Traditional 'bush culture' has for the best part of a century been a definingcharacteristic of Australian identity, but now new media and new modalities ofcommunication and entertainment are posing a challenge to its centrality. The impact of television and video even in remote regions, the increasing attention being paid to contemporary culture by government initiatives and the (generally) cautious curiosity of the arts community towards new media, suggests the emergence of a visible intersection between 'past' and 'present' forms of culture. In this paper, I examine the connections between traditional practices and narratives of identity and contemporary arts practice, with a particular focus on regional central Queensland communities

Webb, Jen

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Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found athttps://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rjau20Journal of Australian StudiesISSN: 1444-3058 (Print) 1835-6419 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjau20Eating dust: Electronic media and regional artsJen WebbTo cite this article: Jen Webb (1998) Eating dust: Electronic media and regional arts, Journal ofAustralian Studies, 22:58, 148-153, DOI: 10.1080/14443059809387411To link to this article:  https://doi.org/10.1080/14443059809387411Published online: 18 May 2009.Submit your article to this journal Article views: 15View related articles Eating Dust: Electronic Media and RegionalArtsJen WebbTraditional 'bush culture' has for the best part of a century been a definingcharacteristic of Australian identity but now new media and new modalities ofcommunication and entertainment are posing a challenge to its centrality. The impactof television and video even in remote regions, the increasing attention being paid tocontemporary culture by government initiatives and the (generally) cautious curiosityof the arts community towards new media, suggests the emergence of a visibleintersection between 'past' and 'present' forms of culture. In this paper, I aminterested in examining the connections between traditional practices and narrativesof identity and contemporary arts practice, with a particular focus on regional centralQueensland communities. My perspective is based on a series of interviews Iconducted with regional arts practitioners in 1995 and is theoretically informed bythe writings of Pierre Bourdieu, Walter Benjamin and Michel de Certeau. I willdiscuss some impacts of the proliferation of electronic media, particularly on thestatus and role of art and tradition in regional communities and its effects on theirsocial imaginary. Finally, I will examine what challenges these moves may pose tothe notion of an authentic Australian culture and the claim of rural communities tobe the holders of that tradition.Artistic production—as a social practice, a series of organisational and institutionalarrangements and practices and a set of rules, literacies, practices, logics andhierarchies of value — can be understood, in Bourdieu's terms, as a cultural field.1As a field, art is a specific social space dedicated to a particular social practice; it isrelatively autonomous from but still interconnects with, other social fields and henceis always potentially a site of conflict, and in a process of change.Despite this, the field of artistic production is conventionally understood assomething distinct from everyday social logic, principally because arts' primaryobjective is aesthetic rather than strictly functional. That is, this field foregrounds itsdistance from necessity, from popular forms of expression and from the everyday,and privileges creativity and reflexivity over social, political or economic need.Particularly, arts' logic of value disavows everyday rewards, such as money, worldlysuccess or commercial recognition, in favour of recognition by the cognoscenti.As a corollary, in terms of the field's logic, art practitioners are expected to be morethan artisans or technicians; rather, artists should at least aspire to be the bearers ofindividual genius and the portals of society's imagination. Its discourses includesuch terms as 'revelation', 'beauty', 'identity' and 'originality' and are both durableand ubiquitous: art practitioners in far west central Queensland use the same languageas European high art theorists when discussing art. For instance, when I askedartists in central Queensland for their understandings of art, I was told, 'Art extendsthe boundaries, it uses the imagination' ,2 and 'Art is original, not derivative' .3 Theseperspectives mirror dominant discourses on art such as those offered by the UNESCOCultural Diversity Report—that art 'springs from sheer imagination'4 — or Cesar148Everyday WondersGrana — that 'Art makes visible certain ultimate meanings which are present inordinary events but which remain hidden in them until they are, in fact, reborn intheir full spirit within the work of art'.5Although the arts field