Sound artist Nat Grant is developing a work for solo drummer and feedback. Simply titled Feed, this work interrogates unsolicited feedback around gender roles in and outside of the arts. Feedback loops enhance or amplify change. The more we hear what we can (or can’t) do, the harder it becomes to challenge these ideas. Audio feedback, where a loop exists between an audio input (eg a microphone) and an output (ie a speaker), works similarly. Constant re-amplification of the same sound makes it bigger, louder, and harder to ignore. Feedback can sound loud, soft, strong vulnerable. There is no one way people of different genders perform or perceive sound. But our experiences of music continue to be distorted by stereotypes. Nat’s work will delve into the distorted views we have of ourselves and our peers: how different people ‘should’ act and what kind of art they ‘should’ make.

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Edwina Stevens

Melbourne’s own purveyors of slapstick soul and ska are launching the third instalment in their innovative Back on The Zine series, “A Man Needs Coolin’” at The Brunswick Mechanics Institute on Friday 27 July.

Described by Melbourne soul royalty Vince “The Prince” Peach as “A… (significant pause) GREAT, little band” the Offtopics will be perform two of their patented, punch-drunk funk sets. The brand new film clip for “A Man Needs Coolin’” will be screened. There’ll also be a support set from new Melbourne trio The Fix Ups.

T’was 149 nights before Christmas…

This July, Brunswick Mechanics Institute brings New York City to Melbourne with a film marathon of three classic Christmas films to warm the cockles of cold winter hearts. Gather with your loved ones at the bar in your ugliest woolly jumper before heading in to the cinema for one, two, or all three of the films. Put it in your advent calendar, we will see you there.

Film marathon tix are limited – get in quick to be one of the lucky few!

New York City policeman John McClane is visiting his estranged wife and two daughters on Christmas Eve. He joins her at a holiday party in the headquarters of the Japanese-owned business she works for. But the festivities are interrupted by a group of terrorists who take over the exclusive high-rise, and everyone in it. This is definitely a Christmas movie.

Next Wave presents Export Happenings, an evening of reperformance from the stages and streets of 1960s and 70s New York, by artists Emile Zile, Angela Goh and The Band Presents. Three performances will mine and reinterpret an era that upturned our understanding of what performance art is, where it can be shown and who can perform it.

In the spirit of do-it-yourself, artists and audiences are invited to intervene into the documents, archives and memories of pioneering art movements through Fluxus magazines, concerts and manifestos; video art; performance scores and instruction kits. Turn your minds on for an evening of ready-made performance; a tribute to the ghosts of a radical, rebellious and amusing era of performance history.