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Thematics & Metaphors

While the terms ‘Trash & Junk' might instantly (yet confusingly) call to mind many things, their status as slang (ie. outside of 'official' language) demonstrates the way in which dominant idioms attempt to locate and segregate such aspects of >low' culture. The terms ultimately are metaphors of bodily excretement : 'trash' referring to an industrial society as a machine or body that intakes materials and commodities and converts their energy and substance to waste for the junkyard ; 'junk' referring more complexly to the most popular anti-body drug - heroin - whose useage is viewed as a deliberate and perverse reversal or looping of the body's consumption chain, ie. feeding in shit. The connotations of these two negative terms are thus deliberately extended to provide the overiding thematics for the TRASH & JUNK CULTURE project:

• TRASH - refuse, garbage, waste: all the material that is leftover, disposed, spent, discarded; the end-process of consumption, digestion, regurgitation.

• JUNK – disease, corruption, addiction: all the material that is injected, invited, avowed, supported; the start-process of consumption, digestion, regurgitation.

Lectures

After first having allowed the audience to see and digest the 6 installations, two slide-lectures were presented by Philip Brophy. Each lecture would lasts around 1 hour and are intended to trace certain cultural and historical formations in the representation and fusion of sex and violence.

SEDUCTION & REPULSION
from literature to illiterature

Through slides and an overhead-projected historical chart, this lecture presentation traces some historical origins of the formal and social breakdown of what was by the mid-19th century an established, classical-derived concept of literature. The sanctity and preciousness of 19th century novel's classical ideals and literary models were continually being bruised by : gothic novels, penny bloods, shilling shockers, blue books, comics of all genres, pulp fiction, dime novels, crime stories, fantastic magazines, horror stories, speculative fiction, etc.

These various forms were all based on privileging the image over the word; sensation over exposition; action over dramaturgy; and violence over motivation. In effect, the individual histories of these various forms provide us with antithetical models of literature which could be termed “illiterature”. This lecture thus centres on the period 1850 through to 1950 to demonstrate that the operations of exploitation and the mass-media are nothing new to our so-called 'modern mediarized society', and further highlight the quintessentially 19th century tone of high-versus-low cultural debates.

IDENTIFICATION & TITILATION
from photography to pornography

Through slides and an overhead-projected historical chart, this lecture presentation posits inherent links between the photographic mode and pornographic codes by evidencing the changing ideals of the human body which have resulted in types and categories of pornography which most people would find near impossible to relate to. The historical tracing covers : erotic postcards and scandal news-sheets at the turn of the century; fine art photo folios; burlesque and stripper digests; wartime dream girl pin- ups; saucy'n’naughty girlie zines; liberated press publications; erotic journals and compendiums; hardeore magazines; specialist pornography and fetishizations; etc.

The aim is to show how the identification, commodification and idealization of the human body as either a sex object (presented as unattainable) or sex machine (presented as engaged) have all been continually changing depending on the cultural condition and social climate.

Catalogue

The original catalogues from the installations at The Performance Space and at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art contain some introductory texts, plus a listing of the project's contents (the installations) and proceedings (the lectures). It also sets and captures the tone of the project - outlining how the whole set-up is derived from educational displays and presentations (by museums, hospitals, police, schools, etc.) which intend to 'educate' the viewer. That whole patronizing and presumptuous tack is picked up here and applied to aspects of culture which are conventionally viewed as being destructive to educational ideals (hence the play upon healthy minds, healthy bodies, and a healthy society).

In a less ironic mode, this Media Night's prime concern is to expose people to a range of materials and objects (rather than 'issues') so that some more informed discussion could continue elsewhere on issues (exploitation, ideological control, mass media, censorship, advertising, pleasure & leisure, sexual identification, commodification, consumerism, etc.) which are too often treated in dismissive or superficial terms.

Press release

The original press release replicated the foaming excessive delivery that usually accompanies hysterical attempts to warn off the mass populace of some dreadful desrtuctive media force.

“You’ve heard all about them ... all those things like "viideo linstics", “victim toys”, “weirdo porno" and “exploitation movies”. Perhaps you've even talked about these things to other people - but how much of it all have you encountered?

In fact, hace you SEEN any of it?

If all you've seen is a small selection presented for shock value in some ‘concerned' article or television news item, you've seen NOTHING.

But now here's your chance to check it out in detail - and in an art gallery no less!

TRASH & JUNK CULTURE is an exhibition of all these 'unsavoury' items. The emphasis of the exhibition is to literally expose people to these many items of mass culture which have been caught up in various legal battles, hearings and censorship debates over the past 5 years.

Directed by Fhilip Brophy and presented in collaboration with Maria Kozic, Ian Haig & Andrew Haig, TRASH & JUNK CULTURE is an over-the-top yet thought-provoking exhibition of the more ‘messy’ aspects of everyday life.

An absolute must are the Opening night slide-lectures presented by Philip Brophy :

“Seduction & Titilation - a partial history of Exploitation” traces the origins of' the decay of literature, starting with the Gothic novel of the late 19th century and going up to publications like MAD magazine in the 50s

“Identification & Repulsion - a partial histroy of Pornography” traces develepments in pornographic material from turn-of-the-century- erotic postcards to some of the current 'specialist' magazines.

The aim of TRASH & JUNK CULTURE is simple : to let people see these things for themselves so that perhaps some informed discussion can take place as to whether they're detrimental or not to kids, adults, psychos, whatever. In the miasma of media disinformatian inflamed by volatile issues, TRASH & JUNK CULTURE is a MUST for anyone interested in mass culture!

Not to be missed! Not to be avoided!”.

Complete contents of this page © Philip Brophy