Goodiepal has a mission. Goodiepal is a brilliant thinker. Take Goodiepal seriously.

I first met Goodiepal at Impakt festival in Utrecht 2005 CE. At the time he was traveling with a mechanical bird and a constellation of model planets. The performance he enacted was beguilling, charming, open and expansive, the audience in the small theatre were utterly transfixed. I then travelled with Annemiek and Goodiepal to Rotterdam where he performed at De Player the following night.

I find him utterly engrossing and provocative, and recently had the pleasure of another ascent into Goodiepal’s theories, this time at the weekly sound art session DNK in Amsterdam. A hyper-extended theory of time and space, music creation and digital transmission, evolution, memes, genes and dreams. The intelligences of water and electricity, the future of recorded music and electronic music composition. His condensed school program ‘mort aux vaches extra ekstra’ can be sourced from the following location, get comfortable and prepare for primitive future shock:

http://i3hypermedia.com/audio/Alku69_MAVEE_Walkthrough.mp3

http://www.dnk-amsterdam.com/index.cgi?dept=AGENDA&article=117

http://brainwashed.com/vvm/micro/parl/index.htm

http://www.stdsps.nl/

In November UNICEF and The One Minutes Foundation Amsterdam invited me to Nigeria to run a video workshop with local high-schoolers, together with Karen, a UNICEF facilitator from New York and Floor, a video artist from Rotterdam. One week of intensity. One minute video workshop. The kids brought their ideas. We helped them plan, shoot and edit their concepts into 60 second videos. Machine gun escort from the airport. Food highlights: Moin moin, Joelof rice, Fried plantain. Searching the local food market in 35 degree heat. Sampling spices and curry powder. Screen culture highlights: raiding the local VCD seller for new ‘Nollywood’ releases, music video compilations and vintage evergreen songwriters. Plane highlights: Lufthansa pilots avoiding a tropical storm over Malabo, Equitorial Guinea, landing back in Lagos, refuelling and then flying on to Frankfurt.

Beginning life as a radio series on London’s ResonanceFM, Welcome to Mars is an extensive and deep analysis of post-war American myth-science, science-fact and science-fiction. Ken Hollings and composer Simon James created a dense weave of alien synth drones and prickly social history. The mixing of reality and fiction, hopes and fact in this era is so chaotic and euphoric. The American post-War desire for the ‘Future’ is palpable in Hollings’ delivery, a desire to extend all limits of human consciousness, behaviour and thinking. A truly thrilling and perverse period of mutant growth for humankind. Soaking in the wealth of Hollings’ research can be overwhelming in the radio series mode; the flow of names, affiliations and institutes often requires a rewind to gain a thorough understanding, so I am very happy Strange Attractor Press will be publishing the book of Welcome to Mars in mid-November…

Welcome To Mars draws upon newspaper accounts, advertising campaigns, declassified government archives, old movies and newsreels from this unique period when the future first took on a tangible presence. Ken Hollings depicts an unsettled time in which the layout of Suburbia reflected atomic bombing strategies, bankers and movie stars experimented with hallucinogens, brainwashing was just another form of interior decoration and strange lights in the sky were taken very seriously indeed.

“Ken Hollings shows brilliantly how the extraordinary web of technologies that drove the Cold War have shaped not just our culture but the very way we think of ourselves as human beings. Welcome to Mars offers a rare and fascinating glimpse of the roots of the strange humanoid culture we live in today.” – Adam Curtis

In Hong Kong a compilation of  Sandberg Institute artist’s video work that I curated was shown at Videotage (cheers Alvis and all that turned out) in Xiamen we held a group exhibition with Xiamen Art College students at CEAC and in Shanghai we had a few days off to soak in the big city mayhem.

Christian Marclay’s Screen Play was the final event in Shanghai’s eArts outdoor performance program that also included a performance by legendary Quake re-fixer / modder Feng Mengbo. Held at a temporary outdoor stage in Shanghai’s west, the audience was comprised of young and old, seeing octogenarians and kids dancing up the front was a blast. I’m thinking hard to recall a new media performance event in Europe or Australia that had it’s audience comprised of such varied ages. Marclay’s video score was interpreted by three mixed groups of Chinese and American musicians. Edited within an inch of it’s life, the images were tightly focused in their energy and dramatic flow. Sometimes linked by the motion within the frame, the content of the frame or by the simple colourful animations overlayed on the appropriated film imagery. A great amount for the improvisational performer to focus on, packed with patterns and rules, to break or follow. Sounds included Chinese opera percussion, squirming impro jazz Sax, crunchy MaxMSP processing, self-made breath controlled instruments and an old school Shanghai punk band.

