jueves, 5 de julio de 2018

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→ ↑ → (pronounced as three clicks, often written incorrectly as "Tsk Tsk Tsk" or "Tch Tch Tch") was an Australian music, art and performance group, best known for their experimental music. They formed in Melbourne in 1977 and were led by Philip Brophy. The group performed music, produced artwork, films, videos, live theatre, multi-media, and wrote literature.

The Melbourne suburb of Clifton Hill's Community Music Centre, an artist run space focused on the performance of new sound art and experimental music, was the base for Philip Brophy's project, → ↑ →. Sometimes compared to Andy Warhol's Factory collective, the group provided experimental music (Brophy on drums or synthesiser), films, videos, and live theatrical performances exploring his aesthetic and cultural interests, often on a minimal budget. → ↑ → were often seen as working with Roland Barthes theory of "The Death of The Author". They were primarily interested in demystifying creative practices and analysing cultural phenomenons, stripping them down to their most basic defining characteristics. Musically the group touched upon a wide range of experimental styles including minimalism, punk rock, muzak, krautrock and disco, usually with no vocalist, which frustrated countless music audiences. Although they were regularly performing and presenting music and performances in art spaces like the Clifton Hill Community Music Centre and even the National Gallery of Victoria, → ↑ → frequently played with post-punk and new wave bands, including The Boys Next Door at pubs like the Crystal Ballroom in St. Kilda to non-art audiences. 


Over the project's operation it involved over sixty of Brophy's friends in variable line-ups that included musician David Chesworth from Essendon Airport, a post-punk band who explored similar experimental music forms, on synthesiser, and visual artists Maria Kozic and Jayne Stevenson both on synthesiser. The group grew to notable popularity in the early-mid 1980’s, being asked to participate in a range of large scale Australian exhibitions, including Paul Taylor’s Popism at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1982, the 1982 Biennale of Sydney, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales art festival Perspecta in 1983. Artistically, they were closely linked to Paul Taylor, the artists in his Popism exhibition including Juan Davila, Howard Arkley and Jenny Watson, and Taylor’s journal Art & Text which Brophy was a contributor. Crossover between this art scene with the Melbourne post-punk and new wave can be seen in both Arkley and Watson painting of images of Nick Cave, but also in Art & Text publishing articles about music subcultures, Taylor even using current music terms to describe these young visual artists as the “Australian New Wave”. → ↑ → is the only group to cross both though, appearing in exhibitions with the aforementioned artists but also performing frequently with groups like The Boys Next Door and including them in gigs they organised such as Punk Gunk where they performed their work / band “Punk Band”.

The band performed or exhibited in Europe, including London's Institute of Contemporary Arts and Paris' Museum of Modern Art. In 1983 Brophy produced a retrospective book, "Made by → ↑ →", which is co-credited to → ↑ →. He dissolved the project shortly after the 1986 European tour of Stills, and continued to work with, his then partner, Kozic for some time, prior to her relocation to New York City. [SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA

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