call plain old fashioned self-centredness.

So what will be my new year resolution this year? As I've been negotiating newness and emergence ever since I saw the youngmeat Primavera exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art this year, I have decided that Artswipe resolves to be the next NSW young Australian of the year. As art openings are just too cool for cocaine these days I'm not sure if any art anyones have a chance of being any kind of young-anything-of-the-year.

When I think of those three words "of the year" I feel compelled to make a list itemising every goddamn good thing I witnessed in 2006. Come to think of it, journalism actually gets really clever this time of year with the writerly kind clamouring for attention in the taste stakes with their end of year best of lists.

And as I failed journalism at uni but excelled in new media, I've blogged the best things:

1. Bindi Irwin's starmaking funeral speech
2. Ian Thorpe's coming out of the water speech
3. Lindsay Lohan's Robert Altman speech (and she thinks she can play Stevie Nicks onscreen)
4. Paris Hilton vomits on stage while trying to sing her own song
5. Oprah episode entitled "Oprah's Favorite Sandwich in America"
6. Jason Donovan announcing his 2007 comeback album
7. Tuning into TVS and other parallel universes
8. Britney Spears' vagina falls out
9. Naomi Campbell hitting her maid on the head with a mobile phone
10.Celebrity racism ala Mel Gibson and Michael Richards (especially as seen on YouTube)

Cave Dwellers

The Wild Boys

installation at Artspace, Sydney

Photo courtesy of the Wild Boys

Artswipe was hanging in a cave last week… a cave at Artspace. No, this was not Plato's cave – Artswipe has already loitered in that dark-hole-in-the-wall and let me tell you, representation has never been so fucked up in its metaphoricality. Yes, that's right, Artswipe's been really getting into ending rather commonplace words with "-ality". Made by a pack of cave dwellers known as the Wild Boys (Trevor Fry as Trix, Richard Gurney as Sonic Yootha and Tim Hilton as La Donna Rama) this installation forms part of the exhibition It's a New Day. Curated by Sally Breen, the exhibition, which explores process-driven art practice, also features Sarah Goffman, Lisa Kelly, Josie Cavallaro, Anne Kay and numerous collaborators.

So I am experiencing this cave, waiting for my own primal moment. There wasn't even any womb or penis envy involved, just a good old fashioned art-cave more glamorous and gimcrack in flavour than Plato could have ever imagined. Having sat on the delicately positioned cushions for awhile, watching a video work about an old man, a seagull and a suitcase – enigmatic – Artswipe got a little nostalgic for the old days. You know, back when we all lived in caves, spoke an obscure native tongue, celebrated the loin cloth and waited for the onset of modernity.

It wasn't until I looked at the art-cave's markings that I realised there was no dot painting to be seen. Rather these tribal configurations seemed to derive from Dotti – that girly store franchise that sells dancepartyslutskirts for the tweenywhorebrigade among us. Oh now I get it! This is a gay cave. So this is what it must be like to be inside a rectum, I thought. Those gay boys really know how to break down barriers. When I say "gay cave" I don't mean what the ten-year-olds mean when they say, "That is so gay." I mean gay as in Kylie, Madonna, Cher. The kind of gay that has its own special access to irony; if you don't get the intertextual minutia the door bitch doesn't let you in. And good on her; knowing your popular culture and knowing it well is a rare talent and it's what makes the day gay.

The Wild Boys
It's a New Day opening night, Artspace
Photo courtesy of cactusboy666

Having given up rebirthing because my psychic space hasn't been so great since the last time I tried, I decided to check out what's on the other side of the cave. Otherness is often a trumped up term for the simple fact that some of us don't like anyone but ourselves. But seeing I spent my mid20s getting into community formations and out again, Artswipe decided getting on the other side is exactly the tonic of the hour. So gathering all my strength (and realising the constant move between first and third person makes language very crowded) Artswipe decided to risk entering the white cube. Tunneling through to the other side where otherness comes gay and nubile, Artswipe entered a paradise of amylsoaked whipsmart spatial frenzy.

