‘I’D NEVER SEEN OR HEARD ANYTHING SO CLEARLY MADE FOR ME’

The crowd thrusts together in wave-like unity, all intent on an unseen spectacle before them while the photographer remains still, camera poised and almost predatory. As the crowd continues in this manner there are moments in the film when it is unclear whether it is adulation or protest manifest in their actions. Throughout their hectic motion, slow enough that the drive and energy is readable but emphasising the gesture as a collective one, the photographer remains static. There is a desire and a need in his pose to document and possess the occasion, as much to verify the performers’ presence, as his own. There is a contrast felt between the private meaning of such an interaction and the public nature in which it is played out. The video continues my investigations into the relationships people have with forms of popular culture.

Title from Peter York on Roxy Music’s first album, Frieze Magazine, Issue 113, March 2008

FREE ARTIST FLOOR TALKS

SATURDAY 6 JUNE 2009 , 12PM
Join artists Bianca hester, louis porter, arlo mountford,
simon zoric, catherine connolly and larissa hjorth.