XLG

10:28 pm - Fucking Right Directions

04:25 pm - Fucking New DIrections

11:37 am - Fucking Different Directions

09:18 am - Ned Kelly Cockranger

Lucas Grogan vs. Regan Tanmaui.

08:45 am - Plenty of worse things happen at sea.

A Shore.

06:47 pm - A Room with a View

Finally moved into my new place in the city.
I feel like things have got to give, just a little.
I have the best and worst of luck.

08:15 am - A Golden Island

The Island 1020 x 1520cm
Eureka.

07:26 pm - Building an Island

09:46 am - An Isthmus

Draft copies. The Island, An Isthmus. An archipelago.

09:19 am - Melbourne, Newcastle, Sydney. A short trip.

Went off to Newcastle and Sydney on the weekend. Rained. Lots of fucking rain. Emily definately thought we should get proactive with the wet weather gear. Knowing everyone would be wearing bright yellow/green/blue/pink ponchos we decided to make some garbage bag couture. We went to Parklife in Sydney. Either I'm too old, or too cool for festivals anymore. I can stand in crowds and lines for free. Standing in piss. Standing in mud. Standing the cold.



Went to TINA (This Is Not Art) Festival in Newcastle. Saw Arlene Texta Queen play in her band, Suzanne Grae and the Katies. Special attention to the portrait of the Queen at the top in the center.


Above is a work by Ruth Feeney, EAT MY DUST. Fucking love it, she had a really really beautiful work at Watt Space at the time I was in Newcastle.
Whilst in Newcastle met up with Belinda Howden, resident street artist/fucking cool chick and went on a mission with her to put yet another one of her one off works up.


Then naturally went out with Sophie, she lost her wallet. We had too much fun, and jackson and I got fucking stupid. Too funny.


Why wear dead fur?
Fuck.

Saw this work by Marrnyula Mununggurr 'If you love me, love me safely' at the MCA. I love it.

10:39 pm - Blender Studios & South Yarra

Moved into Blender Studios in the Melbourne. With not a whole lot to do at the moment; been spending alot of time there. Its the first time I've had a real studio. My space is dead smack in the middle.

www.theblenderstudios.com
Also; this is the view from my bedroom window in South Yarra. Nice huh.

07:28 pm - After Dark -a while ago.

08:19 am - The Island series on Gold.

Fuck. They don't photograph well. At all. Fuck.
Recent works on gold sheet. I need a lovely fancy camera. will get someone to do it shortly. Got myself a studio in the city. Blender Studios.

The Island series (Garden)


The Island series (Paradise)


The Island series (Carpet)


The Island series (Deep Down and Under)


The Island series (Untitled)

10:16 am - Belinda Howden on Lucas Grogan

I saw some very curious works in an Aboriginal, faux bark painting, style. I was intrigued because they were pushing the tradition to include some remarkably salient content: alcohol and sex. I was interested and so asked more about the artist. I was thinking about buying a piece. It echoes similar strategies that are happening and that I want to encourage in our contemporary, Canadian Aboriginal art community. Anyway, my jaw dropped to the floor when I was told that the artist, Lucas Grogan, is not Aboriginal but a white guy 'appropriating' the Arnhem Land rarrk style...He is a sincere young man who feels that it is his aesthetic right, especially as it is netting him some significant sales, which he believes sanctifies his action. Some Aboriginal artists appropriate Western art styles to deconstruct colonialism. Given that they were forcibly assimilated into that culture, they clearly have the right and duty to 'talk back' in the 'master's voice' as well as their own. The reverse, however, is not equitable.

David Garneau, '10 Letters', Art Monthly Australia, 2008

Autobiography has become the acceptable expressive vehicle for the varied subject(s) of multicultural discourse. [Indigenous and NESB cultural practitioners] can disregard the issue of cultural difference altogether or they can become plain storytellers, spinning out narratives of fixed identity for the benefit of Anglo-Celtic Australians. One result of this autobiographicalization of cultural difference is the phenomenon of 'ethnic drag'.

