Justice Precinct

Image: Carolyn McKay

As part of my preliminary research, I spent this morning at the NSW Parole Authority in the Justice Precinct. I went there to observe video link appearances of inmates - to see firsthand how the video conferencing system works and how it looks in courtrooms. A whole new world was revealed as men appeared from correctional centres across NSW, their image multiplied on the many courtroom screens. I have filled my notebook with observations that will inform my draft ethics application, and give me more content to contemplate.

Taking the Oath

Still images from my digital video currently being projected onto the walls of the Women's Cell @ The Lock-Up Cultural Centre, Newcastle, as part of the group show 'I WAS HERE'.

http://www.thelockup.info/

http://www.visitnewcastle.com.au/accom_result1/the-lockup-museum-education-centre/

Where?
http://maps.google.com.au/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=90+Hunter+St,+Newcastle&sll=-32.926357,151.78122&sspn=0.03278,0.037422&g=Newcastle,+NSW&ie=UTF8&ll=-32.925653,151.783891&spn=0.008195,0.009356&z=16&iwloc=addr

LOCK-UP EXHIBITION

I Was Here

The Lock-Up Cultural Centre

http://www.thelockup.info/

25 November - 11 December 2011

I’ll be exhibiting a video work in this group show:

“This exhibition celebrates the enormous contribution made to the Lock-Up Cultural Centre by the Artist-in-Residence Program. In the past five years, over 65 creative practitioners: artists, dancers, musicians, writers, poets and architects have resided in the AIR residence and responded to the unique environment of The Lock-Up. They have contributed greatly to the enrichment of the Newcastle arts community, through exhibitions, lectures, workshops and performances.”

It's always great to exhibit my work in The Lock-Up which was a police station in Newcastle from 1861-1982.

Violence Studies

http://www.newcastle.edu.au/institute/humanities-research/historyofviolence/ViolenceStudiesConference2012.html

Next year, the University of Newcastle is hosting its inaugural Violence Studies conference. According to the website, they are calling for papers (due 1 May 2012) from a wide range of academics including anthropology, art, history, international relations, law, literature, psychology, philosophy, political science and sociology.

Specific themes may include, but are not limited to:

• Concepts of violence
• Representations of violence (in art, literature, and film)
• Ritual group violence
• Political violence and terrorism
• Violence and liberation
• Violence and sexuality and sexual politics
• Violence and gender roles
• Domestic service and violence
• The history of interpersonal violence
• Atrocities of war (including the collection of body parts and war trophies)
• The language of violence
• Race, class, civil rights and violence
• Collective violence
• Vengeance
• Religion and violence
• Violence against civilians (war/colonization)
• Traumatism

Facing Forwardhttp://www.facingforward.nl/

http://www.facingforward.nl/

FACING FORWARD
Art & Theory from a Future Perspective
Lecture series 
December 2011–April 2012 

Oude Lutherse Kerk
Spui 411 (corner Spui)
Amsterdam


This lecture series considers horizons of the unknown, the discourse of the future and asks "What does it mean to look forward, to speculate, to extrapolate? Is it possible to develop a vision of the future outside these well-worn paths of utopia and dystopia?" 
A publication is forthcoming as well:
Facing Forward: Art & Theory from a Future Perspective

Forensics

I must track down a copy of Cabinet and the next issue with a special Forensics section:

Politics of CCTV: trajectory and directions

Image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed-circuit_television

On Monday 14 November 2011, a (free) seminar concerning CCTV and it's ubiquitous role in our everyday lives is being held at Sydney Law School. Keynote speaker is Dr Gavin Smith of Sydney University's Surveillance of Everyday Research Group (http://surveillanceandeveryday.com/)

For more information and registration, check out:
http://sydney.edu.au/news/law/457.html?eventcategoryid=35&eventid=8363

Arts in Society Conference 2012

How exciting - an overseas conference looms!
I've had an abstract "Visualising the Posthuman Courtroom" accepted for the Seventh International Conference on the Arts in Society to be held at Liverpool John Moores University, UK.
A couple of other 'buddies' have also had their abstracts accepted so looking forward to a strong contingent of antipodeans.

http://artsinsociety.com/conference-2012/

Anakhronismos

Following on from my last post, I'm putting together a video screening at Bondi Pavilion 27 January 2012 and I'm calling it: 

αναχρονισμός Anakhronismos ΑΝΑΧΡΟΝΙΣΜΟΣ

meaning backward + time.

