Stilgherrian » marcus westbury

Marcus Westbury’s “Not Quite Art” is quite unmissable

Stilgherrian — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 23:17:10 +0000

I can’t be “objective” about Marcus Westbury and his truly awesome TV series Not Quite Art. Marcus, I am totally envious and I want to have your babies!

OK, failing that (for various biological and logistical reasons) I’ll simply demand that everyone — and I do mean everyone — watch Not Quite Art when series two is squeezed like a threatening pimple from ABC1’s transmitters across Australia tonight at 10pm. Or ABC2 at 7pm Sunday. Or streamed from ABC iView. ~~Or downloaded illegally from the torrents.~~

Quite frankly, if you reckon you’re interested in “art” and “culture” and how it’s evolving, then you must consider Marcus’ worldview. If you fail to watch this program, you’re missing out on a delightful, witty and above all intelligent journey.

Now I suppose I’ll have to explain why this series is so important…

First, though, I’d better explain why I can’t be “objective” — in quotes because I think this whole “objective” thing about writing reviews and journalism is a crock of shit. We all have our biases and pre-conceived ideas — whether we like them or not, whether we even realise it or not — so we might as well try to put them on the table.

My bias?

I want Marcus’ job!

But I’m not cool enough any more.

Sulk.

Back in 1993 I discovered the writing of Neal Stephenson through the pages of Wired magazine. While researching his massive article Mother Earth Mother Board the “hacker tourist”, as he was styled, travelled three continents following the route of the global fibre optic network, writing entertainingly about its history and its impact.

I was jealous. Stephenson had the freedom to spend several months and 42,000 words on something he loved and was paid for it. I wanted to do that! Travel, and write and talk about stuff I’m interested in.

Then last year I read Marcus Westbury’s opinion piece Mozart cover bands rake in the moolah, about how “an overwhelming amount of arts funding in Australia goes to organisations that either exclusively or primarily play covers”.

Think symphony orchestras, opera companies and state theatre companies that produce comparatively little in the way of original, innovative or even Australian work. Like classic hits radio, they are busting out the chart-toppers of the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries…

[G]rab yourself a copy of the Australia Council’s annual report. The nation’s cover bands, mostly the state-based symphony orchestras, collectively receive just under $50 million each year from the council.

Whether that figure seems average or outrageous would depend on the context that you choose to put it in. The context that I put it in is the $4.8 million pool that every single musician in Australia who isn’t in a symphony orchestra competes for every year. That’s more than a 10-fold disparity between the orchestras and everyone else combined.

Wow! This certainly resonated with my thoughts. And then:

Culture isn’t something that happened in Europe centuries ago that needs preservation. It’s actually all that messy, beautiful, inspiring and wonderful stuff that is happening around us right now. Arts funding should reward innovation not preservation and vibrancy over bureaucracy

Yes! Precisely!

I watched Not Quite Art series 1 — which of all the programs the ABC put into that 10pm Tuesday arts timeslot pulled the biggest audience — and I loved this man’s worldview. He trotted around Australia showing us the cool stuff!

So I was well pleased when I pressed “play” on the preview DVD the lovely people at ABC TV sent me and heard these words at the start of Not Quite Art series 2 episode 1, “Culture Shock”:

This is a series about culture. Not just this kind of culture [gesturing to the theatre around him] but the living cultures all around us — the ones that are evolving and changing so rapidly that if you nod off for a little while, well, you just might miss it.

Marcus and his nerdy brown pullover led me on a journey through living cultures including Newcastle-bred DJ Mark Newlands, who referred to “the cave-man era before the Internet” and reminded us that “Technology marches on. Either get with it or get fucked”; video game critic Ben “Yahtze” Croshaw whose program pulls 4 million viewers; animator Paul Robertson, who reaches his global audience from his bedroom; a wonderful woman called Jodi Rose who records the sounds that bridges make; and to a remote part of the Northern Territory (pictured above, where Marcus removes his pullover!) and… well I won’t tell you all the tales.

But then he said something which had me spluttering my coffee and and gasping for breath.

What interests me isn’t the technology, but how it’s changing us.

Damn you, Westbury! I said that! On my About Stilgherrian page! Well, in a few more words…

I’m not that interested in technology itself. I’m more interested in the social questions.

What does it all mean for your life? Your family? Your business? Your community? For the law and politics? How will it change the very core of what it means to be human?

This little cunt Marcus Westbury is not only thinking my thoughts, he’s getting paid to put them on TV!

So I take it all back! Do not watch this program. It’s a program I’d want to make, if I were still hip and cool and knew people at the bloody ABC. Do not watch Not Quite Art.

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Marcus Westbury on the web

Stilgherrian — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 22:35:41 +0000

The wonderful Marcus Westbury, creator of the TV series Not Quite Art (amongst any other achievements) now has a web presence at www.marcuswestbury.net. Enjoy.

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So, who’s for Chairman Rudd’s Australia 2020 Summit?

Stilgherrian — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 19:54:04 +0000

Chairman Rudd’s got a clever strategy going, unless it’s just a coincidence. The usually-secret Red Book warns of approaching “challenges” like climate change, an aging population and the economic growth of India and China. Then we announce the Australia 2020 Summit.

As any management consultant will tell you, develop a shared vision and folks will endure short-term pain — like interest rate rises and having to change the light bulbs.

