trouble 172
HEAD ON PHOTO FESTIVAL 1 – 17 May 2020 This year the festival will stage an online version of the event, accompanied by a program of online seminars and events throughout the Festival period. The festival will then work to present a scaled-back physical festival later in the year. IMAGE CREDITS (in order of appearance): Front Cover: Matty SMITH, The Martian (2019) | Pierre DALPÉ, Wigstock (1992) | Brian HODGES, Uganda (2016) | Dave TACON, Cirque de Soir (2013) | Jake NOWAKOWSKI, Untitled (2016) | Janie BARRETT, Untitled (2008) | Martine PERRET, Levi and Keneisha (2016) | Merv BISHOP, Untitled. All images courtesy Head On Photo Festival For all details: headon.com.au
CONTENTS HEAD ON PHOTO FESTIVAL
Now Online ............................................................................................
UNCLE RICK NELSON
A Deep Trouble Replay ..........................................................................
LOVE IN A TIME OF CORONAVIRUS
Callum R Scott .......................................................................................
SEX & DEATH
Web Series by Kewl ...............................................................................
DEAR TREE
Rose Turtle Ertler ...................................................................................
APRIL/MAY SALON
Armed Madness ......................................................................................
02 18 20 26 28 34
COVER: Matty SMITH, The Martian (detail) 2019. Courtesy Head On Photo Festival. This year the Head On Photo Festival will stage an online version of the event, held as scheduled from 1-17 May 2020, and accompanied by a program of online seminars and events throughout the Festival period - headon.com.au Issue 172 APRIL - MAY 2020 trouble is an independent monthly mag for promotion of arts and culture Published by Trouble Magazine Pty Ltd. ISSN 1449-3926 EDITOR Steve Proposch CONTRIBUTORS Mark Halloran, Callum R Scott, Kewl, Rose Turtle Ertler, love. FOLLOW on issuu, facebook & twitter SUBSCRIBE at troublemag.com READER ADVICE: Trouble magazine contains artistic content that may include nudity, adult concepts, coarse language, and the names, images or artworks of deceased Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people. Treat Trouble intelligently, as you expect to be treated by others. Collect or dispose of thoughtfully. DIS IS DE DISCLAIMER! The views and opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the publisher. To the best of our knowledge all details in this magazine were correct at the time of publication. The publisher does not accept responsibility for errors or omissions. All content in this publication is copyright and may not be reproduced in whole or in part in any form without prior permission of the publisher. Trouble is distributed online from the first of every month of publication but accepts no responsibility for any inconvenience or financial loss in the event of delays. Phew!
Replay
Uncle Rick Nelson Uncle Rick Nelson is a Jaara Jaara Elder whose homeland is the land of Dja Dja Wurrung people. Uncle Rick Uncle Rick discusses the nuances of the Dja Dja Wurrung language and the importance of the two moieties, Bunjil the Eagle and Waa the Crow, as well as the mythology behind these moieties. He also tells the story of the devastating effects of early colonisation on the people of the Kulin nation as well as the country. We then discuss the protectorate system that was set up in Victoria in an attempt to protect the Aboriginal people from the early settlers and how the descendants of Dja Dja Wurrung can trace their ancestry back to the Franklinford protectorate, which at the time was described as ‘a successful failure’. See also – djadjawurrung.com.au Listen to all of the Deep Trouble interviews we’ve run to date at troublemag.com or look for us on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Mixcloud, etc.
love in a time of
Coronavirus Callum R. Scott
original image CDC/ Alissa Eckert, MS; Dan Higgins, MAM / Public domain Lovehearts & layout courtesy of trouble magazine.
And just as the zombie apocalypse kicked in, I quit my job. I’ll tell you why later in the piece. So, now I find myself unemployed at 50, in the middle of a pandemic. This is a concept that should scare the shit out of me but I’m strangely calm about my state of affairs because hysteria only leads to anxiety, and anxiety ends up leading to expensive counselling sessions with somebody who speaks softly and does a lot of nodding. For the first four weeks of unemployment, I was holed up in my flat because I went over on my right foot and stretched a few ligaments, meaning I spent a lot of time sitting in my IKEA chair with my foot up on the coffee table, watching depressing stuff on the telly. Just what you need when you’re unemployed and injured. I also drank a lot of wine even though I have the word ‘sober’ tattooed on my right wrist. Meanwhile, the coronavirus was seeping into our collective unconscious around the world, and I was already self-isolating. In the wrong hands, self-reflection while in isolation can be a dangerous venture. It can lead to mental breakdown, the agonising realisation that life is meaningless, and, potentially, suicide. Not so for me. For me self-isolating, when you’re not sick, is fucking awesome. You don’t have to deal with the ocean of idiots who exist beyond the front door, endlessly bumping into each other while they stare at their phones like cretins caught in the headlights. Why the fuck should I be responsible for their spatial relations? Every day I suppress the urge to knock their phones out of their hands and explain the laws of physics to them.