Fiona Nicoll, 'Pseudo-hyphens and Barbaric Binaries', Queensland Review, 1999



The ethical complexities in the 'ethnic drag' donned by young, emerging, Newcastle artist Lucas Grogan (1984), stands as a testament to the paradoxical nub of the Australian experience. A nation founded on the concept of a 'white bastion in a hostile black environment', a legacy which continues to inflect Indigenous/non-Indigenous relations today, has seen an extensive history of Australian cultural output that is tirelessly, to the point of frantic obsession, self-effacing and self-deconstructive.[1] Grogan's work, whilst it is culturally sensitive - in the sense that it is acutely aware of the hypocrisies of Australia's current cultural modalities – in dealing with notions of ownership and appropriation, sexuality, gender, class and post-colonial Australian identity, it is also highly autobiographical. Strategically mercurial in his approach, Grogan's methodologies and iconographies, and their critical responses, exemplify the paradoxes that are conducive to the narrative of Australian contemporary art history. The power-struggles between inclusion and exclusion, colonialism/post-colonialism, dominant/minority, and centre/periphery are often recited in binaries. However, by following the development of Grogan's practice; its shape-shifting properties and by keeping in the aforementioned mode of Australian contemporary criticism, these apparent oppositions can be deconstructed and understood as signposts for the confusion felt within the ‘un-written’ and ‘un-spoken’ incongruencies of Australia's post-colonial atmosphere or as Garneau suggests, the master's inequitable right and duty to 'talk back'.

Grogan's cultural production has so far included drawing, painting, photography, fibre art and urban text art in which issues and images of arresting autobiographical nature: homosexuality, substance abuse, death and family life, youth culture, and 'Australian-ism' are explored. Relentlessly investigating what it means to be an Australian artist, Grogan has, from a young age, "expressed himself in what is internationally recognised as an 'Australian style'", specifically, the iconography of living Indigenous artist Bardayal Nadjamerrek.[2] Controversially, Grogan appropriates the patterns and designs, in particular the rarrk technique for which Nadjamerrek has become nationally and internationally renowned, without Indigenous consent; a strongly recommended ethical practice for non-Indigenous Australians wishing to re-present Indigenous cultural content. Grogan annexes Nadjamerrek's native tongue, disregarding its former spiritual or secret/sacred content, and renders the aesthetics as modern and anxious allegories of the self.

Although Garneau's emotive response was written in direct reception to Grogan's work, it is Nicoll's summations about tolerance and intolerance, written nearly a decade ago, that ironically and more accurately describe the contemporary cultural climate of Australia and the ambiguous mechanisms employed by Grogan. By using the Helen Demidenko 'hoax' as a case study, Nicoll outlines the aforementioned cultural phenomenon of 'ethnic drag', specifically within an autobiographical context, in order to exorcise the quiet incongruencies of white Australian multiculturalism. In 1994, Helen Demidenko, wrote a book titled The Hand that Signed the Paper, describing the experience of the Holocaust from the perspective of Ukrainian peasants who participated in the slaughter.[3] Honoured with two prestigious Australian literary awards, Demidenko's story was showered with critical acclaim from major figures in the Anglo-Celtic dominated literary establishment as '[a] searingly truthful account of terrible wartime deeds that [was] also an imaginative work of extraordinary redemptive power'. [4] As Nicoll delineates, upon discovering that Helen Demidenko was actually Helen Darville; a second generation Anglo-Celtic Australian and daughter of British immigrants, it became acutely obvious that the Australian literary establishment had surmised The Hand that Signed the Paper to be a gesture of self-representation on the part of a Ukrainian-Australian author.[5] Predictably, the subsequent reaction was one of betrayal, a breech of trust, a 'hoax'; whereby the validity of Darville's voice - one that had been celebrated prior to the revelation - was now diminished and relegated to the role of political trickery. As described in the opening quote by Nicoll, the conjecture surrounding Demidenko's story as autobiographical and the ensuing violation of trust, reinforces not only the acceptable formats of identity representation in Australian multiculturalism, but also displaces the dominant or 'master's voice', rendering it silent.

