Dean Cross was born and raised on Ngunnawal/ Ngambri Country and is a Worimi man through his paternal bloodline. He is a paratactical artist interested in collisions of materials, ideas and histories. He is motivated by the understanding that his practice sits within a continuum of the oldest living culture on Earth — and enacts […]

Dean Cross was born and raised on Ngunnawal/ Ngambri Country and is a Worimi man through his paternal bloodline. He is a paratactical artist interested in collisions of materials, ideas and histories. He is motivated by the understanding that his practice sits within a continuum of the oldest living culture on Earth — and enacts […]

Dean Cross was born and raised on Ngunnawal/ Ngambri Country and is a Worimi man through his paternal bloodline. He is a paratactical artist interested in collisions of materials, ideas and histories. He is motivated by the understanding that his practice sits within a continuum of the oldest living culture on Earth — and enacts […]

Yusi Zang is a Beijing born multi- disciplinary artist living and working in Melbourne. Her practice entails the scrutiny of the quotidian and mundane, and strives for a degree of realism, mimicking or extracting the real which the objects derive from. She reconciles the concepts of boredom and the sublime, and revolts against the commonplaces […]

The publishers and editors wish to acknowledge the many Aboriginal nations across Australia whose land this issue has been produced on. Specifically, the production has taken place on the land + waters of the Kulin Nation (the Wurundjeri, Boonwurrung, Taungurong, Djajawurrung and the Wathaurung groups) around the area now known as Melbourne, and on the […]

This morning, as soon as we woke up, we made four consecutive pots of coffee, each shared between two cups. We made twobowls of muesli with kiwi, banana, LSA, yoghurt. After three hours of work, we each went for a run. When we returned, we sweated over the cold kitchen tiles. We peeled off our […]

The-one-who-loves-knowledge, he says: ‘What is writing? What are its places of storage? Compare it to its like, O overflowing one!— Book of Thoth From my window, between this building and the next, I’m counting ibis. In the morning over coffee … 1, 2 … at lunch … 4, 5, 6 … at dusk …7, 8, […]

sanitation was a response to the putridness of British life classed, crammed, sickthe toilet is where youshitthere are chickpeas simmering gentlyon the stoveidentical almost to mybody simmering in the hot baththoughts slowing downor in the shower, speeding upSpecial Agent Dale Cooperperceived the demonic presenceof Bob by smashinghis head through the bathroom mirrorI was in the […]

To recall an image before it has been brought into visibility. In film photography, light sensitive crystals are exposed as the shutter opens, and a latent image is created. This is part of the enduring love for the medium. That an image is delayed. That you seal the image into a temporary state of illegibility. […]

Aesthetic perception is necessarily historical. — Leela GandhiWe’ve got to play ordinary venues at the moment but I dream of playing the rubble of London’s palaces.— Anwen Crawford We met as workers in a Middle Eastern restaurant. We worked less for them and more with them. You on dishes after the day’s art and me […]

AREF SEA 793 ‘The principle reason for the three-way handshake is to prevent old duplicate connection initiations from causing confusion’ This poem is concerned by a means to address you.It is only about connecting. It is trying not to be Defensive. It’s no longer 1981 and we are not on Wilson Boulevardand we no longer […]

San Francisco’s Burning is not only a ballad opera for the stage, it is also a piece of historical fiction. Set in San Francisco in the days prior to the earthquake of 1906, it chronicles the interactions of a cast of characters whose lives intersect through murder, sex and urban planning reform. The musical, written […]

Footsteps on the dance floor remind me baby of you … To all of my on-the-floor partners, friends and colleagues. Every floor is a dance floor — Harrison I moved to Sydney in 2015. I was constantly hungry because I was nervous and unhappy. There is some food you can buy and eat for under […]

Dean Cross was born and raised on Ngunnawal/ Ngambri Country and is a Worimi man through his paternal bloodline. He is a paratactical artist interested in collisions of materials, ideas and histories. He is motivated by the understanding that his practice sits within a continuum of the oldest living culture on Earth — and enacts […]

Fixations I might be addicted to problem solving. At least, it often preoccupies me. For example: if I take food that’s gone off and put it in the freezer, will that preserve more available nutrients for decomposition in the council’s green waste facility? Will the energy cost render this a futile gesture? And: how true […]

Rationalisation Writing in 1983, George Ritzer argues that McDonald’s exemplified the accelerated rationalisation of the broader society. As constantly reiterated in The Founder,[^1] a biopic focused on Ray Krok’s franchised expansion of the fast-food restaurant, McDonald’s became a ‘symphony of efficiency’. Over the years, Ritzer’s definition of ‘McDonaldization’ as a process that emphasises efficiency, predictability, […]

Mutual debt, debt unpayable, debt unbounded, debt unconsolidated, debt to each other in a study group, to others in a nurses’ room, to others in a barber shop, to others in a squat, a dump, a woods, a bed, an embrace.— Fred Moten and Stefano Harney Today, a brief lull between lockdowns, is for writing.  […]

It feels too easy to write the abject — I puke all over myself and my organs fall out and I shit my pants and everything that was inside is out now. That’s writing the abject though, not writing about it. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything in the above example, it simply operates and exists. […]

on venus, the winds blow harderthey strip every surface,  the air hostile // on venuswe are neighbours in nerves/ with chemical / with acid.[^1] In a moment defined by climate crisis and worsening inequalities under capitalism, the fantasy of utopia resembles nothing more than a nostalgic vision of the past. In this context, P. Staff’s exhibition On Venus (2019)presents […]

Teik-Kim Pok: I saw this one-liner on the internet — ‘My friend told me she wouldn’t eat beef tongue because it came from a cow’s mouth. So I gave her an egg.’ As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded it was hard to keep up with all the stories of food, both good and bad, that shaped […]

Atlantis Marine Park is an abandoned theme park and the centrepiece of the Yanchep Sun City development. It was built by notorious criminal entrepreneur Alan Bond in the small fishing community of Two Rocks in 1981, sixty-something kilometres north of Boorloo/Perth. Atlantis seems a curious name for a theme park in settler-colonial Australia — for […]

The Socialist Scholars Conference was a gathering of intellectuals, academics, community organisers, religious leaders and a who’s-who of grassroots and celebrity progressives. It happened to be taking place in New York and I was visiting nearby, so I was able to duck in to listen to a long weekend of speakers and panels. I made […]

Elena Gomez is a poet, editor and researcher living in Melbourne. She is the author of Admit the Joyous Passion of Revolt (2020), Body of Work (2018) and several chapbooks and pamphlets. [^1]: Indrajit Ray, ‘Indigo in Bengal’ in Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures, ed. H Selin (Dordrecht: […]

Yusi Zang is a Beijing born multi- disciplinary artist living and working in Melbourne. Her practice entails the scrutiny of the quotidian and mundane, and strives for a degree of realism, mimicking or extracting the real which theobjects derive from. She reconciles the concepts of boredom and the sublime, and revolts against the commonplaces of […]