Some wiccan-lookin drag-chick known as La Donna Rama (Tim Hilton) hulahoops on the big screen (much like she did opening night, as pictured above). A visual alphabet of cheesy disco albums adorn the wall on one side, toy knives and machetes on the other. Silver toy blowup guitars and mallets litter the floor in that casually messy but precise manner (the gays get that balance so right with their hair as well). It's then I find I have fully rebirthed despite myself. Cavorting on the floor – what else do you do when the moment grabs you – I was back in my teenage bedroom with posters on the wall, listening to American Top 40 with Shadoe Stevens on the radio. I am in my own private music video and nobody can take that away from me.

Foot in Mouth Disease

The Artswipe

Foot in Mouth Disease, 2006

Collage

Artswipe is back in therapy. I've been having a recurring dream. We all know that Artswipe likes recurring themes (Oprah, Bono, Madonna, Philip Brophy) but recurring dreams are just too much to fathom. Especially when in your dream Madonna is signified as a rotting foot and Oprah is the rotting cancer mouth. Like the rotting body parts seen on Australian cigarette packets, Oprah and Madonna have a via-satellite dance-off, tearing up the dancefloor so hard that they merge. Madonna's foot and Oprah's mouth become one big foot in mouth disease. How strange. My therapist has suggested I start seeing someone else because I'm freaking her out.

Thanks to the anonymous Artswipe fan who emailed me this great animation:

Adrienne Shelly 1996-2006

Adrienne Shelly in Trust (Hal Hartley, 1990)

The Artswipe has been in deep grief since Adrienne Shelly died. Earlier this month Adrienne Shelly - who cemented her indie-fame as the lead in Hal Hartley's first two features The Unbelievable Truth (1989) and the amazing Trust (1990) - was found dead in her New York office. Initially believed to be a suicide as she was found hanging from a bedsheet, it was later revealed that a 19-year-old construction worker from Ecuador had accidentally killed her and later made it look like a suicide, all because she complained about the noise. Adrienne was in post-production on her film Waitress, her third feature as writer/director.

One of Artswipe's all time favourite movies is Hal Hartley's Trust and the best scenes are when Maria (Shelly) shooshes Matthew (Martin Donovan) because she thinks she can hear bombs dropping from afar. Maria and Matthew are meant to be together because he walks around clutching an undetonated hand grenade. They don't like noise. And then there's those fabulous scenes featuring an almost unrecognisable pre-Sopranos Edie Falco as Maria's scene-stealing-white-trash-with-pink-ski-jacket sister.

If only we could all go around killing people because we don't like the fucking noise complaints! Shame on you construction worker man.

Read an Adrienne Shelly obituary here.

Message Received

All week I have been trying to write a song. One in the grand 1980s namedropping tradition. You know the type: Billy Joel mastered the tradition with "We Didn't Start the Fire": "Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnny Ray, South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio..." Transvision Vamp tried to top it with their song "Born to Be Sold." Who? You remember Wendy James – hot snatch indeed! But whenever I put 2B pencil to paper, all that comes out is trite Haiku type pretensions.

The reason I have wanted to trade my 12" blog for the 7" single is quite simple really. Instead of namedropping celebrities in my song, I will sing a laundry list of social causes that I must remember to get behind.

Since Belinda Emmett died last week I have realised that I am not doing enough for breast cancer.

Since the weather went crazy I realised I am doing enough for climate change.

Since I saw that show at Campbelltown Art Centre called For Matthew and Others I realised I am not doing enough for schizophrenia (let alone bad art promoting awareness).

Since I saw U2 in concert last week (yes Artswipe caved) I realised I am not doing enough for AIDS in Africa or myriad other social issues that I can't recall now.

Since MySpace became a vehicle to stream the Australian Make Poverty History concert I realised I am not doing enough for the starving kids of the world.

Since Sydney art schools have been disappearing I realised I am not doing enough for the art kids.

Since November was renamed Movemeber in a bid to get men to grow mustaches to show their support for prostate cancer I realised I am not doing enough for the prostate, let alone the rest of the groin region.

Since Madonna announced plans to adopt another African baby I realised I am not doing enough to get behind Kaballah.

Since watching Channel 9's A Current Affair last night I realised I am not doing enough to get behind the more microcosmic of social issues: radical weight loss, gambling problems, people who cheat the dole, feuding neighbours hosing each other and the "love rat" (a man who had eight girlfriends at the same times). Next time Tracy Grimshaw asks, "If you've got a Centrelink story, email us now" I might just do that.

