- Stonefeather
Zine's of life's mid; Bryce Galloway - insight
Enjoyed, relatable, insightful, honest, punk but safe? Typing, thinking verbal diaorreah..can't be bothered withh spell check right now... Martin - "writers voice vs editors voice"...it was an enjoyable Masterclass with Bryce but there moments where I was using that most detestable of modern adjectives "this is nice.." - fuck I would instantly go bush if someone used that for my efforts. I don't want to be nice...and then a whole lot of spoilt brat connotations come to mind, even that phrase "I don't want..." like when mum made us eat pea's and silverbeet that had been boiled for an 1hr.."I don't wanna eat that!!"..."Well send it to Africa where those kids would love it!..." was usually the reply...most nights. It makes me wonder what punk actually stands for these days? Searches of punk definitions; a movement made out of boredom supposedly by Johnny Rotten from the Sex Pistols, The Ramones, Velvet Underground, the stooges, even Goth punks like The Cure. The point of the culture was like the music, be yourself and disregard the angry emotions it may stir up.
I totally got Bryce's fun, punk approach to forming a band a month and playing - it seemed more of a sensitive temporal homage to me than punk. I don't know if punk exists in its true form any more; or at least I think its gone more political - is Greta Thunberg the new Johnny Rotten? would I call the Ihumātao protest 'punk'? ...defntly elements of 'fuck you' to a failing political system ..or a political system that has failed some fo the iwi up there in Tamaki Makaurau. I did like the idea of giving license to others to do something a bit whacky but I agreed with Ben's comments around the non-committment - that to fail is to succeed and either way you've 'won' - or at least that's how I interpreted his comments.
This failure concept is a murchky one - our PVC mentions failure in her opening speech to new undergrad cohorts most years and I do understand where she is coming from; encouraging learning through trying new shit out, new ideas, push yourself out of your comfort zone, be creative and innovative - buzzword buzzword buzzword. There are 2 constant references that pop into my mind when I start thinking about art and music these days 1) Brian Eno's sage-isms "Music and art are things we don't need.." and 2) this imagery that the universe, like a spring that has reached its further-most un-ravelling, will one day retreat back into itself - back to its big bang genesis. I wonder if art and music has a parallel here, where we as artists are trying new shit, failing and succeediing, but each time, we are are diluting the universe's artiistic possibilities until one day, every iteration of art/music/text has been exhausted and then we start to re-coil, reversing everything every artist has done until we end up as a potato of super-dense mass floating in te kore...ready to start all over again.
Nope not stoned - just Sunday morning blah after coffee number #1. Something else resonates from Bryce's honest waha - when he presented his C-Grade exegesis, his examiners probed "How is this art?" I'm wondering if I am going to get the same query - and then have to defend myself by explaining my definition of art to them...faaaaark I don't know! I just think of shit that I'd like to try and them Im showing you fullas!"... If some dude can do his MFA by running around Taranaki and another dude goes around West Auckland pulling out non-native adolescent trees with his bare hands, surely I can do an MFA by failing to succeed at failures that succeed by failing!!??? ...whaaaaaaa??
