Art to lunch: David Broker: DAVID - Anna Marsden: ANNA
Andrew Kettle: KETTLE

ANNA: I'd like to welcome andrew kettle on to art to lunch. Hello Andrew.
KETTLE: HI.
DAVID: We're talking here about a show called spectacle which is apparently showing at the University. Now that is the university of southern Queensland and it's in the ARt gallery there now is it andrew?
KETTLE: That's right. Up in Toowoomba.
ANNA: Yeah, Why are you doing this show? How did you get into this?
KETTLE: It was part of Qld Arts week and they where collecting Artists from all over Queensland, exhibiting in different genres of work.
DAVID: Oh, I see.
KETTLE: And I was the Brisbane sound artist that they decided to drag in.
ANNA: Absolutely, so what have you done. You have made a work that immediately appears silence that people have to look for the sound do they? Which is kind of weird isn't it.
KETTLE: They have to explore... what it is is a series of transformers, 250 watt, they are not connected to anything, so they radiate electro-magnetic radiation.
ANNA: Ok. You lost me already.
KETTLE: oh,..
DAVID: What is electro-magnetic radiation?
KETTLE: Well every electrical device emits radiation.
DAVID: Does it?
KETTLE: yes, so we are sitting in radiation...
DAVID: Turn everything off!
KETTLE: Which is the way I feel sometime..
DAVID: I'm freaking out!
KETTLE: So you have this chain of transformers in the art gallery and there is a modified radio of sorts that is actually an amplified inductor which picks up that radiation and amplifies that radiation to a speaker that you are holding.
ANNA: So you are playing the radiation in the air? and you are bringing more radiation in incase there isn't enough.
KETTLE: The audience does, the listener, or the looker.
DAVID: So, you trying to fry your audience?
ANNA: You're playing them.
KETTLE: You do anyhow... we are surrounded in it. so all it is to some extent is an awareness.
ANNA: Why don't you bring in one know and we can play with one ...
KETTLE: we are actually playing one now, just setting it up.
DAVID: So do you think.. you think that audiences will actually do this kind of thing.. the participation thing?
KETTLE: well, the whole exhibition is interactive.
DAVID: I see so they have to..
KETTLE: All the artists had it...
ANNA: they had no choice..
KETTLE: They had no choice they had to follow the circirculation.. it had to be interactive. which is a lot of fun, because when it comes to sound art exhibiting.. i've gone to a few exhibits, the toowoomba art gallery for instance, where all there interactive art works are turned off, there videos everything and there is a big yellow and black sign saying if you want to watch this or use this you have to go to the counter and have it turned on.
DAVID: oh, right that sort of thing.
KETTLE: Which is a bit disappointing for as far as being interactive and new media is concerned...
DAVID: Have you watched people at the exhibition? is it interesting at an interactive exhibition to watch people to see what they do?
KETTLE: definitely. that whole crossover is really quite strange. you go into an art gallery and you usually don't touch thing or interact with things and then suudenly you are invited for a whole exhibition to get carried away.. kids like it the most.. i mean they have no boundries at all when it comes to art like that.. i mean usually they are told not to touch it.
DAVID: who is the curator for this?, Andrew? Who put this all together?
KETTLE: It's a collaboration of three toowoomba artists called Three Monkeys Collective.
DAVID: Monkeys.
KETTLE: Yes.
ANNA: Hear no evil, speak no evil, say no evil.
KETTLE: That's right. Which is a good curatorial.
ANNA: Can we talk about, i mean I love to talk about you , but can we talk about so other works as well because some of them are a scream. I want to talk about anna jackson. I want to tlak about Cat god the shrine to hello kitty by Anna Jackson.
DAVID: That sounds fantastic. DO we know anna jackson?
ANNA: Yes we do, she's a maniac. She the one that used to get teddy bears and undo the stitching and then make a teddy bear blanket, so you whould have the faces of teaddy bears that looked like starving lost soul teddy bears.
DAVID: They look like they have been in a concentration camp.
ANNA: they did.
KETTLE: It's a bit psychotic i think.. when things like that are taken out of context I always find it a bit worrying, you know, here is hello kitty in an art gallery ...
ANNA: You don't think that playing back the radiation sound is a bit worrying?
DAVID: Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
ANNA: Yeah, talking about radiation that's not worrying!
KETTLE: It's an awareness thing.. it's a health issue.
ANNA: So is the hello kitty phenomena.
DAVID: Well, it sounds like the hello kitty is a great thing to me... well, hello kitty has been causing roits throughout asia, because... well I don't think that it is going to be creating a riot in the gallery in the university.
ANNA: when i was in honk kong they where giving away hello kitty figurines with the happy meals at macdonalds and on every monday there was a new figurine available and in chang hi there was a bit of an incident because a whole lot of women, and as the article ion the english chinese paper said women with great big beehives had this war over the hello kitty...
DAVID: Did they actually try and kill each other?
ANNA: yeah, they where tearing eachother heair out , hair was everywhere.
DAVID: wow, that's fantastic.
ANNA: hello kitty masacre.
KETTLE: that is interactive.
ANNA: Now, you can talk about pauline gallagher. A conveyor belt with condoms, I want to hear more.
KETTLE: I thought it would get you. Well, Pauline gallagher is one of the three monkeys, it is a conveyor belt that you turn by hand and the handle for it is actually a .... particular sexual device and the whole conveyour belt is covered with condom and teets..
DAVID: Well, what sort of sexual device?
ANNA: it would have to be something that is long and cylindrical.
KETTLE: That's the one.