Not being able to write songs, I have instead decided to send protest text messages. Bono asked his congregation at the Telstra Stadium to holding their phone high in the air and text message support to some organisation or another. Was it the United Nations, I don't remember. Eventually I sent the message after illegally using my mobile to film some of the concert for some YouTube distribution. I even took a photo on my mobile phone camera of everyone else using their mobiles for world peace. Message received!

The Artswipe
Mobile Constellation, 2006
Interactive Multimedia Performance

Later I went and bought a bottle of Mount Franklin water for about $5. As it was one of the pink bottles that promote Mount Franklin's partnership with the Breast Cancer Foundation, I didn't mind. Instead of buying (RED) this week I have been buying pink. Even Masterfoods tomato sauce bottles are pink at the moment – admittedly this freaks me out for reasons which I'm sure have psychoanalytic origins.

I suppose it's important to leave the songwriting to those with real musical ability - Actors Turned Musicians (what Artswipe abbreviates to ATM). Why ATM's are the best songwriters – Toni Collette is no exception – is because they spend most of their time performing authenticity. Method acting finds a perfect match in songwriting, especially when the music makes meaning. Reading Michael Idato's Sydney Morning Herald obituary for Belinda Emmett, Artswipe discovered that her final project was an unreleased album of her own songs. Idato writes: "Though best known as an actress, music was a more defining influence in her life. She had said her taste in music was 'a bit bohemian.' The album, with the working title So I Am, was produced by the John Farnham collaborator and former Southern Sons bandmember Phil Buckle. 'Having written the songs, it really means something to me,' she said."

It's bound to mean something to all of us too.

Thanks for the Add

One such image that you find when you type

"thanks for the add" into Google Images

It's been almost 6 months since The Artswipe began. In that time, Artswipe has been super busy keeping up appearances, because after all, appearance is the one tool of an artist's trade that gets used the most. Woodwork was never my thing. Instead, I was too busy reading Cultural Theory for Dummies while all the butch kids at school were making wineracks for Fathers' Day.

But back to appearances. As you might notice, Artswipe has taken the lead of Skanky Jane and moved to Blogger Beta. Why they'd call such cutting edge technology after a redundant form of video I'll never know. But such are the mysteries of life in the cybernetic fold.

And with change comes the desire to rebrand. So I called the offices of (RED) as they're this week's hot dollar brand for Artswipe readers. I figured (RED) could redesign Artswipe and in return I would promise to sign up for Adsense and donate what ever spare change dribbled in, should Adsense actually work. So I looked up (RED) in the White Pages (thinking for a minute that perhaps whiteness was just a little too pervasive). Dialling the long international number, it rang for three times before a woman who announced herself as Sandy answered the phone. I asked if I could speak to Bono.

"Who's speaking, puurleease?"
"Artswipe from Sydney."
There was a pause... It was like Sandy had put her hand on the receiver so I couldn't hear her chatting to a superior.
"Hello, Sandy... Hello (RED)?"
After a minute she returned and in a rather gruff voice told me Bono called me an talentless shit-for-brains Aussie twat and that I was never to call again. "NEVER!"

Now that I have just finished selling my U2 CDs on eBay - Zooropa didn't sell - I have decided to just pick another template because after I finished Cultural Theory for Dummies, I could never get through Visual Communication for Cultural Theorists. It just didn't take. But admittedly, I feel really uncomfortable using a premade template. I feel like David Byrne might see right through me and know that I have been guilty of using PowerPoint presentations; or that I once made a birthday card using clip art; or that I have forwarded spam emails (the kind that ask you to read some unfunny story, make a wish, choose a number and send it to people equaling the number you chose times 500); or that I have been secretly yearning to start a MySpace page.

You may remember in one of my early posts (again Bono themed) I wrote about resisting the lure of cultivating "friends" in MySpace. From what I could tell at the time, MySpace users usually had a vocabulary of four words, and when put in a sequence they would read:

Thanks for the Add.

If you have a MySpace page you can "Add" friends. Really, it's all about redefining what friendship is. If having "friends" in the 90s meant courting Courtney Cox and Jennifer Aniston, having "friends" today means digging Lily Allen (because she is like, so MySpace, man!) and - ummm - knowing that you can stalk that 14-year-old kid next door who I think I saw masturbating through the venentians, but I can't be too sure... There was a YouTube or a MySpace logo involved, that's all I can remember. Since then I have had to reacquaint myself with my therapist. You see, the last time I visited my shrink it was because Sarah Cottier Gallery was not having opening night events for her exhibitions. Well, Sarah emailed recently to say that's all changed and that she added me to her mailing list. Thanks for the add, Sarah!

