Exhibitions
The New Fresh Cut 2008
Robert Leonard
Eric Bridgeman's works derange race and gender stereotypes. Working with a troupe of friends, he has developed a set of characters, including Boi Boi The Labourer (played by himself), Billy Boo Boo and Lik Lik Mary Muffatt (a nod to Tracey Moffatt). Bridgeman's videos record his manic cast engaged in absurd tasks—untangling cords, bursting balloons, and inflating a pool—with him as Boi Boi acting as foreman, managing the action. Bridgeman gives each character a particular style, costume and props (for instance, Muka 'Big Boi' Alai is a primitive warrior with spears and an electric guitar), but the performances are largely improvised by the players. Bridgeman also makes posed studio photographs, presenting his characters against white backgrounds, recalling thespian publicity shots and Irving-Penn-style ethnographic studies. Referencing blackface minstrel shows, the Village People and Grace Jones, Bridgeman's campy occupation of 'ogga-booga' and blue-collar Aussie-bloke stereotypes plays on his dual identity; he was born in Brisbane, but is of Papua New Guinea highlands heritage. Some of his characters' names pay tribute to family members, including his late grandfather.
Laith McGregor is also interested in gender stereotypes. He is fascinated by beards as signifiers of vanity and virility, wisdom and authority. He writes: 'For my entire childhood I was surrounded by men with facial hair: my dad, grandfather, uncles, distant relatives, Lando Calrissian, Grizzly Adams, Mr. T, Magnum P.I., and that one guy from Star Trek.' McGregor's surreal biro drawings of male peacocks encompass biker-types, intellectual-types and Victorian dandies, all equally proud of their abundant manicured beards. Intrigued by the effects this prosthesis has on the male self, McGregor performs absurd operations on it. In some drawings the beard is so big it becomes a bulbous surrogate body (in one, it is big enough to bear a T-shirt-type slogan); in others multiple heads are joined at the beard. Male masquerade is famously tied to power: trappings of hierarchy, authority and position make the man. But it is hard to tell if McGregor's subjects are truly awesome, or, rather, are engulfed by their beards in some ritual of over-compensation.
Gabriella and Silvana Mangano make drawing-performances in which their synchronised actions mirror one another's. In their 2006 video If . . . So . . . Then . . ., for instance, they face each other, and draw around each other's bodies according to a predetermined routine, perhaps recalling a ritualistic childhood drawing-game. Poetically described as 'between choreography and embrace', this work implies an intense enclosed relationship, and plays on assumptions about twins, particularly the suggestion that they can intuitively operate in concert. The Manganos recently took their exploration of drawing out of the studio, into the landscape, filming performances at the base of the spectacular Montserrat Mountains in El Bruc, Barcelona. The video triptych they made for Fresh Cut draws on this footage. It finds the sisters manipulating black strips of paper, using the wind and themselves as drawing tools. 'There are times when the lines control the drawer and other times when the drawer controls the lines', Silvana explains. Mirroring Rorschach-style effects introduced in post-production further reflect on the trope of symmetrical twindom.
Ross Manning's self-playing instruments have one foot in sound art, the other in sculpture. His symphonic installations bring together different instruments—some percussive, some tonal—to perform continuous compositions that are part regular, part random. The instruments theatricalise the transfer of energy from one form to another. The instruments in his Fresh Cut installation include Transfer 1 and Dissonant Optics. In Transfer 1, a fan makes a suspended ball swing across a circle of rods. When the ball touches the rods it makes electrical connections, activating pistons to hit tuned metal cups. In Dissonant Optics, motors turn a rope to which lasers are attached; their lights dancing on solar panels. The panels are connected to an amplifier, which reads the resulting fluctuating power output as an audio signal. We witness the play of light transformed into the play of sound. [image: Ross Manning]