Friday, November 23, 2007

art of sedition

a la hommage to steve reich's 1960's tape music has been pulled from broadcast by an adelaide radio station, based on legal advice.

the piece, "Decennial Celebrations" commemorates the coalition and john howard's ten years in power, and was performed at adelaide's delicatessen venue in 2006. apparently the phrase "kill john howard" is enough to provoke the removal of such a work from airplay. in the words of the composer Christian Haines, "...eventually the words [in the piece] lose meaning because you can't tell the start and end of the sentence and leads to a sort of auditory hallucination."

in the final days leading up to australia's 2007 election, this really paints a picture of our rights to free speech.

2 comments:

Nick said...

It's interesting to read that the conservative Liberal party has shelved its updated arts policies in the run up to the election, as they're seen as a distraction to their message. (Not that any change to sedition laws was to be included as far as I'm aware).

On the other hand, the Labor party have offered the following:

"Labor launched its arts policy in early November, with support from musicians Tim Freedman and Sarah Blasko, actor David Wenham, and a number of other arts identities.

The policy promised to introduce a resale royalty scheme for the visual arts, increase funding for the Australia Council, and modify visa laws to require international musicians to tour with Australian support acts.

Under Labor, the term "sedition" would also be removed from federal law."

This from:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/federal-election-2007-news/lib-policies-left-on-shelf/2007/11/23/1195753263056.html

More on the Labor arts policy here:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22737052-1702,00.html

Unknown said...

imagine if the anti-sedition exhibition had all been censored...

more details at: http://criticalsenses.blogspot.com/2005/12/seditious-exhibitions.html