So now I only visit my therapist when I have MySpace cravings. The voyeuristic kind. The kind that make me want to look up all those mofos who I hated at school to see if they have a MySpace profile and then hire that 14-year-old from next door (who is an Internet hacker, by the way) to corrupt their code. But before then I look at how they've let themselves go; how they're miserable fat alcoholics who still work at Wendys or Lone Star (in management of course). But that rarely happens because most of us have pseudonyms these days, and can be hard to track down.

Artswipe shudders at the thought of being so hard to track down, so if we don't connect here, "friendship" comes free at Artswipe's MySpace page: www.myspace.com/artswipe

Be my MySpace "friend" and I promise to stamp you with this homespun handmade treat:

Reading (RED)

In today's Sun-Herald – Artswipe's favourite weekend Bible – Bono defends Madonna's decision to adopt David Banda: "I'm very happy that Madonna should offer succour and more than that to a young boy," Bono said. "He's got a great opportunity now." The article goes on to reveal that Bono was once offered an African child by a desperate father, but was unable to take him home. Apparently the boy's face "haunts him to this day" and is the reason Bono started campaigning for African poverty relief. Surely Bono could have taken the boy on as staff? He does employ a whole fleet of people to attend to his family's every need.

Earlier this year Bono and Bobby Shriver, Chairman of Data, created a product line called (RED), which aimed to raise awareness and money for a global fund to help women and children with HIV/AIDS in Africa. (BLOG) RED documents the journey, which in recent months has seen Gap, Apple, Motorola, Converse, Emporio Armani and American Express release products associated with the (RED) brand. If you buy (RED) you are helping the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Why "red"? Well, in my last post, I suggested – quite crudely I admit – that red and black work quite well together. Red string works on black skin. Even Coca-Cola know they're onto a good thing with their black and red visual identity. The tension the (RED) campaign raises is the way it purports to be about politics, when really it's about aesthetics. Writing about fascism in the epilogue of the famous essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," Walter Benjamin argues: "All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war." Bono is certainly not alone today in his attempts to "render politics aesthetic." Much art and popular culture thrives on this instinct, and certainly, Artswipe believes that aesthetics sparkle brighter than ever when charged by the frisson of political engagement – but only when the machinery of propaganda isn't facilitating such processes.


Buy (RED) and we can feel like we're fighting dire social problems like the spread of HIV/AIDS in poverty stricken corners of the globe. Our rampant desire to shop can now feel justified as charity. We're saving the world when we buy a Motorola phone. Can the receipt for a purchase of a (RED) iPod Nano be claimed as a charitable tax deduction? When we spend big on (RED) American Express and get into monstrous debt, does the exorbitant interest charges also go to help Africans with HIV/AIDS? Even Oprah – Artswipe's favourite philosopher (after Walter Benjamin) – champions (RED), taking the time and photo-op to spend big with Bono. Of course she supports it! Oprah obviously has a major shopping addiction. If "EVERYBODY GETS A CAR!" (as her entire studio audience did in one infamous 2004 episode of her talk show) it's only because she feels compelled to momentarily alleviate her own conspicuous consumption.

Charity begins at home and homes always look better when decked out in a wealth of commodities. Consumed with fervour in the western world such commodities become tokens of cultural, social and even intellectual capital, even if their origins derive from non-western sweat shop labour. (RED) labours under the weight of such good intentions to conflate the frenzy of consumer culture with social responsibility.

Why is it branded "red"? Simply because the issue is not as political as it is aesthetic. As aesthetic as blackness is for a white western culture bred on a Benetton "united colours" mentality. Perhaps signifying blood, which with or without the stigma of HIV/AIDS is still coloured red, the (RED) brand reveals its shallow aestheticisation of race as if it's a Dulux colour chart in its revealing manufacturing of blackness.

