W2 Some initial Folio ideas

These ideas are more about subject matter than, the meaning or the idea explored or technique

Object of Desire
Documenting the destruction/transformation of a book. We tend to honour books as scriptural, as contianing truth and frown upon defacement. Mind you, visitng university libraries one often finds well-annotated books, which is often helpful, and surely evidence of honour even though it is also defaced.

Documenting the Westgate Freeway
Such as what Edward Ruscha did in the 1960s for Sunset Blvd.
I'm particularly interested in its sculpture...but there are many aspects that deserve exploration.
Not sure of an idea though. Not sure how to do it technically without dying.

Documenting the contents of people's shopping trolleys or their bins.
I wouldn't be alone in standing in the checkout queue wondering about other people's purchasing habits. But I'm not necessarily thinking of a judgemental thing here, more the colours and shapes...maybe I could create installations of my own weekly shopping? Hmm, needs an appropriate space other than my little kitchen.


What is missing?
Sylvie Blocher "What is Missing" 2010, video artist, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney


Under commission with an idea to target particular themes or people, Blocher films and interviews and screens the edited results on multiple huge screens. Blocher edits herself out of the interview leaving long awkward gaps in which we watch people react and feel uncomfortable and, in additon, she often asks people to look into the camera (at us) for a period of time. For this new work Blocher asked people what was missing in Australian culture. I was particularly struck by a male teen, with a visible 'Asian' heritage who spouted Fascist doctrine and a Mexican migrant (I think she was kidnapped at some point in her life?) who said '...what is missing in this country is spirituality...I would like everyone to learn the language of the birds.'

How would I photograph 'what is missing?'

Naturalness
A photographer I particularly enjoyed at the MCA was Rosemary Laing with her exploration of the artificalness of what we call 'natural' - a huge bugbear of mine!
You can see her Ground Speed (Red Piazza) #3, 2001.
A lovely mossy woodland with a floor of mass-produced red carpet.


Re-contextualising Re-presenting (something)
There's Stuart's re-photographing series of women in glossy ads - what becomes of these images of women away from the advertising purpose
There's John Pfahl's Altered Landscapes - adding a rope shape across a landscape to play with our Rennaisance ideas about depth.

And there's Tatzu Nishi, who created the witty installation, 'War and Peace and In Between', in front of the Art Gallery of NSW. Unfortunatley, I only saw it being dismantled. Fortunately, it's documented on Flickr. This lovely neo-classical institution -with all that that implies - has an allegorical statue either side of its columned front. Nishi enclosed each statue in a suburban rooms so that bits of the statue appear in TV cabinets or out of the table or bed!