the free market – an ‘art exhibition’ sells nothing – take what you want for free – awesome!

i drop into the cofa kudos gallery, paddington quite regularly, but am spewing that i missed out on the opening night of this one.

this exhibition – ‘the free market’ – differs from any that i have seen – in large part because nothing is for sale, everything is given away – for free – and that exactly is the point. the art is not hanging on the wall, the art is in the idea.

i chatted with the artist – lauren carroll harris – and i really love and support her idea. i think there is the possibility of a worldwide movement for this type of thing.

she has been collecting stuff that people don’t want for a while – in our throw-away society, i don’t imagine that it would take too long either.

the gallery space was laid out a bit like a share-house – with a kitchen, living room, lots of furniture, bookshelves filled with books, a ton of cds donated by fbi radio, and triple j radio.

every day, the crew from bourke st bakery and sonoma bakery would deliver bread, sandwiches, pies, sausage rolls and bread rolls that would otherwise be thrown into the bin.

the idea was pretty much a free for all – what ever you see that you like, you are welcome to just take. lauren provided plenty of used plastic shopping bags to haul your loot of with.

ALL this stuff would have ended up in landfill if it was not for this project. Instead, people ate for free, took home free cd’s, got free furniture, books, pots, pans, toys, appliances, posters, you name it, it was there for the taking.

my photo does not do it justice, as the exhibition opened a week ago – attracting over 300 people. not bad for a neighboorhood gallery. The place was wiped out of the best stuff on the first night, but i at least managed to pick up a few good books and two pieces of absolute shit – one of which i will photograph in a week or so and have a big menacing rant about. stay posted.

great work! i just hope that most of the people who walked away with your free stuff also walked away understanding your message.

i was a ditz and left your email behind, shoot me a message if you want me to post blog or contact details for you on here.

Edited: June 7th, 2011

more industrial madness

i’m back here again and i am facinated.

this site is massive and most of it laid down with hissing and buzzing pipes.

if you look at this pic and the one in the previous post, you will see a tangle of pipes, lights and valves.

immediately, what strikes me, is that this is old technology, at least 50 years old.

when i look at i site like this, i am amazed by it. i’m amzazed that every tangled-looking pipe, each steam-blowing valve, every outdated looking lever on site has a function and a purpose. everything was laid out in a plan.

human inginuity is an amazing thing. i’m looking at old technolgy and i am still amazed.  i remember looking at the old meadowlea margerine plant in alexandria before it closed down about two yrs ago (next to bunnings) and being amazed by the pipes and technology involved in producing manufactured foods.

with the incredible progress that research and technolgy has made, i still just wonder why it is that we still rely on coal-fired power-plants to produce our energy. i wonder, why is it that there are still 50 year old refineries making petrol for our cars. go to silverwater or kurnell to see it for yourself.

you will see trucks filling up their loads with petrol/diesel and then burning diesel to take the payload to a destination where there is no margin (unless the retailer is a major/cartel) . it just does not make sense.

this is just not right and things need to change. if you are thinking about being ‘eco-friendly’ and buying a cheap chinese electric car, it’s a nice thought – just think about where your electricity comes from. Coal.

until we generate our elctricity from clean means ( tidal, geothermic, wind, nuclear[feel free to attck me on this]), i think that anyone who drives an electric car for ‘green’ reasons is a wanker.

Edited: January 14th, 2011

plastic drinking cup art & the great pacific ocean garbage patch

plastic drinks cups stuck into a wire cyclone fence on south dowling street. “et phone up” am pretty sure this is no longer paddington, but is it darlinghurst, or is it surry hills here?

i really love this kind of street art and it reminds me a lot of pixel art.

i’m in a bit of bother however. as much as i am glad the council workers don’t ‘destroy the art’, my concern is that all of this plastic ends up being washed down the drains and into the sea at some point in time – and that is a concern.

certainly you have all by now heard of the pacific ocean garbage patch. click the link if you havn’t. it’s well worth a read.

so then…. garbage or art?

here is a link to more plastic cup art on this site.

Edited: December 16th, 2010

stunning vista across the magnificent alexandra canal

it is actually near the confluence of the sparkling alexandra canal and the crystal clear cooks river.

alexandra canal has the dubious honour of being the most toxic waterway in australia. it is so full of heavy metal contamination, that no one knows what to do with it. they believe that it’s best left alone, as it would be a bit of a disaster to disturb the mud at the bottom.