For celebrities endorsing the (RED) campaign, blackness is a commodity that can be purchased symbolically. Through cash register empathy, blackness can be bought to ensure the privilege of whiteness is momentarily used for good. Kate Moss appeared on the cover of the UK magazine The Independent in blackface with the headline, "Not a Fashion Statement." Touted as "The Africa Issue," this September 2006 edition of The Independent was designed as an eye catching tie-in with Bono's (RED) campaign. In her opinion piece for the Sydney Morning Herald, Emily Maguire writes:

"The stereotypes in these campaigns range from the banal (African equals beads and face paint) to the offensive (Africa equals AIDS). Both contribute to the biggest Western misconception of all: that Africa is a monocultural mess waiting for Westerners to come and clean it up. Africa is a continent, not an issue. AIDS is a disease, not a cause. And while celebrities may believe they are helping by raising awareness, they are, in fact, telling us what we know and creating a false sense that the problem is being addressed."

Maybe The Independent is right: maybe this whole campaign is a worthy cause and "not a fashion statement." Perhaps Madonna had simply purchased everything in the (RED) catalogue to match her red Kaballah accessories, and after a Sunday afternoon bout of consumer fatigue, simply decided babies over brands.

Whatever the case, white bread has never been so (RED).

Red String for Baby David

The Artswipe

Red String for Baby David, the New Kaballah King

Mixed Media, 2006

The Artswipe never makes it a recurring practice to namedrop but sometimes you just gotta. So here goes... Madonna is actually one of my best friends. OK, there, I've said it. Let's just now move on. To prove it: Madonna is actually No 1 on my speed-dial. Madonna and I have been friends for years. I choreographed those conveyor belt moves seen in one of her late eighties tours. And now I'm in line to be a diasporic godparent.

Madonna has been calling intermittently throughout the year, telling me to "up" my platform: "Move beyond the blog and start a talkshow you fool!" She's always on my case about that, and I always reply: "When you start adding Australia to your tours, Bitch!" Anyway, we always have that kind of banter. But I must admit, she's always crapping on about how far away Australia is, but she never complains about going to Africa if she can pick up a tasty souvenir or two. Sometimes our best friends are really our worst enemies.

To my surprise, I received an email from Guy Ritchie this morning. When the husband is emailing you behind the wife's back, something's definitely up. It's no secret; Guy and I have never really gelled. He's basically a talentless, whinging pom and he's jealous of my relationship with Madonna. He hates anyone who has a longer history with his wife than him. When they got hitched I begged her not to marry him. I even photoshopped Guy in bed with Tom Cruise, but really should have used a pic of Guy that she wouldn't recognise – like one she hadn't actually taken during their honeymoon and emailed to, like, everyone.

So Guy emails me and it was very revealing: "Madge really hates Oprah - she's called Oprah a condescending motherfucker this morning while Nanny No 3 was within earshot changing baby David's nappy. You know, once when Madge was on her show, Oprah waited for the ad-break to tell Madge that she'd never earn as much money as her. Madge fired back: 'Once a fattie, always a fattie!' When the ad-break ended they smiled for the cameras, hugged and shed a few tears while a moving Gregorian Chant version of 'Holiday' played over a slide show featuring never-before-seen polaroids of Madge's dead mother. It was actually a great TV moment and made me think of directing some TV one day. But Artswipe, if Oprah wasn't black, Madge wouldn't have bothered defending the recent media tirade on her stage. But black is our favourite colour this year and Oprah has topped the black charts for years now…"

I was actually surprised that Guy could string a sentence together. His talent obviously knows no bounds. He is a writer/director, after all. After more rambling, he basically confessed that they adopted David because some Kaballah mystic said it would be good for the faith to get more multicultural and that red string works quite nicely on black skin. He signed off by apologising for being a cunt to me over the years and pleading for Artswipe to put some positive spin on their adoption situation.

Well, I can't promise anything. Rome wasn't built in a day, and Hollywood certainly wasn't overtaken by Kaballah propaganda overnight. These things take time. But I really do support their decision to adopt David. Celebrities always look much better when they have a trophy from poverty stricken or war-torn parts. Mia Farrow knew once she made a name for herself in Rosemary's Baby all those years ago that her future babies would never glisten with the Satan-like connotations of whitemeat. Angelina Jolie hands-down wins the Artswipe award for best combined family haircut. And speaking of trophies, Madonna knows more than anyone that black babies are more than just accessories, especially when they're destined for a life of being dressed by Dolce & Gabbana.

