art about place

I was at a Crowded House concert last night. It’s been a while since I’ve been to a live show and I thoroughly enjoyed it. There were two giant screens, one at each side of the stage. I was lucky enough most of the time to have a view of the stage and I could enjoy the energetic larking about that was part of the show.

The thing that struck me is that often when I was watching some part of the performance, the screens were showing something else, and this set me to thinking about how even a live performance becomes mediated by person or persons unknown.

If you are under the age of about 25, then you will have grown up with almost every aspect of your life – online and offline – mediated, segmented or curated by someone, or some machine-learnt algorithm, and it might not be something you even notice. Sometimes it’s with the best of intentions, but mostly it’s just to sell you stuff. Either way, one’s life feels a little bit taken away. Experience feels thinner.

When some social media guru starts talking at you about how to boost your online profile, inevitably they end up talking about authenticity, but I wonder how authentic a carefully curated profile, exhibition or collection, fed to others through a filter of their preferences (and prejudices), can be. I’m going to say, not very.

So, that’s a long way round the hill to get to the point that I’m having an Open Studio on the 30^th of November 2025 from 1pm to 4pm and you’re welcome to pop by if you’re anywhere near Ballarat. My address is on my home page. You won’t find a much more authentic art experience than tripping over bits of old framing, or my dog, while poking around my successes and failures (carelessly curated, warts and all) in my studio.