the ’sham

The following is a new epilogue I wrote for the blog-as-book as featured in the exhibition at Artspace, Sydney, during May-June 2007.

In the book, the epilogue follows immediately from the final blog entry “one year” from June 4th, 2006. That entry finishes with a comment posted by Tully, which reads:

“Mother of mercy, is this the end of Bilateral Petersham?”

Epilogue

Not quite, Tully.

If you visit the blog now, you’ll find a smattering of postings since June 2006. But these are sporadic, occasional and “newsy”, rather than regular, detailed and diaristic – written more, perhaps, for those die-hard ’sham fans hungry for a scrap of local information, than to satisfy any need of my own to write.

However, there are times when the web-presence of Bilateral Petersham has provided a service not available elsewhere. For instance, when I reported (July 31st, 2006) on the death of Richard Blackie, (Stanmore Road’s eccentric vintage toy store owner / Michael Jackson impersonator), the blog provided a small space for reflection and eulogy. I regularly field enquiries from rollerskating enthusiasts keen to get inside the Majestic Roller Rink (the answer is: I don’t like your chances, but try calling 95693233); and as a result of my involvement with the Petersham Bowling Club’s ABC radio gig, I’ve become a fully fledged bowlo member. I even made them a website which, I am pleased to say, is now updated more regularly than my own (see www.thepbc.org.au).

It’s a year since the events depicted in this book took place. What once seemed fresh and raw now confronts me like the contents of a time capsule, a vast archive of experience, an elongated self-portrait. How can I make sense of all these words, which, for two months, gushed out of me every day? The prospect of confronting myself in such a large dose makes me squirm. The blog is, literally, “too close to home”.

To try and address that problem, I’ve been podcasting. It was an idea suggested by two of my readers last year, who were overwhelmed by reading the screen. They wanted something they could listen to on the train to work, a voice to fill the house while doing the washing up. I agreed it was a great idea, but had no time or know-how to carry it out.

Now however, I have time and a new mp3 recorder. Podcasting serves a few purposes. It lets you listen in with your ears - it allows the words to flow softly over you, rather than having to seek them out with your eyes. It gives you a sense of the timbre and accent of your gentle author’s voice, as well as the ambient sounds of Petersham (including regular pauses for low-flying aeroplanes), qualities unavailable in the bald text on the computer screen or page.

And, most importantly for me, it forces me to re-read my own words (every last one of them), to turn inscriptions on a page into speech, using the lungs, voicebox, tongue and lips which were crucial tools in the conversations upon which Bilateral Petersham depends.

In reading aloud, I re-live that period of time when I was a public figure of my own making. Whenever I can, I’ve recorded each “episode” on the corresponding day in 2007. By immersing my-now-self in my-then-self, I’m trying to come to terms with the ways that Petersham and I, suburb and citizen, brought each other into being.
One final note: Bilateral Petersham was a project that intended to engage folks from many walks of life, not just the good ole art crowd. Sometimes the fact that I regarded the project as “art” confused non-art readers. During the course of the blog, the question “But why is this art?” arose many times (Tully’s housemates nearly came to blows over it). I promised to show how Bilateral Petersham was art, but I never really came through. I’ll try now.

For the sake of simplicity, let’s just say that the definition of art I’m working from is not about family resemblances - you know, “if it looks like art, then it must be art”. That definition relies on the idea that the art-ness of a thing comes from a particular material or technique – oil paint, or the shaping of clay, or the way you twiddle a pencil, rather than from an underlying sensibility or approach to those activities.

By contrast, the process of developing my projects has evolved from thinking about what art can do, rather than what it might look like.

Can art help me live my life a little differently?
Can art be something that breathes?
Can art slip quietly into bed beside life, without stealing the doona?
If art can do those things, then I’m happy for it to dress up however it likes.
Even as a blog.

[You can read the new intro to the blog-book over here. You can see pictures of people assembling their copy of the blog-book here.]