« Reflektor »

Artist Elliot Hughes (elliothughes.net) speaks about their research project, THE ART OF WAR: The Politics of Representation and the Role of the Artist in an Age of Terror, and plays some tracks which reflect the power of art and responsibility and possibility of being an artist today.

The research is a practice-led, ethnographically-informed project that examines the artistic representation of war by critically engaging with the concept of the 'official war artist’. It takes as its frame of reference the Australian War Memorial's Official War Art Scheme, which positions contemporary artists within active war zones. This project seeks to lay bare the ideological, political and cultural assumptions which underlie this scheme, and which inform the art that it gives rise to. The project focuses on the work and practice of Shaun Gladwell, who undertook the Official War Art Scheme commission in 2009. As a counterpoint, the practice of Australian artist George Gittoes (an artist whose work represents sites of contemporary war, but who is critically opposed to the Official War Art Scheme) is introduced as a counterpoint to the position represented by the Official War Art Scheme.

What are the responsibilities and possibilities of being an artist today?

This research has the potential to contribute to discourse about the role and possibilities of the contemporary artist in relation to the notion of representing war, and more broadly on the ways in which artists, through their artistic practice, implicate themselves in broader geopolitical, social, cultural and ideological discourses. It is the role of the artist to reflect on their responsibilities at the level of such discourse and to acknowledge their agency with regard to these frameworks.

Reflektor is a monthly radio program sparking from the homonymus sound and performance art event. Reflektor aims to create a common platform for practice exchange and shared research.The need for this cross pollination was clear after observing how performance and sound art seem to progress parallel but rarely intersect. Hosted and curated by Katie Lee Dunbar: http://www.katieleedunbar.de/