Zee Kraaszie Aorte Blog of Nicola Morton

Friday, 16 January 2015

Return to Nature: Frakreactor 4

we come together to heal and stop the frakking on the land of the rainbow serpent. we come in peace and offer our spontaneous creations to the land

the unbinding of creative energies amidst regions of raw natural power pronounces earth is a sacred being - our temple, our home

- frakreactor 4, new years eve 2015, kyogle, NSW Australia.

Signed attendees and contributors:
henry mills, bonnie hart, jason bright, michael donnelly, max fowler-roy, samantha axiak, laura hill, marek rygielski, alan nguyen, matt earle, nicola morton, melanie jade simpson, patrick o'brien, nick dan, kelly keating, adam sussman, timmy joseph, leif gifford, ben hayes, rohan bridge, andrew boyd, lewis o'leary, alex cuffe, chelsea charlton, hayato, alex morrison, vick, xander, charlie, kat, beatrix, jethro.

videos to be premiered at Pizza Suicide Club Live TV event: O Tannenbaum, Berlin, Jan 17

Monday, 12 January 2015

I used to live in Brisbane but now I'm fighting aliens!

hey i'm the last track on this most awesome sci-fi concept cassette about Brisbane. (can you see real bad music on the cover). out on virtual cool. thanks to matt kennedy. if you scroll down to the end of the post you can read my lyrics..

Launch Gig is on Friday Jan 16 at Bearded Lady. Capacity is 100 and there's lotsa popular bands playing so get there early?

Escape From Brisbane

by Excess

	1.	Instructions For Listening (ft. Gerald Keaney) 02:02
	2.	Galaga (ft. Bek Moore) 03:47
	3.	They Have Too Much To Lose (ft. Mark Spinks) 02:59
	4.	Tunnel Vision (ft. Bobby Bot) 03:20
	5.	Pathology Of A Walk (ft. Leighton Craig) 03:35
	6.	Body Control (ft. Lizley) 01:55
	7.	Home (ft. Sean and Chris Campion 02:40
	8.	Take Another Photograph (ft. Daniel and Sarah Spencer) 03:10
	9.	Sqishma (ft. Andrew McLellan) 02:27
	10.	Flight Through The Wave (ft. Sandra Selig) 03:10
	11.	Progression Obsession (ft. Conwae Burrell) 01:36
	12.	I Used To Live In Brisbane (ft. Nicola Morton) 05:09

about

Escape From Brisbane is a concept album featuring instrumental compositions by Matt Kennedy (Kitchen's Floor, Eternal Soundcheck) and a variety of guest vocalists from the Brisbane music community.

Taking inspiration from low budget 80's sci-fi soundtracks, the album is intended as a warped time capsule to preserve the personality of independent Brisbane music circa 2014/2015. Recorded over a period of 6 months, Escape From Brisbane features vocal contributions from 14 of the cities most interesting and unique musicians. Gerald Keaney (Gerald Keaney & The Gerald Keaneys), Bek Moore (Clag, Scrabbled), Mark Spinks (Gravel Samwidge), Bobby Bot (Wonderfuls), Leighton Craig (Primitive Motion), Lizley (Bitchratch), Sean & Chris Campion (Multiple Man), Dan & Sarah Spencer (Blank Realm), Andrew McLellan (Cured Pink), Sandra Selig (Primitive Motion), Conwae Burrell (Extrafoxx), and Nicola Morton (Club Sound Witches, Equalizer 2K). The cover artwork was painted by Dusty Anastassiou (Dag, Scrabbled).

-->

LYRICS....

I used to live in Brisbane (ft. nicola morton)

It started with seeing weird things in the sky

Travelling so fast in the blink of an eye

Then I’d wake up with weird things in my hand

One day I awoke with a wedding band

Scars on my skin that can’t be explained

Plus that feeling that id illegally detained

I tried all the time to contact them

But they’d only ever take me at a time that suits them

I used to live in Brisbane but now im fighting aliens (fighting aliens)

Fighting rednecks was never good for me

Im not so strong and my reach isn’t long

Now how do I know whos the enemy

They’re green and got in for you and me

Century wars occur thru galaxies

I joined the universal light force to fight the baddies

My weapon is the light that was always inside me

Earths run by villians who’ve destroyed the light key.

