MANIFESTO‘Society of the Interrupted Collective’The society is interrupted as a body through the individuals that are defiant to the ongoing spectacle. These individuals aim to bring attention to their own interests. They stand at the margins ready to disapprove and break into society through their own guerrilla movements.

OUTLINEAs the Guerrilla Publisher in Melbourne, I undertake various site interventions in which I publish text which seek to critic institutions within the city. My embodiment occurs through this site- writing or site- publishing. The texts chosen are highly researched to suit the specifics of the role of the institution in question.

WISMAR/ ST. MARIEN CHURCH

The start of my interests as a Guerrilla Publisher stemmed from this embodiment- The Guerrilla Parable project. It directed me towards a counter- institution stance, it directed me to a role against the current, a lonely practice of prescribing texts for the public to see.

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As Melbourne is declared as UNESCO’s City of Literature, I think it was apt to undertake the small testing there and to see the reflections of Foucault’s quote will have on the public- to see if there will be responses to the issues of censorship and the withholding of knowledge in publications.

WORKING DIAGRAM

RUSSELL ST/ OLD MELBOURNE GAOL

RMIT UNIVERSITY CITY CAMPUS ST KILDA RD/

NGV (I)

SPRING ST/ PARLIAMENT

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The Gaol is chosen as a site to criticise the fundamental role of justice in society. How much of the prison system justice? How much of it is power? Does that justify the punishment sentenced onto the prisoners.

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6I undertook two interventions, two with the same type of text- that is newspaper articles. However, the way in which I published them were completely different. The first intervention at Building 14 was blatantly public whereas the second intervention at Building 57 was silently and almost invisibly subversive. The response to both interventions are equally different, the first intervention caused a great commotion and lasted for a brief span of time. The second intervention posters are still lingering around inside Building 57.

For this intervention, I wanted to do something with the fountain area in front of the NGV (I). So, I decided to undertake a more performative and temporal embodiment. The criticism then solely depended on the ties between materiality of the text and the embodi-er.

The Parliament was chosen as the last site for intervention for its politically charged environment. This is where laws are made, protests are heard and freedom is fought. I have taken the tactic of hammering into the surface of a sandwich board the result of an inquiry into the living conditions of the aborigines people of Victoria in the year 1858. The intervention lasted only for two minutes and then another 10 more minutes for me to muster the courage needed to get the board back from the police. The police were quick to accuse the ‘culprit’ (me), even though they didn’t even read the text I published!

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LOCATIONS OFMELBOURNE

INTERVENTIONS

‘…the site of writing itself, investigating the limits of criticism, and asking what is possible for a critic to say about an artist, a work, the site of a work and the critic herself and for the writing still count as criticism.’ JANE RENDELLThe Architecture of Art Criticism, p. 2

In what spatial condition does ‘criticism’ cease to be? This gives critical evaluation to the publication in guerrilla means, questioning the importance of tension raised between the subject matter, the critic and the objects of study. It is almost where if there is no spatial investment into the ‘framing’ of the context, the criticism becomes loose and disengaged. The sites of writing, therefore, is an embodi-ment engaged through positing an argument charged with the interest that relates to the factors of the immanent. The here and now can only be discussed through bodies and their relation in space; in their mortality, temporality, positions, actions – only that can be commented upon. Critique is only useful where there is a consideration that it affects other bodies.

TEXT USEDWISMARThe Parable of the Mustard Seed“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.”

The Parable of the Fine Pearl44“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.45“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. 46When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it. New International Version, Matthew 13

STATE LIBRARY‘But there exists a system of power which blocks, prohibits, and invalidates this dis-course and this knowledge, a power not only found in the manifest authority of censorship, but one that profoundly and subtly penetrates an entire social network.’ Michel Foucault in Language, Counter- Memory, Practice, p. 207

OLD MELBOURNE GAOLFirst textp. 210 ‘Prison is the only place where power is manifested in its naked state, in its most excessive form, and where it is justified as moral force.’

Second textp. 210 ‘ What is fascinating about prisons is that, for once, power doesn’t hide or mask itself; reveals itself as tyranny pursued into the tiniest details; it is cynical and at the same time pure and entirely “justified,” because its practice can be totally formulated within the framework of morality.’ Michel Foucault in Language, Counter- Memory, Practice

RMIT UNIVERSITY Building 14 Professor uncovers cheating scandalMay 19 2003By Misha Ketchell, Farrah Tomazin Further reading: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/05/18/1053196474487.html Building 57Teacher attacks watchdogby Sarah-Jane CollinsAugust 9, 2010 Further reading: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/teacher-attacks-watchdog-20100808-11qf3.html#ixzz1Wb8EmzhP

NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA (IN-TERNATIONAL) Australian Broadcasting CorporationTV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPTLOCATION: http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2006/s1708852.htmBroadcast: 07/08/2006NGV’s Van Gogh labelled a fakeReporter: Natasha Johnson

JOHN McDONALD: One option is to put it in the basement and never show it again which I think would be rather a mean thing to do. I think they’d be better off to put it on the wall and say, “Attributed to Vincent Van Gogh” or “Vincent Van Gogh (Dis-puted)” but I don’t think there’s any reason why the painting shouldn’t be on the wall. In fact, in the short term it will be a little bit of a publicity stunt for them. They’ll find people want to come along and see the phoney, or is it phoney Van Gogh.

ROBYN SLOGGETT: People love stories about his life and forgery, fantastic stories. Conjoin the two and the amount of money involved, it’s just glorious, glorious for the press.

KERRY O’BRIEN: I think we’ll see that one run for a while. Natasha Johnson reporting. For the rest of the television transcript, go to: http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2006/s1708852.htm

PARLIAMENT

In1858, an inquiry into the living conditions of Aboriginal people in Victoria, the report that came from it said:

‘...had they been a strong race, like the New Zealanders, they would have forced the new occupiers of their country to provide for them; but being weak and ignorant, even for savages, they have been treated with almost utter ne-glect’.

For more of the text, check out: http://museumvictoria.com.au/encounters/coranderrk/legislation/index.htm