.:-.;-:tv^ •• ,.• SMPR SPCE artist's page Chris Comer Polspakfilla, 2001 Size variable £01 TORI AL '?-S-'¥-JJ7Ml3S5S®i4SE3SS*3SS?^«'«'^'3^'"'*®*«"'^^ Pigs in spaaaaaaace. Or not... When Semper decided to do space, our intial thoughts didn't take to the sides, to the outer. We assumed space was the stuff between buildings, between mornings, between sinews and synapses, not that ofthe many-mooned variety. For many of our contributors, though, the appeal of astronauts and oxygen masks stiD holds. And why not? As our city, seemingly always under contruction, laps up and redevelops its last uninhibited stretches for office space, luxury apartments and billboards, one can't help but feel a little claustrophobic. And maybe this quest for the outer, exhibited by so many of our contributors, is due somewhat to an increasing dismay at the availability of appropriate spaces on this earth. Some nights the XXXX is brighter than the moon. Shuttles it is, then. i Smce leaving our childhood bedrooms we've all had to pay for the space we inhabit: our sleeping space, study space, •"'•'^<—^JtiiiiaJiJSi^ recreational space, and the space for the spaces in-between. The only space we truly own is the space inside ourselves: anywhere else and you have to pay rent, purchase a ticket or swap a fiver for a watery latte. Read Naomi Klein's No Logo PEOPLE WHO ROCK... and you may come to suspect the notion of public space is inherantiy flawed. Hell, you probably suspect it anyway. Big apologies to Rachel Burton who we somehow neglected to credit for our wonderful cover last All this is admittedly a bit ace at the moment, this disection of month. Ditto to James Kenyon for his cartoons. power along horizontal and vertical measurements, Big thanks to Anna Carter for this issue's cover and but necessary. Our fundamental human requirements for all her other images, as well as Julian Killen, Jason interaction in the dimensions ofthe physical are being Spencer, Christine Comer, Sebastian Moody, David increasingly disregarded in our prioritization of efficiency in McDermott and Louise Terry for their visual both social and commercial transactions. Yet we do want these delights. Huge, gigantor props to all our writers, spaces back. The phenomenal support given to the Sii including Cath Hart, Maura Edmond, Jen Tsen blockade gives testimony to this. Kwok, Emma Jane, Jen Smith, Matt Thrower, The Copycat, Luke Beesley, David Megarrity and Brett And so, we Semperites thought - because we are one of those Collery, Peter Fenton, Matt Collins, Al D, Rachel- rare little institutions slash info outlets slash meeting places maiy Moore, James Wall, Sally Brand, Molly which makes space available in a way that others don't and Haiikwitz, J. Faithe Duberchin, Hana Cowell, the can't - that we should dedicate a whole issue to the subject. ex-Press Pet, Peta Mitchell, Lucas Moore, Liz Shields, Josie Huxtable, Emilie Awberry, Jason And so we did. Curtis and Marcel Dorney. Thanks to the Queens And now we're all spaced out. Arms crew, Genshen, Loomer and the Kents in advance for launch #2. Finally, thanks to Anne Hope you enjoy. Hope you use our space more in the future. Coleman, Andrew Kettle for letting us pick his (i.e. CONTRIBUTE GOD DAMMIT) And hope it further brain for an hour (and Brett Collingwood for stimulates a questioning of the uses and possibilites of all transcribing the affair), and the lovely Kate Wild those various spaces available (or not) to you. and Genevieve Cheetam for their tooth-comb copy- editing (god knows we needed it). Semper. Loves. You. All. Kate, Rachel and Mark ijwail US? .3up':'-r' ruivcjs, birirBry systtsms.perhaps isveri black hLiifv> www.bossmodels.net Daiko House Level 5-33 Elkhorn Ave, Surfers Paradise, 4217 Ph: 075561 0131 Fax: 075561 0132 email: [email protected] or email [email protected] HAVE YOU GOT THE BOSS MODELS LOOK??? Our models earn phenomena! money and gain w/orldwride coverage via our international website. You're exposed to clients Australia wide, with models being booked internationally for work. We are the leading agency in Queensland, fast becoming the leading agency in Australia. Our models are professionally trained by fully qualified catwalk, acting and makeup teachers through our Boss Modelling School So if you think you've got what we're looking for... Don't hesitate! Call now - 075561 0131, email now - [email protected] and check out our website - www.bossmodefs.net There are a glut you take them off In front of people who you of ways to be want to show your bits to. And usually, these INTERSTICE transgressive: if two audiences are different, nicely separated phones are by common sense and legislation. With