Essays
3rd December 2020
If the overlay and clash and contrast of instincts is a topographical question for Freud, then Murray Smith has it here as a graphical one. Smith's own instinct, however, is that the Baroque, in its heightened sensitivity to force, tension and unease, is the 3D paradigm for exposition of the ineffable mysteries of consciousness.
20th November 2020
In an exceptional article for the Drouth, Neil Cooper writes to mark the release of Shadow of Fear, the first new album from Cabaret Voltaire for twenty years. The piece is exceptional in its musical profile for The Drouth, its exceptional in its extraordinary length, and also in its personal take on a rock story from Cooper.
16th November 2020
The tragedy in Sarajevo was a lesson for the people of every country, nation, land, city. The Balkans have been a crucible for the question of European peace and unity in the midst of ethnic and political struggle for centuries...
9th November 2020
Can the kingdom still be united if there’s no unionism in the union? And was ‘Unionism’ simply the most charming and esoteric of checks and balances on the ‘union’? It may all seem abstruse now, but Scott Hames sees us hurtling through an absurdly persistent pragmaticism towards a constitutional car crash.
27th October 2020
Historically the marginal realm of the feminine, the home for women artists was not always the mere prison of patriarchy. Tor Scott introduces the surrealist women who rendered the domestic sphere as visionary spaces for alchemy and transformation.
6th October 2020
John Latham's 'Niddrie Woman' : former shale bings, a massive piece of land art, a nature reserve, a monument to the achievements and sufferings of the people and the territory of the industrial revolution. A documentation by Murdo Macdonald.
27th September 2020
Artists have been adapting their practice to COVID-19 restrictions. In the open, is the Common Guild’s off-site response to the ongoing situation. Six artists have created new audio works designed to be listened to outdoors on headphones during government-sanctioned daily walks. Neil Cooper responds.
20th September 2020
As conservative interests look set to capture its Supreme Court, cities convulse in class and racial conflict and the skies burn along the west coast, the American horizon has never looked darker. Should we Seek an American hero to save US? According to Tom King’s recent take on the the ever-popular Batman, probably best if we didn’t.
Australian War Crimes : The Importance of Holding Oneself to Account 75 years after Nuremberg by Shannon Maree Torrens