I would flip (the catalogue pages) and wonder, ‘What kind of dining room set defines me as a person?’

Objects are not discrete. Our lives are entangled with things, we are dependent on them not simply for their function, but to negotiate and support our socially and psychologically constructed existence. Still Lives, a recent Craft ACT program, paired film screenings with handcrafted objects to explore ‘the way in which objects shape and reveal our identities.’

When Triple J’s Megan Spencer introduced Fight Club, the first film in Craft ACTs’ series, she reviewed the movie’s themes of consumerism and social alienation, arguing that the human body became the ultimate item for consumption in the film. In the plot, human value is reduced to a simple cost/benefit equation in the corporate domain, while the body is consumed in the spectacle of physical combat. The movie self-consciously deals with meta-narratives and the body, Brad Pitt in this instance, represents money in the bank for the film studio. The story follows ‘Jack’ along a path of anarchy as he rejects a lifestyle of corporate and IKEA catalogue servitude, but the result is social, cultural and psychological alienation. Even his body is not his own; it is controlled by charismatic alter ego Tyler Durden (Pitt).

Responding to Fight Club, and the curatorial theme, ‘the alienated object,’ Artist Dianna Shores examines alienation as a product of consumption culture. Affordable Dreams consists of museum tags printed with text and symbols on digitally sampled images from the film. The label metaphor suggests the alienation that occurs with the imposition of artificially constructed systems of value and meaning. Branding is the penultimate embodiment of this process; the label or image is the thing. It exists in a privileged virtual state without any need for or attachment to the product. An alternate reality is created. Although it is unrelated to the product’s use, construction or environmental impact, it is attractive to the buyer and ultimately results in a life limited by fashion and followed by obsolescence.

Cinema similarly relies on virtual reality rather than physical presence, and ‘…as Benjamin has observed, the cinema has no original which is then produced on mass scale: the mass product is the thing itself.’ In comparing and contrasting movies and handcrafted objects, curator Barb McConnchie exploits these very dichotomies. Prototypes for mass production are usually handcrafted originals. When unique objects are exhibited in a gallery they demand active contemplation from the audience. The social context of movie consumption and the constant movement of cinema foster a passive reception. It is a pleasure to suspend disbelief and enjoy the ride the film experience offers.

By virtue of their differing production methods, their distribution and display, art objects are in many ways the antithesis of the movie, yet the parallels are intriguing. Actor Edward Norton (Jack) has said, ‘it is the responsibility of people making films and people making all art to specifically address dysfunctions in the culture. I think that any culture where the art is not reflecting a really dysfunctional component of the culture, is a culture in denial.’ Dysfunctional objects and absurd design specificity, a focus for Jacques Tati in Mon Oncle, are metaphors for the social effects brought about by modernisation. When he introduced the film Dr Gino Moliterno, University of Canberra Professor, drew attention to Tati’s startling juxtapositions, including, old and new, noise and silence, chaos and order, community and isolation in his opening speech.

Tati’s absurd humour is tempered with pathos as he explores human elements contributing to dysfunction including, mischief, neglect, greed, incompetence and accident. Oliver Smith pays a surreal tribute to Tati’s characters, depicting them as silhouettes in patterned ‘found’ sheet metal. Humour and a delight in gadgetry is present in Smith’s response to Mon Oncle, a collection of implements. Smith juxtaposes incongruous materials including silver, soft rubber and Teflon to create, in the spirit of Dada, ‘uselessness for contemplative immersion.’20/20 Vision, by Pearl Gillies, is similarly unusable; the gigantic proportions of the cup, saucer and spoon emphasise the importance of the rituals demanded by social etiquette.

The appearance of fine bone china however, is fraudulent; the oversized teacup and saucer are made from powder coated aluminium and gold leaf. Related to Martin Scorsese’s Age of Innocence, the work dramatizes the conspicuous consumption and display of manners that has coded middle class behavior and epitomises the exhibition theme, ‘object as status.’ Merryn Gates delivered an absorbing introduction that discussed the book as a reflection of author Edith Wharton’s life. Objects reflect desires and Gates dwelt on objects as lovingly as the filmmaker. The drama of the glove, she suggests, implies, substitutes for, but also negates the touch of the hand. Objects are social players declaring respectability and propriety. In the period drama of Age of Innocence, just as in life, objects represent their owners. Their quality and cost are a mark of wealth and social standing.

