Back from hell...to a hell:(of a lot:)

no I haven't disappeared from the circulation, and I am not a slack. I just had a very confused and busy last fortnight. But, back on the track with a burning hot pack of (invites) cards. Ready for the 80's?

At the Mori Gallery (168 Day Street, Sydney):

Claire Conroy

Light speed

A journey across Sydney in a pinhole camera

A group show of Ngaanyatjarra artists from the Warburton Community

The money story

Khaled Sabsabi

Opening : Wednesday 8 November 2006

Exhibition: 8 November - 2 December 2006



...and read Zanny'paper on Claire's works...

Lightspeed

An exhibition by

Claire Conroy

MORI GALLERY

168 DAY STREET SYDNEY

Opening Wednesday 8 November 2006 6-8pm

Exhibition 8 November – 2 December 2006

Wednesday – Saturday

11-6 or by appointment +612 92832903

‘Nepean River’ 3m x 1m pin-hole photograph by Claire Conroy

Lightspeed: a journey across Sydney in a pin-hole camera

“The biggest piece of domestic machinery, which is an extension of our homes and our own private space, is the motorcar. When people drive they have the possibility of death at their own fingertips. And then, people are aware of a whole range of emotions that can't express when they're in their office, dealing with other people, that they can express alone in a car. You can't swear at your secretary for making a spelling mistake but you can swear at another driver behind your windshield” JG Ballard.

Lightspeed: a journey across Sydney in a pin-hole camera is an ambitious solo exhibition by Claire Conroy which opens at Mori Gallery on November 8. Conroy has transformed a 2 tonne truck into a pin-hole camera and taken a road trip across Sydney from Berry Island reserve in Sydney Harbour west towards the Blue Mountains. With a small hole drilled in the side of the truck Conroy stopped at various points along the way using the power of natural sunlight to document her journey. The results are a virtuoso series of 3 meter photographic paper negative prints of the view from the road – toll gates, motorways, bridges, roads, car parks and roadside scenery.

While the truck-stop has been a recurring source of artistic inspiration, perhaps most memorably captured in Ed Ruscha's photographs of gas stations from California to Oklahoma, Conroy's use of the pin-hole camera allows the viewer to return to the roadsid

e image in a startlingly new way. The long exposure times - Conroy spent hours holed up inside an often sweltering truck waiting for the image to expose – has the curious affect of capturi

ng the solid infrastructure of the road whilst deleting the moving elements of the cars.

This coupled with the negative quality of pinhole prints makes Conroy's images extremely dark, brooding and ominous. The black skies, ghostly white trees, and completely empty roads imbues Lightspeed with a post-apocalyptic feeling of life after the crash of civilisation.

Conroy explains that one of her inspirations for this work was David Cronenburg’s film adaptation of the 1973 novel by JG Ballard Crash. Ballard's controversial book uses the metaphor of the car crash to explore aspects of contemporary psychology. It tells the story, through the author's own voice, of a man who, after surviving a car crash, gets involved with a group of people sexually obsessed with celebrity, death and car crashes.

At a crucial moment in the film one of the characters tell the hero “that’s the future Ballard and your already part of it, there is a benevolent psycho-pathology that beckons towards us… the car crash [is a] fertilising rather than destructive event.” Conroy pursues this metaphor in her work by opening it up to a new layer of meaning. What if the crash were not the specific experience of tragedy on the motorway, fuelled by psycho-sexual addiction to cars, but the crash of motorway culture itself?

In each of Conroy’s prints she carefully counter poses organic and natural elements alongside the empty infrastructure of roads. These subtle and gentle juxtapositions remind the viewer of the environmental consequences of a society obsessed with cars. As Co

nroy explains “in using an old mode of photography such as pin hole photography I have attempted to in some way slow the world down.” Conroy’s work thus situates the viewer between the autopia and the autogeddon, a strange world where the structure of the landscape if dominated by the car and yet the car itself has all but vanished from the picture.

Of course this exit is not entirely complete. Central to Conroy’s work is the understanding that the images you are looking at were taken through the medium of a truck, which was driven west out of Sydney on the motorway. And attached to several images are a series of soundscapes composed by Kelly Sturgiss (Flat Products Division), Naomi Radom (Coda), Jarrah Kidd (BumbleBeez81), Kate Carr, Toni Buck (The Necks), David Haines and Joyce Hinterding (Sun Valley), Giovanna Picoi (The Lunettes) and Sam Johnson (Swinging and Tasty Bag). Each of these artists has worked with found soun

d at the sites of the photographic exposures, incorporating the hum of the road into a sound piece which matches the time Conroy took to expose each image. These traces of road culture allow Conroy to explore the themes of this exhibition from an ambiguous position situated somewhere between a sci fi vision of the future and the well worn path of a road trip.

