Talk about ‘the death of painting’.  What about ‘the death of reading’?  Let’s face it, we all know (but it’s easy to forget) that we now live in a world in which the proliferation of visual images can dominate our ways of thinking.  And that’s why this show at PICA (the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts) is so important.  It features works by ten artists from Australia and New Zealand who question our assumptions about images in performance, and that’s something you will never get from Hollywood, network television, or governments.  The bad news is that I could never cover the entire content of this show in a single review without its extension to a small book.  Each artist would deserve a separate chapter.  But I can talk about one work and hopefully spark your interest sufficiently to get you along to PICA to judge for yourself.  And the piece I have chosen is (I open the envelope and lean forward into the microphone to announce) Kate Murphy’s JOE HILL.

Kate lives in Sydney, and according to the show’s program notes, her ‘works explore the nature of fact and fiction in documentary practice, and the tensions underlying these notions.’  Her piece is in the main gallery space, just to the left as you enter.  There you’ll find a viewing screen, two sets of earphones and two chairs.  Sit down, slip on some earphones and start fathoming what’s going on.  You’ll see a split screen with a long view of a neat but old-fashioned living room on one half of the screen, and a close-up view of a small table at the far end of the room on the screen’s other side.  So Ms Murphy has two cameras operating here.  One in a long-shot mode, and the other in close up.

Zoom to the here and now where I am sitting in front of the screen showing the empty room and I’m waiting and waiting and nothing is happening and I’m starting to fidget.  And then an old man enters through an arch from a passage at the back of the room and sets up a stack of books on the table, and leaves me alone with that empty room again.  More boredom.  Why isn’t something happening.  I like my reality television and Lynda La Plante (who also uses split screens in her television crime shows) with plenty of tightly spliced split screen action.  I don’t have time for this Kate Murphy stuff.  I have to go.  But I stay.  And I’m glad I stay.  Because the old man comes back into the room with more books, and I realise he is making a stand with the books for the close-up video camera, which apparently has been resting on its side, and he is going to make a video of himself.

The old man is making a video for his family.  He is telling them that he wants a song played at his funeral, which is Joe Hill, performed by Paul Robeson.  It helps to know something about Paul Robeson to understand the wave of emotion that now sweeps over me.  Through the 1920s and continuing on into the1940s, Robeson was renowned as an exceptional athlete turned actor, singer, cultural scholar, author and political activist.  He introduced and made famous the song, Old Man River, in Jerome Kern’s 'Showboat'.  Robeson was the first black man to play serious roles in American theatre.  His 'Othello' was the longest running Shakespearian play in American history.  Paul Robeson, who was also a lawyer and able to speak fifteen languages, was acclaimed throughout the world as a champion of African-American rights.  But during the Senator Joseph McCarthy era, this great man was denied work and had his passport confiscated for eight years.  He died as an all but forgotten recluse in 1976.

Focus now on Kate Murphy’s old man who is singing Joe Hill in a terribly inadequate voice, considering the magnificent sound of Paul Robeson.  But this man who is singing so badly was maybe also someone who had a rich history, and he is now tragically alone, like Paul Robeson was.  And why must he make a video for his family to tell them about his wishes for his funeral?  Have they abandoned him?  So, obviously, all home movies are not necessarily happy, and I am sad, until I realise that this is also a video performance and this man is acting a part.  Murphy is manipulating my emotions while also showing me how this can so easily be done.

You’re a devil, Kate!  You almost had me, but you’ve reminded me of the dangers of fictional ‘reality’, and this is a valuable lesson, which should never be forgotten.  The great German playwright, Bertolt Brecht, was also into this. His so-called ‘alienation effects’ in performance were intended to remind people that they are forever at risk of being beguiled by ‘fictions’ which are, in reality, just ‘play’.

Try to set aside plenty of time to view this entire PICA show, because everything here has multi-level meanings.  Don’t be put off by the PICA building’s ‘authoritarian’ architecture.  Remember, it’s an old Victorian boys’ school which was designed to make people feel ‘small’.  Consequently the incredibly high ceilings and the echoing noises from shoes on jarrah floors can be counter productive to quiet contemplation.  This is a ‘cross’ that the PICA curators must bear.  But the friendly staff members at this important exhibition space help to offset this, and their dedication to presenting the seriously best in contemporary art is, as always, an immeasurable plus.