Actually I’m not that cynical about it. I’m quietly enthused. After a decade of Howard’s backward-looking short-term thinking we seriously need to look to the future. Fast. Of course, back when Barry Jones was science minister we had a permanent organisation to keep watch, the Commission for the Future. Maybe I’ll read Lessons from the Australian Commission for the Future: 1986-1998 [PDF file] when I get the time. But I digress…

If Chairman Rudd wants 1000 of our “best and brightest” in Canberra on 19-20 April, who should they be?

It’s flattering that Nick Hodge and Peter Black nominated me, bless their sycophantic little hearts. And I’ve already gained four votes at Bloggerati. I’d love to be part of this Summit, sure, because I’d be Fighting the Hallucinating Goldfish hands on. However I have a few more modest suggestions…

Before I name names, though, a reminder about the categories, and some thoughts on the type of people we need to see.

We’re choosing 100 people to work on each of 10 topics:

Future directions for the Australian economy — including education, skills, training, science and innovation as part of the nation’s productivity agenda
Economic infrastructure, the digital economy and the future of our cities
Population, sustainability, climate change, and water
Future directions for rural industries and rural communities
A long-term national health strategy — including the challenges of preventative health, workforce planning and the ageing population
Strengthening communities, supporting families and social inclusion
Options for the future of indigenous Australia
Towards a creative Australia: the future of the arts, film and design
The future of Australian governance: renewed democracy, a more open government (including the role of the media), the structure of the Federation and the rights and responsibilities of citizens
Australia’s future security and prosperity in a rapidly changing region and world.

Maybe that’s not the best breakdown, but that’s what we’re stuck with. I guess it’s what the focus groups are saying.

So how do we pick the people? I reckon:

The majority should be under the age of 40, with a significant number under 30. This is about the future.
The majority should be people most of us have never heard of, not people in the news every week. This is about fresh ideas. This implies that communities need to start identifying and nominating them now.
No-one anywhere in the selection process should ever starting thinking about quotas. None of this 1970s crap about “we must have equal numbers of men and women,” or “make sure there’s a few Asian faces in each group.” The selection should be on talent alone. I’m well aware that’s the most controversial of my suggestions, but if you’re still measuring gender or ethnicity at all it means you’re still classifying people into those categories.
Don’t confuse “opinion” with “vision”. I won’t expand upon that point, or I might rule myself out!
No-one should get a guernsey simple because they did Great Things in some field some time in the distant past. Yes, we need people with experience, but current experience — people who are shaping the future already, and who deserve a wider audience.

Right, time for some names. Here’s my first 5, and I’ll add more over coming days. I’ll list each one with suggested topic numbers in [square brackets].

Dr Dick Quan, tutor in community medicine and tireless collector and promoter of modern art. [5, 8]
Human rights lawyer Julian Burnside, who’ll help find the right balance in government. [9].
Producer and festival director Marcus Westbury, creator of Not Quite Art (amongst other things). [8]
Sociologist Mark Bahnisch of Larvatus Prodeo fame. [6, 9]
Futurist Mark Pesce. Yeah I’ve been reading his stuff again lately, but there’s vision. Plus if I don’t mention him the bloggerati will cast me into the outer darkness. [2, 8]

I haven’t listed anyone for topics 1, 3, 4, 5 or 7 because I know bugger all about them. And while I have a passing interest in topic 10, I don’t know any of the players. Any thoughts? And what do you think my my choices?

Melbourne’s Neil Mitchell has already labelled this Summit a “wank tank”, but then talkback hosts always seem to want action immediately with thought and analysis later (if at all). Discount him. Still, if you want this Summit to matter, and if you want to get your people there, then you need to take the right action.

Talking amongst ourselves is all well and good. But to nominate someone you need to get in touch with the selection committee by… well, we don’t know yet. Stand by.

Oh, and if you’re going to nominate me, category 9 please.

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Funding Mozart cover bands just isn’t right

Stilgherrian — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 07:49:35 +0000

If art is about creativity, then why does most of the government funding go to a few relics from the past?

Last night’s exhibition launch at Gallery 4A included reminders that contemporary art galleries struggle to survive: a begging bowl on the bar, and speeches studded with polite requests to become a member or make a donation, and genuinely thankful thank-yous to the private patrons.

Yet as Marcus Westbury writes in the Sydney Morning Herald today, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra gets nearly $9M funding annually — more than all of Australia’s visual arts artists put together. Or all writers and publishers. Or all the dancers.

Scathingly referring to the SSO and their ilk as “Mozart cover bands”, he writes:

Opera Australia receives more than $10 million a year from the Australia Council. Sure, opera is lavish, expensive and glorious but I simply cannot think of a single sensible, logical or sane reason why one opera company is valued roughly on par with more than 400 separate organisations supported by the music, dance, literature and inter-arts boards of the same organisation.

Great art to me creates a resonance and opens up possibilities; it isn’t the echoes of the past. It’s not something you reproduce proficiently. Art is made out of anger or curiosity or awe or beauty or because you’re in love or want someone to fall in love with you.

Artists don’t just preserve the past. They make new things from the sum total of human experience. They tell new stories and find new ways of telling stories from the tools and influences that they have around them.

Culture isn’t something that happened in Europe centuries ago that needs preservation. It’s actually all that messy, beautiful, inspiring and wonderful stuff that is happening around us right now. Arts funding should reward innovation not preservation and vibrancy over bureaucracy.

My my, Marcus! Put that sort of thing into the SMH and the entire arts-administrator industry will be a-flutter! Well done.