→ ↑ → was formed by Philip Brophy in late 1976 when he was 17. Over the following 10 years, it would be regarded as a group, a collective, a band, a theatre troupe, a multi-media ensemble, a filmmaking entity, a video art production house. It was and wasn't all these things. The oft-used tagline used in official → ↑ → promotion was "somewhere between art and pop". All → ↑ → projects were driven by a conceptual interest in something (anything, really) which intellectually stimulated Philip. The idea would then be made manifest in some form: a music gig, an 'art performance', a film or video. Programme notes usually accompanied all → ↑ → projects. And nearly all projects were presented in multiple contexts - particularly places where the work 'didn't fit in' (taking a leaf from Warhol's dictum to "do the right thing in the wrong place and the wrong thing in the right place"). In this sense, → ↑ → never followed a 'professional' path, and never located its identity or concerns in any one field or industrial pathway. One week would entail playing muzak in a punk club; the next week performing mixed-media theatre in an experimental/'new music' setting; the following week screening a film in a cafe. Galleries were often used, but they certainly weren't the prime concern. Philip designed all the flyers and posters, most of which were printed under the technical guidance of Maria Kozic. Maria also fortuitously took hundreds of deliberately amateurish photos of → ↑ → using her Kodak instamatic camera. Without them this web archive would be visually thin.
The Made By → ↑ → book covers the initial phases of the group's existence between 1977 and 1982. Most productions bore an amateurish aspect - what → ↑ → openly declared and embraced as 'militant dilettantism'. Pretentiousness was celebrated, audiences were disregarded, and intellectual appeal was flaunted in the wonderful anti-intellectual climate that makes Australia what it was and still is. While over 60 'members' (friends, acquaintances, invitees, random ring-ins) were involved during this period, a core group featured predominantly in many projects: Philip Brophy, Maria Kozic, Ralph Traviato, Jayne Stevenson and Leigh Parkhill. Earlier key members included Anthony Montemurro, Alan Gaunt and Tanya McIntyre.
Between 1983 and 1986, → ↑ → became less involved in live events and more involved in recorded music (shifting from Innocent Records, co-run with David Chesworth, to Present records). The touring → ↑ → Installation presented the earlier phase of the group as part of a re-think about how to move forward producing 'products' more than 'events'. Consequently, the Stuff series of publications paralleled Philip's increasing interest in critical writing for a wide range of publications. Philip also embarked on directing films and videos bearing his name as director, culminating in the featurette Salt Saliva Sperm & Sweat released in 1988. The final official live project for the group was the UK/European tour of Stills.
The name → ↑ → comes from Philip's perverse interest in linguistics. The concept was to assert a name for the band by finding something written which negated verbal articulation, and something spoken which negated written correlation. Hence the use of arrows (which direct the reader, but have no single word to name them) and the 'tsk-tsk-tsk' utterance (which is possibly the only communicative sound made by western culture where breath is inhaled rather than expelled). This sound also related to the admonishing parental disapproval that → ↑ → attracted by older counter-culture types who negatively evaluated this bunch of arrogant uppity punks in the artworld. The three-arrow formation comes from the only sculpture Philip made when he was 15 in art class: he simply stuck 3 arrows in the corner of the classroom near the floor, so that they demonstrated height, width and depth. All → ↑ → work was intent on being similarly demystified, unromantic and perversely entertaining. Notions of how this materialized in the music of → ↑ → at the time are documented in Philip's answers to a mail interview conducted by longstanding colleague Adrian Martin, in Texts & Gestures (1982).
Various venues - Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide
7" EP
1st & 2nd pressing on Innocent Records, Melbourne
Included on Muzak, Rock & Minimalism, Innocent Records, Melbourne
Track from Nice Noise EP
Included on Can't Stop It!, Chapter Music, Melbourne
4-channel video
Various venues - Melbourne & Sydney
Various venues - Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide
12" single
Original pre-release on Missing Link Records, Melbourne
The Crush included on Can't Stop It! II, Chapter Music, Melbourne
L'Acrostique d'Amour included on Closed Circuits, Warner Music Australia
LP with 12" single
Original release on Innocent Records, Melbourne
LP with 12" single
Re-issued by Chapter Music, Melbourne
Compilation LP
Compiled by Philip Brophy & David Chesworth
In conjunction with New Music magazine
Contains excerpt from More Tedious Structuralism by → ↑ →
Released on Innocent Records, Melbourne
Compilation LP
Compiled by Philip Brophy & David Chesworth
In conjunction with New Music magazine
Contains excerpt from Narrative Music by → ↑ →
Released on Innocent Records, Melbourne
For various performances, films, videos & records