The cultural establishment's cries of betrayal over the Demidenko affair highlighted the unequal distribution of the attribute of tolerance within Australian multiculturalism. The bestowal of awards on The Hand that Signed the Paper, a text which many critics felt celebrated prejudice, intolerance and violence, has proved that the literary establishment had risen to the greatest challenge of liberal multiculturalism: the tolerance of intolerance. That is: Demidenko's intolerance was tolerable only insofar as it was believed to have emanated from a Ukrainian-Australian.[6]

Of course, at this point, it is pivotal in acknowledging the ongoing issues of 'cultural colonialism': a process whereby the values of a peripheral culture are gently absorbed into the larger system of the dominant one.[7] For anyone rehearsed in the subtle, and not so subtle processes of colonialism, it is clear that Grogan's methodologies and cultural practices are extremely problematic; where there are high risks of sustaining 'cultural colonialism'. The displacement described above, is a term used not to approve of the violent atrocities upon which white Australian history has been founded, nor is it to rigorously maintain a social hierarchy and perpetuate the binaries that have plagued the non-Indigenous psyche since settlement, but alternatively, to describe the 'non-place' in which Grogan's cultural practice inhabits. Given his personal coordinates; white, male, middle-class, homosexual, young and Australian, Grogan embodies what is quintessentially 'dominant'. In addition, these coordinates not only define the emerging status of his artistic practice but also the emerging status of his identity, feeding neatly into the well-rehearsed and falsified trope of Australia as the teenager of global culture and identity. Subsequently, as Grogan is stripped of his 'ethnic drag', much like Demidenko's, ironically enough, so too is the positional power of his personal narrative.

Whilst it can be argued that the process of displacing the ‘dominant’ voice and rendering it silent is necessary in facilitating space for alternative inflections; a mechanism that has been and continues to be vitally important in the restitution of the cultural production of minorities, it is when this tongue is initially celebrated under it's ethnic guise only to be demonised, after the fact, that it becomes problematised. Garneau displays his complicity in this paradox when he describes his initial desires to purchase a piece from Grogan's Tell 'im he's Dreamin' (2008) series, up until the point where Grogan's 'ethnic drag' is undressed. Of course, one can sympathise with Garneau's frustrations at being supposedly mislead by the artist's iconography, however his statement exposes more about the agenda of international Indigenous art collection than any case of mistaken identity. Garneau unwittingly subscribes to an archaic relationship to Indigenous cultural production: as a collection of ethnographic curios. Had he professed his stance as pure aesthetic appreciation, which is considered politically neutral ground, he could have purchased the work, regardless.

Another subtle, yet telling, statement that subscribes Garneau to the problematisation of displacing the ‘dominant’ voice is the potential of Grogan's work to echo 'similar strategies that are happening and that I want to encourage in our contemporary, Canadian Aboriginal art community'.[8] Garneau's position, the Associate Professor at The University of Regina, Faculty of Fine Arts, is by definition: institutional, hence, his stance is deeply embedded in a Western paradigm. The prescriptive tone of his aspirations for the future direction of Canadian Aboriginal art not only gives weight to Nicoll's theories of fixed narratives that serve an Anglo-Celtic vision, but simultaneously dictates who that narrative can belong to; ‘dominant’ or otherwise. Much like the Demidenko affair, the shifts in validity of Grogan's 'salient' autobiography; its initial acceptance, praise and post-undressed rejection, endorse Garneau's tolerance of intolerance. Whilst Demidenko's intolerance was evidenced through the violent and prejudice histories of a perpetrator in the Holocaust, Grogan's intolerance is evidenced by sexual aggression and substance abuse; a guise utilized to demarcate Indigenous Australian cultures as 'other' in recent popular media.[9]

So far, this deconstruction of Garneau's review of the work exhibited in SafARI; a fringe festival to the 2008 Sydney Biennale held at the artist-run centre MOP, has been largely negative. However, his final paragraph raises important curatorial responsibilities and responses regarding the public visibility of Grogan's 'ethnic drag':



I was surprised to find no mention of this scandal in the reviews. I was, however, pleased to learn that one of the original co-curators Margaret Farmer, resigned over Grogan's inclusion in SafARI...I am curious to know if the uncritical appropriation of Aboriginal art is a trend in Australian art and curation?[10]