It's not the first time Madonna has expressed a desire to mother black "children." Throughout In Bed with Madonna, she goes on about how her she mothers her black gayboy dancers "out of the need in me to be mothered." She was then, quite simply destined to one day have a black baby of her own, to teach him to vogue some of those low-down drrrty Motown moves. Madonna, more than anyone, knows how to manufacture sizzling shit-hot authenticity out of the most base cross-cultural cliches.

So I say: Leave Madonna alone. Kaballah obviously needs the numbers, if not a new poster chile.

Swamped

Sarah Goffman
Kingswood Swamp, 2004
From Alien Invasion, MOP Projects catalogue, 2005

Courtesy of the artist and MOP Projects

It's no secret, Artswipe gets pathetically nostalgic for art school life all the time. Oh those were the days. I recall the good times, sitting around in circles biting each others' heads off (or giving some good old fashioned art school head) in "crits" while the lecturers swanned around reminding the kids that art is hard so get used to it!

You can probably imagine then, the anguish I have been experiencing in recent weeks with all this bullshit about the National Art School's potential merger with the College of Fine Arts and the closing down of the University of Western Sydney's fine arts and electronic arts programs.

Where will the kids go to make art? Is it a coincidence that anti-sedition is all the rage with the Howard government at the same time art schools are a dying breed? Sedition laws, which significantly impact artists, were passed less than a year ago, and now art is being threatened again in a way that's linked to the government. The lifeblood of the arts – its government funded university art schools – are under threat. Higher education itself has never been part of Howard's agenda. Adequate funding to keep alive a culture of educated types is just not relevant in a country that, for instance, celebrates Steve Irwin and shuns Germaine Greer. If Greer gets stung by a bee, has a severe reaction and dies, will her funeral be televised? Will people avenge her by killing all the bees?

The brilliant thing about NAS and COFA is they are such dynamically different institutions. I'm not going to play favourites and say one has a better approach to art education because they both excel in their own unique ways. As for UWS, well that place produces art student powder kegs who come from the west or choose the west for their art education. I've fantasised many a time of what it must be like to make art in the west, or at least show at Casula Powerhouse. Casula features in most of my dark fantasies because Ivan Millat once drove through there picking up a hitchiker. In one of my favourite night sweats, I am a conscientious citizen who jots down the number plate, goes home and paints it, acrylic on canvas.

Oh and all the fantasies I could conjure about UWS. All those parklands surrounding the vast campus. Artswipe would never catch a train all the way to Kingswood without being guaranteed some good old fashioned date rape in those dark woods. So basically I'm yet to catch that train. I mean, really, the Kingswood campus even has a fucking swamp! And the swamp's inspired artists like Tracey Moffatt and Sarah Goffman to make art and I'm pretty sure they didn't study art at UWS. Basically a university with a swamp needs an art school attached to it. Mandatory.

Tracey Moffatt
Artist at Work, 1997
(represented in Sydney by Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery)

Swamps bring out the Julia Kristeva in all of us and it's at art school we read that wonderful book, The Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (1982). My favourite line: "During that course in which 'I' become, I give birth to myself amid the violence of sobs, of vomit" (emphasis added). While Kristeva wasn't talking about an art course per se, she may as well accept the fact that we all read this at art school and it became the mess mantra. Remember that old saying that there's a time for everything under the sun? Well, that includes having your perfunctory grunge period, where you go all abject and degenerate, piss all over the car park, photograph it, photocopy the photograph, post it on the noticeboard (the one which is only read by engineering students) and document it all over again but this time with whatever body fluid is your favourite that week. When I went through my grunge period, dandruff was my medium because I was saving my body fluids in a time capsule. The Powers of Horror was my textbook - I was really getting into subverting boundaries, borders and binaries - and I paid enough in library late fines to have been able to buy at least three copies of it.

Well, art school date rape has taken on new highs because it seems UWS has been raped and pillaged of its esteemed arts programs. Sari Kivinen, who was a shortlisted for the 2006 Helen Lempriere Traveling Art Scholarship and reviewed in an earlier Artswipe post (you might remember Sari drinking her multiple personalities under the table, or at least in the kitchen sink) is spokesperson for the blog Save UWS Arts and internet petition. Organised by UWS students, the blog and petition are gaining much momentum and support, which is great. Stay tuned for protests - if you're lucky they may even take place at the campus bar, which I'm told is called The Swamp Bar.