I used to live in Brisbane but now Im fucking aliens (fucking aliens)

I used to live in Brisbane but now im fucking aliens (fucking aliens)

It started with the wedding band I found on my hand

And continued with a kiss that took me from the land

The aliens have the key to the light inside of you

Once you’re unlocked, there’s a lot of good to do.

Some aliens are bad, some aliens are sad,

Some aliens are sexy, some aliens on dexy’s

Some aliens are supportive, some aliens are protective,

Some aliens can get u in bed, some aliens fuck with your head

But I still fuck the ones I love, that have taken me to the above.

I used to live in Brisbane but now I’m fighting aliens (fighting aliens)

I used to live in Brisbane but now I’m fucking aliens (fucking aliens)

I used to live in Brisbane but now I’m fucking alien.

Thursday, 8 January 2015

TRANSCENDENTAL NIHILIST - PROSPERITY FOR EXTINCTION

The video was made on the leaving of Real Bad Music, the repetition of OM SHRI MAHA LAKSHMIYAI NAMAHA is traditionally for healing and prosperity, but as the form and formlessness and neithher form nor formlessness, we chant for extinction of prosperity of one over another.

I do a pre-meditation yoga flow from "Warrior and Goddess"'s Riss Carlyon

Here is the diagram

Here is the video

OM SHRI MAHA LAKSHMIYAI NAMAHA - GUIDED MEDITATION from nicola morton on Vimeo.

Tuesday, 6 January 2015

G20 Survivalist Strategies

When the government turns to shit, we are gonna escape. Our land is wide and has everything we need to survive. So when the world leaders head to Brisbane for the G20 summit, we escape. A gallant few brave the 40 degree celsius day to protest but the majority head out to the wild, to camp, to survive without the big businesses, to survive without coucils and the governments. We protest with our absence, what is a government, when the people aren't there to be governed.

Here are our photos of protest.

Tuesday, 16 December 2014

The Artist Is Present - Photo Documentation

Performed from 7.20 pm until 10.00pm on Dec 27, at Other Film Festival 'Institutional Capture' at Boggo Road Gaol, Brisbane.

Performance

Screening:

Photos: Alan Warren and Bryan Spencer

-->

My father was a screw. He started with seemingly impossible ideals of social change in the Joh era and ended a very cynical, tough as nails, one-punch man. Thirty plus years later in 2014, we find ourselves in a ‘social turn’ of contemporary art,[1] where art is trending towards activism and our conservative governments are selling/leasing off public interests to private concerns. A private company working for profit could soon operate the jail my father worked in. I find myself unable to share my father’s righteous belief in the Law when the Law and (other Institutions like Art Institutions) are increasingly serving private interests and the accumulation of value. Working towards the contrary, other artists and I produce our art within the context of this ‘social turn’ to disseminate ‘the power over’ hegemony into ‘the power with’ community. Without the technocratic skills of hacking, I wish to interrupt the surveillance technology with community concentration. In doing so I ask Art to take a look at itself: what does activism from within the Institution look like, what does it hope to achieve and how can it do so without serving private interests.

[1] Anne Marsh. Performance Ritual Document (Melbourne: MacMillan, 2014), 20.

Monday, 24 November 2014

Institutional Capture: How We Do It

OtherFilm Festival 2014 has asked us how would we capture the Institution? This is my answer. –>