Edited: August 4th, 2010

unloading containers at port botany

see this ship and all it’s containers?

it’s being unloaded of its cargo of imported cheap chinese crap that you buy cheap, use once and then throw away.

the ship has traveled far.

Edited: July 15th, 2010

oh dear, someone so should have said no to that last creamy cocktail

another tragic end to a big night out. i can just imagine what went down in this little fire-escape alcove with all that sugar water, dead cigarettes and various other crap lying around. well the results are there for all to see. i can also see that the victim didn’t really eat that much….

sometimes it can be nice living in the city, but when you live in the playground of the city, the aftermath is never generally pretty.

perhaps i can sell this pic to ‘sprite’ for their next big campaign?

Edited: June 19th, 2010

hot water heater – free to good home

seriously, why did someone bother tagging this up?

it would be on the council truck at 6am the next morning.

well i suppose that i saw it, and now all you guys are seeing it, still.. it boggles the mind.

Edited: May 23rd, 2010

tranquil afternoon along the banks of the scenic cooks river

jakarta, cairo, shanghai? no, it’s sydney.

the cooks ‘river’ is a 23 km long waterway that once was a freshwater river with abundant life.it flows into botany bay.

since the 1930′s, most of the banks were re-enforced with concrete and it served as a channel for industrial waste. it is one of the most toxic waterways in australia.

today, it serves as an outlet for some 100 sq km of sydney stormwater within its watershed.  some 400,000 people live in this area and i have to say that many of them appear to be pigs.

this is one photo of a 20m section on one bank. imagine what gets caught up up and down stream and what sinks to the bottom – the rest just washes out to sea. out of sight, out of mind, right?

many thanks to all the pigs who throw crap out the car window, to those who couldn’t be bothered to throw their rubbish in a bin, or take it with them, as well as those who are addicted to soft drinks, fast food and bottled water. thanks heaps. you know your children will only see plant and animal diversity in books and will die young from cancer because of you.

oh and btw, on the right of the image, no, it’s not mud that you can walk on. it’s a thick layer of oil and other crud floating on the surface of the water.

i actually saw people trying to fish here – man, how much do you hate your family to feed them your catch?

Edited: May 22nd, 2010

futile? $200 on the spot fine for littering

could be this be a warning with no teeth, a bark without bite? well, what says you?

i wonder if council has ever managed to re-coup the costs of sign manufacture and erection from on-the-spot-fines imposed?

i would think not.

will this blog attract more hits if i use the word erection a few more times, like dirty erection, erection in laneway, carpark erection, erection in park, erect pole? only time will tell. i’m sure there is even the carcass of a cock in that shopping trolley.

believe me, my stats tell me very strange things about what people search for on the internet, and i consider this site to be wholesome family fun. it is a very erect pole though. you’d have to be a stiffy to think otherwise.

maybe i should try writing about wholesome family erections? just an idea…. though again, do i really want that kind of man traffic coming in here? probably not.

Edited: April 30th, 2010

Crikey! here’s a little beauty…how long after his death can Steve Irwin’s estate still make money out of a crappy franchise?

i spotted this at a local shopping center today and it blew me away – for lots of reasons….

1) steve irwin was never loved in Australia as much as he was loved in usa, aussies found him to be a little bit ‘too full-on’ over here – much more suited to the american market, though i never much doubted that how he came across on tv, was actually more than probably the way he was in real life…

2) i find it incredible that he/they have made such a commodity out of bindi irwin and bob irwin- with the amount of money that steve and terri irwin made, i’m sure it was not necessary to make a circus out of the kids as well;

3) years after his death, i found it strange to have a dead fibreglass steve riding shotgun with a comic-book crocodile in my local shopping centre (that’s what we call a shopping mall, for all you yanks).

4) i just found it a little bit perverse and disrespectful, part of an international marketing and brand-identity campaign. rather an effort to remember the guy for how much money he can make for the company in the future, as opposed too just remembering and respecting the guy for what he was while still alive… i suppose he just sold himself off and was happy with that deal…

though i never met the guy, i would guess that he would have been happy with the decision to set his family up. but how much money is enough money. i reckon the irwin’s have plenty to last the next 2 generations. seems to me that they are cheapening his name for a quick, cheap and easy buck.