The most successful collaboration in my eyes was the second set, comprised of Bruce Gremo, Ben Houge and Yan Jun. Highly synthetic sounds that closely followed the on-screen score. The artificiality of the sounds complemented the 1940-50’s black and white film stock, playing against the perceived ‘authenticity’ of film grain and documentary form. This set stayed with me long after. Great work.

Leaving Shanghai we heard a loud bang over the right wing just after leaving the ground. I knew something was up. Twenty minutes into the flight there was a discernible hum and rattle. The plane dropped speed and it was clear it was being flown manually. The captain came on the P.A. and told us in an almost too chirpy Dutch accent it was time to return to Shanghai. Highlights of this stressful situation included a group of Romanian men smoking novelty electronic cigarettes in the aisle, coping with stress by creating more stress? Tourists rushing to take photos of the fuel dumping over the East China Sea, the in-cabin monitors showing ‘time to destination: 5 minutes’ when were circling over the sea. I saw the air brakes on the wing extend to lose speed and altitude and I was sure we were destined for a water landing. A tight, choking knot of fear in my stomach. After returning safely to the airport and the round of applause on touchdown we were instructed to stay in the plane while the damage was ascertained. After two hours inside the cabin we were told it was a defective piston on a door near the landing gear. A replacement part was searched for; after another hour it was decided to stay at the airport hotel until the next day. We spent the night in a futuristic Franco Cozzo/Scarface/SpaceAirport hotel from another dimension. The hotel looked about twenty minutes old. Round beds, mirrors on the ceiling, designer fittings and views of the landing jumbos. My favourite Chinese state TV show ‘Dialogue’ was on the plasma, usually two or three guests and a host sitting at a table discussing Chinese geopolitical matters and economics. Refreshingly low-tech after the visual bubblegum of CNN. Like watching a television format from the fifties. People speaking to each-other and a three cameras. After the rigmarole of checking-in a full 747 of passengers in two hours, the flight went very smoothly direct to Amsterdam. Apart from the dodgy tuna sandwich I had at Shanghai airport that made me weak in the plane and sick in Old Europe. So many days on the mainland eating quick, cheap and tasty hawker food cooked by grandmas on the street and what gets me is the last bite, a dodgy sanger from Shangers.

A rare chance to witness the outernational, innerspace cosmonauts live in the unsuspecting Dutch town of Tilburg. We arrived in Tillers, downed a quick La Chouffe, then T-dance and me checked out the local library’s exhibition of Sun Ra promo material, original LP cover designs and screenprints. The big band was comprised of new and old faces, led by the 84 year-young elfen-wizard band leader Marshall Allen. The Arkestra played for three hours and transmitted beta waves and beta music through all present. Beta music for a beta world.

Essay by David Stowe on the Ark in Space From Ephrata (F-Ra-Ta) to Arkestra
Website of the Arkestra http://www.elrarecords.com
ZXZW Tilburg festival http://www.zxzw.nl/2008/act/85

Nasty Nets http://www.nastynets.com/dvd.html

a compilation of found files, internet readymades and home-made animations. nasty nets internet surfing club’s collection of stoner net.art, primitive 8bit animations, nostalgia for the dawn of personal computing, LOL CATS, midi files and compression artifacts. disc is dvd-rom with many of the original files included as data. self-aware amateurism as defense against the unrelenting speed of technological change. dvd production funded by rhizome.

Cyclus http://cyclus.park.nl

compilation of video art on reproduction included in an issue of the ‘mister motley’ nederlands art mag, disc is authored to loop constantly, eject and re-insert for a new artwork, nice idea. much less A.D.D. than nasty nets, longer sequences of classical vid art + animation + performances. some very fine works on this disc. yet i am suprised by the silence. if there is an audio track present it is only the registration of the performance on video. maybe this is by design, slow moving looping visions for your plasma, but it feels like occular bias. where is the soundtrack? produced by park 4dtv.

666 http://nigeriamovies.net/starprofiles/k_okonkwo.php

acquired from an african supermarket in dapperplein, east of amsterdam – 666 is a tale of retribution, salvation, devilish posession and good vs evil. this nollywood disc has fine villains, doing their best to act menacing and creepy in front of badly lit bluescreens. persevere through the good guy Pastor Lazarus trying to convert the sinners at the bar and then relish in the balding pot bellied beelzebub acquiring souls for the pit of eternal infernal darkness. awesome nigerian video-cinema. produced by the don of nollywood kenneth okonkwo, directed by ugoo ugbor.