Through his questioning, Garneau exorcises yet another resounding silence that exists within the paradox that is the Australian experience. Until this point, Garneau was the first to publicly criticise Grogan's cultural methodologies and exhibition of 'ethnic drag', someone who, in regards to his international viewpoint, is essentially an 'outsider'. Whilst this potentially complicates Garneau's relationship to Indigenous-Australian imagery, given that Australia has consistently sported Indigenous imagery as a national emblem since the 1980s, the more poignant issue raised is the inaudibility of constructive criticism from within the artistic community, and/or the lack of discourse surrounding the ‘unspoken’ taboos of Grogan's decisions to 'talk back'.

Little to no publicity was printed in response to or explaining the reasons for Margaret Farmer's withdrawal and even less critical response to Grogan's ultimate inclusion in the exhibition. While the professional artistic community fell temporarily mute, the most prolific source of discussion derived from what is seen to be the culturally 'uneducated' public. The polarising opinions that emerged via The Herald's (Newcastle) and Grogan's own LiveJournal blog, are a testament to the extent of which ethnicity, multiculturalism and the slippery contact zones between Indigenous and non-Indigenous affairs, infiltrates the non-Indigenous Australian identity.

...And since when does [Professor David Garneau] speak for the 'Aboriginal community'? And what the hell is the 'Aboriginal community' anyway? As if Indigenous Australians are some kind of homogenous cohesive group of people who all have the same opinion. Is he suggesting non-Indigenous Australian's should 'protect' Indigenous cultural expressions from the appropriations, mis-appropriations, re-appropriations and re-re-appropriations that [create] the fabric of art?...'don't engage, 'cos your culture can't withstand the appropriations of some cocky, white kid'.[11]

The fact is these styles, or designs, are not just dreamt up, but continue to be passed down through Aboriginal law and inheritance. Simply, Aboriginal copyright adheres to different and deeper principles than it does in the Western art world. You either choose to respect or disrespect this fact. Professor Garneau would be glad to hear there are numerous Aboriginal artists innovating on classical forms, such as bark painting, to focus on issues of contemporary life such as substance abuse and sexual health. His main beef was the ethical vacuum left by Grogan's example of the oppressor appropriating the oppressed.[12]

Whilst both opinions raise equally valid and important critical assertions, it is the ethical complexity or cyclical structure of these discussions that sees the politics of Aboriginal art ultimately embedded in the politics of colonialisation.[13] Contributing to its irony, it is clear that the mechanism continues to be at work even when the artist is not Indigenous.

Perhaps though, the introduction of a third dimension to this duality, further complicating Grogan's 'ethnic drag' and personal politics of colonialisation, lies with the fact that Bardayal Nadjamerrek is still alive. Nadjamerrek's ongoing contribution to contemporary Australian cultural output is demonstrated by an article, Bardayal Nadjamerrek; wild honey painter written by Margie West, that can be found in the latest release of a leading contemporary Australian art magazine Art and Australia.[14] Although he has recently retired from an extensive painting career, one that, spanning a period of forty years, has built up his position as a national treasure, Nadjamerrek's narratives are fundamentally contemporary; in the sense that they are made in the here and now.