Crocodile Tears

Steve Irwin in Toyota advertisement (2004)

Since Steve Irwin's death, The Artswipe has been engaged in some unofficial vox pop, hitting the streets with a series of really important questions:

1. Did you cry when Steve Irwin died?
2. Did you give a shit about Steve Irwin before he died?
3. What will become of Bindi Irwin?
4. Have you hurt a stingray in the last month?

The answers yielded interesting results. Regarding Question 1, the general consensus was people were devastated their great cultural icon had gone. Not everyone cried, because since Diana, it's been hard to make celebrity grief meaningful. With Question 2, the results were certainly mixed, with most people saying they were so proud of his accomplishments they considered him one of the family. Very few confessed to not liking Irwin before he died, and feeling a tad guilty now he was in celebrity heaven. One angry dame spat in my face for using the word "shit" in the same sentence as "Steve Irwin." Someone's gotta tackle the big issues, lady!

With Question 3 things get really complex. Before Steve Irwin's death, The Artswipe didn't know about eight-year-old Bindi Irwin, having been indifferent to popular culture founded on crocodile cowboys like Hoges and Irwin. Their careers are crassly commercialised clichés made with American audiences in mind. Steve Irwin's fame was rock solid in the US long before it took off here in Australia. It seems Australians only gave a shit about Irwin after he'd been validated by Americans. If a celebrity's image is founded on a renegade touristy stereotype, then how can it have any relevance or authenticity in its originating country? That Irwin had reared a media savvy, delightfully named, crocodile huntress in Bindi had simply escaped me. I was too busy coming to terms with the fact that people eat this myth with a spoon: man tames beast in rugged terrain, film it for network television, package it with merchandising and charity causes. Erase all signs of big dollar network mediation, emphasise how Irwin was actually doing worthy work (helping sick animals and the like) and what you have is instant hit validated by one and all. When Germaine Greer gets on her soapbox, the media jumps on her, reminding everyone she's a cranky old bitch. What would Germaine know? She's an ex-pat which makes her an instant traitor. Despite her wacky ways, she's basically a signifier of any vestiges of intellectual culture Australia has ever produced. Therefore, she is discredited immediately. What would a pioneering radical feminist scholar know? Nothing if her work is not perpetuating cultural dumbness.

Bindi Irwin and mum Terri Irwin at the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards

The results to Question 3 confirmed that indeed I'm not alone in only discovering this little miss sunshine in recent times. Bindi made such a beautiful speech at her dad's funeral. Having taped the funeral – I even took out the ads – I often return again and again to Bindi's performance, the svengali in me recognising I could make a wad of cash if I kidnapped her and set her loose on the stage. Perhaps she could be the opening act for Kylie's Showgirl tour? Bindi could at least read from Kylie's new children's book. Such instincts to exploit this little girl have simply become commonsense. When you're born into the media, you perform or be damned.

Presenting Guy Sebastian the Favourite Australian Artist award at the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards, Bindi in her now customary khakis and crimped pigtails, ate up the stage. "Isn't this great?" Bindi said. "I'm the smallest presenter but I get to give the biggest award." When the Awards climaxed with a big slime fight that saw Bindi, Guy and the hysterical tweeny audience smeared in all shades of green, I just knew Steve would have been proud of his number one girl. If you haven't achieved a televised slime fight in your life so far, then you basically haven't achieved anything.

But all this fame has an ethical dimension when one is so young and thrust into a spotlight rendered brighter since the death of a famous parent. Headlines have been preempting what will obviously take place: Bindi Irwin will be a big star. Despite psychologists like Alison Garton voicing concern over Bindi's emotional or psychological wellbeing amidst the turmoil of losing dad, we all know that Bindi's basically hot media property. The Sydney Morning Herald's headline for their report on Bindi's appearance at the Nickelodeon awards: "Make Way for Bindi the Rock Star." Well, she's already a rock star. In today's Sun-Herald, a two page article on "the Bindi debate," reports that she already sings and dances in a band called Bindi and the Crocmen, has her own line of clothing and will debut in a 26-episode pay TV program in the US.

