• 

  Sam Hoffmann: You’re a good guy Brad. Just keep on working for the good of our country.

  17 March at 11:07
• 

  John-Paul Hussey: Thanks mate, we’ve got some great loan deals on all white goods and large domestic appliances at the moment. Maybe your missus wants a new fridge with a totally useless ice crushing outlet?

  17 March at 11:13
• 

  Sam Hoffmann: That’s great Brad, you’re such a great bloke, can’t wait for a new toaster…the old one just doesn’t suit the new reno job.

  17 March at 11:14
• 

  Sam Hoffmann: While I’m at it could I get a loan for a new car too? My 2011 Toyota Celica just doesn’t suit my lifestyle any more.

  17 March at 11:16
• 

  John-Paul Hussey: Awesome, just fill in the paper work and you’re done mate.

  17 March at 11:16
• 

  Sam Hoffmann: Thanks mate… done.

  17 March at 11:17
• 

  John-Paul Hussey: Can’t interest you in remodeling your loan package, mate? Just a tiny bit. I’ll throw in another 3 grand and you can get that jet ski you’ve had your eye on for ages.

  17 March at 11:21
• 

  Sam Hoffmann: That’s fine. What sort of interest rate am I looking at?

  17 March at 11:23
• 

  John-Paul Hussey: Only 12%! I know only 12%,  I can’t believe it myself either mate. I’ll just change around the numbers, initial it, good as done, and you’ll be in debt AGAIN for ONLY another 18 months.  Awesome.

  17 March at 11:28
• 

  Sam Hoffmann: Wow, sounds great. Sign me up.

  17 March at 11:38
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  Shane Grant: Sign me up for half a mill.

  17 March at 12:11
• 

  David Grant: I love this JP

  17 March at 12:15
• 

  John-Paul Hussey: OK Shane no problem. That means you’ll be in debt for only 35 years and if you quit smoking now, you can pay it all off yourself and not pass the debt onto your grand kids. Awesome.

  17 March at 12:15
• 

  David Grant: Awesome!

  17 March at 12:18
• 

  Kelly Ryall: Hi Brad, I think we can be friends.

  17 March at 12:27
• 

  John-Paul Hussey: Sorry Kelly mate, can’t help you there mate. You’re single it says here in the paperwork. We’ll need a double income for that loan mate. No sorry mate, no no mate. You’ll have to leave…and bring the dog with you. ….Jeez some people!

  17 March at 12:31
• 

  Peat Moss: Sorry Brad, I’m with Bendigo

  17 March at 14:30
• 

  Steve Prendiville: Botox Friday

  17 March at 14:38
• 

  John-Paul Hussey: Well good luck to you Peat cuz as we all acknowledge here down at the Mount Waverly branch, the Bendigo is like that sad n sorry town – full of fly by nighters and bloody horse thieves. Here at the ANZ we’re here to help you through the long haul, til the very end. Yeah, till you’re basically dead n buried mate. Have a good squizz at our brochure and come back to me. Right. Awesome.

  17 March at 14:50
• 

  John-Paul Hussey: Botox on my bollox! That’s a bit of a stretch mate. That’s a bit homosexual. OK Steve, OK calm down, no sprucing of your personal business here mate. No. Go on and take one of our promo glossys with you.

  17 March at 14:57
• 

  Stephen Ives: Oh you are just wrong JP, WRONG!

  17 March at 15:15
• 

  John-Paul Hussey: Awesome.

  17 March at 15:24
• 

  Utter Rutter: YAY!!! do you do loans for “personal improvement” I am in a happy marriage and want to keep my man coming back for more !! YAY!!

  17 March at 18:04
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  John-Paul Hussey: Just buy more stuff. Big stuff that you can’t really afford Mizz. Buy it without telling the hubby, just bring it home and surprise him with look what I got at Highpoint?! It’ll blow him away! And keep it regular, keep going back to the Mall every weekend and buy even more stuff that you don’t need. Awesome for the Conomy. Awesome for us. Awesome for the sexlife and amazing would u believe it Mizz – Awesome for the Virnoment & those Chinese kids.

  17 March at 19:41
• 

  Utter Rutter: Stuff, YAY !!!

  17 March at 21:08
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  Stephen Ives: Oh Jesus, just woke up for work and realised you were in my waking dream Brad, not good at 5.30 in the am.

  18 March at 05:36
• 

  Emmymaie Davey: Hey, dude, got any $$$?

  18 March at 05:37
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  Marion Pierce: I love the eye brows.

  18 March at 06:23
• 

  Tamsin Young: Classic!

  18 March at 06:23
• 

  Marcos Davidson: Hey Brad! Hows that loan for the carport coming?

  19 March at 12:34

John-Paul Hussey © 2012

A big thanks to SAM HOFFMANN, living in the Northern Territory at the time, for kick starting this dialogue.

A few pics I took of friends at a party in Adelaide during the festival.

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 of that particular performance on this website on the General page.

These images though are from December 2011-12 during the Xmas & New Year shopping period, also in Melbourne. We ventured out, walking 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 cameras 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 when there are more images documenting reality, than reality itself. It wont happen of course, because reality is constantly unfurling.

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. We decided for this performance 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 image they were storing of 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 the 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.

Others though asked those inevitable questions, of what the performance meant, thinking we might be part of some commercial promotion or 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 ( in Black) was a problem for security, mainly 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-bully in a uniform 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.