Article By Zanny Begg

...and now a message from Diego Bonetto:

Hi all,

During Movember (the month formerly known as November)
I’ll be growin a moustache. That’s right I’m bringing
the Mo back because I’m passionate about changing the
state of men’s health.

Male health is a major issue, did you know:

Men are far less healthy than women. The average life
expectancy of males is 6 years less than females.
Every year in Australia 2,700 men die of prostate
cancer – more than the number of women who die from
breast cancer.

Depression affects 1 in 6 men…Most don’t seek help.

Untreated depression is a leading risk factor for
suicide. Rates of suicide are more than double the
national road toll.
Help me change the

face of men’s health by sponsoring

my mo.

Attached is my face on day one of this campaign, do
sponsor my mo to get updates on the growth!

Please go to http://www.movember.com.au/au/sponsor,
enter my Rego number which is 27961 and your credit
card details. All donations of $2 and over are tax
deductible.

You could also donate directly to me and I'll issue an
official recepeit.

The money raised by Movember will be used to change

the face of men's health by creating awareness and
funding research into prostate cancer and male
depression.

Movember culminates at the end of the month at the Gala Partè where I’ll be parading my Mo on the cat
walk for a chance to be crowned the Man of Movember.
If you want to be part of this great night you’ll have
to purchase a Gala Parte ticket for $33.00 (inc GST).

Cheers

diego

More info is available at www.movember.com.au

Movember is proud partners with the Prostate Cancer
Foundation of Australia and beyondblue - the national
depression initiative.

Please forward to anybody in your mailimg list,

thanks

... and what's happening at Gaffa Gallery?

Gaffa

330 Crown Street

Surry Hills

Sydney

NSW 2010

www.gaffa.com.au

ph (61) 02 93806266

gallery hours mon-fri 12-6 sat 11-6 sun 12-5

opening this Thursday 9th November 2006

...and two messages from Mark Goudkamp and Jack Smit from the Refugee Action Coalition:

Hi all,

Asylum seekers are currently out of the media
spotlight, and detainees continue to trickle out of
Villawood and elsewhere (albeit often on bridging
visas or community detention arrangements) but this
doesn't mean that the campaign is over...not by a long

shot. For a start, there's the towed back asylum
seekers still on Lombok, and the Burmese who were sent
to Nauru the day after Howard's border protecion bill
was dropped (see 11 Dec forum below).
Also, the kind of demonisation John Howard and his
team used against asylum seekers during the 2001
election campaign and beyond continues under different
guises, particularly against people of muslim faith,
some of whom were in detention 5 years ago.

In this context, Malcom Fraser is right to warn:
"There are already suggestions that this next election
will be a Muslim election, as a while ago it was the
Tampa election. The groundwork has been laid for an
increase in fear and concern over the followers of
Islam."
http://www.smh. com.au/news/ national/ fraser-attacked- as-an-apologist- for-extremism/ 2006/11/01/ 1162339918511. html

In another issue related to the government's migration
program, RAC and many in the unions are concerned that
the Liberal Party's policy of 457 visas for guest
workers and their use by employers to obtain cheap
labour could result in a racist backlash, the only
beneficiary of which would be the government. Quite a
few of the detainees still in behind the wire wind up
there as a result of working "illegally".

To their credit, the unions are increasingly seeing
these hyper-exploited workers, not as a threat, but as
potential members whose wages and conditions ought to
be the same as their local counterparts.

RAC sees this issue as a very important cross-over
between the refugee, anti-racist and workers'
movements. The abuses carried out under the 457 visas

are starting to gain quite a bit of media attention.
http://www.smh. com.au/news/ NATIONAL/ Visa-workers- sacked-over- AWAs-union/ 2006/10/25/ 1161749192589. html
http://www.smh. com.au/news/ national/ exploited- chinese-staff- get-650000- back-pay/ 2006/10/31/ 1162278141522. html

Last night I attended an Industrial Relations forum
put on by the Teachers Federation, CFMEU and The
Greens, where the speeches by the delegate for the
Indian 457 guest workers and a Korean "illegal" were
very moving.