When The Artswipe reported on JonBenét a few months back, I was implying how the saturated depiction of such kids whose early success is based on their precocious smarts and their ability to perform as apprentice adults, represents a new kind of media sanctioned pornography. The Artswipe is not trying to sound like a moral crusader, far from it. The Artswipe is just sick and tired of how in death we turn fairly vapid celebrities like Steve Irwin into saints. Before his death, he was just another larger-than-life Aussie whose celebrity was based on a kitschy brand of Australiana.

"I don't want Daddy's passion to ever end," said Bindi in her heartfelt eulogy. Dear Bindi, as long as "passion" can be merchandised (just ask Mel Gibson), you'll never have to worry about that. Just keep on wearing your khaki uniform, conforming to a recognisable visual identity that melds humanitarianism and entertainment, and you'll be Daddy's passion incarnate. And when you're 18 and trying to throw off your youthful image, I'll support your decision should you go the way of Nikki Webster, to spray that raunch in FHM.

As for Question 4 about whether anyone had hurt a stingray. Nobody admitted to human vs nature vengeance in the admittedly smallish sample of people I randomly asked yesterday at work (don't question my empirical research methodologies, ok). Who would even admit to that shit anyway? Oh that's right, I don't think my vox pop sample featured any of the Steve Irwin fan club freaks, who in avenging their master, are really imagining Germaine Greer's face when trampling all over the poor docile stingray.

Art Satan

California Dreams (pre-Philip Brophy makeover)

I'm becoming very predictable. Really, I never thought I'd write another Artswipe post citing the gorgeous man of all things glam -

Philip Brophy. As he's showing at a post-Lempriere Artspace, and there's really not that much else on, I couldn't help but dedicate this next song to Philip.

Featuring three solo projects by seemingly divergent artists, Artspace is like one big salad at the moment. To the left is Gary Carsley doing his drag/daguerreotype thing sealed with a fairly innocuous but knowing reference to Björk's least interesting song "Venus as a Boy". (Note to self: I must get to the fucking Chauvel and see Drawing Restraint... I must also recharge my iPod). In the middle of Artspace, as one enters the gallery is Maria Cruz, that zany den mother of the monochromatic moment unofficially paying tribute to my favourite game: Million Bucks (and everyone has to know). It's a variation of Pin the Tail on the Donkey. You close your eyes, point to someone ugly in the street and that's the next person you have to have sex with. And everyone has to know. In return you get a million bucks. This game is aka Charity Fuck. Actually, that's not at all what Cruz's work is about, but that's my interpretation and I'm sticking to it.

Performance art moment: Skanky Jane puts a blindfold on Artswipe. Spin around. Of course the blindfold is made out of organza, so Artswipe gets to sit pretty looking down on all creation. At that moment Artswipe knows everything and has power over what's hot and what's not. Biopower, actually. Kant incarnate mulling over the colour chart of life, Artswipe decides what images will be heritage-listed this season. Point and fuck. And if everyone has to know about it, then that's cool because the Press Release is Artswipe's favourite literary genre right now.

Who do I point at? Philip Brophy: Art Satan.

Turn right at Maria Cruz and Brophy's Evaporated Music 2: At the Mouth of Metal is playing. Actually, walk into Artspace and his Dolby 5.1 "aural surgery" can be heard contaminating the whole Gunnery like acne spreading its putrefied pointillism teen crackwhore style. A scene from the early '90s TV show California Dreams is given a Brophy metal remix. I don't recall California Dreams, but it gives off a kind of Hillsong vibe in its peachy pastel glaze of righteous rock.

File under: Inspirational.

In his artist statement, Brophy writes: "Like Satan summoned in the middle of the high school prom, Evaporated Music 2 rescores these vapid TV studio-floor moments with the sound of Metal. Think Disney riddled with cancer. The Wiggles sweating with Hep B. Evaporated Music 2 welcomes the most Other of music – Metal – and amplifies its guttural explosions through the healthy bodies of television's dream of contented pop music."

With hands raised, not to the Lord, but Lordi (the Finnish monster mash maelstrom who won the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest) Brophy's taped-off-tv loop of California Dreams (with its, I think it was Channel 7, watermark still intact) is a glittering tribute to what might happen if Delta Goodrem was raped by a crate of ice cold Pepsi dildos.

Lordi.