WSttBBBSm THE SPACE BETWEEN HI AND BYE your site of phone messages though, the audience is transgression whoever has your number; varied from kin to A COIOMN FROM CATH HART then why not anonymous salespeople, and you probably pull it out of the don't want to take your clothes off, read wall, why not erotica or yodel the national anthem to all of immerse the machine In wee and put it In a them. So you compromise between who you The Grey area between Post-Modern and gallery, or pull it to bits, or just not use it? expect will call, and what you are willing to Post-Mortem, Foucault and Focaccia, Eco And perhaps these things are done, but it display to them. and Eminem, Baudrillard and Bus Stop, seems that a lot of people use their The Frankfurt School and Frank N. Furter, answering machine to record a transgressive Beyond co-opting popular culture into Adorno and Alfred E. Newman. message. Seriously. So we'll concern technology as a means of display, it may also ourselves with them, or you - depending. be attempting to humanise the wires and chips by plugging the world into them and I am astounded by the lack of interest or So, how did we get from 'please leave a vice versa. Strangely, it seems our own research conducted on the art and subculture message' to free floating bits of pop culture mundane little ambling realities aren't chosen of phone messages and their authors. These as a means of youthful transgression? to do this if we venture into this particular are the texts that are truly the voice of now sport. Our world seems far less powerful and steps ought to be taken to preserve at The answer may than the reified sphere of popular culture, of De La Soul or any of the other least some of the seminal samples. So I be that familiarity Generally, as you get older you samples that can be picked up shall endeavour, as best my meagre breeds stop taking your clothes off In education and outlook allow me, to flesh contempt. This on messagebanks around the things out, clarify some issues, and technology is so front of your family, you take them world. There seems to be a problematise, highlight, elucidate and intimately known off in front of people who you view that these voices are far deracinate as I go. that it has want to show your bits to. more powerful, far more able become an to humanise the machine. The I'm not here right now so please leave a integral part of paradox of it is that these message. This is all my phone message how people communicate with one another, voices are really just the noises other says. Friends have more inventive invitations; down to the ritualisation of recording or machines make. entire share houses chorusing Britney Spears retrieving messages. It is interesting then together, die hard b-boys uttering De La that it is used to capture and indicate I suggest that these findings reflect, among Soul's Ring Ring Ring (Hey Hey Hey). The personality, or a part of it - or even: a part of other things, a reluctance, or even inability to more technologically savvy press the phone the personality we'd like to show the rest of see ourselves as an integral component of receiver against the stereo for a DIY sample the world. More interesting, is that this is the loop of the continual production and of a track chosen for reasons of nostalgia, done not by recording our own voices or reproduction of cultural fact and artefact. cool cred or anti-cool cred. words but the words of others. Instead, we are content to see ourselves as swaying in the winds of culture, so we try and There are no statistics on the relationship I was moved to reactionary action - as most catch the breeze of what has gone before to between a person's age and the likelihood, or activists are - to do some original research by display ourselves to the world. occurrence of them having a non-traditional recording a message of my own words, as phone message (the deficit of research is just original as they may be, and exploring the There are great opportunities for research to appalling). Having not done maths since year process and consequence of this activity. I be done - Freud, Lacan, Foucault, 10,1 hazard that the relationship would be thought i might pen some erotica and record Baudrillard and McLuhan would all be useful inverse and I'll settle for being gratefully it as my phone message - being doubly initial points of inquiry. To this end, I suggest acknowledged in the preface by whichever transgressive in the process. The problem a research centre, a small amount of funding one of you eventually conducts this ground was the audience component of the chain, for examination of Phone Messages and their breaking study.