Kat Barron and Lara Thoms a.k.a. SPAT’N’LOOGIE a.k.a awesome hybrid performance creators a.k.a Charltons ‘Gangstas Paradise’ Karaoke Champions have quickly moved from their HOLIDAY show during Melbourne’s recent Next Wave Festival to a residency in Rauma, rural Finland.

What are you doing in Finland?

Soaking up the sun. Taking tours of ‘Rauma’s dark side’, inlcuding a date in a car with ‘pussy patrol’ sprayed on the doors. Writing a feature film. Making a cooking show. Hanging out with teenagers. Making videos at the pool. Making paper mache muscle suits and spitting in each others faces. 7 hour dinner parties. Getting into craft – creating heaps of ‘buddies’.

Do the Finns make good conversationalists?
Do you have any Finnish tales or jokes now?

The most popular joke in Rauma is to say ‘Hey, what’s going on in Rauma tonight?’ – funny because nothing is ever going on in Rauma tonight. Also to add a T to the beginning of Rauma. The locals we have met have been pretty good conversationalists, we met two brothers who were satanists and told us they  wanted to make a didgeridoo out of a t-rex bone and come on as guests on our cooking show to cook mock human (soy based). One of them was going to begin a job managing the local nuclear power plant. We are a bit concerned about that.

What’s the greatest thing that’s happened to you during the residency?

Buddies. (shell art). Seeing a young punk with multi colored giant mohawk dive from an 18 metre platform gracefully into the local pool fully clothed. An all-accapella heavy metal band in Helsinki.

Has the constant daylight affected your ability to work or sleep?

In the beginning we were waking up at 2am, thinking it was 2pm, etc. Its getting dark at about 12 now, we still can’t bring ourselves to sleep before 3am.

How did the cooking show come about?

Boredom and hunger and inability to ever eat outside of the house, entertainment for close friends and coconuts.

Have you been to the Finnish outback?

We are in the Finnish outback.  We have seen crop circles in fields nearby. No, Lapland would be nice.

What else are you doing in Europe?

We are planning to visit St. Petersburg and Stockholm during our visit for good times, after the residency we are going Linz to attend Ars Electronica.  Other plans include making a skype video artwork gameshow with you.

Exotic?

Reindeer stew.

Where can I revel in the excitement of candy?

Pick and pay, this is a mall city.

Whats hot this summer?

Roller blading, peroxided hair, sausage dogs, PUA’s

Being locked out of my Sandberg studio while holiday renovations take place creates time for exploring the Amsterdam forests by bike, watching EasyJet 737’s full of anticipatory stoners land from my balcony and reading books.

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Australian Screen Classics series. Currency Press, Sydney.

Philip Brophy

Brophy’s reading of the signs within this iconic Australian film is a euphoric textual overload. Few other writers cause me to verbalise my intellectual agitation during the act of reading as Brophy does. I find myself floored by the spiky analysis, unexpected connections and sharp wit. His analysis is incisive and the language used is never jargonistic or cluttered. The author generates a highly subjective theory-fiction, akin to Baudrillard or Barthes’ analysis of the products of culture. Just as valid as any other potential reading and certainly not pandering to any pre-digested self-image of the Australian Film Industry. A highly provocative reading of the gay/straight, male/female, urban/rural energies contained in this film, the passages on Chrome-plating and the Rolls Royce Spirit of Ecstasy, Scarves and the Village Roadshow logo leave a lasting impression, as too the Freudian disfiguration of the land to make way for the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric scheme. I come away from this book thinking where are all the other analyses of popular culture that refuse to tow an accepted ‘Margaret and David’ canonisation of certain cultural works. Where is the psycho-sexual re-reading of Antiques Roadshow, Channel 10 Late night news or The NRL Footy Show?

http://www.currency.com.au/search.aspx?type=author&author=Philip+Brophy

http://www.philipbrophy.com

Cultural Activism Today. The art of over-identification. Episode Publishers, Rotterdam.