shows this consistency in discourse, its agents cannotsustain a comparable consistency in practice: because arts are imbricated within,and hence partly regulated by, wider social fields, the practitioners must negotiatetheir position across fields which are oppositionally structured. This is particularlythe case in central Queensland where art is not a valued practice. In far westcentral Queensland, for instance, I was told, 'Locals see art and culture as such anarrow thing. You say something to the average person on the street about culture,and they say "I don't go to art galleries'".6 This means that art is subsumed bywider social practices and perspectives and, particularly, by tradition. Iconographicconventions of community identity are substantially anchored in the past and thecommunity discourses and practices celebrate a traditional Australian identity as itis exemplified by the legend of Henry Lawson, drovers, Qantas, gum trees, mateship,and so on. This discourse dominates the various social fields in the region, as isevident in the icons of identity, such as the bull statues in Rockhampton, or the BanjoPaterson statue in Winton; in sites of tourism and leisure, such as the Stockman'sHall of Fame in Longreach or the Dunny Derby in Winton; in forms of economicproduction which are based on mineral and agricultural/pastoral activities and inlocal government bodies, which for the most part are still coming to terms with theintrusion of practices such as art into the public sphere.So, although local artists understand and can articulate arts' logic and its distancefrom social and economic necessity, if they are to negotiate a reasonably secureplace for themselves and their interests, their art must comply to some degree withlocal norms. This means that local art is typically produced according to conventionaltechniques and in terms of a logic of representation that articulates and celebrateslocal discourses of identity and value and that accords with local understandings ofreality. This ensures that their work establishes connections with tradition, connectionsthat allow it to claim a valid position in the social structure by asserting itself as anauthentic narrator of tradition as it is celebrated in these rural communities.Although arts' discourses are consistent about role and value, they do not providea clear and discrete explanation of just what constitutes 'art'. This lacuna meansthat the field is marked by contestation over the right to produce taxonomies, orotherwise determine what should be included and what should be excluded from thefield. Often this is elitist or privileging because it is based on the context of theviewing and on audience literacies or their possession of other social capital.Consequently, art works are classified variously according to both aesthetic andextra-aesthetic criteria, coming under the logic of the social as well as the arts field.This means that art does not have an intrinsic character but is classified accordingto a process of nomination, determined by the contexts in which these judgmentsare made and the social power of those making the judgments.In central Queensland, for instance, although art qua Art is not valued, if itsproducts accord with local standards of value, they can be classified as art underthe local taxonomy. This requires that the works refer to and aestheticise the bush,that they are naturalistic, traditional in media, form and content, and both celebrateand realise local identity. Non-representative, or abstract art, according to localartists, is rejected as art by local central Queensland residents on the grounds that 'it149Jen Webbdoesn't look real', or 'I don't know much about art, but I know what I like'.7 So, artalways exists in a tension and an object's ultimate place in the taxonomy of art oftendepends on factors outside its own qualities. That is to say, the question of whatconstitutes art is political as much as it is aesthetic.Consequently, it is also contextually specific and in central Queensland, it can beargued, arts' primary value lies in it holding what Walter Benjamin called 'cult value',rather than having exhibition status. That is, it acts as the guarantor of a finalreferent and hence as the assurance of the stability and truth of local narratives ofidentity. This function, however, depends on art retaining an authentic and identifiableconnection to the real and hence on artworks maintaining that status, having a realisedform and, in their content, according with the regimes of representation that arevalued in the local context.8 This has practical implications, one of which is theabsence of new media and electronic art: despite the presence of a high technologyworld, as seen through the proliferation of television, videos and home computers,for instance, and despite the 'high tech' forms of industry used in farming andmining, what is locally classified as art is traditional, permanent and tangible.The compliance of local artists with