Junk for Code

High-popular culture divide

I was interested in Jean Burgess's master's thesis that she mentioned here. The ideas Jean is exploring through a sociology of art relate to how particular musical forms are used, what they mean to those who produce and consume them, and how they relate to changes in contemporary life. A summary can be found in this paper called
'Beyond the High-Popular Divide: Cultural Studies and "Art Music"'. Jean explores these ideas through Topology, a contemporary classical music group that is based in Brisbane and is associated with the Brisbane Powerhouse.

The concerns in this paper overlap with those of junk for code, such as the elitism and arrogance of the European avant-garde; the stuffiness of the traditional artworld; the legitimate place of art in contemporary popular culture; the critical edge of the aesthetic in a postmodern world; the particularity of place and everyday life and the cultural branding of cities in a global marketplace.

Whilst exploring the links I came across this article on contemporary British youth music culture. It reminds me of the talk to reinvent Adelaide as a postmodern, postindustrial economy based largely on entertainment. It's a nice idea; more or less a development of what Don Dunstan did in the 1970s with craft and design and the Jam Factory and with cuisine at the Regency Institute of TAFE.

But not under the current Rann Government. It considers the pathway to the future is slash and burn, budget surplus and dancing to the tune of the international money markets. Depite conferences such as this the idea of facilitating a thriving music/artistic community and industry is beyond them or their economic advisors. The do not see the potential value of a thriving nightlife to the local economy.They cannot see beyond industrial Adelaide of the car plants.

Adelaide has become the 'other' Australia to creative, dynamic Brisbane. It is the old rust belt industrial city with long-term unemployment, some of the worst urban poverty in Australia and poverty-level wages. Little is emerging from the decay of an urbanism where homeless people wander the streets, street life is tinged with violence and the rising crime is burglaries, shoplifting, bashings, burning down school buildings and car thefts. No jobs means that there is a continual exodus of family, friends, and neighbors to other places in eastern Australia. Many in Adelaide just wallow in the decay, and accept a life of misery, deprivation and inequality as their lot in life. Crime and professional sports seem to offer a way out from the poverty of everyday life, not music.

Unlike Brisbane Adelaide does not feel alive. The sullen defiance is there but it is not given cultural expression. It is the silence that is unnerving. Adelaide is no Manchester.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at October 5, 2003 10:16 AM | TrackBack