New releases from Public Image Ltd, William Basinski, and John Luther Adams
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Enigmatic figures in an ancient Australian landscape
Privilege under threat: Picnic at Hanging Rock
[Pia Johnson]
GABRIELE NEHER draws attention to an astoundingly skilled Flemish painter who defied the notion that women cannot paint like men
The Bard pays homage to Hull’s finest promoter and venue, and awards Douze Points to Laibach
KEVIN DONNELLY outlines how the bourgeois institutions inhibit our ability to to view art in revolutionary ways, and suggests some tactics to overturn it
ANDY HEDGECOCK welcomes an accessible - and optimistic - take on our relationship to new technology
JOHN GREEN suggests that a new, biased, and highly readable re-hash of the story of the Cambridge Five be taken with a large pinch of salt
BRENT CUTLER welcomes a timely reminder of the long history of protests and the outdoor spaces in which they takes place
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Barbican Centre, London
ON ST Valentines Day in 1900, three teenage schoolgirls and their maths teacher inexplicably and permanently vanished while on a picnic to Australia’s ancient landmark Hanging Rock.
That fictional mystery, originally conceived as a novel by Joan Lindsay in 1967, was later the source for Peter Weir's film and has now been adapted for the stage in this production by Melbourne's Malthouse Theatre company.
The social and cultural contradictions of Australian society are implicit in the narrative and offer fertile ground for multiple interpretations. A vast land, undisturbed for millennia by external influence, Australia’s unique flora, fauna and indigenous culture has in the past four centuries been contaminated by colonial intrusion, exploitation and abuse.
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