If you ever needed proof the next four years might be better than the last eight...

" "I think we're going to be able to hang on to one of these [a Blackberry]. My working assumption, and this is not new, is that anything I write on an email could end up being on CNN... So I make sure to think before I press 'send'." "

- Future president of the United States, and friend of Spiderman, Barrack Obama, showing that he's a thinker.

Today's new discovery.

It's about money.*

Who would've thought it?

[* yes yes it's about other things too.]

It's all been done before.

Currently exhibiting at Firstdraft in Surry Hills is It's all been done before, an exhibition curated by myself. I asked a group of people - comprised of artists, writers, curators and musicians - to create a cover version of their favourite artwork, the only restriction being that the work that results retains the title of the original piece.

The exhibition reveals insightful and in some cases surprising turns as the artists showcase those who have inspired them in their work. Conversely, in my role as curator, I reveal the work of those who interest me and the people who inspire and shape my own practice. It's all one great big love in, but hopefully a self-aware and self-reflexive love in at that.

The exhibition runs until Saturday the 16th of August, with Firstdraft being open from 12 - 6pm, Wednesday to Saturday. Should you feel that way inclined, there are talks with some of the artists and myself happening on Saturday the 16th at 4:30pm. Come along, it'll be swell.

Alternatively, if you like your artistic discourse to be of the louder variety you should come by the gallery this Friday [the 15th] from 6:30pm. There you will find The day the music died, an evening of reinterpretations of pop songs from some of Sydney's [and one of Melbourne's] greatest sonic misfits. As always quality is not guaranteed, but at least it will be entertaining. Full spiel follows shortly.

***

It's all been done before.

Ben Byrne
Anastasia Freeman
June Green
Michelle Jamieson
Peter Newman
Sean Rafferty
Soda_Jerk

Curated by Daniel Green.

Opening 6th August, 6 – 8pm

Exhibition runs 6th – 16th August, 2008

Performance: The day the music died.
Friday 15th August, 6:30pm:

Peter Blamey
Samuel Bruce
Ben Byrne
Daniel Green and
The End of Everything
Thomas Knox Arnold
Peter Newman
Kusum Normoyle
Alex White and
Monika Brooks

Artist and Curator Talks: 16th August, 4.30pm

Gallery Hours: Wednesday to Saturday, 12 - 6pm

>>

Curation is an everyday activity that when put on display can be considered one of the greater forms of vanity available to us as both artists and people. Through the act of curation, Daniel Green is displaying a collection of works by people who have influenced and inspired him. These works are in turn, covers of earlier works which have inspired the people who have inspired Green.

In a way, It’s all been done before is a grand scale exercise in honouring our source material. It is about doing more than just playing favourites; rather, asking why they are favourites in the first place and finding ways of re-presenting them to encourage others to consider what inspires them, what their ‘favourites’ are and explore the impact it has had in their lives.

It’s all been done before explores this challenging subject through a wide variety of mediums and artists, both those taking part in creating the covers and those being covered in the hope that you can consider what your sources are.

Members of the 2007 John Howard retirement campaign, your time is now.

http://www.aec.gov.au/

If you are an Australian citizen aged 18 or over and not on the electoral roll, you have until 8pm on Wednesday the 17th October 2007 to fill out an enrolment form and get it to the Australian Electoral Commission.

If you are on the electoral roll, but need to update your details, you have to do this by 8pm on Tuesday the 23rd of October 2007.

Now for some reason the whole thing about not being able to enrol once the election is called seems to not have come to pass. This is good. Get cracking.

"I got the child edition and the adult edition, just to check that there are no differences in the text."

Before you ask, no, three copies of Jo Rowling's newest licence to print money aren't enough, but thanks for asking. I at one stage had four copies in fact, but posted one to a relative whilst on my way home with the goods. I know it's a big deal and all, with various news outlets claiming queues of people lining up at book stores from thousands into the billions, but I somehow figured I wouldn't have to sell vital organs or endure Playstation 3-launch-style wrath in order to get a copy. But then I wasn't silly enough to preorder the thing either; those poor souls are probably still in queue. It has been weird (though I guess not unexpected) to see how avidly people have dived into the book since its lauch at 9:01 this morning; as I made my way home after making my purchases, there were many excited individuals clutching specially made tote bags, if not the book itself. Some seemed to be unable to contain themselves, sitting on the edges of footpaths to begin reading, resigning themselves to not move for fear of finding out how it all ends from someone else. This catatonic, ritual-like state extends to my housemate and a friend of hers, who are both sitting on the couch opposite me ploughing through the tome as I write this.