Bavo (editors)

I have been intending to read this collection of essays for the past year. Subconsciously avoiding it until I had decent time and space to take it in perhaps. Beginning with Slavoj Zizek’s concept of over-identification with ‘the enemy’ (advanced capitalism, totalitarian regimes, neo-conservative agendas) as the only form of cultural activism that doesn’t automatically lock into a played out notion of Left-Right politics, with all the perfunctory role-playing that such a binary opposition summons up. Post-ideology activism for a post-ideological age. The argument is that to face the opponent with an image of itself so magnified, heightened and detestable is the only way of exposing the inherent hypocrisy within that system. Santiago Serra, Christoph Schlingensief, Atelier van Lieshout are discussed at length and the cultural shockwaves that their performances and installations generate. Schlingensief has always fascinated me. His ability to be the enfant terrible for German-speaking culture, making unsettling film, tv and theatre work that implicates it’s audience, funders and participants. A kind of double-bluff that provokes a social black hole of shame and responsibility, of which Schlingensief isn’t immune to either. Schlingensief’s projects discussed in this book include the African Twin Towers film installation and Bitte liebt Osterreich, a protest against the extreme-right party of Jorg Haider joining the Austrian government; In a makeshift container camp in the center of Vienna a Big Brother-type reality show asked Austrians to vote asylum seekers out of the camp and out of the country. The ‘most integrated’ refugee at the end of the game won a residence permit. A superb analysis of the Slovenian industral band Laibach is undertaken by Alexei Monroe, dismantling their seemingly ultra-nationalist symbols such as the Slovenian Stag, Alpine romanticist oil painting and traditional folk costume. True to the image of themselves as ‘State Artists’, Laibach’s administering organisation NSK offers a passport to the public from their website for admission to their ‘state in time’. All the artists discussed in this volume keep their poker face. It is an ambiguous and complex gesture that provides no easy recuperation or dismissal.

http://www.niederer.info/new_site/archives/23

http://www.bavo.biz

Laibach Live 14.11.03 Ljubljana, Slovenia

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EoPI-xO4PU

Destroy All Monsters. Marion Boyars, London.

Ken Hollings

A sharply non-linear novel that runs at breakneck speed between visiting aliens, Tokyo teens, reanimated Elvis Presley and the interior monologues of the President of the Unted States, Destroy All Monsters is a thrilling read. Elliptical narratives. Cascading plots and thoroughly media-soaked characters scattered around the globe. Also highly recommended is Ken Hollings and Simon James’ ResonanceFM podcast series on American 1950’s Science Fiction, Fantasy and Fact; how the cold war, space race and the very real ‘little green man’ hysteria influenced popular culture and vice versa: Welcome to Mars

http://readers.penguin.co.uk/nf/shared/WebDisplay/0,,74271_1_12,00.html

http://www.kenhollings.com

Let’s Paint TV is a community access cable television show broadcast in Los Angeles. A psychedelic Saturday morning smear of extreme video mixer effects, live painting, treadmill running and taking calls from the public. The host John Kilduff remains focused on being positive throughout abusive calls from anonymous callers, dealing with extreme multi-tasking while painting portraits and interviewing guests. Live studio guests have included a fake Robert DeNiro, carnivorous birds and the Wizard of Oz’s Tinman. Extremely effective grass-roots interactive art on many levels, Let’s Paint TV is an internet phenomenon and a peculiar broadcast endurance event that I wanted to know more about. I asked this indefatigable performer and UCLA MFA candidate graduate some questions over email.

EZ. You focus on multitasking and positivity in
your show, how do you gauge if these very
important life lessons are being imparted to your
call-in audience ? Have you been asked to run
workshops or self-help camps ?

JK. I do get a few personal emails from people who
ask me for advice on how to continue on with life.

EZ. Is positivity coming back in full force in the
USA ? Is Bush’s demise a blossoming flower of
openness or not ? How hard is it to be positive ? Is
California a great place to be positive ?

JK. Yes to all…I think. It can be hard and
frankly, most of the time when I am not
performing…I have to remind myself that Mr Let’s
Paint justs keeps on keeping on! Yes, I think
California is a great place to be positive..both
LA and San Fransisco.

EZ. Do you get hassled at the supermarket ? Are
you well-known in your neighborhood ? Has someone
noticed you in 7-11 and shook your hand ?

JK. No,No,and No…..LA is so big that it just
hasn’t happened yet. Now if I was on the cover of
People Magazine…that would be different.

EZ. Have you made other experiments in the media ?
Ever hosted a radio show or exhibited your
paintings in unconventional spaces ? Were you a
painter before you were involved with electricity ?

JK. During the OJ Simpson trial, I painted the
reporters at the trial and they interviewed me. No
to radio show (my brother did that), But I have
been doing this live internet show on
stickcam.com/letspainttv. Yes, I have been a
painter for over 20 years.

EZ. What is your favourite music ?

JK. Not sure…I like/hate everything

EZ. What is your favourite colour ?

JK. I don’t think I have one.

Let’s Paint TV