I've attached the leaflet, and copied the inline text
of it below. Please distribute as you see fit.

Also on the leaflet are details of our forum on the Pacific Solution on 11 December, and a plug for the

Gleebooks launch of "The sinking of the SIEV-X: a case
study for secondary students".

In solidarity
Mark Goudkamp for RAC
for more info, email offline to markgoudkamp@ gmail.com

************ *
Refugee Action Coaltion events for rest of 2006
1. Monday 27 November 6pm
Howard's 457 cheap labour visas: his next tool to
divide & rule?
Howard is again on the ropes in the lead up to a
federal election, mainly due to his anti-union IR
laws. We can be sure that over the next 12 months, he

will use any fear tactic possible.
This forum will discuss how to stand up to any fanning
of anti-foreign worker sentiment.
Tim Ayres: Ass't Secretary, Australian Manufacturing
Workers' Union (NSW); Nikolai Haddad: migration
lawyer; plus speaker from Refugee Action Coalition.

2. Monday 11 December 6pm
Stranded by the Pacific Solution
A night for UN Human Rights day/RAC Xmas party
Anna Rose & Tony Bozdagci, recent visitors to asylum
seekers on Lombok, will present their doco.
Charlotte will speak on the Burmese who were recently
sent to Nauru
Plus an update on West Papua

Both meetings are in Room 2, Level 1, NSW Teachers Federation, 23 Mary St Surry Hills
Refreshments provided (gold coin donation)
For more info, go to www.racnsw.net or call 0422078376
Subscribe to our email list:

racnsw-subscribe@ yahoogroups. com

Also… Monday 4 December, 6pm for 6.30
Launch of SIEV-X school case study
This case study for secondary school students has
already come under attack from the Federal government,

but is supported by the History Teachers Association
and the NSW Teachers Federation
Gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, 9660 2333

Dear NAt'l RAC members,

++++++++++++ +++++++++ +++++++++ +++++++++ +++++++++
People and Planet: the 2007 Social Justice and Environment Diary
++++++++++++ +++++++++ +++++++++ +++++++++ +++++++++

In this email:

• The 2007 Social Justice and Environment Diary
• The Christmas season 2006: ALL your orders will be gift-wrapped!

Dear all,

I'm delighted to email you with some very exciting news: in a novel and
creative collaboration project with dozens of Australian Non-Government

Organisations (full list below) activist alliances and citizens' groups, we
can now offer a great item and a unique Christmas present:

++++++++++++ +++++++++ +++++++++ +++++++++ +++++++++
People and Planet: the 2007 Social Justice and Environment Diary
++++++++++++ +++++++++ +++++++++ +++++++++ +++++++++

For more information and to order:
http://www.safecom. org.au/people- planet-diary. htm

Made from fully recycled paper, the Diary shows seven days per page, is
designed using spiral binding, and features throughout the year photographs
from local communities around the world, including Tibet, Solomon Islands,
Bolivia, Laos, PNG, Peru and many other places, the Diary carries the small
price tag of $18.

Many of the groups and NGO's that support the The People and Planet Diary
2007, have their advertisement in the Diary. By purchasing the Diary from

us, you will help to support and fund the independent citizens' movement in
Australia.

So, buy one, two, three or four from us: as with all our products from now
on, they will all be individually gift-wrapped in the lead-up to Christmas
2006!

For more information and to order:
http://www.safecom. org.au/people- planet-diary. htm

Global Trade Watch (GTW), an Australian grassroots group campaigning for
democratic, environmentally sustainable and fair trading systems, can be
credited with starting the initiative for The People and Planet Diary 2007.
In the introduction GTW states:

"People and Planet 2007 has been published as a joint project between some
of the many hundreds of small organisations active in communities around

Australia. Organisations which are working quietly but diligently to create
a more just and more environmentally sustainable society - not only in
their own communities, but often nationally and internationally too. Few of

these organisations receive regular media coverage or have big public
profiles, but almost all are making a real difference to people and
environments in Australia and overseas."