To get more of an idea of who he was (apart from a born showman), check these vids out. the guy was out of control…

2003 interview with andrew denton – the australian equivalent of michael parkinson:

1 of 5:

2 of 5:

3 of 5:

4 of 5:

5 0f 5 (final):

Hope you guys enjoy it and get something out of it (and i’m not a big Steve Irwin fan).

Edited: April 27th, 2010

fish caught here are unsafe to eat

that’s what the sign says…

last year, when a diver had his leg ripped off by a bull shark in sydney harbour, some clown from the nsw state government said sharks are entering the harbour in increasing numbers because government has done such a wonderful job in cleaning up the harbour, fish stocks are booming, thanks to the clean water.

that’s totally untrue (gee funny that). the reason there are more fish in the harbour is because some years back, commercial fishing was banned in the harbour because of concerns of the heavy metals found in the fish, as well as over-fishing. oh, another reason sharks are entering the harbour is because they are hungry, there just aren’t as many fish in the sea as there once were.

Edited: April 22nd, 2010

motorways can be truely ugly places

look at what’s going on here. lamp posts, signage, mobile phone towers, big brother cameras, posts poles, columns, those dangly things that make noise when a too-high truck passes them, concrete and galvanised steel. what you don’t see in the photo is the black dust from exhaust fumes, millions, yes i am sure, millions of cigarette butts and piles of rubbish thrown out the windows of moving (and sometimes not moving) vehicles, like it’s someone else’s problem.

when are people going to realise that when they throw their crap onto the street, rather than into a bag, that yes sure, it will be someone else’s problem, but also a problem to themselves and their families? boggles the mind it does.

Edited: April 12th, 2010

do you love your take-away coffees?

seems at the end of the day at paddington markets, plenty of other people do too.

what fills up this bin more than anything is take-away coffee cups and plastic drink bottles. it’s one bin, on one day, and one which is emptied regularly.

it’s a little bit of a worry what we are doing to our planet, but hey, it’s convenient isn’t it?

Edited: April 3rd, 2010

where’s the cunji?

intertidals near mahon pool in maroubra. when i was a kid these rocks were carpeted in cunji. what happened to them? read here.

Edited: March 29th, 2010

legal bag & size limits for saltwater species

do you think anyone actually pays attention to this? insofar as what i have seen the answer seems to be a resounding NO.

without fear of being politically incorrect, i’d like to put a lot of pressure on those of asian and pacific islander backgrounds. i’ve seen first-hand what these guys haul into their cars at the end of a days harvesting with their rather large families, and have also first-hand seen the devastation it plays on the ecosystem of intertidal reefs. it’s a travesty for marine fauna.

put simply, there is not enough sustainable marine life to satisfy the wonton culinary desires of a few select groups of people who are happy to eat EVERYTHING.

once you eat all the cunjevoi, sea slugs, sea urchins and sea snail, the marine eco-system starts to fall apart and before you know it, there is NO life on these inter-tiadal reefs – thank you asians and islanders. well done guys, you have killed everything off indefinately.

thanks too to all you white guy aussies down on port hacking who think it’s fine to pull out whiting that are 15cm or less in length. great catch fellas, maybe 20 of those little bad-boys might make a meal.

shame on you all. pull your heads in.

Edited: October 16th, 2009

the dust storm

i woke up this morning just before 6. the first thing i noticed when i opened my eyes, was this strange coloured light coming from a gap between my blinds.

this is what i saw and it totally blew me away.

for those of you in sydney, you will know this pic has not had any photoshopping at all – and no, my camera was not set to sepia mode.

it was absolutely phenomenal. apparently it has happened because we had strong winds blowing in from the south-west. it hasn’t rained out there in months and all the ground-cover has died off – leaving behind this dust that blew into sydney.

with all that is going on infront of our very eyes, i find it incredibly hard to imagine how the minds of climate change skeptics work. wake up people – we are all in a lot of trouble!

Edited: September 23rd, 2009

what’s dumber than a hummer?

is it the person who buys (or leases) and drives it, or this?

Edited: August 27th, 2009