By acknowledging the fact that Nadjamerrek's 'voice' is current, coupled with his high profile, affords Nadjamerrek the authority to assert power over his own cultural meanings as well as his ability to speak for himself.[15] Knowing this, Grogan and Nadjamerrek's cultural practices create a tense parallel. If Nadjamerrek’s cultural output evades the colonial impulse to be historicised by a non-Indigenous Australian art community, avoiding terms such as 'traditional', 'ancient' and 'legacy', his re-presentation as contemporary, suggests Grogan and Nadjamerrek are 'in discussion'.[16] Grogan’s continual refusal to seek the approval of either Nadjamerrek or the traditional community to which the Western Arnhem Land rarrk technique can be attributed, affords him ‘unaccountable’ to any particular community group: Indigenous or non-Indigenous.[17] A cynical reading of Grogan’s motivations, would suggest he is extricating himself from the violent histories of colonialisation and the subtler absorption processes of ‘cultural colonialism’ in order to enjoy a liberal, ‘unaccountable’ pilfering of the aesthetics of Indigenous Australian culture. Alternatively however, Grogan’s ‘unaccountability’ exercises his new-found power, augmented by his ‘ethnic drag’, that allows him to be in direct ‘discussion’ with the current socio-political and cultural climate of contemporary Australian art. In the wake of two major Indigenous-Australian contemporary art exhibitions: National Indigenous Art Triennial (NIAT); Cultural Warriors (2007) and The Laverty Collection (2008), Grogan’s ‘unaccountability’ facilitates a dialogue between his role as the silenced ‘dominant’ and the ‘dominant’s’ emblematic use of contemporary Indigenous iconography. For Grogan, a lack of reaction, positive or negative, to viewing those exhibitions, from either Indigenous and non-Indigenous members of the artistic community, is a side-step of some of the most important, influential and heavily promoted ‘voices’ in Australian contemporary art history.

To walk out of those blockbuster shows and to not even talk about what was happening in there, either culturally and/or aesthetically, is like everyone donning the concerns, histories and inflections of Australia’s marginalised communities and then checking their coats at the door.[18]

As Grogan describes, his ‘ethnic drag’ is a post-colonial mode that not only renders his own autobiographical allegories audible, but also engages a dialogue concerning the ‘varied subjects of multicultural discourse’, specifically those liminal zones between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian’s.



Whilst most of Grogan’s critical reception, even if it is – as previously mentioned – a product of public interest, has focussed on his status as an iconoclast, the remainder of his cultural production has been largely overlooked. The work Love (2007) was exhibited in Watt Space, The University of Newcastle Student Art Gallery, concurrently to Seven Year Itch; an exhibition that featured the latest, and most technically sophisticated, autobiographical entries into Grogan’s diaries of ‘ethnic drag’. Although Love was well-received by the local artistic community, winning Highly Commended in the UoN Services Ltd Annual Student Acquisitive Art Prize, it was a mere flash-in-the-pan for Grogan’s public visibility, rousing no critical responses from the local media, unlike the works of Seven Year Itch. Where no ethnic garb was donned, Grogan’s ability to incite discussion concerning the paradoxical nature of self-actualised identity, was diminutive. Yet, the mechanisms employed throughout his cultural output remain largely unchanged.



An avid keeper of a diary and an electronic blog, Grogan utilises text and language as a cathartic motif, airing the ‘unspoken’ or the ‘unspeakable’ in contemporary, middle-class, white Australian life. Autobiographical in approach, Love is a self-portrait of Grogan ‘muted’, physically and metaphorically by that which can’t be said. Grogan’s mouth appears to be gagged by the words that resound in the inner ears of the viewer, and yet remain concealed to Grogan; superimposed on the representation of his ‘self’. Grogan inverts the usual assumptions that ‘we experience a thing or a thought and then create a word to describe it’ allowing him to investigate a more ‘deterministic proposal that we can only experience the thoughts and beliefs that words allow us to express’.[19] By wearing the sexually aggressive statements, Grogan simultaneously struggles to both ‘voice’ and ‘hear’, demonstrating the potential that language has to culturally condition. Whether internally or externally imposed, the denial of Grogan’s personalised tongue efficiently renders him ‘invisible as well as silent’.[20]

Grogan’s autobiographical approach to narrative and, more generally, his cultural production, denotes his acute awareness of the ‘commonness’ of his particular story. That is, given that he is implicitly ‘dominant’, the viewer is given no point of friction with which to enter the work. Institutionally groomed to be sensitive to the binaries embedded deep within the Australian cultural industry, Grogan is well-aware of his privileged position. Playing upon these sensibilities, Grogan utilises all mechanisms that sit within his reach; autobiography, sexuality, class, gender, language, and ‘ethnic drag’, to cast his role as the story teller, constructing narratives of fixed identity for the benefit of (wealthy) Anglo-Celtic Australians.