For more information and to order:
http://www.safecom. org.au/people- planet-diary. htm

++++++++++++ +++++++++ ++++
List of participating organisations:
++++++++++++ +++++++++ ++++

|~ Aid/Watch ~|~ Australian Democrats (Qld) ~|~ Australian Peace Committee
(SA) ~|~ Borderlands ~|~ East Timor Women Australia ~|~ Eco-Shout ~|~
Environment Centre of the Northern Territory ~|~ Environs Kimberley ~|~
Fair Go Trading (Perth) ~|~ Food Irradiation Watch | Free West Papua
Campaign Pacifica (Melbourne) ~|~ Friends of Kolkata ~|~ Friends of the
Earth Adelaide ~|~ Friends of the Earth Melbourne ~|~ Friends of the Earth

Stawell ~|~ FutureWorld ~|~ Global Trade Watch ~|~ Hooked: Students for
Trade Justice ~|~ HOPE Queensland ~|~ Nature Conservation Counc

il of NSW
~|~ Pax Christi (Australia) ~|~ Project SafeCom ~|~ Refugee Action
Collective (Vic) ~|~ Refugee Action Committee, Canberra ACT ~|~ Rising Tide
Newcastle ~|~ Student Partnerships Worldwide ~|~ The Greens (NSW) ~|~ The
Trading Circle (Vic) ~|~ Toowoomba & Region Environment Council ~|~ Women's
Electoral Lobby ~|

http://www.safecom. org.au/people- planet-diary. htm

++++++++++++ +++++
Credit Card payments:
++++++++++++ +++++

Most of our products are now able to be purchased using your credit card.
Installation of a "Shopping Cart" system is complete for most items - it
takes just a few minutes to complete your transaction with the
well-credited PayPal system.

++++++++++++ +++++++++

Christmas presents galore....
++++++++++++ +++++++++

As per usual, we wrap all ordered items, from now on till Christmas, in
gift-wrap, ready for them to become your Christmas presents. Below is a
list of our products, ready for ordering by you.

++++++++++++ ++
Currently in stock:
++++++++++++ ++

The following titles are in stock on my latest count. This line-up is
"probably" correct: our Products Manager Justine is more informed than I am
these days about our products! If any of our products in "the shop" are
missing from the listing below, you can contact Justine through this
Shipping Query form:

http://www.safecom. org.au/shipping- query.htm

The Project SafeCom Shop:
http://www.safecom. org.au/products. htm

Antony Loewenstein, My Israel Question
http://www.safecom. org.au/israel- question. htm

Phil Sparrow, From Under a Leaky Roof
http://www.safecom. org.au/leaky- roof.htm

Helen Caldicott, Nuclear Power is not the Answer
http://www.safecom. org.au/caldicott .htm

Suad Amiry, Sharon and My Mother-in-Law
http://www.safecom. org.au/sharon- suad-amiry. htm

David Corlett, Following Them Home: the fate of the returned asylum seekers
http://www.safecom. org.au/following -them-home. htm

Janet Austin (ed), From Nothing to Zero, letters from detention centres
http://www.safecom. org.au/nothingto zero.htm

Tony Kevin, A Certain Maritime Incident - the sinking of SIEV X

http://www.safecom. org.au/tkevin- book1.htm

Robert Manne (ed), Do Not Disturb: Is the Media Failing Australia?
http://www.safecom. org.au/do- not-disturb. htm

Frank Brennan, Tampering with Asylum (2 copies only)
http://www.safecom. org.au/tampering .htm

(Music CD) The Scattered People Choir: Voices of Asylum seekers
http://www.safecom. org.au/scattered .htm

(DVD Movie) Dean Israelite's Spell Me Freedom (2 copies only)
http://www.safecom. org.au/spell- me-freedom. htm

Holiday Camp: the movie (VHS format) (2 copies only)
http://www.safecom. org.au/holidayca mp.htm

Dark Dreams: Australian Refugee Stories
http://www.safecom. org.au/dark- dreams.htm

To all of you who read this, I extend a warm thanks for your unrelenting
support shown to us at Project SafeCom during 2006, and best wishes for the
Christmas Season!

Until next year - Season's Greetings!

Jack H Smit
Project SafeCom Inc.
http://www.safecom. org.au/
P.O. Box 364
Narrogin WA 6312

phone (08) 9881-5651
mobile 0417 090 130
Fremantle Operations: (08) 9336-6048

...and if you were in Darlinghurst on Thursday arvo,

you had the opportunity to see Evil B.J. perform in full gear with her hospital bed and fluffy white gorilla Manilla between the National Art School and the College Of Fine Arts campuses. She gave her body to impersonate the hopes, fears and most of all ignorance surrounding the "wedding" that might happen during the summer break between two schools that would unite for the best and the worse. Especially the...

Check all the details by clicking on thr link "Flâner la bombe" or typing www.elfluff.blogspot.com