David Jones, artist and poet (1895-1974) begins his PREFACE TO THE ANATHEMATA :

'I have made a heap of all that I could find.' (1) So wrote Nennius, or whoever composed the introductory matter to Historia Brittonum. He speaks of an 'inward wound' which was caused by the fear that certain things dear to him 'should be like smoke dissipated'. Further, he says, 'not trusting my own learning, which is none at all, but partly from writings and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Britain, partly from the annals of the Romans and the chronicles of the sacred fathers, Isidore, Hieronymous, Prosper, Eusebius and from the histories of the Scots and Saxons although our enemies . . . I have lispingly put together this . . . about past transactions, that [this material] might not be trodden under foot'. (2)

(1) The actual words are coacervavi omne quod inveni, and occur in Prologue 2 to the Historia.
(2) Quoted from the translation of Prologue 1. See The Works of Gildas and Nennius, J.A.Giles, London 1841.


23 June 2019

SLOW-LOOK v. Theatre of the AcceleraTARTARTARTARTARTARTARTARs of Regard


We appreciated this morning's ABC.RN Mine Field discussion of "slow journalism" en regard :

What if the greatest threat to a free media was from within?

Our lives are saturated with 'news'; but far from creating informed citizens, this is producing forgetful, inattentive citizens. Megan Le Masurier joins us to discuss whether "slow journalism" could help us remember what matters?

Last week we discussed the moral and political principles laid bare by the Australian Federal Police’s raids on the home of a News Corp journalist and the Sydney offices of the ABC. But such external threats to the 'free' press are not the only, or even the most dire, threats to the proper functioning of the media in a healthy democracy.

The threat posed by the AFP raids is the threat feared by George Orwell: external pressure, obfuscation or intimidation by a censorious, overbearing, totalitarian state. But there was another threat, no less real, articulated by Aldous Huxley: there is no need for the state to censor the truth, when the 'capitalist propaganda industry' can simply bury the truth in an avalanche of the trivial, the salacious and the manufactured. Why censor the truth, when over time people can no longer tell the difference between the true, the trivial and the manufactured? Then throw speed and the ubiquity of smart phones into the mix, and you have the makings of a democratic catastrophe.

Under conditions of speed, of instantaneity, and information overload, can journalism still fulfil its ethical vocation?

Following upon that came this email text and image from QAGOMA :

TOUR: SLOW-LOOK
1.30pm, Sun 30 Jun
GOMA | Free

Look slowly and closely at one artwork by Margaret Olley and Ben Quilty with QAGOMA curators and discover connections between the artist’s work and lives. Auslan interpreted.


    Theatre of the Actors of Regard  
 detail
 A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
 someone looks at something... 
         
 LOGOS/HA HA