Recently discovered slides from the archive.

Might be of some use for The Brisbane Sound project by David Pestorius for the IMA in Brisbane Feb/March 2008.

“Can you know your product?”, Know Your Product, Institute of Modern Art,
Brisbane, 1986, pp 5-8.

Introduction by by Ross Harley

The work involved in curating an exhibition like
Know Your Product has raised a number of
questions to do with presenting or accounting for
particular aspects of contemporary culture. The
basic premise of the show - a survey of the
interconnections between popular cuiture,
independent music scenes and contemporary art
practices over the last ten years in Brisbane -
contains within it all those curly questions which
have for years plagued the minds of cultural
theorists, commentators and participants alike. Just
exactly what is it that is signalled by the terms
“popular culture”, “contemporary art practice” or
“youth subculture” anyway, and how might these
areas be seen, shown or heard to actually function?
For me these have never been merely formal or
definitional problems, but have instead represented
a set of limits and licences for the ways in which
cultural forms (in general) are dealt with, lived in. It’s
not simply a matter of determining where art ends
or where pop culture begins, as if this were the
solution to the problems of investigating current and
not so current cultural trends. Besides falling into a
tired old argument about “What is Art?” or what is
the difference between Art and Life, we would also
be in danger of missing those precise timbres and
tones that are culturally embedded in the variety of
fabrics that make up our “everyday worlds”. Simply
speaking, cultural objects, whether they be
records, magazines, posters, films or whatever,
cannot be viewed without reference to the
(cultural/political/aesthetic/ideological) conditions
under which they were produced. Culture is always
lived. So it was with these things in mind that Know
Your Product was put together.

At the base of it, this exhibition forms part of a
cultural documentation process which has yet to
solidify into any formal existence, although traces of
it certainly exist scattered across individual
collections or “mini archives”. As a collection and
presentation of artefacts, information and
documents which have never been put together
before, Know Your Product could perhaps be
perceived as a catalyst or crystal around which
other formations might appear. And because Know
Your Product is by no means to be seen as a total
history it invites its audience to discern not only a
presence of history but its absence as well. What lies
outside the scope of Know Your Product is
potentially as important as what is presented.
Perhaps the exhibition is best considered as a kind
of documentary case study which works out its
theories as it goes along, as opposed to providing
the proof for any pre-existing theory. At each stage
of collecting, ordering, documenting, arranging and
viewing material from the exhibition, a different
framework or organisational principle is invoked. An
amalgam of textures and forms are colided and
stitched together regardless of their “proper” status
in order to produce a wide range of possible mutant
strains of cultural life. After all, it’s only in the endless
succession and mutation of existing forms that new
ones arise. Not quite historical materialism, but
markedly different to the view which looks forward to
the end of history.

The act of collecting together and documenting a
large amount of work produced over the last ten
years is in itself a very un-Brisbane thing to do. Most
activity in Brisbane exists for its moment first, the
memory second and then (sometimes) thirdly, the
documentary trace. Consequently it is unavoidable
that Brisbane’s subcultural history be conjured up
more than it is recreated. The artefacts and
information which end up as evidence for this
particular version of Brisbane are by definition
unable to represent Brisbane’s history “as it actually
happened” (ie as events and memories). It’s also
true that the designation of the neat ten year period
from 1976 to 1986 is not entirely innocent, as it
largely coincides with the emergence of Punk and its
related spinoffs. Of course the broad range of
subcultural activity that Know Your Product surveys
can’t be reduced to the history that Punk gave rise
to. nor should it be simply given as the metahistory
of this period. What is of importance to this
exhibition is that around 1976 to 1978 was a point
where the aesthetic, stylistic and political
underpinnings of popular and counter cultures were
being turned inside out by forces largely associated
with Punk. One of the subtexts of Know Your
Product was to somehow measure or examine these
reverberations across a number of cultural registers.

In terms of exhibition space, Know Your Product
plays with this idea of measuring effects across a
variety of surfaces, not only by presenting works
from a variety of mediums - records, cassettes,
posters, fanzines, Super 8, video, graphics and
photographs - but also by presenting a series of
events in conjunction with radio station 4ZZZ. Ten
hour long radio documentaries have been
commissioned and are scheduled to be aired each
weeknight at 6.30 from September 15. As an annex
to the show these programs extend and rework
collected materials into audio adjuncts to the visual
and textual materials on display.

Similarly, the performances of Brisbane bands
(including reforms of The Riptides and XERO) over
the three weeks that the exhibition runs for has been
organised by 4ZZZ as part of Know Your Product.
(See Events program in this catalogue for further
details.)

A couple of comments remain to be made about the
presentation of works and catalogue information.
Detailed documentation is provided on four
“projects” - Anti Music, O’Flate, Wrap Girls and Zip
— which are highlighted as interesting and
significant examples of how art, music and
subculture have met up and intermingled in
Brisbane. Apart from these highlighted examples the
majority of the catalogue listings are fairly broad in
scope. The discography lists just about everything
recorded on vinyl and cassette by Brisbane
bands/ performers in Brisbane since 1976. These
lists are alphabetical, as are the publications lists -
fanzines and magazines. The selection of posters is
listed chronologically and tends to be less extensive
and more selective. The selection of videos,
photographs, installations and Super 8 is not intended
to be extensive, though it certainly aims to give ample
indication of work done in these areas.

Hopefully, it is from these lists and displays of work
that the audience will draw up its own list of
questions and observations related to all these
Brisbane scenes. Questions like “when is a Brisbane
band a Brisbane band?” (eg The Go Betweens, The
Saints, Tiny Town or Ups and Downs), or “what is the
role of Queensland politics in the production of
artworks?”, or “what’s the significance of excluding
demo-tapes from the discography?”. None of these
questions have simple or straightforward solutions
to pose them suggests that the only way to know
your product is to begin to show it.

July 1986