Monday, June 17, 2013

Licentiousness and town criers

I love my mate Al's blog so much  - it's ever humble and sharp and just interesting - like a cheese perhaps. Recently he wrote a couple of absolutely cracker posts which I can't help but share with you. One was about Ryoji Ikeda's Spectra, a visual art piece exhibited as part of Hobart's new Dark MOFO art festival. (Tasmanian never used to be this cool.) Let me steal his thunder by quoting from the end. His description of the festival struck me because, as a non-believer, I was once drawn to these things...
Dark MOFO is an extension of MONA. It's about secrecy and licentiousness and freedom and pleasure.

It's predominantly about embracing and enjoying darkness.

So the inclusion and popularity of Spectra is a wonderful, almost undermining, touch of irony. 

The other had to do with the necessity of spelling out 'the Gospel'. From the middle...
It's not enough for the town crier to run down the main road enthusiastically shouting out "I have the most wonderful news of peace and rest for you all" but then not tell the townsfolk what the news is and why it's so good.