Superfluities Redux
On culture and theatre, by George Hunka
A new journal for theatre minima and organum posts exclusively can now be found here.
Home > Politics
Friday, 06 June 2008
Australian police have dropped the obscenity investigation against photographer Bill Henson, saying that there was no reasonable prospect of a successful conviction. Said Henson: "It is reassuring to see existing laws, having been rigorously tested, still provide a framework in which debate and expression of ideas can occur."
More from the BBC here.
Posted at 8.28 am in /Politics
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Tuesday, 03 June 2008
Those who wish to add their names to the open letter of support for Bill Henson can now do so here.
Those who doubt that sex may be on the minds of Australian politicians far more than Australian photographers may find this a source of enlightenment, as well as worthy of a laugh or two. Maybe Chris had a point about the Freudian approach.
Posted at 8.25 am in /Politics
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Thursday, 29 May 2008
Chris Shinn on Bill Henson, Agency, Sexuality and Power
NOTE: I should point out here that my posting of Chris's
comments below shouldn't be taken to indicate my agreement or disagreement
with any of his opinions (as if this matter is reducible to
black-and-white considerations of right and wrong). In particular, I would
suggest that Chris's idea that "society must keep in place a taboo against
incest and adult-
This morning playwright Christopher Shinn posted some thoughts in the comments section to my original post on Bill Henson. In the interests of maintaining a broader, open discussion on these issues – which will, I'm sure, arise again – I reprint them below, with his kind permission:
"It's actually very dangerous to decide whether these photographs are acceptable or not by interviewing the subjects of the photographs, for any number of reasons. Anna Freud showed us that people who are abused often exhibit 'identification with the aggressor' as a defense against trauma. So a former subject claiming the photographs did no harm should not be used to exonerate the photographer, as this may be an ego defense against indescribable and even unrepresentable pain.
"Conversely, a subject claiming that photographs did harm them should not be used to determine whether or not the photographer did something immoral or illegal. There are any number of reasons that a person who has suffered trauma elsewhere might displace the blame for this trauma onto a less fraught person than a primary object (like a parent). Scapegoating is all too common, as I think George's comments imply – child sexual abuse did not begin with photography and will not end with the prosecution and persecution of Bill Henson.
"I think this issue forces us to think abstractly and philosophically as well as scientifically (keeping in mind that science is ideological as well) about incredibly 'subtle' and 'complex' issues (as Coetzee calls them in one of the links above).
"I am deeply moved by JFK's testimony [in the comments section of this post] because of the larger and deeper issues of
agency, autonomy, power, and submission in human life that it makes me
think about. Because I agree with Freud that infantile and childhood
sexuality are universal and foundational, and that therefore society must
keep in place a taboo against incest and adult-
Posted at 12.49 pm in /Politics
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Wednesday, 28 May 2008
Coverage on the Henson controversy from the New York Times, the BBC and the Guardian (UK).
Posted at 2.26 pm in /Politics
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Tuesday, 27 May 2008
While the Henson controversy is not explicitly a US concern, those following the story will be interested to read the open letter of support from members of the Creative Australia 2020 Summit. Its signatories include actress Cate Blanchett, musician Daryl Buckley, composer Liza Lim and many other bright lights of the Australian creative community. The Sydney Morning Herald has a story about this today, as well as a few interviews with subjects who have posed for Henson in the past.
Implicitly it's very much a US concern. See Jonathan Jones' Guardian blog post on the censorship of a photograph by American photographer Nan Goldin, as well as this Providence Journal story about photographer Sally Mann and a play based on her work and the censorship issues that continue to revolve around its exhibition. Distance and geography matter less these days, though; in this Internetted age, the local is global.
Posted at 10.09 am in /Politics
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