Issue 34: Failure
In the West, we are told our dreams can come true, if only we apply ourselves. There’s a rank positivism that breeds amnesia. It originated in Calvinist America, only to cross over first via Blair and then via Berlusconi with differing degrees of success. Slavs are interested in failure, what it exposes, the pressure and accountability that it breeds. Dreaming is about process more than result. It is the path of thought turned into a line of flight, an escape from something more than the procurement of something, the fantasy more than the speculation of a job, the reverie of a pay raise or the hope of a score. (1)
Recently, I’ve been thinking about a photo I saw on the internet, of a pizza hut aflame. In the image, which is low resolution, the building sits in an empty carpark, set thoughtlessly in space. The building’s squat red roof is caving in under a thundering mass of smoke. The image is unintentional. It documents an event. And yet, there’s something about it and its presence online in an inventory of other images of those weird culturally hybrid structures burning to the ground…something about something…
Now, we talk often of the failure of capitalism.
In the issue: ideas about failure that are funny, sad, irreverant, potent, portent
the F A I L U R E to make a mark, to adhere to the guidelines, or know what those guidelines are, not composing your images, being unable to find words, or having too many
THE SIX TYPES OF (FAILED) WRITERS: WHICH ONE ARE YOU?
and also, a stretching of the word’s meaning
artists who experiment with process, work that emerges out of a dedication to craft and all the attendant mistakes, tests and discoveries
work that is in a state of becoming, process as transcendental, a commitment to the things you can’t win.
You can only fail in relation to predetermined parameters for success.
Failed attempts are necessary for breaking ground
Failure was a hot topic in 2014. This year, it’s 2017. But coming too late means an empty room in which to dance freely, fast and loose, to whatever music you choose.
(1) Slavs and Tartars, “The Slavs: Redeeming the East in Eastern Europe”, in Social Medium: Artists Writing, 2000-2015 (New York: Paper Monument, 2016), 230.
Luke Letourneau is a writer and curator working in Sydney. He has curated exhibitions at Gaffa Gallery, UNSW Galleries, Firstdraft, Seventh Gallery, ARCHIVE_, 107 Projects and Kudos Gallery. In 2015 he curated an exhibition at Seventh Gallery, Melbourne, as part of the Emerging Curator Program supported by the Yarra City Council. In 2015 he became the inaugural recipient of the Freedman Foundation Curatorial Scholarship under the UNSW Art & Design Master of Curating and Cultural Leadership program. Luke has contributed to publications including Runway, Un Magazine and Art Almanac, he was a regular exhibition reviewer for Fbi Radio’s ‘The Hanging’, and has written catalogue essays for exhibitions in artist-run spaces throughout Australia. From 2014-15 he was a gallery coordinator of the artist-run initiative ARCHIVE_.
Sarinah Masukor is a writer and moving image maker. Her current work explores relationships between fiction and criticism, cinema and gallery. She has participated in the Gertrude Contemporary Emerging Writers Program and the Firstdraft Writers Program and has published widely on contemporary art and film. Between 2015-16 she appeared on ABC iView’s screen culture review show, The Critics. She currently teaches in the Media Arts and Production program at the University of Technology Sydney.
Talia Smith is an artist and curator of Samoan, Cook Island and New Zealand European descent. Originally from New Zealand she is now based in Sydney, Australia. Her visual arts and curatorial practice utilises the mediums of photography and video to examine the emotional and physical traces we leave behind on the landscape, the histories we build and the ruins we leave. She has exhibited and curated shows at artist run spaces in Australia, New Zealand, Germany and New York with solo shows in both Australia and New Zealand. Smith is the founder and Co-Director of new artist run initiative Cold Cuts, is 2017’s emerging curator at Firstdraft and will be competing a residency with Bundanon Trust in August, 2017. She currently works at Carriageworks and Campbelltown Arts Centre as an Educator.
Runway Journal acknowledges the custodians of the nations our digital platform reaches. We extend this acknowledgement to all First Nations artists, writers and audiences.
Runway Journal is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Runway Journal receives project support from the NSW Government through Create NSW.
Runway Journal acknowledges the custodians of the nations our digital platform reaches. We extend this acknowledgement to all First Nations artists, writers and audiences.
Runway Journal is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Runway Journal receives project support from the NSW Government through Create NSW.