Video Shoot

Last Friday I had a short and successful video shoot with actor, Barry Shepherd being a judge delivering fictitious convictions and sentences for me. With my very minimal direction, Barry instantly began delivering his lines in a most judicial manner and we got through in one take!

Here are a few HD video stills:

This digital video will form part of another shoot I'm undertaking in December in a disused courthouse. The final work will be 'premiered' in the Anakhronismos screening that I'm curating in January 2012 at Bondi Pavilion.

Combatant Status Review Tribunals, pp. 002954-003064: A Public Reading

If only I was in New York next week then I could see this performance.
On 12-13 November at MoMA, there will be a 4 hour reading of unedited transcripts from 18 Combatant Status Review Tribunals held in the US military prison camp, Guantanamo Bay 2004-5. Artists include:


Andrea Geyer, Sharon Hayes, Ashley Hunt, Katya Sander, and David Thorne


http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1214

The Pleasure of Research!

I'm always interested in considering what it means to research through and with artistic practices.
This is a new book where Henk Slanger proposes that artistic research is "a temporary autonomous activity focusing on the intellectual pleasure of an experimental method and an implicated form of artistic thought."

http://www.artresearch.eu/

Forensic Aesthetics

While the latter part of the 20th century may have been labelled the "era of the witness", the 21st century privileges forensics. This forum considers the aesthetic dimensions of forensics: form, presentation, delivery and theatricality.
http://www.veralistcenter.org/currentprograms/?p=2854
http://www.veralistcenter.org/currentprograms/?p=2841 
These links provide:

"Etymologically, forensics refers to the “forum,” and to the practice and skill of making an argument before a professional, political, or legal gathering. Forensics has always been part of rhetoric, but its domain includes not only human speech but also that of objects. In forensic rhetoric, objects can address the forum. Because objects do not speak for themselves, there is a need for “translation” or “interpretation” – forensic rhetoric requires a person or a set of technologies to mediate between the object and the forum, to present the object, interpret it and place it within a larger net of relations."

2011 Sydney Law School Postgraduate Conference

As part of the 2011 Sydney Law School Postgraduate Conference, I'll be presenting “Researching criminology through the visual arts”. I'll be discussing my art practice, its 'looping' relationship to academic research in creating new perspectives, as well as the practices of various international artists whose works are relevant to my topic.

Surveillance and/in Everyday Life Conference

I think I'll submit an abstract to this conference:
Source: http://sydney.edu.au/news/law/457.html?eventid=8793


Surveillance and/in Everyday Life Conference

20 February 2012 to 21 February 2012

The University of Sydney's Surveillance and Everyday Life Research Group is hosting a two-day international conference entitled,Surveillance and/in Everyday Life: Monitoring Pasts, Presents and Futures. The event, to be held in The University of Sydney's state of the art Law School Building, will bring together key international scholars, policy makers, practitioners, artists and social commentators to discuss the social, cultural, historical, political, legal, economic and technical dimensions of surveillance. Few topics have greater contemporary public relevance and social significance than the increased monitoring and visibility of everyday living and the emergent surveillance capacities of new information communication technologies and organizational practices.

The Surveillance and Everyday Life Research Group project brings together a number of early career, mid career and distinguished scholars from across The University of Sydney to critically and collaboratively examine the everyday production and experience of surveillance, and to explore the multitude of thematics emanating from the transactional interplays and exchanges among organizations, technologies and individuals.

About the conference

The intensification and diversification of surveillance in recent decades has been remarkable. CCTV cameras, private investigators, loyalty cards, body scanners, DNA swabs, RFID tags, Web 2.0 platforms/protocols and internet cache cookies constitute only some of the many instruments facilitating the routine extraction and collection of personal information.

Advancement in technological applications, and wider cultures of risk, uncertainty, distrust and consumption, have all helped to legitimate and naturalize surveillance as a multi-purpose tool in the everyday lives of individuals and organizations. Yet, whilst surveillance seems increasingly embedded in the physical and cultural fabric of contemporary living, and whilst surveillance today is qualitatively and quantitatively different from previous modes, it is by nomeans a novel phenomenon. From time immemorial, detailed records have been accumulated on the health, morality, cognitive development, motivations, sexualities, incomes, work activities and whereabouts of certain populations - not to mention on animal relations, planetary constellations, environmental conditions, and the like. In the past, as in the present, forms of life have been and are targeted by a polymerous array of monitoring and recording devices. Moreover, surveillance as a mode of social regulation, a cultural medium, a symbolic resource and a companion species is set to further dominate the political, economic and socio-cultural landscapes of future human societies and social assemblages; but with what implications for social justice, social relations and subjectivities? This conference critically considers the significance of everyday surveillance in relation to temporality, exploring the changing nature of surveillance as it relates to cultural specificities, past transformations, present landscapes and possible/emergent futures.