Love in a Time of Coronavirus / Callum R Scott
The other upside of self-isolation is that you have time to reflect upon your life. I had a great time picking through my ‘reason to be’. It was an existential holiday in my wee flat. I worked out that, yes, my life was meaningless, but only because I’d made it that way. In short, I’d spent the last two years hating my job, which was akin to having somebody take to your soul with a potato peeler. Hence, the decision to quit. I live in a state of chaos and my workplace could no longer accommodate this. A sense of order had been installed by top brass via project management software called Slack, i.e. the worst kind of corporate mind control. There was even a stream called #wheremyhomiesat, where you had to let ‘the team’ know where you were at all times; cue Orwell’s Room 101 and that cage with the rat in it. So, in short, dishes were done. Plus, I have recently diagnosed PTSD (PCL-5 - 63), so something like #wheremyhomiesat is about as helpful as dropping me in a K-hole and telling me the paranoid hallucinations are all part of my new reality. Bottom line, the corporate world doesn’t suit me because I have one of those artistic souls that rails against rules and structure and being told what to do by middle managers who only got where they are by following processes and procedures set by those higher up, who only got where they are by following processes and procedures set by those higher up. As my mate Isaac said, “Outlaws can’t work for the man,” and as an artist you have a duty of care to break the rules as you see fit.
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One of the hardest things you’ll ever be asked to do is to love yourself. It’s like Sisyphus rolling his rock up that hill. You get that rock all the way to the top of the hill and you think you’ve finally found a way to love yourself, then something shit happens and the rock rolls down the hill again, and you’re left in a cesspool of self-loathing, pulling your fingernails off with a pair of pliers. Then along comes something that is completely out of your control, like a pandemic, or zombie apocalypse, aka the coronavirus, aka COVID 19, where there is nothing else to do but cut yourself off from the world to keep yourself safe. And sometimes in that state of enforced isolation you finally find the time to relax into yourself, and look deep into your soul, and find the things that make you happy about being you. But let’s get back to being unemployed at 50. What’s next? Will our hero ever ride again? To be honest, I have no idea. But very once in a while you have to make a stand in this life and tell the people who don’t add value to get fucked. That’s what I did. I quit my job in the middle of a pandemic and strode – sorry – limped, into the unknown. Now, I’m going to concentrate on the things that matter to me, the things that don’t make me feel like I’m an injured hamster on a wheel, spinning recklessly into a void of chocolate-coated diarrhoea. In essence: The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are. –Carl Jung Callum R Scott oscillates between being elated and very angry and sometimes both at the same time. Apart from researching and writing, he enjoys a good pint and lives in a flat in Brunswick, close to his favourite place, Barkly Square. His greatest disappointment in life is that his first memory turned out to be a lie. He didn’t lose a red wellie on a beach in Orkney and now he has no first memory, just a lot of stories about alcohol and bad decisions. This story was originally published on Callum’s blog - callumrscott.com
Episode 1 – Dumped and Humiliated Dumped by her boyfriend, publicly humiliated in an acting class, and reprimanded by a strange guy at the local chicken shop - could Charlie’s day get any worse?
Web Series SEX & DEATH follows aspiring but hopeless actress Charlie and her lost cause attempts at romance. Produced by Tobias Willis (Now Sound 2018) and starring actor, writer and director Kathleen Lee (Bush Trip 2016) as the protagonist, this six-part comedic web series explores relationships, virtue, self-discovery and self-expression in a semi-autobiographical exploration into the neurodiverse life and brain of Kathleen Lee. See the whole series at sexanddeath.online
Episode 2 – Can I Punch You? Pat follows Charlie to her audition. Charlie offers to drive Tanya (and her piles of things) to Damian’s house.
w Dear Tree a listening experience
created by Rose Turtle Ertler
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“Dear tree, Thank you for being here today for me and for everyone, casting shade and giving a fresh breath with deep and bold colours and gentle stillness.”