this imperative can be understood fromseveral perspectives. A central effect is the artists' own dispositions to practice, ortheir 'habitus'. This is Pierre Bourdieu's term for the deeply embodied, stable anddurable dispositions which structure identity. That is, habitus motivates subjects toperceive and believe in particular ways and to perform their identity in ways that areadapted to the structures in which they live and are constituted.9 Habitus alsoprovides a basis for community identity through establishing consensus on localnorms and understandings. This means that the local shared habitus producesevaluative landscapes in which social practices can be assessed, and thus locates,values, regulates and codes individuals and their practices.The habitus in central Queensland communities seems quite clearly to be structuredaccording to that traditional bush culture imaginary mentioned above. In eachcommunity I visited during the course of my research, locals talked about thefeminisation — and consequent rejection — of art in favour of sport and othercultural forms which inscribe the centrality of the bush and traditional practices:bush verse, local histories, risque plays, brass bands, and realist paintings of the localenvironment. Artists resist this devaluing of their practice by openly stating thattheir communities are ignorant about art, and simultaneously comply with it because,typically, they produce only traditional works by traditional means. Several artistsalso indicated that they regard new technologies as a threat to their communities.For instance:I've noticed we've moved from audio to visual. And there's other changes in socialstructure — everyone used to meet down at the Cultural Centre every week, and doart and craft as recreation, something to give you a different perspective from whatyour working life was like. We only had one TV station in those days, no videos oranything like that — it was a very social life, we played cards, we had dinner parties,we had barbeques on Sunday, we were involved with everyone and we'd have ourbitches and harp about this and that. We don't do that anymore. Who are you goingto get to come on a night when the State of Origin's on, or at the weekend when thekids have this really great video? Technology changes have had a big effect. Thiseffect won't change back.10150Everyday WondersWhile their compliance with the imperative to utilise traditional media can beunderstood as a sensible response to local systems of regulation, given that theiraudiences are their neighbours, families and friends, it can also be read as an exampleof the workings of the habitus, and that they are not disposed to engage withtechnological and social changes. Only eight of the two hundred and fifty regionalartists whom I surveyed reported that they used multimedia approaches and onlytwo of these used computer or other new technologies in their work. Those artistswho did use multimedia were, on average, younger than their colleagues, well educated(six are tertiary educated, four at postgraduate level) and all lived in or near coastalRockhampton, the region's city centre. What this suggests is that they, and theirvalues, interests, and knowledges had been formed in a different context from mostof their peers and that this produced a relation with electronic media and a dispositionto practice that are measurably different from the other artists, for whom 'hightech1 equals high threat to community identity.A second reason for the artists' lack of engagement with new media was apractical one: the initial costs of new technologies are very high; and this includesthe purchase of the hardware, software and connections, the training required togain a sufficient level of expertise and the local infrastructure needed to support thepromotion and management of works on the world wide web. Even in urban areaswith a strong arts infrastructure and widespread use of electronic media, mostnetworked artists and arts organisations tend to use 'high tech' more for managementand marketing than for making innovative art." This is partly a practical measurebut it also involves the question of the aesthetic logic and value of art, since thetechnical expertise required to work with electronics is often considered to conflictwith the notion of pure creativity. Even Laurie Anderson, who has been dubbed the'high priestess of high tech art', recently criticised what she terms the 'glitz' ofmultimedia new technologies:When I started out as a multi-media artist I was using film, tape and lights... Now youneed to know 50 software programs and how MIDI does this to that. When it startsfeeling like a trade show, you know something's wrong.12One of the conditions of art is that it can never be 'like trade', so even amongthose who are highly media-literate, there is a move to reclaim traditional techniquesand to reclaim the auratic status of the art object. Contemporary technologies ofartistic production and reproduction problematise