Confirmed keynote conference presenters include:

* Professor David Lyon, Queen's University, Canada
* Professor Kevin Haggerty, University of Alberta, Canada
* Professor Pat O'Malley, University of Sydney, Australia

Human Ethics

I've been spending quite a bit of time drafting human ethics applications to both the University and Corrective Services, as well as drafting informed consent forms, participants information sheets, safety protocols and interview questions. All in all, a lot of (digital) paperwork!

Image source: http://www.wordswords.com.au/2011/04/the-golden-rule-an-ethics-guide-for-today’s-social-media/

This is Not Criminology...

...but I thought I'd just mention:

Talk

at Newcastle Art Gallery 

Exhibitions: TOUCH the portraiture of Dani Marti

SAVING FACE Portraits from the collection

I'll  be presenting a lecture on portraiture, from primal to digital:

Saturday 22 October 2011

2.00pm

Bookings Not Required  

Free!

Dani Marti Time is the fire in which we burn 2009

HDV 1 channel video, 1h7’

Courtesy the artist and Breenspace, Sydney

Human Rights Prison

An oxymoron?
Apparently not ... The Alexander Maconochie Centre, ACT is all about recognising people as fellow human beings.

http://www.cs.act.gov.au/
http://www.abc.net.au/local/videos/2008/11/26/2430325.htm

Source: http://www.cs.act.gov.au/custodial_operations/types_of_detention/alexander_maconochie_centre

Critical Animals @ The Lock-Up

"Text Inscription, Oral Testimony and Sonic Murmurs" is the title of the panel I'm a part of on Sunday. I'm talking about the "Embodied Voice and the Posthuman Courtroom" at 12:00PM.

http://criticalanimals.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/posters-ca-sunday6.pdf

http://criticalanimals.org/

It's part of the This is Not Art Festival in Newcastle:
http://thisisnotart.org/2011/09/it-all-comes-down-to-this-tina-2011-kicks-off-tomorrow/

Virtual Courts

Stelarc - The Body is Obsolete - Contemporary Arts Media

Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology: Conference

While I'm not looking forward to getting out of bed at 4:45 AM, I am looking forward to heading on down to the Geelong waterfront for the 2011 Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher Conference:

http://www.anzsoc.org/cms-conferences/post-graduate-and-early-carreer-researcher-conferences.phps

Criminal Trial Tweeting

From CreativeTimetweets:
http://creativetime.org/programs/archive/2011/tweets/?p=130

Jill Magid witnessed a shooting by Fausto Cardenas in Austin, Texas. She decided to continue her witnessing by attending his trial and reporting directly from the courtroom via Twitter to create a digital testimonial record.

View the project by using the hashtag #FaustosWitness or following@jillmagid beginning August 5. Magid’s tweets will continue until the end of the trial.

Jill Magid seeks intimate relations with impersonal structures. She is intrigued by hidden information, being public as a condition for existence, and intimacy in relation to power and observation. Magid has had solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art; Tate Modern, London; Berkeley Art Museum; Yvon Lambert in New York and Paris; Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam; and Gagosian Gallery, New York. She has written three books: One Cycle of Memory in the City of L; Lincoln Ocean Victor Eddy, Becoming Tarden, and is currently working on her fourth, Failed States. Magid lives and works in New York City.

www.jillmagid.net

A Philosophy of Evidence Law

Back to blogging ... it's been a busy couple of weeks with my exhibition opening at Mosman Art Gallery ... and I've started sitting in on some evidence classes to brush up my rusty knowledge.
A bit of late night reading last night: H.L. Ho A Philosophy of Evidence Law: Justice in the Search for Truth Oxford University Press 2008. Pages 81-84: some interesting comments referencing the work of Raimond Gaita who speaks of justice in terms of humanity rather than fairness, empathy in justice and the recognition of the accused as a human being (Gaita, A Common Humanity: Thinking about Love and Truth and Justice London: Routledge, 2000, 81). Markus Dirk Dubber is quoted as writing that even a psychopath 'does not deserve to be disposed of as a mere object.' (Dubber, The Sense of Justice - Empathy in Law and Punishment (NY: NYU Press, 101).
Some useful references for my research and the impact of video technologies in criminal proceedings.