My father was a screw. He started with seemingly impossible ideals of social change in the Joh era and ended a very cynical, tough as nails, one-punch man. Thirty plus years later in 2014, we find ourselves in a ‘social turn’ of contemporary art,[1] where art is trending towards activism and our conservative governments are selling/leasing off public interests to private concerns. A private company working for profit could soon operate the jail my father worked in. I find myself unable to share my father’s righteous belief in the Law when the Law and (other Institutions like Art Institutions) are increasingly serving private interests and the accumulation of value. Working towards the contrary, other artists and I produce our art within the context of this ‘social turn’ to disseminate ‘the power over’ hegemony into ‘the power with’ community. Without the technocratic skills of hacking, I wish to interrupt the surveillance technology with community concentration. In doing so I ask Art to take a look at itself: what does activism from within the Institution look like, what does it hope to achieve and how can it do so without serving private interests.
Artists in the 2014 Sydney Biennale did the seemingly impossible task of removing a private sector investor, Transfield, due to its parallel management of Refugee Detention Centres.[2] The ‘power over’ which funded the Biennale as well as the inhumane detention of asylum seeking refugees, suddenly became a ‘power with’ as artists worked together, writing letters and boycotting the Biennale finally resulting in a seemingly impossible de-accumulation/divestment of value for the institution of the Sydney Biennale. ‘The Artist is Present’ examines this ‘power with’ as I sit with other artists of the OtherFilm Festival in a state of intense concentration. This exercise is designed to communicate our ‘power with’ each other, in respect to the ‘power over’ structure of the Jail’s architecture, the ‘power over’ status of government Arts funding and the ‘power to’ the artist-run organisation, OtherFilm Festival.[3]

In addition to the political elite, there now exists a technical elite – a technocracy, people with skills relating to science and technology. One visit to San Francisco would show you how this new form of elite is exercising their ‘power over’ fringe communities.[4] I reject the idea of elitism by inviting anyone to join me in a psychic concentration exercise. Anyone who can sit and stare, has the seemingly impossible ability to cause a post-recording disturbance or digital artefact. I have previously tested a group’s ability to manifest a psychic interference in technology and ‘The Artist is Present’ continues this investigation further.[5]

‘The Artist is Present’ asks the artist to look at another artist within the Institution. Not only is it a state of ‘us,’ the artists and ‘them,’ the institution, we are also the ‘us’ inside ‘them.’ So what does activism within the Institution look like? I formerly thought creating post-object art was the ideal answer to the commodification of art, however I find it increasingly creeping into the Art Institution as commodity and entertainment.[6] So therefore, I present a somewhat disturbed reflection of perfomer extraordinaire Marina Abramovic’s 2010 ‘The Artist is Present’ performance at MOMA. Gone are the stalwarts of our culture commodity; gone are one of the wealthiest Art Institutions in the world and the hyper-staging of the artist as celebrity – replaced with artist-run organisations and the staging of the artist in jail – ever-present is the state of intense mental and physical concentration between two bodies . In addition to the former changes, the crazy murmurs of a psychic ‘power with’ energy, recontextualises Abramovic’s performance and certainly alludes to the difference of a ‘psycho sub-tropic’ environment.

Before the Joh-era, my father also exercised his ideals in his work in indigenous remote communities but it was his stint as a screw that left him cynical. He could not find social change working within the confines of a large monolithic institution. I believe the key to social change in large institutions is mobilising the ‘power with.’ Artists have shown their ‘power with’ each other circumscribes the power of a large institution whilst even detracting dollar value from said institution. My work aims to continue keeping art socialised within art communities in order to enable the ‘power with’ to become visible between artists, rather than promoting artists as celebrity, elite, and commodities. We are on our way to capturing institutions.

[1] Anne Marsh. Performance Ritual Document (Melbourne: MacMillan, 2014), 20.
[2] Alana Lentin and Javed de Costa “Sydney Biennale boycott victory shows divestment works” The Guardian March 11, 2014.http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/11/sydney-biennale-boycott-victory-shows-that-divestment-works
[3] ‘Expressions of Power’ Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. Accessed Nov 24, 2014 http://www.powercube.net/other-forms-of-power/expressions-of-power/
[4] Andrew Umbel “San Francisco’s guerilla protest at Google buses swells to Revolt” The Observer January 26, 2014http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/25/google-bus-protest-swells-to-revolt-san-francisco
[5] Nicola Morton ‘The Spider in the Machine’ Freerange Vol.8 (2014: 56-64)
[6] Reilley Bishop-Stall and Natalie Zayne Bussey “Putting the “Cult” Back in Culture: Power and Performance in Marina Abramovic’s New World Order”Passengerart June 28, 2013 http://passengerart.com/2013/06/28/putting-the-cult-back-in-culture-marina-abramovics-new-world-order/

Details

Project	Institutional Capture
Artists	Nicola Morton
Year	2014
Origin	Brisbane
Duration	installation