I walk into a cold display room. There are various structures predominately made from wood, mostly from dressed Tassie Oak. An entrance ramp, steps into the main living area (with a closet to the rear – very disused looking – like storage that needs tidying up. Arrayed around the main living space are the bedroom boasting a four-poster bed chained to the wall – though all I have to cue my imagination of the artefact of cosy manchester is the remaining bed-head grill tethered into the plaster. A narrow shallow cupboard hangs strips of black rubber of split inner tube dimensions... the remaindered clothing of absent lives. A narrow over-long, flower window box with a discarded pestle balanced on the upper edges – empty of soil – as though the oak were form-work for a long abandoned concrete pour. A spear of wooden doweling leans against the wall – in the old days, the children wielded this like ancient samurai, or pulled either end in a splinter-filled tug-o-war; now it rests forgotten and prefabricated. A French-braced portal leading precisely to the plaster wall less than a metre behind leads me further to my sense of frustrating abandonment – where are the inhabitants of this hastily, carelessly constructed reminder of domesticity? Why did they leave me here to ponder the inadequacies, the broken hopes and bad mistakes. To deepen my malaise, the family stereo system plays not Bing Crosby's White Christmas; in fact so soft were the sounds reproduced that at first I had to press my ear against the speaker to check that it was working. It was. A feeble electronica feeding off the ambience – so I understand by the contact and omnidirectional microphones - they record and reproduce not only the air, the percussion of life all about, but the absence of activity within: so I listen to the suddenly strident, subversive nothingness sublimating my drab daily life to the terror held just beneath the skin of my being. These structures are not made to last, no tenon and mortise, no rebate or dovetailing, just one member pressed against another at a serviceable angle to hold the form erect – although like none were expected – if it were to receive a knock it would fall. I note that the odd assortment of screws used to house these sentinel molds have been countersunk; I can only guess this is some ironic jibe at the permanence of dovetailing... for what is the point of joinery that outlasts its users?- these slap-dash structures of impermanence are referencing a bygone era when a structure was built to last. In a jolt I realise that everyone outside has been looking at me through the wall of glass fronting onto Cardigan Street – the lone figure in the display room of modular domesticity. Thursday afternoon in the RMIT precinct; an adolescent impresses his female friend with slurpee, bitten cigarettes for toughness and solid shoulders – he doesn't realise he has the genes to gain weight yet. A courier admonishes me for waisting time with his stare then reasserts his employment with the inventory slip. I return to this desultory space, but can't stomach anymore, can't negotiate this uncompromising world... not even the entrance ramp looks sturdy enough to hold me so I must exit skirting about it. Nothing was real in there. Reacquire the comfort of closed skin... now, back to real life.
non-negotiable
Katie Lee
Dean Linguey
Bridie Lunny
Exhibition Friday 24 September to Thursday 14 October 2010
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