Comments on: Guest post by Marcus Westbury: The culture of hard times http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/02/02/guest-post-by-marcus-westbury-the-culture-of-hard-times/ Life, Culture and Politics from BrisVegas Tue, 14 Feb 2012 11:27:53 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: Andrew E http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/02/02/guest-post-by-marcus-westbury-the-culture-of-hard-times/#comment-172216 Andrew E Tue, 03 Feb 2009 22:11:33 +0000 http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/02/02/guest-post-by-marcus-westbury-the-culture-of-hard-times/#comment-172216 Just when we get an artistic reponse to the downturn, the upturn will be underway and nobody will want to know about depression-era drama. Your standard rant against bloat and excess won't do, people. Just when we get an artistic reponse to the downturn, the upturn will be underway and nobody will want to know about depression-era drama. Your standard rant against bloat and excess won’t do, people.

]]> By: Friendless http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/02/02/guest-post-by-marcus-westbury-the-culture-of-hard-times/#comment-172215 Friendless Tue, 03 Feb 2009 04:55:45 +0000 http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/02/02/guest-post-by-marcus-westbury-the-culture-of-hard-times/#comment-172215 If we have to have a recession to get rid of mobile phone shops, poker machines, metal seats in cafes and foccaccia, I'm all for it. I'd love to see the world reclaimed by second hand book stores. If we have to have a recession to get rid of mobile phone shops, poker machines, metal seats in cafes and foccaccia, I’m all for it. I’d love to see the world reclaimed by second hand book stores.

]]> By: Francis Xavier Holden http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/02/02/guest-post-by-marcus-westbury-the-culture-of-hard-times/#comment-172214 Francis Xavier Holden Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:30:03 +0000 http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/02/02/guest-post-by-marcus-westbury-the-culture-of-hard-times/#comment-172214 A few more garrets and starve 'em I say - only then will have world class art. A few more garrets and starve ‘em I say – only then will have world class art.

]]> By: Evan http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/02/02/guest-post-by-marcus-westbury-the-culture-of-hard-times/#comment-172213 Evan Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:25:46 +0000 http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/02/02/guest-post-by-marcus-westbury-the-culture-of-hard-times/#comment-172213 Culture of Hard Times? Oh no. Don't tell me they're gomma start wheeling out that boring old fart Bertolt Brecht again. Threepenny Opera anyone? Culture of Hard Times?

Oh no. Don’t tell me they’re gomma start wheeling out that boring old fart Bertolt Brecht again.

Threepenny Opera anyone?

]]> By: AdamTucker http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/02/02/guest-post-by-marcus-westbury-the-culture-of-hard-times/#comment-172212 AdamTucker Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:43:09 +0000 http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/02/02/guest-post-by-marcus-westbury-the-culture-of-hard-times/#comment-172212 He went overseas and yes indeed, the offer was the use of his office in the evenings ... He went overseas and yes indeed, the offer was the use of his office in the evenings …

]]> By: Laura http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/02/02/guest-post-by-marcus-westbury-the-culture-of-hard-times/#comment-172211 Laura Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:37:01 +0000 http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/02/02/guest-post-by-marcus-westbury-the-culture-of-hard-times/#comment-172211 He went overseas in the evenings? He went overseas in the evenings?

]]> By: AdamTucker http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/02/02/guest-post-by-marcus-westbury-the-culture-of-hard-times/#comment-172210 AdamTucker Mon, 02 Feb 2009 10:57:38 +0000 http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/02/02/guest-post-by-marcus-westbury-the-culture-of-hard-times/#comment-172210 I'm wryly amused at how the Sydney people are happy to relate that they've succeeded professionally and financially, and bemoan the fate of 'freaks' - drug addicts and the mentally ill 'cosmic waste' from the 1970s. How restrained: no-one has mentioned the value of their house yet! No-one dares mention what has happened to most of us, including, I am sure, some of the soi-disant successfuls - average income, average job, ordinary suburban existence like mine. Somehow, Melbourne still gets it - as she always has - while Sydney was only ever a Zsa Zsa pretending to slum it awhile. Jenny, some counsel for you from my experience: if there's a novel in you, you should get on and write it (or forget about it!). I hold down a more-than-fulltime average-level media job, and am on the third draft of an 80,000 word novel. And I assure you, moving to a bush block in the Southern Highlands for a few years didn't help me write it. The offer of an academic friend's office in the evenings, when he was overseas, did the trick. I’m wryly amused at how the Sydney people are happy to relate that they’ve succeeded professionally and financially, and bemoan the fate of ‘freaks’ – drug addicts and the mentally ill ‘cosmic waste’ from the 1970s. How restrained: no-one has mentioned the value of their house yet! No-one dares mention what has happened to most of us, including, I am sure, some of the soi-disant successfuls – average income, average job, ordinary suburban existence like mine. Somehow, Melbourne still gets it – as she always has – while Sydney was only ever a Zsa Zsa pretending to slum it awhile. Jenny, some counsel for you from my experience: if there’s a novel in you, you should get on and write it (or forget about it!). I hold down a more-than-fulltime average-level media job, and am on the third draft of an 80,000 word novel. And I assure you, moving to a bush block in the Southern Highlands for a few years didn’t help me write it. The offer of an academic friend’s office in the evenings, when he was overseas, did the trick.

