How experimentation changed my life
1976 and at the age of 22, the Experimental Art Foundation in Adelaide had just opened its doors and the then Director, Noel Sheridan, brought me on board to provide administrative support (on a salary of $20 per week - enough for petrol, cigarettes, rent and peanut butter sandwiches). My initial task was to type up Prof Donald Brook’s “Social Role of Art”, the first document to be published through the EAF’s arts printing press. Without fully appreciating it at the time, Noel mentored me over the next two years on not only the social role of art, but also post-object art, experimental art, performance art, sound art and video art. I fell in love with an area of creative endeavour and investigation that has remained a heartland for me ever since.
The form and expression of experimental arts practice have constantly evolved and changed over the decades, and while my passion for the practice has been sometimes tested at different times and contexts - particularly around the lack of critical discourse and the lack of connection to audiences - experimental art has a long and valued provenance and a sustained core intent to explore and be open to creating the unexpected, the unpredictable, the uncomfortable, the uncompromising and the unacceptable.
Which is why attending and participating in Adhocracy is a 'coming home' of sorts for me! It is a wholly immersive experience and an all too rare opportunity to intimately experience works in various stages of development and deeply engage in conversations with artists in an environment of trust, openness, risk, failure and inquiry. There is a profound generosity underpinning the event and with each day, rugged up and ready for the new creative iterations that will emerge, we share a common expectation and responsibility to exchange views, opinions and intentions with each other.
It is a powerful platform and one that I look forward to being immersed in again in the years to come. My warmest congratulations to Vitalstatistix on its extraordinary contribution to experimental arts practice in Australia through a decade of programming Adhocracy!