– by a contributor to Dear Tree, March 2020
As I lie under my walnut tree I observe many things. I feel sheltered, protected by a wise older being. Calmness. Beauty. It’s shape, with similarities to the human form, with a strong trunk and arms, tentacles reaching out, gathering, collecting information and stories, stretching and learning, leaning and swaying, with leaves for hair delicately adorned with green walnuts for bobbles. In March 2020, I started a new project called Dear Tree with the simple intention of reminding people to pay attention to trees and to take time to focus on how nature exists within our lives. The aim is to create a soundscape designed to be listened to in headphones while lying under a tree. I want the tree to be the star. With no added adornments or props, lights or costumery, the tree stands as it is, as the listener melts into the raw earthiness that it provides. Originally, I imagined a circle of people lying, in a thoughtful configuration, around a beautiful old tree, wearing headphones and listening to stories together, thoughts, ideas about this
particular tree, all spoken by locals who know the tree. That idea will develop later, but for now, during the Covid 19 pandemic, I have put a call out online for people to send me recordings of themselves talking to a tree in their own environment. As with some of my other projects, I am interested in compiling a collection of different voices responding to one question or task from their unique perspective. Since I started this project two weeks ago, I have received nearly thirty recordings. These will all be entwined with field recordings of trees and their surrounds which I have been collecting lately to create the final soundscape. I will continue to make more soundscapes as I receive more contributions from the public. In order to have the intimate experience that I am hoping to create and to hear the details in the voices, this work should be listened to in headphones preferably while lying under a tree.
“Dear tree, When I first met you I thought you were ugly, to be honest, but now that I’ve lived with you for four years, I’ve seen the fruit that you produce, the deep shade, the birds that you feed, the blossoms that you make, I think you’re wondrous in your scraggy dark-wooded way. Thank you, tree.”
– by a contributor to Dear Tree, March 2020
Dear Tree - THE BRIEF : Step 1
Go outside to a tree (in your backyard or beyond). If you have no trees in the environment around you, just conjure up in your mind a tree you have previously encountered.
Step 2
Lie under the tree, looking up (or sitting with a good view of the tree is also fine).
Step 3
Press record on your phone or recording device.
Step 4
Starting with the words “Dear tree” record a short piece of anything you would like to say to the tree… anything about what you are seeing, feeling, hearing, experiencing in this moment with the tree. Try to speak clearly. Recordings should be maximum 30 seconds.
Step 5
Listen back to the recording to check that all words are easily audible.
Step 6
Send your recording to: roseturtle@gmail.com or through Messenger: Rose Turtle Ertler *If English is not your first language, you are welcome to speak in your language either with or without an English translated version. **All contributors will be notified when the final audio creations will be freely available online. The finished Dear Tree soundscapes can be heard at: www.roseturtleertler.com/dear-tree
april/may salon
LEFT: Jacqui STOCKDALE, The Rider 2018. C Type print, 130 x 100cm. Courtesy of Finkelstein Gallery, Melbourne. Finkelstein Gallery, Basement 2, 1 Victoria Street Windsor (VIC), 26 March – 7 May 2020 - finkelsteingallery.com ABOVE: Charlotte OLSEN, See with your hands feel with your eyes (detail) 2019. Textile manipulation techniques: punch needling/machine embroidery/hand dying of fabrics/knitting/hand stitching/woodworking construction; hand saw/table saw/dropsaw/gluing/magnifying sheed; Braille document, four parts: 146 x 69 x 10cm; 135 x 64 x 4.5 cm; 125 x 62 x 5 cm; 110 x 29 x 23 cm. Geraldton Grammar School. Pulse Perspectives 2019, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth Cultural Centre, Perth (WA), 7 March – 29 June 2020 - artgallery.wa.gov.au NEXT SPREAD: Tony ALBERT, David C COLLINS and Renisha WARD-YATES, Warakurna Superheroes #3 (detail) 2017, archival pigment print on paper, 100x150 cm. Edition of 3 plus 2 artist’s proofs, Courtesy of the artist & Sullivan & Strumpf. The Fun Room, Wangaratta Art Gallery, 56 Ovens St Wangaratta (VIC), until 9 April 2020 - wangarattaartgallery.com.au Due to COVID19 restrictions, please check details with the gallery prior to your visit.