]]> By: dylwah http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/02/02/guest-post-by-marcus-westbury-the-culture-of-hard-times/#comment-172209 dylwah Mon, 02 Feb 2009 10:17:38 +0000 http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/02/02/guest-post-by-marcus-westbury-the-culture-of-hard-times/#comment-172209 "That’s just a wild, Dionysian, destructive impulse to a lost youth I suspect" lol i lost a fair bit of my youth wandering around the Brindabellas praying for Dionysis and Sissy Hackshaw Glich to lead me to the mushies. Horray for the Burke St squats. Dad had a studio in the basement of ours in 80-82, and several of the walls between the gardens out back had been torn down so we seemed to have a huge space out the back. such luxury, if you didn't mind the outside shower shared with the squat next door, no cistirn on the toilet, the damp, the roaches, the police raids etc. enough BOT. the boredom of that downturn was prob what drove me to what little art i ever got involved in, volunteering at the New Theatre, some weird cabaret in a tiny theatre on Oxford st, Rocky horror on friday nights. with the exception of the New Theatre everything was so close, and even that wasn't so far away that i couldn't walk home. No matter how much i got involved there were people around us, including my dad, who were trying to make a go of their art 24/7, some still are. many of them seemed to think that it would go on forever. But it is the businesses that started then that seem to have lasted. there is a sucessful fertility service in Sydney that was concieved in the Bourke St squats, if you will pardon the pun. “That’s just a wild, Dionysian, destructive impulse to a lost youth I suspect”

lol i lost a fair bit of my youth wandering around the Brindabellas praying for Dionysis and Sissy Hackshaw Glich to lead me to the mushies.

Horray for the Burke St squats. Dad had a studio in the basement of ours in 80-82, and several of the walls between the gardens out back had been torn down so we seemed to have a huge space out the back. such luxury, if you didn’t mind the outside shower shared with the squat next door, no cistirn on the toilet, the damp, the roaches, the police raids etc.

enough BOT.

the boredom of that downturn was prob what drove me to what little art i ever got involved in, volunteering at the New Theatre, some weird cabaret in a tiny theatre on Oxford st, Rocky horror on friday nights. with the exception of the New Theatre everything was so close, and even that wasn’t so far away that i couldn’t walk home.

No matter how much i got involved there were people around us, including my dad, who were trying to make a go of their art 24/7, some still are. many of them seemed to think that it would go on forever. But it is the businesses that started then that seem to have lasted. there is a sucessful fertility service in Sydney that was concieved in the Bourke St squats, if you will pardon the pun.

]]> By: marcus http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/02/02/guest-post-by-marcus-westbury-the-culture-of-hard-times/#comment-172208 marcus Mon, 02 Feb 2009 09:42:13 +0000 http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/02/02/guest-post-by-marcus-westbury-the-culture-of-hard-times/#comment-172208 I wouldn't go as far to say that i am in *favour* of recessions. I occasionally nostalgise my formative years and then quickly check the nostalgia against the suicides, the self destruction and the dispair that went along with it. What does interest me strongly though is that recessions are times when the map of possibilities changes really dramatically and a smart personal, political and policy response is to recognise that and work with it rather than against it. Things that were once really tricky can become really easy (finding space and time) and things that were once really easy (anything involving capital, money and sponsorship) suddenly become very hard. I've not been pushing the point but i've tried to engage senior arts type people from three different states in discussions about this and haven't really found anyone who wants to think about it. They've only really begun to think it through to the extent that it might hit their budgets and not as a changed environment that requires changed responses. My big fear is the danger that all the policy effort will go into to relieving the downside. It will only take a few major organisations to start screaming about declining revenue and the entire discussion will be sidetracked into yet another funding argument. The upside and the non funding policy setting (work for the dole rules, or the incentives and disincentives in the property laws, etc) will be an afterthought. I guess we'll see. I wouldn’t go as far to say that i am in *favour* of recessions. I occasionally nostalgise my formative years and then quickly check the nostalgia against the suicides, the self destruction and the dispair that went along with it.

What does interest me strongly though is that recessions are times when the map of possibilities changes really dramatically and a smart personal, political and policy response is to recognise that and work with it rather than against it. Things that were once really tricky can become really easy (finding space and time) and things that were once really easy (anything involving capital, money and sponsorship) suddenly become very hard.

I’ve not been pushing the point but i’ve tried to engage senior arts type people from three different states in discussions about this and haven’t really found anyone who wants to think about it. They’ve only really begun to think it through to the extent that it might hit their budgets and not as a changed environment that requires changed responses.

My big fear is the danger that all the policy effort will go into to relieving the downside. It will only take a few major organisations to start screaming about declining revenue and the entire discussion will be sidetracked into yet another funding argument. The upside and the non funding policy setting (work for the dole rules, or the incentives and disincentives in the property laws, etc) will be an afterthought. I guess we’ll see.

]]> By: Caroline http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/02/02/guest-post-by-marcus-westbury-the-culture-of-hard-times/#comment-172207 Caroline Mon, 02 Feb 2009 09:07:17 +0000 http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/02/02/guest-post-by-marcus-westbury-the-culture-of-hard-times/#comment-172207 <i>living some sort of abject existence god knows where, </i> Hello. Not too abject actually. Oh and how I laffed learning how to weld at artschool in the early nineties realising under my goggles that it was wasn't economically rational in the least. Thanks to which (economic rationalism) then in its ascendency, art could not longer be for its own sake and had to mangle itself into a viable business, had to show a profit and I lost interest. I simply couldn't work out how you turn a profit or flog installations. (Ex Bourke St, squatter). living some sort of abject existence god knows where,

Hello. Not too abject actually. Oh and how I laffed learning how to weld at artschool in the early nineties realising under my goggles that it was wasn’t economically rational in the least. Thanks to which (economic rationalism) then in its ascendency, art could not longer be for its own sake and had to mangle itself into a viable business, had to show a profit and I lost interest. I simply couldn’t work out how you turn a profit or flog installations.

(Ex Bourke St, squatter).

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