JOHN-PAUL HUSSEY

This is the Black & White performance with John-Paul Hussey in White & Daniel Mounsey in Black. It was first done in early 2011 in the cosmetic departments of Myer and David Jones in Melbourne. On that occasion we wandered around behaving like any other customer looking for a make-over. There are pictures on this website on the General page.

These images are from December 2011-12 during the Xmas & New Year shopping period in Melbourne. We ventured out and walked down a variety of streets and public locations. This time we directly interacted with the general public. Whenever we passed all kinds of camera phones and digital camera came out of bags and back pockets. People seem to carry around these devices like they are a cross between an hand gun and a dear-diary.

They just whip them out and bang.

Snap, document, snap, document, show your friends, they show their friends and on and on it goes, and it’s happening a billion times over, 24-7 all over the world. One could wonder if there will come a point where there are more images documenting reality, than reality itself. It wont happen of course, because reality is constantly unfurling.

But never before have we documented what is around us so madly. Mind you, just because there’s a predilection for documentation, it doesn’t necessarily make everyone good at it. And these days everyone seems to be a photographer and most professionals would say photography is the poorer for it. But that’s another subject entirely.

Either or, they took them out and snapped away. This time though we decided to ask for a donation, accompanied by a small spiel that we were performance artists and we should ideally be paid for our efforts, and that not all images are free.

Most understood this request and we’re happy to hand over a few coins, but there were still a great many who refused, walked away or snapped regardless and thought us arrogant or foolish, even greedy and that really, since we were parading in public, we were therefore within the public domain and as an image we essentially belonged to them.

Needless to say, if you know me, I gave those shirkers my mind. Often on the spot or we would pursue them for a short while, politely asking for a modest remuneration for that iamge they were storing us in their phone or camera. They hated that, and although we may not have achieved that ‘remuneration for an image we created’, we hoped it might make them think next time of what all this mindless snapping up of images is about.

The people who seem to react most positively to this performance, are Asians: Japanese and Indians in particular, both on a religious and/or a purely aesthetic level. They seemed genuinely pleased to see us and asked no questions about who or what we were doing that day.

There were the inevitable questions of what the performance meant and many asked who we were, thinking that we might be part of some commercial promotion, advertising an event. Or we were already employed  by the city, since we weren’t like typical street performers or buskers who remain stationary in one spot.

There was one unfortunate incident where we were stopped by a security guard in Federation Square. Fed Square is like an open air piazza, surrounded by numerous galleries, cafes and specialist cinemas. The security guard said we couldn’t pass though, because Daniel Mounsey’s costume was a problem to security, because they couldn’t see his face. I told him that September 11 was 10 years ago and that perhaps he should be a little less paranoid. The immediate and most typical of interpretations of this situation, is would he have stopped a woman in a full burqa?

He didn’t see the logic of that, but that’s hardly surprising when you’re dealing with an idiot who holds a walky-talky like a microphone  and has far too much time on his hands.

On the whole everyone seemed to have enjoyed seeing such a striking image pass through an otherwise everyday landscape…and that, regardless of the symbolism of black and white, was our a primary intention. To take the Art out of the galleries and theatres and bring it to people who would not necessarily go to these institutions.

Pics by Mark Burban aka pixelwhip.

John-Paul Hussey © 2011

APOCALYPTIC DROP BEARS

My vision for 2012: millions of them raining down from the heavens. Dont dare pick them up and squeeze or they’ll play Ric Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up for the rest of eternity.

A SAFE SHOP

I asked the man holding fort, if he was the owner of the business. He said yes, but his wife owns the building. A rather odd thing to say. He was a little reluctant for me to take pictures – for security reasons, but when I told him it reminded me of the closing scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, he said sure fire away. So I did; this by the way is only a small fraction of the safes he has stored here in North Melbourne.

SLOW

There are roadworks here in Kensington almost on a daily basis, that it seems like they’re running a small college on how to rip the road up and put it all back together again. 

MANIKIN’S HEAD

Charging erection anyone?

Cnr of Russel & Little Collins Streets, Melbourne

This was taken outside Flinders Train Station in Melbourne. The guy in the tiny red shorts was talking over some political point to a woman looking after the International Socialists table, that always parks itself in the same spot in the city.

This guy is a giant, as you can see, and the woman holding her ground was not short at all. He must be at at at least 6ft 7, but it was also his outfit with the lace-less army boots that got my attention to take the shot.

Not such good lighting here, but at least it shows the true size of this guy.

That same night I was meeting up with my former editor, Fotis. A larger than life character in all respects. He’s Greek and may have more pairs of cuff-links than I have shoes.

Ironically, I found this on the kitchen table when I returned home that night. It’s one of those toys that expand 10 fold when placed in water.

All pics taken on an iPhone 4

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Good morning and welcome to the first day of daylight saving. This picture was taken in a junk shop in Footscray. I wasn’t too sure how to title it at first. Initially it seemed like a comedy festival program and the frustrating business of trying to select a show.

Then it reminded me of the time when living in a warehouse in the city with the goldsmith Marcos Davidson. We were on the top floor and there was a nightclub called ICON directly below, and each weekend we had to suffer the sound of these massive bins of glass bottles in the alleyway being emptied each morning.

It has quite a specific sound, of glass smashing but not quite breaking, that it eventually became affectionately known as ‘The Sound of  10,000 Suburban Hangovers.’

But what are these boxes with the moving monster claw called? Because I have  no idea. Rudy, my partner’s 9 year old daughter, has no idea either but says there’s one in the New Market Safeways called, ‘WIN n’ GRIN’.

Art work courtesy of Rudy created while I was writing this post. So yes why not – lets called it WIN n GRIN….you may need a mirror to read her inscriptions though.

Behind Hosier Lane, The UNTIL NEVER Gallery.