The objectives of this paper have hopefully not just aided a further division of opinions, strengthening already well-rehearsed binaries of the Australian Anglo-Celtic paradox. Although Grogan's work can and will most likely continue to be read as a direct insult on the Indigenous

Australian community at large, it is important to remember that his work somehow managed to slip through the cracks, landing itself well within public visibility. At the hands of curatorial discretion, particularly in the case of the SafARI Tell 'im he's Dreamin' series, it has been decided his narrative is simultaneously, in equal parts, an important and controversial contribution to an emerging aspect of contemporary Australian art history.
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03:17 pm - Melbourne. Killing/Drawing time.

Me in Melbourne. Looking for Luke in Melbourne. Sketches.
Spent Sunday at the NGV. Went on a guided tour with a little old lady who specialised in Dutch still lifes. So we spoke about that for an hour. Sat and watched the entire Bill Viola. Cried. In the dark.

Spent alot of time in the oceanic section. Marvelling at the hilarious, fabulous Phantom sheilds from Papua New Guinea.

05:19 pm - Wet & Cold. Melbourne

I live in Melbourne now. Move into a place next weekend in South Yarra.
Things aren't really going so well though. Had multiple job interviews for this one position and got beaten by a director with 15 years of experience. Who can beat that? I'm proud and surprised I got so far. It took me ages to find a place. My money is evaporating. I'm unemployed, cold, wet, but most of all lonely. But, this is how diamonds are made; all this pressure.

The buildings are amazing, the 'scene' is great. its a city of alleys and secrets, and art spaces scattered behind carparks, up rickety stair cases and inside bus depots. I cant wait to actually LIVE here, instead of trying to float by, and make it all happen. Its tough. But i'll stick it out. Have to. Cant go backwards.

Seen some pretty amazing shows whilst I've been here. But Kathy Temin at Anna Schwartz is definately the winner. Pretty delicious.

10:08 pm - We Are Not Alone

I move to Melbourne next week. I've thrown so much out. And found so much. I'm moving to a city where i know about 5 people. Dont have a job. Or a place to live. Quit my brilliant job that I loved. But was slowly killing me. Its going to go pear shaped, but I've got to find out.

03:20 pm - Shores

Making work instead of packing.

01:13 pm - Wisdom

This was the billboard for the town where i grew up. The local lions club put it up. I remember thinking as a kid, wow these old guys are smart, and funny.

Fiona Hall opens tonight at work. Shes a really lovely lady.



I collect (art) coffee table books and though "Wisdom" is a beautiful book, i found it utterly ridiculous.

01:30 pm - you'll never never know, if you never never go.

10 days in the wild Northern Territory. A place you cant buy a cigarette lighter, alcohol or porn before 2:15pm. But a place where you can still smoke in nightclubs (THROB - gay bar Darwin), has no speed limits and climb Australian icons. The weekend before I left I had my Deep Down & Under themed birthday party. Was pretty horrific. But horrifically fun. Large sections of the entire weekend are foggy.

Someone brought a dog, people stood around naked waiting for their turn in the bath, drag queens, jeannie little, magpies, boxing kangaroos, chopper reid, life savers, pavlovas, emily kame, bogans, james hardy, florence broadhurst, sydeny 2000 olympic volunteers and a massive paper mache uluru.

The Devastatingly amazing Emily Boughton.

In Katherine NT we waited at the Woolworths, hoping get some beer for the night. It was 1:50pm and the mass of people that had gathered awaiting the opening of the bottle shop was unprecedented. Most were indigenous people. The laws surrounding alcohol, drug and pornography in the territory were brought in as a result of substance abuses in the community. There are signs all along the highway informing you that there is to be no alcohol, or pornograhy to be brought into these areas. Dry communities. Dry communities - in the desert. When the doors did roll open at 2:15pm the rush of people into the store, even before the door had fully rolled open, was amazing. boxed wine flew off the shelves. When we first arrived we knew that there were alcohol bans in some communities, however the extent was unbelievable. We asked local white people how they felt about the bans. They said that everyone was being punished because some people couldn't control themselves. They said the ban on seeling alchol before 2pm was ridiculous and had resulted in the indigenous people hanging around town longer, massing in large numbers during the middle of the day. The streets were full of indigenous people, however I saw very very few working in stores, or even inside stores. Once you were off the street, the shops, petrol stations and pubs were almost entirely white.