This is the challenge that now awaits me. I'm still only up to ...The Goblet of Fire, the fourth book in the series. Somehow, amidst all the excitement about I'm going to try and not find anything about what happens. I don't like my chances either. Still, I manged to get through almost two years after The Sixth Sense was released in cinemas without finding out how that ended... only to guess the twist within the first half an hour when I finally watched it. I'm hoping this won't be quite that anti-climactic.

Avoid the cold with Kork Chork!

My friend Anastasia has put together an evening of frivolity in order to raise some pennies for a school in Camboida where she volunteered earlier this year. You should come, it'll be quite the thing. You should bring other people too. That'd be swell. If you're keen you can click on the above image or read below for more information. It's tonight, you should probably know that. Sorry about the late notice, but face it you had nothing better to do anyway.

***

Kork Chork

Wednesday 20th of June, 6pm
$6 and $8 entry
Pact Theatre, 107 Railway Parade, Erskineville

Cameron Foster, Suzan Liu, Miri Wheen, Pip Johnson, Anastasia Freeman, Daniel Green, Monika Brooks, Alice Amsel, T.R. Carter, Louise Dibben, Emily Morandini, Anna Chase, Jade Oldfield, William Noble.

A night of experimental sound, video and performance
A fundraiser for the volunteer development poverty children school in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

In association with Quarterbred and Pact Theatre.

Current adventures in pop music: It's OK 'cause I found multi-part harmonies

One of my all time favourite concert experiences was at the hands of The Polyphonic Spree. They evoked such an ecstatic feeling from within that if they were indeed they great cult that some believe they are and they started handing out little vials throughout the enmore theatre claiming that drinking it would enable my soul to be teleported on to an spacecraft flying overhead I probably would have believed them. At that point everyone was so ridiculously happy, who really would've cared?

Needless to say, this didn't happen; the aliens didn't take me, and bless their cotton socks The Polyphonic Spree have a new album coming out in June titled The Fragile Army. Teleporting your web browser to their myspace page will reveal to you that they've ditched the iconic robes in favour of black, military style get up [they're an army after all] as well as a streaming version of their new single Running Away, which is rather lovely in my opinion.

The most curious thing however lies at the end of the playlist; a cover of Nirvana's Lithium. Covering Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band I could understand but Lithium is a rather odd choice; not being the happiest of ditties after all. Of course it works; utilising a kill them with kindness attitude to things and stranger things have certainly occured before and since. Perhaps this video of the group playing the song in Dallas puts things in perspective. The quality is suitably bad, but it's all about the choir in the background.

Current exercises in productivity #2: A trip to Melbourne

After all the trials of the aforementioned trip to Luna Park, the end result of sitting on a ferris wheel and contemplating one's existence was The Duration Of The Ride Will Be Approximately Eight Minutes. This new work was completed for the group exhbition "Raise High The Roofbeams," which ran at Bus Gallery in Melbourne between the 8th and the 25th of May. The exhibition served as an exchange between Bus and Firstdraft Gallery in Sydney, as well as being part of a larger project called Making Space, which celebrates Melbourne's various [and many] artist-run-initiatives.

After being initally quite unsure as to how the work would turn out in the realm outside of my brain, I was very happy with its final state. It looked great, sounded fine [despite my various attempts to destroy my speaker cables during installation], and was suitably painful to watch. Have to be happy with that. The work isn't hard to imagine; it's eight minutes of me sitting in a carriage on a ferris wheel, filming outwards towards Sydney harbour. The video starts when the ride does, and finishes when it ends. Like most of my work of late, you get the point pretty quick. Yet it never ceases to fascinate me that people will stick with it until it ends, like something truly exciting will happen, and then complain that it doesn't. Admittedly, this is part of the point of undertaking such things, but it makes me laugh nonetheless. I think this is one of the better realised versions of this theme that I've done, but I do wonder how long I can push it for. It's one thing to be repetitive about being obvious, but that all changes when the reverse becomes the norm.

The trip to Melbourne itself was great, as any stretch of being somewhere else tends to be. It's the closest thing I've had to a holiday in a very long time, and it was nice to come back feeling energised about what one does. So much to see there is, and simply not enough time to get through it all.

Might have to go back methinks.