Sydney Law School Postgraduate Conference

The 2011 Sydney Law School Postgraduate Conference will be held 27 & 28 October. Submission of abstracts is 29 August 2011. Please see the following link for more details:

http://sydney.edu.au/law/pgconference/index.shtml

Bang! Bang!

I'm always interested in exhibitions that consider crime ... this one at CCA Gallery, Mallorca, Spain shows works by artists whose works allude to crime and crime scenes and the intersections of fact and fiction.

http://www.ccandratx.com/en/p251/agenda_12/bang-bang.html

http://www.e-flux.com/shows/view/9876

Reports of Crime Etc., Etc., - Text

Here are a few stills from my video installation:

Invitation to Opening Night and Exhibition

Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment

NSW State Records has a digital gallery on crime and punishment.

http://gallery.records.nsw.gov.au/index.php/galleries/crime-in-the-records/crime-and-punishment/

Legal Intersections Research @ UOW

It's always good to find people and institutions working with the intersections of law and other disciplines:
http://www.uow.edu.au/law/LIRC/index.html
"... Approaching research from an interdisciplinary perspective involves breaking down the boundaries of traditional disciplines, particularly that of law, in the interests of producing fresh insights and knowledges.  Our methodologies assume that knowledge about the law is inseparable from a range of sometimes competing or conflicting discourses such as philosophy, religion, history, feminism and critical theory, art, theatre, media, cultural studies, sociology, government and politics. A key undercurrent in our research is law's relationship with vulnerability and pluralism."

Justice & Police Museum, Sydney

One of my favourite museums is, of course, the Justice & Police Museum administered by the Historic Houses Trust:
http://www.hht.net.au/discover/highlights/guidebooks/justice__and__police_museum_guidebook/#policecourt
http://www.hht.net.au/museums/justice_and_police_museum

And check out the From the Loft blog, as well as Ross Gibson's Accident Music:
http://blogs.hht.net.au/justice/

A Thousand Eyes - Media, Technology, Law and Aesthetics

Ooh, I wish I could pop into Norway for a day ... on 22 September 2011 there is a seminar revolving around Judy Radul's work "World Rehearsal Court".
http://www.hok.no/seminar-september-22.4936059-30477.html

Time: September 22 2011
Place: Henie Onstad Art Centre, Høvikodden
Fee: NOK 250,- (includes lunch and the anthology)
Registration: please use the form below (limited number of seats)

About:
Since the early 20th century contemporary art and art theory have creatively challenged the notion of representation. Today, the court of law has increasingly come to rely on the same representational modes and technologies that artists have explored for a long time. How far has the field of law come in regard to understanding a moving image? How do they for instance understand a video filmed testimony? What kinds of problems do photos, video- and surveillance recordings meet as evidence, and in what way do they “speak”? How does the aesthetic of new media technology affect the judicial system in relation to fundamental concepts like truth and representation? The main purpose of the seminar is to discuss the historical and contemporary relationship between the law and representational regimes.

Participants so far: 
Eyal Sivan, Judy Radul, Costas Douzinas, Claire Colebrook, Eyal Weizman, Anders Ryssdal and Marit Paasche.

Anthology: 
A Thousand Eyes - Media Technology, Law, and Aesthetics
Editors: Marit Paasche and Judy Radul.
The anthology consists of essays by Julie A. Cassiday, Costas Douzinas, Pieyl Haldar, Martin Jay, Peter Goodrich, Richard Mohr, Judy Radul, Avital Ronell, Eyal Sivan and Cornelia Vismann. Published by Sternberg Press in collaboration with the Henie Onstad Art Centre.

About the exhibition:

http://www.hok.no/judy-radul-world-rehearsal-court.4870425-30550.html

Does technology influence the practice of law and justice?

After studying the legal processes of the International Criminal Court for two years, Judy Radul has created the work World Rehearsal Court. In this artwork, she examines the relationship between experience and testimony as well as truth and fiction in the judicial process. Radul draws attention to the way they are interwoven on many levels. In her work, she shows, for example, how events in the courtroom are dramatised by means of video, television monitors, cameras and surveillance equipment.

“The courtroom has often been compared to the theatre. Given the impact of technology, it is perhaps more appropriate these days to compare it to a TV series,” says Tone Hansen.

The work on show at Henie Onstad Art Centre is both an ongoing experiment and a laboratory that examines how courtroom principles work in practice. World Rehearsal Court consists of filmed material from a fictional, enacted trial, and video material that will be shot live inside the exhibition space. Visitors are invited to see and experience for themselves how these various elements are put together. At the same time, they become part of the work, as they are filmed and projected onto screens around the courtroom.