The irony of the whole alcohol thing was presented when we finally arrived in Darwin. We went to the beer can regatta at Mindl Beach. There were massive markets and on the beach, a series of contests including tug-o-war, canoing and the famous beer can boat races. There wasn't an indigenous person to be seen on the beach. But massive boats constructed out of beer cans. Drunk local white guys showing off their constructions. Make what you will from that.


It seemed to me that there were definately two Territories. The white community that celebrated the recent opening of the Coffee Club Cafe in Katherine, owned stores and drank so much beer they constructed boats out of the remaining cans. And the indigenous community that drove old bomb cars with one headlight and 15 people packed in, waited in town till 2pm for the bottle shop to open, but who had the artifacts of their 40,000 year old cutlure available for purchase from every single store be it art gallery or petrol station.

The theme for my party, like the work i make, was to focus in on the sometimes ugly cocktail of Australian culture. The mix that is sometimes ridiculous, explosive and curious. Its a dangerous place. For my birthay Courtney and Dalton dave me Bill Bryson's book Down Under. Its weird to read about the country you live in from an outsiders perspective. But he points out that Australia contains all of the top ten most venomous creatures on the planet. Not to mention the deadly deserts. But also the Stuart Highway that runs up the guts of the country. Where road trains, sometimes 53.5m long, travel at over 130km on the same road you've got your little rental van.

We stopped at Wycliff Wells. The Australian Roswell. More UFO sightings than anywhere else in the country. The tourist gimic to get people to stop there i thought not only worked on us, but was also very poignant. The night before we had stopped in a place called Aileron. We had run out of daylight for driving and had to stop. You're advised not to drive at night for a number of reasons, cattle, wildlife, camels, road trains, but as we later found out, because at night its incredibly difficult to work out distances on the dead straight road when you can see oncoming traffic. Aileron has one shop/petrol station/bar/caravan park/art gallery. There were alot of indigenous people hanging around out the front, and when we pulled into the carvan section we were promptly locked in for the night by the white owner of the park.

On a hill over the top of the town were massive letters spelling Aileron, Hollywood style. And a giant statue of an indigenous man overlooking the settlement. (unsurprisingly made by a white guy) The girls were terrified. We as Australians define ourselves by everything we're not. We talk about 'real' Australia as being the desert, the rural rough centre. Emigre artists use journeys to the desert as almost a naturalisation process. Only once you go there can you really identify yourself as Australian. But this alien environment, ultimatley makes you feel like the alien. Clearly you dont belong. A few weeks before we set off I was at the pub speaking to an indigenous artist/singer who expressed to me that all i could ever be in Australia is a visitor. I said I was born here. She said, what difference does that crime make? You dont belong. Ultimately I understood her point. Its an unsettling feeling.

What makes this idea of being a tourist/alien in the country of my birth curious is that my one real fear is of aliens. Ridiculous, though I cant watch alien movies without having nightmares. To learn that i am in fact the alien is a weird and dislocating feeling. Being in the outback certainly makes you feel like you're on an alien planet. The familiar image of Uluru had always seemed more like brilliant set design more than a real place. But its awe inspiring. Still and collossal. Unconquerable. There were signs at Uluru that said, "Climb the Rock!". A series of posts had been sunk into the side of the monolith that people could use to climb the 300m high rock. But right next to the sign saying Rock Climb Open, were signs from the local indigenous community asking visitors not to climb the rock as it was of highest spiritual importance. The sheer amount of people mounting it was incredible. The climb itself was EXTREMELY dangerous, 35 people had been killed attempting it. There was the small handrail and nothing else. The dictotomy was baffling. Dual signs. One saying please do, the other saying please dont. I wont say whether i climbed the real thing, but i certainly mastered the paper mache version Luke made me for my birthday.

But i'll tell you what. Its a fucking beautiful place. Everytime we reached a waterhole, we read the signs carefully scanning for info on crocodiles. Luckily we didn't swim with any. Unfortunately we didn't see any either.

I want to go back. I like the dangerousness of the place. The distances. The fear people have of the place.