this status because they rupturethe point of connection to the 'real' artist and to the authentic object and the originarymoment in which it was produced. This, for Benjamin, leads to the loss — or the'withering' — of the auratic quality of the work because, by allowing a proliferationof copies, reproduction technologies upset the notion of singularity and underminethe works' status as 'authentic' pure signs.13 Consequently, art works producedelectronically or by other new technologies have, at best, only tenuous claims toauthenticity.14Finally, there is the socio-political aspect, since dominant discourses and practicesmust continually produce the grounds for their own legitimation. As I suggestedabove, valued practices in central Queensland depend on their holding a connectionto the real, and so they are authorised by the presence of pieces of the real, apresence that for Benjamin is called up and authenticated by the 'uniqueness of a151Jen Webbwork of art... its being imbedded in the fabric of tradition... [and] its aura'.15 Withconventional forms and content which typically reflects local images and moments,local art provides this auratic presence of time and place. That is, it realises thelocal community and its values and it exists in what de Certeau'* terms 'place' —ina fixed and stable site in which the original work guarantees an originary momentand provides an authentic referent for identity. Electronic art fails to meet theseconditions because it holds an antithetical relation to the real: it exists in 'space' —which in de Certeau's terms is 'practiced place' — the site in which fragmentscoalesce briefly to offer an assemblage that conflicts with traditional regimes ofrepresentation. Works made by electronic media, particularly those that have avirtual rather than a concrete presence, are more obviously temporary, situated,fluid and polyvalent than those made with traditional media. Moreover, they hold aless certain connection to the originary artist and context of production; hence theypresent as ephemeral, intangible and fleeting, and thus cannot realise the real.Finally men, this combination of personal and community logic of value, thepragmatics of production and the economic constraints under which local artistslabour, precludes the widespread use of new technologies in the production of art.It also points to the contingency of the social and of practice: the idealised orromanticised stories of artist as individual genius, and of art as distanced fromnecessity, cannot be supported. Rather, artists and art are always situated and theywill always be inflected by dominant discourses in other cultural fields. Consequently,the stability and universality of the artistic field and its structures and practices existmore in the discourse than in fact; indeed, the field's consistency depends on aprocess of forgetting the permeability of its boundaries and of its imbrication in otherfields. Similarly, the tradition which exists as a guarantor of identity in centralQueensland cannot assert a clear and direct relation to an originary moment. Althoughit may often function as a master signifier—and, hence, be 'for everyone' — in factit has a specific interest and constituency and exists as the temporary effect offorce relations, sustaining privileged stories of the community, and effacing others.This suggests that the ontological status of arts and of tradition work only in terms ofpatterns of belief and disavowal that give it the appearance of form, an appearancethat is easily swamped by the assertion of the social.Endnotes1 P Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature, Cambridge, 1993, p162.2 Interview with artist, Longreach, 1995.3 Interview with artist, Biloela, 1995.4 J P de Cuellar, Creative Diversity Report, Geneva, 1996, p 81.5 C Grana, Meaning and Authenticity: Further Essays on the Sociology of Art, New Brunswick,1989, p 18.6 • Interview with artist, Barcaldine, 1995.7 Interview with artists, Alpha, Biloela, 1995.8 P Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge, 1977, p 79.9 P Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice, Stanford CA, 1990, p 53.10 Interview with artist, Barcaldine, 1995.11 R Rentschler, B Potter, 'Accountability, the Arts and Access: the uses and benefits of technology',Culture and Policy: a Journal of the A ustralian Key Centre for Cultural and Media Policy, vol 7 no3, 1996, p 83.152Everyday Wonders12 Laurie Anderson, cited R Jinman, 'Performance Art High Priestess Abhors Silly Con of Techno',The Australian, 9 January 1997, p 4.13 W Benjamin, Illuminations, London, 1968, p 215.14 S Penny, 'Negotiating Artistic Practice in Late Capitalist Techno-Culture', Artlink: Arts in theElectronic Landscape, vol 16 no 2 & 3, Winter 1996, p 12.15 Benjamin, op. cit., p 217.16 M de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, Berkeley, 1984, p 117.153

Eating dust:Electronic media and regional arts

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