Page 39 - Studio International - June 1973

Idea around Inhibodress Gallery in Sydney'. as a 'video-freak', although Inhibodress has
used electronic devices extensively, without any
It is a very small group, very uneven in
strength and chronically insecure in a climate of particular hang-up for or against technology,
demonstrations: opinion that is generally indifferent or hostile. and they have been encouraged in film making
body art and At this moment, when two founder-members of by Aggy Read, who came to Idea Demonstrations
from the local film underground. Some of the
Inhibodress (Mike Parr and Peter Kennedy)
'video freaks" have attracted enough international notice to set incidents are pure film and could have been
out on a performance and information-getting
conceived in no other medium; some are events
in Sydney tour of North and South America and Europe that could as well have gone unrecorded and,
and will therefore not be showing in Sydney this
indeed, have been performed before without
year, a critic in a national weekly is encouraged any permanent record.
to dismiss Inhibodress as 'a now defunct A great deal of the aesthetic and technical
co-operative gallery run by conceptual artists' content of the product is communicable through
(Patrick McCaughey, in the National Times, the artists' texts, with the help of a few stills
4 Feb. 1973). Local critical wish-fulfilment from each of the 24 sequences.
rather inclines to the view that whatever is not Local interpretation has not on the whole
sonorously coloured and quotable in current been insightful. People have asked, for example,
art prices is either defunct or conceptual whether it is not distastefully masochistic of
or both. Parr to encourage his colleague to bite him so
When Robert Hughes visited and disgraced painfully. Mike Parr has replied — without
himself with aberrant judgement, Mike Parr, apparent effect — by asking why the audience
Peter Kennedy, Aggy Read and Ian Stocks were allows it. One might well inquire whether the
busy with a film called Idea Demonstrations that artistic doctrines of aesthetic disinterestedness
had grown out of some earlier 'programmes and and 'psychical distance' have crippled us, or
investigations' (by Kennedy and Parr) seen whether we are secretly grateful for the
originally as projective rather than actual and as opportunity to operate Roman appetites under
essentially ephemeral rather than as the proper an eighteenth-century rationalistic licence.
subjects of film record. Typical of Mike Parr's Of course, this is not our own problem.
1971-72 programmes are these: Everywhere the question comes up: may I not
When Robert Hughes came home briefly last a painting held in the hands is a weapon. Batter butcher my enemies (or my friends, or strangers
year he provoked alarm and despondency by a wall with this painting for that matter) as art ? And everywhere there is
clearly implying that world leadership in the push a small fish into your nose the impulse (so one hopes) to answer 'no' — but
competitive sport of painting is not yet in close a street in the city. Make campfires on the at the same time to stand clear of confusion
Australia's grasp. Worse than that, he was deserted street under the shadows cast by between aesthetics and morals. I am convinced
dismissive of the established painters of his own skyscrapers. Cook meat around the fires that resolution is not achieved by butchering
generation and unexpectedly respectful of the nail your hand to a tree oneself and sounding enigmatic.
group of 'body artists and video freaks clustered Neither he nor Kennedy is well-characterized DONALD BROOK

Idea Demonstrations: this film 1972, Peter Kennedy/Mike Parr. In the ideas and performances which are result of group interaction and that no
exemplifies the implicit group working film, Idea Demonstrations, Peter documented on the following pages; one member of the group should be
procedures already apparent in some Kennedy/Mike Parr, interact with the Aggy Read/Ian Stocks were responsible considered more important than any
aspects of Trans-Art r. — Idea film-makers, Aggy Read/Ian Stocks. for the film-making. However, it is other member.
Demonstrations, Inhibodress Gallery, Kennedy/Parr were responsible for the important to realize that the film was the

place layers of cellulose tape over the performer. As the performer is
lens of the camera . . . until no image positioned in front of the prepared
can be defined through the camera. Seat camera, roll camera. Cease filming, as
a performer in front of the camera, all cellulose is removed from the camera
about 2 feet from the camera. The lens.
performer should remove the cellulose No sound. Single take. No editing.
tape from the camera, one layer at a B/W.
time, until there is no more cellulose
over the lens.
Technical instructions: The camera
should be tripod mounted and
positioned about 2 feet from the

2
the performer should stand just inside the performer is working. As the
the periphery of vision of the camera, performer's shoes come in frame, roll
so that only the ends of his shoes are in camera. The cameraman should guide
frame. Responding to the instructions the performer around frame with
of the cameraman, the performer should spoken instructions. Only the ends of
move clockwise around the periphery of the performer's shoes should appear in
vision of the camera . . . until he arrives frame. Cease filming, as the performer
back at the point where he started. arrives back at the point from which he
started.
Technical instructions: the camera and Optical sound. Single take. No editing.
cameraman should be positioned above B/W.
the performer and the camera should be
directed down at the area of floor, where

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