Animal Magnetism: Sharon Goodwin and the Eternal Romance of the Bestial

The work of Sharon Goodwin is directly influenced by the Coles Funny Picture Books which create a bizarre Victorian world where human and animal promiscuously cross over. Here people are frequently turned into animals, and the qualities of animals emerge in humans through vices of personality. Goodwin's exhibition which was held at Uplands Gallery in Melbourne, Victoria in November 2001 presented a series of portraits of bestial humans or humanised animals repainted from Cole's woodcuts. Goodwin has introduced crude lines and stitching and patching in the images to represent the frequent actualisation of plastic surgery in contemporary society.

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Ray Cook

Ray Cook is a Brisbane-based photographic artist who has exhibited for 13 years with 20 solo shows to his credit. Cooks work has been primarily concerned with mortality, loss of control and the way gender and sexuality have been perceived in the media. His images are highly theatrical, staged scenarios, a hybrid of performance and still photography.

Ray Cook

The Bank West Inaugural Contemporary Art Prize, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art

8 November 2001 - 26 January 2002

David Dolan

Monika Tichacek

Monika Tichacek is an installation artist based in Sydney. Her performance installations exist as a space within fiction, dreamlike. In both of Tichacek's works I Wanna Be Loved By Youand Romancethe view of the human is mediated by a surveillance camera, echoing the receding of the surgically enhanced body from human towards post-human.

Monika Tichacek

Touching from a Distance

Katrina Virgona, John Vella, Bree Riseborough, Julie Gough, Maria Ainsley, Ian Blamey, Linda Vujcich, Brigita Ozolins, Hadass Schlagman, Andy Jones, Donna Ettrick and Rachel Guy. FOYeR Installation Space, Hobart 13 December - 12 January 2001 The Artists Foundation of Western Australia, Moore's Building, Perth 14 - 20 December 2001

Sean Kelly

Artrave

Artlink

The Extra Ear (or an ear on an arm)

What characterises all of Stelarc's projects and performances is the notion of the prosthetic. The EXTRA EAR is a project Stelarc has been fostering since 1997 and the problems lie in finding the appropriate medical assistance to realise it. Constructing the EXTRA EAR would involve a number of procedures, over approximately 8-10 months. Techniques from Cosmetic, Re-constructive and Orthopaedic surgery are necessary. Here Stelarc outlines some of the essential steps in constructing the EXTRA EAR and discusses the nature of this radical project.

Stelarc

The work of art in the age of biocybernetic reproduction

W.J.T. Mitchell

The Surgical Fix: Physical Capital, Self-Improvement and the Body Beautiful

Historical studies have shown that an improved physical appearance had profoundly beneficial psychological effects and behavioural outcomes. Plastic surgery became a vital tool in the 1930s, holding out the promise of removing the traces of war and eliminating prominent markers of ethnicity. In recent years the cosmetic surgery industry has grown in Australia, and as with all countries the common goal is the production of a narrowly defined culture of bodily beauty. Ryan looks at the cosmetic surgery industry and some of the artistic responses to such ideas and ideals, particularly those of artist Annabelle Collett.

Victoria Ryan

Michele Barker

Michele Barker is a Sydney-based artist working in the area of new media. Conceptually, her work has concerned itself with notions of bodily identity, difference and in more recent times, the relationship between science, medicine and corporeality.

Michele Barker

Animal Love and Bestiality

Bronwyn Platten

Similarities, Gen-et(h)ic Boundaries, and Respect for Otherness

This article discusses a specific aspect of the human/ animal relationship and of communication in and between species. It points to a few specific experiments which have been conducted to try and bridge the gap between human and animal connectivity and relatedness. Furthermore it recognises the different ways animals and humans relate to and view the world around them, whether it be via visual, tactile, olfactory, auditory or other sensory devices.

Barbara Noske

John Kelly

John Kelly paints cows and horses, in particular, the legendary Phar Lap and Dobell's camouflaged bovines. Through using these narratives and adding new elements Kelly has created a multi-layered structure of ideas. This evolution works on a slow time scale that is at odds with today's fast consumer culture where products need to be refreshed and changed on a continual basis.

John Kelly

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