DAVID: Is it a dildo or a vibrator? You can say it..
KETTLE: it's a dildo.. it doesn't vibrate. it would be very interactive if it did.
DAVID: Yeah, so you have a dilso and you have to turnit around with you hand and so what is the point of that?
ANNA: NO, I still like the Hello Kitty.
KETTLE: I saw it as a daily ritual that you turn it and get a new teet every day or every hour or something like that. You wouldn't have to get off your chair. you could just sit there and suck on a teet or a condom.
DAVID: Suck on a condom? Are they filled? oh, goodness me this is a fascinating work. is there anything else we can talk about that isn't so filthy?
ANNA: Sabastian De Borro an print of his naked body.
DAVID: Is that like the shroud of turin?
KETTLE: Every similar.. it's just cut up into pieces. and displayed over a whole wall.
ANNA: Oh, I like this one. Janice Gleeson has suspended christmas pudding which are numbered to referr to the number of year from birth to wher she is now.
DAVID: What is interactive about that?
KETTLE: You get to eat the puddings.... the most thing is you walk in the gallery and all you sell is christmas pudding.
ANNA: How do you get to eat the pudding?
KETTLE: Well, at the end they are having a dinner.
DAVID: Of coarse, christmas pudding don't go off they just get better.
ANNA: Yeah, I wonder how old she is...
DAVID: So, it's not interactive while you are there you have to wait till the exhibition is over till you can get to the interactive bit?
ANNA: When you walk in you don't get a baskin and robin's spoon?
DAVID: So tell us about...
ANNA: What about laura benchley's work? It doens't describe her work it just says 'works or laura beechlay are incluided in this exhibition.'
DAVID: Oh, she was an after thought.
ANNA: Who is the girl with the white suite and big things down her back?
KETTLE: This is the cross over when it comes to new media... i mean she is a fabric technician or a fabric artist that also becomes a fashion designer that also becomes a performance artist. Her work on the night was actually wearing this dress behind a curtain with her back to the audience with a hand mirror that she was looking at the audience through. so there is this whole cross over of audience and artist sort of voyerism in a way.
ANNA: Wow.
DAVID: And Georgina birckman - 'the untitled performance', did you see that.
KETTLE: I can't remember you giuys are really roasting me today..
ANNA: It's fum isn't it.
DAVID: It's 2x 30 minute performances.
KETTLE: yeah, that is georgina... that is who we are talking about.. that's the dress or the fabric.
DAVID: Oh, alright. well that is interesting, so her performance was I'd imagine a bit spooky.
KETTLE: Well, she just stared into the mirror at you.
ANNA: Was there a bit of heckling?
KETTLE: Actually the toowoomba crowd was polite.
ANNA: They are quite respectful.
KETTLE: they are... even to the extent that there are some confrontational works there and people would say "oh, that's great to see this is new."
DAVID: I'd love to go to Toowoomba and we have spoken about it many times for the flower show.
KETTLE: Now that was just on before.
DAVID: Was it.... now what is this one andrew? It's got a picture that has text on it like "In cold blood, meat, silence, cattle, blood."
KETTLE: that is the movable newpaper headlines, so ther is this whole wall of differnet headlines.
DAVID: That's quite clever.
ANNA: Who did that? .... Debbora bowmont. She is a clever cookie.
KETTLE: I lot of it was about dingoes as well. Well ther is this 'dindo. mystery. murder. UFO.' You could change around the whole context.
DAVID: Did a UFO take a dingo?
KETTLE: Well, possibly.. it depends on how you arrange..
DAVID: Oh, I get you, it's actually how you arrange the text to make up you own headline. So who would you make up a headline out of this anna? You go like... I was eaten... in cold blood... by a ... stray cattle.... war meat...
ANNA: By a hyena... then silence
DAVID: So that would give the listener some idea of the ....
ANNA: I'd like.. I was eaten by a cattle prode... or... i was eaten by a hyena.
DAVID: If only we had the hyenas yesterday we where kidnapped by monkeys..
ANNA: So how lonmg is the show on for Andy?
KETTLE: It finishes on the first. this is the last week.
DAVID: Now, just before we finish this interview, Andrew I'd like to say that this photo here that you have got on the back of the catatlogue is so inaccurate... when was that taken...
KETTLE: When ever I get artist bio request I have this instant package that I send to people... it's got emergency fill in that I then replace when I get the time later on... I completely forgot that I gave them that I gave them this photograph... what it actually is is a big drinking party that I had with David Cox the film editor and director in Brisbane and it was the only thinmg that I had at the time to post up to them and i posted it up to them.
ANNA: So what is the big thing coming out of the back like a big handle.
KETTLE: A plug.
DAVID: So, you are a robot or a droid.
KETTLE: Actually, one great thing about this exhibition is that eventhough it is interactive there isn't a single computer near it. Which is great.
DAVID: It is great actually. I'm sick of computers. well, look this sounds really interesting actually. I'm sorry that I through the catalogue away. I thought that it was from sydney.
KETTLE: You though everything away that comes from sydney.
DAVID: I do. I do. If I had known it was from toowoomba I would have kept it. So have you asked andrew...
ANNA: Yes, it's one until the first at the gallery at toomoomba university.
KETTLE: It's a nice gallery actually.
ANNA: So, if you are making your way up to toowoomba check in and see specticle which has tonnes and tonnes of artists one of which is Andy kettle, who has a lovely photo and we are going to listen to some of his sound now, or is that what we have been listen to?
KETTLE: Yes, thanks guys. take care.
ANNA & D: Thanks, andrew!