Objects are symbolic. In Baz Lurhrman’s Romeo + Juliet, handguns are masculine emblems and lavishness is used as a cinematic expression of passion. Liza Hallam responds energetically to the movie and the theme, ‘Object in Excess,’ with Beware of Imitations. The work blurs distinctions between sacred and profane love, sentiment and sentimentality, cost and value. Hallam uses cheap, glitzy recycled materials and her more is more approach reflects the movie’s extravagance and ostentation. The heart, the clichéd symbol of love, ties the movie’s theme of tragic love to the reality of commodification, the exploitation of romance by commercial interests and in particular the movie industry.

Cinematic conceit provided a fascinating focus for filmmaker Bronwyn Coupe when she introduced Alfred Hitchcock’s film noir classic, Rope. Elaborately staged, the movie was filmed using a minimum of shots. For the bulky equipment of the time to follow the action, more space than the apartment setting allowed was required. A convincing domestic space was carefully contrived through the provision of movable walls. Space, is similarly manipulated, by the curator, in order to display works in an exhibition to best effect. The arrangement of pieces within the space determines how the viewer experiences the show. Installation at varied heights gives the works in Still Lives theatrically contrived presence.

The first work encountered in the exhibition is displayed at knee height, giving the small objects an intimate feel. The combination of ceramic vessels and embroidered miniature pillows is the paradoxical response by Hermie Cornelisse to The Safety of Objects. A complex layering of comfort and discomfort, fragility and resilience along with a disturbing distortion of scale conveys ‘the emotionally charged object’ theme. Ceramics and textile have ancient connections that are evoked in Cornelisse’s surface designs, but it is their familiar domesticity that evokes responses derived from viewers’ own sensory memories.

The subtle intensity in Cornelisse’s work is also present in Ainsley Hillard’s textile installation In Passing. The work addresses ‘the corrupted object’ theme. Hillard’s unraveling ends appear dissolute and sinister stains suggest a corporeal absence. In Passing is related to Hitchcock’s Rope, in which the object becomes a mute witness. It accuses, brazenly denies, colludes with and eventually betrays the murderers. Objects take on varied roles in our lives and can be framed in a multiplicity of ways. Curator Barb McConchie has used a multidisciplinary and innovative approach to investigating objects and their meanings. Her invited speakers were generally fascinating, informative and challenging and brought another dimension of dialogue to the program.

While the CMAG theatre was conveniently located in another part of the North Building, opportunity to reflect on the exhibition immediately after the screenings was mostly not possible. The association was implied in the exhibition with the use of a clapperboard for thematic display and the artists and films were cunningly selected. The show was a thoughtful one arranged carefully to give each work its own impact and presence. Although the installation of Affordable Dreams seemed more related to the architecture of the space than any elaboration on the concept of either the work or the themes of the movie it did create a visual dialogue, balancing the vertical drops of Hillard’s weaving.

Revisiting the Craft ACT gallery was rewarding, the show didn’t get tired on subsequent viewings, it seemed to invite new insight. Borrowing from the painting tradition, which depicts objects with the intention of revealing the character and status of the owners, McConchie has used film media and installation to revisit the strategy in a contemporary context. Still Lives was a most stimulating program and I hope that Craft ACT will present a similar series in the future.

Notes

Edward Norton as Jack in Fight Club

Still Lives exhibition text, 2004

Adorno, ‘Transparencies on Film, ’The Culture Industry, Routledge, 2001 edition, p180.

Edward Norton, Interview printed on Fight Club DVD disc 2 ‘Special Features.’

An expression used by Walter Benjamin in ‘The work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,’ XIV, 1935 see http://bid.berkeley.edu/bidclass/readings/benjamin.html

Artists

Artist: Hermie Cornelisse Film: The Safety of Objects (Dir Rose Troche)
Theme: The emotionally charged object
Artist: Liza Hallam Film: Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (Dir Baz Luhrman)
Theme: Objects as excess
Artist: Diana Shores Film: Fight Club (Dir David Fincher) Theme: The alienated object
Artist: Oliver Smith Film: Mon Oncle (Dir Jacques Tati) Theme: The humorous gadget
Artist: Pearl Gillies Film: The Age of Innocence (Dir Martin Scorsese)
Theme: Object as Status
Artist: Ainsley Hillard Film: Rope (Dir Alfred Hitchcock) Theme: The corrupted object