World Rehearsal Court is a seven-channel video installation that runs for a total of four hours. The work also includes four servo-controlled cameras, live video playback, monitors, glass elements and a large quantity of found documentary material. The work has previously been shown in Canada, Austria and South Korea.

About the artist:
Judy Radul lives and works in Vancouver. She works with performance, photography, sculpture, video and media installations. She has mounted a number of international exhibitions, at, among other places, Mechelen (Belgium), Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst (Antwerp), Catriona Jeffries Gallery (Vancouver), Oboro (Montreal), Presentation House Gallery (North Vancouver) and The Power Plant (Toronto). This is her first exhibition in Norway.

• Curator: Tone Hansen
• The exhibition will open with a performance by Monica Winther on Sunday 19 June at 2pm and will be inaugurated by Anders Ryssdal.
• A seminar will be held in conjunction with the exhibition on 22 September. In this, the various themes of the exhibition will be discussed in a broader context. • An anthology of relevant writings will be launched during the seminar. Editors: Marit Paasche, Judy Radul and Tone Hansen.

Cultural studies and ethnography workshop notes

Cultural Studies and Ethnography Workshop

This week I've been attending a cultural studies workshop at the United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney. Sessions are being led by
Faye Ginsburg, David B. Kriser Professor of Anthropology; Director of Graduate Program in Culture and Media, NYU

Toby Miller, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies, University of California, Riverside

and it's been an intellectually fascinating few days in terms of the readings set for each class, opportunities for interaction with other research candidates, plus real and virtual discussions: 

http://culturalstudiesandethnography.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/welcome/

I'm particularly relating to the multi-perspectival / multi-sited qualitative research methodologies, embrace of interpretative theories, recognition of the entwining of creative practices (eg film) with advocacy and academia, and emphasis on cultural industries as producers of knowledge.

I'm one of several Law Faculty-aligned students in attendance ... and funny to be referred to as a 'lawyer' having been an arts practitioner for more of my life. It's focussing my attention on seeking a niche for my work. Fortunately, there is already some interest in the intersections between law, art, aesthetics and culture and I'm heartened that there are publications such as Law, Text, Culture (University of Wollongong)

http://www.uow.edu.au/law/LIRC/LTC/index.html

and symposia such as Law and Art: Ethics, Aesthetics and Justice

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/eventseducation/symposia/20799.htm

I'm assuming that the Critical Criminologists I'll be meeting shortly in Cairns will be a multi-perspective bunch ... and then I'm off to present at the Critical Animals (This is Not Art Festival) which will provide a completely different context for my work.

Critical Criminology Conference Repository

The Australia and New Zealand Critical Criminology Conference Repository has been launched by the Sydney Institute of Criminology. It will provide a virtual home for conference proceedings including abstracts and programs:

http://sydney.edu.au/law/criminology/ANZCCR/or_2010

Reports of Crime, Etc., Etc.,

I'm exhibiting a 2-channel video work "Reports of Crime, Etc., Etc.," at The Cube, Mosman Art Gallery

http://mosmanartgallery.org.au/exhibitions/carolyn-mckay-reports-of-crime-etc-etc

Opening night: 29 July 2011

Exhibition:30 July - 4 September

Agency of Unrealized Projects, Kopfbau, Basel

I guess my unrealized project "The Second Man" is being exhibited in some form at the Agency of Unrealized Projects (AUP). e-flux was invited to develop a project for Kopfbau (head building), the oldest building in the Messeplatz area and scheduled for demolition later in 2011. AUP is in a temporary office featuring a growing collection of unrealized art projects.
My unrealized work involved a poetic response to the identity of the alleged 'second man' at the scene of a murder at Sydney's infamous Gap.

http://www.e-flux.com/shows/view/9718

Kopfbau Basel at Messeplatz

Social Science Methods, Analysis and Research Training

Next week, I'll be attending training about cutting edge research methodologies and analytical innovations at the United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney.
http://ussc.edu.au/research/ssmart

I'm taking part in the cultural studies workshop led by Faye Ginsburg and Toby Miller, which "looks at questions of identity, value and power in diverse social formations from the perspective of culture, understood as a mixture of everyday life, activism and artistic practice."
http://ussc.edu.au/research/ssmart/Cultural-Studies

Their blog: http://culturalstudiesandethnography.wordpress.com/