telephonin' now and then down under

"Do you know who i've always depended on? Not strangers, not friends. The telephone! That's my best friend' (Marilyn Monroe, cited in Maddox 1981: 262).

Lady gaga was just on tour in Melbourne and it made me think about the symbolism and iconography of the telephone in her video compared to early films that advertised "female" telephonists in early australia. Most people thought Gaga's video would take place in a club, however, Gaga did what people least expected. When Gaga wore a bright blue and old fashioned telephone on her head while cooking a "poisonous meal" she was commenting on the way in which the telephone has invaded her everyday thoughts. Text messages, gossip, mass media are constantly ringing in. In a way she is saying that the telephone, although once and is still a medium of power, has now become a medium that also causes distraction, and controversy with "poisonous" outcomes. People wear this power, but also wear this force that inhibits are ability to "connect" effectively with the people sitting in front of us.

It seems as though the "telephone" (although, now a mobile phone and video phone in some cases) over the past 70 yrs has represented female power- and in gaga's case sexual power as well. Women were able to gain agency in the industry through their telephone skills. Now the telephone is embedded in everyday culture- women and men carry around phones. It is what links them to and from the world that surrounds them and as monroe said it has become everyone's best friend.

Gaga must have looked at old photos of women working in the industry because during my 16mm film viewing session at the ACMI this past Monday I took some screenshots of women working as telephonists and I see a striking resemblance. There is a very robotic and mechanical essence to both the pictures. Gaga and the Australian telephonist have the phone on their head, underscoring the idea that the mechanical device is literally a part of their movements and thoughts. Gaga notes that the she has a fear of the telephone, she said, 'That's my fear --- that the phone's ringing and my head's ringings...Whether its a telephone or it's just the thoughts in your head, that's another fear...."

I wonder how the early women telephonists felt about having a voice in their head all day...

Me at the 16mm viewing room at the Mediatheque at ACMI

architecture of infrastructure down under

The architecture in Melbourne is so fluid. The walls, ceilings, and rooftops flow like waves within the movements of the city. During O-week (Orientation Week for the Colleges on campus at La Trobe University) all of the students in Menzies College were put into teams to complete ridiculous tasks throughout the Melbourne CBD. Tasks ranged from swimming in the Yarra River to doing the cha-cha through city intersections. I (unfortunately) had the privilege of getting my hairstyled with Macca's (McDonalds in Aussie Language) BBQ sauce, and had to ride the tram all the way back to campus attracting all sorts of yummy insects.

Despite the minor smelly and sticky mishap, I found peace in the cultural urban environment of Melbourne CBD. I did not pay attention to the games that were going on because all I could focus on was the spectacular site of Melbourne's architecture. All of the crazy college students were running around trying to win a scavenger hunt without even taking notice to the amazing sites that surrounded them. So instead of being a keen participator of the scavenger hunt I took some pictures of the architecture I was in- framing the shots to make shapes with the sky.

In Melbourne, there are old buildings (Parliament House on Victoria Parade and the State Library of Victoria on Swanston Stree), new buildings (HardRock climbing), and buildings under construction (RMIT- Royal Melbourne Institute for Technology). The city is a palimpsest of culture and desgin- holding heritages of art-deco, neo-gothism, and contemporary art keen to the artists eye.

My favorite architecture lies inside the ACMI (Australian Center for the Moving Image, located in Federation Square across from Flinder's station). The colors are so vivid and bright and the space is so spacious and crowded at the same time. Reading about the history of the building I discovered that the designs for the film centre were developed in the early 1980's to create "an exhibition space free of the restrictions imposed in traditional display facilities." (acmi.net.au) And the state film centre of victoria envisioned the ACMI as an "open" space that could interface school and university work as well. In 1997, Lab architecture studio won the design to create the building in federation square. Today, it is by far (my favorite) an amazing building that conveys within its design the cross-roads of commercial, cultural, and educational thought and desire. It is the vital infrastructure to the growing film industry in Melbourne. :)