BROWN COUNCIL (NSW) Brown Council is an Australian
‘perform’. Their video installa-
video/performance art collabo-
tions and live performances have
ration consisting of four artists:
featured in festivals, exhibitions and
Frances Barrett, Kate Blackmore,
events both nationally and interna-
Kelly Doley and Diana Smith. Since
tionally.
meeting at Sydney's College of
ity converges with the filmic in an
Fine Arts in 2005, Brown Council
emotive explosion of fake blood,
have established and maintained
fake sweat and fake tits. Through
a strong collective arts practice
the darkness a female figure runs
exploring the intersections between
in slow motion, stained in blood
performance
theatre.
with her top ripped open, and then
Brown Council reclaim, embody
in a bloody finale is killed in action
and tear apart images, sounds
and frozen in time. This is a close
and actions from visual culture to
encounter with a spectacular cliché:
interrogate how it is that we should
an onscreen body up close.
art
and
In Runaway, theatrical-
HANNAH RAISIN (VIC) Since completing a Bachelor of
can give way to a synthetic and
Fine Arts at the Victorian College
sterile beauty as the epitome
of
Raisin
of what is considered sexy. But
continues to live and work in
who can measure the unnatural?
the
Arts,
Hannah
has
Raisin's Sugar Sweet explores
exhibited in both solo and group
such territory, with the idea that
Sugar Sweet milks
every thought has a perfect image
Melbourne,
shows.
where
she
synthetic
encapsulating its essence, binding
femininity. Is embarrassment a
it to the world; the ideas and key
rejection of oneself? Why is it
icons we attempt to mimic (the
that if we believe we will become
heightened colours and flavours)
somebody else we will be happy?
are as unstable and as artificially
A dismissal of our natural bodies
enhanced as packet cereal.
the
symbols
of
a
9 LEFT Runaway, 2008, performance video, 5:55 duration. Audio track: ‘Runaway or Stay’ by Kevin Blechdom (from Eat My Heart Out, Chicks on Speed Records 2005). Video: William Mansfield. BELOW Sugar Sweet, 2009–10, performance video, 3:12 duration.