Bowie.

Bowie is dead.
He meant, and means, different things to different people. He was an inspirational artist to me, who changed, created and explored. Rather than remain sad, I will continue to be inspired by him and dare to do, to create and to challenge myself not to become creatively comfortable or stagnant.

Recently the very talented Sarah Blasko did a great version of 'Life on mars' on Triple J's like a version:


I loved 'The next day', Bowie's, album released in 2013. Based on the few samples/snippets I had heard of his most recent album 'Blackstar', I was prepared to dislike it, but instead loved it.

If you haven't seen the clip to Bowie's track 'Lazarus' of his last lp 'Blackstar', here it is:

All clips copyright the respective artists.

“It is not you, but the others......” : The real impact of sweeping generalisations.

“It is not you, but the others...” is a phrase I seem to hear more and more. Whenever I ask these people to define these 'others' and what percentage of the population (or of a 'group' of people),  they are referring to, they don't seem to be able to do so.

I ask - do they make up fifty percent or more? 'No' is the response. When asked if the number is more like five percent, they reply 'MORE!'. When I push for a figure or even to give me examples....they can't. Sometimes they act sheepish, sometimes they mumble 'Someone told me about some people they knew', or “I read something in the paper” (or saw it on TV). The reality is that no actual examples can be given when pressed, or if you are very lucky, perhaps an example can be found. Yet the 'zero', or the 'one' example, seem to make up more than five percent, but less than fifty percent of a whole group of people...which often leaves me baffled.

Which groups are these sweeping generalisations being made about? You name a marginalised group of people and you will hear some variation of the diatribe being delivered. The unemployed are deemed 'dole bludgers', Muslims are deemed terrorists and the poor are generally thought of as lazy or lacking the motivation to succeed. For those sprouting the diatribe, they are never referring to those people they personally know who are part of the 'group', but are talking about the 'others'.

Where do these false and misguided beliefs come from and why do they exist? Who benefits from them? When did we stop being critical thinkers? Let us look at one group- the unemployed. The thought that seems to pervade society, that unemployed people are as a group, all lazy and 'bludgers', is unproven. In any group of people, there are likely to be 'outliers' and in the case of the unemployed, this may mean (in a very simplified way), a person who has the capacity and ability to work, but doesn't want to. In my experience working with the unemployed, I hadn't come across anyone who was like this. I did however, come across people who couldn't work or find work, for a variety of reasons. 

I worked with people who applied for job after job after job, but were not successful in obtaining an interview.  Sometimes it was as simple as their age, lack of experience, and believe it or not, their over-experience in a role. I worked with people who were successful in getting a job but wouldn't last long due to complex issues, such as an inability to contain their emotions, which lead to physical or verbal fighting at work (for some of these clients, who's backgrounds I knew of, attachment theory made perfect sense). There are those whose prior substance or alcohol use, damaged their ability to learn new things/retain new information. There were those who had very low self esteem and didn't present well to employers. There were those who had low level anxiety and/or depression and had not sought clinical diagnosis or help. Add to these examples the unemployment rate and the chances of gaining employment naturally reduce in a competitive market.

Yet, despite the complexity of why people are unemployed (aside from the obvious reason that there are no jobs for them), we as a society, largely seem to cling to the view that the unemployed are 'dole bludgers' or lazy, of course not you, you are different, it's the others...

How healthy is holding this view and what impact does it have on the unemployed? Does it steer the conversation on unemployment away from the real reasons/issues and how they can be addressed? Maybe there isn't a solution to unemployment. Will we ever have more jobs than we have people? If the answer is no, then it stands to reason that we will have those in the community who need to receive unemployment benefits to cover the costs of essentials such as food and shelter. Someone once said that the sign of a civilised society is that it looks after it's less fortunate. I would boldly add that a civilised society also critically considers information it is presented, such as those sweeping generalisations about maginalised groups.

Going back to the dole bludging unemployed, my experience has shown me that there are individuals in this group who need long term, respectful, intensive support to help them get to the point where they would not only be employable, but importantly, would be likely to sustain their employment. But we don't seem to be having conversations on sustainable employment. We seem to be more interested in 'numbers' and quick fixes, rather than lasting solutions. A case in point- The 'work for the dole' program, which some people in the community see as a great way to move 'dole bludgers' off unemployment and into the workforce. This program forces the financially vulnerable (ie the unemployed) to work for free (or else have their unemployment money cut off). Despite research showing the program doesn't achieve what it claims it will do, which is to provide employment outcomes, the program continues and no one is talking about it, or asking who benefits from turning members of a maginalised group into slave labour. Is this the kind of society we are proud to be part of and why aren't we talking about this?..not you, you are a critical thinker, it is the others...the less than fifty percent, but more than five.

Copyright matthew schiavello 2015. Written as part of my forced work for the dole activity.

Photos, christmas and all that jazz.......

"It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on "
Joni Mitchell wrote and sang this ( 'River' off the lp 'Blue') and I kind feel it... I wish I could skate away from all of this madness, the giving, gifting and everyone playing happy families... when none of us really are.

In brighter news, I am working on scanned work for my March exhibition. I'll share some of  what I am working on below and some of the recent  photos I have been taking. I'll also finish on this festive note: Wherever you are, be safe and happy, may the new year bring all you need.
matthew

Scanned mixed media experiments for the series 'Seminal Works':

                                             ‘Untitled #58′  (a.k.a S.O.B.)
                                                          (20/12/15)

                                                          ‘The urban view #9’
                                                                 (11/12/15)

                                                           ‘Urban landscape #16’
                                                                   (06/12/15)

all images copyright matthew schiavello 2014. Lyrics to 'River' copyright Joni Mitchell.

Mirrors and Melbourne

Here are some recent images of Mirrors and Melbourne, I have taken.

All photographs copyright matthew schiavello 2015.

Music

It has been a while since I posted new music. I haven't been listening to too much new stuff of late, but have re-acquainted myself with some older music. Here is a small selection of tunes, one or two I may have shared on here a long while back, but they are worth a listen or second listen!

Joanna Newsom has a new LP out- Divers. Her voice can really divide people (it does sounds a little different on this Lp (possibly due to age or she may be singing differently due to nodule issues a few years back?)), but I personally really love her work. She also plays the harp and piano. It has been 5 years since her last Lp (the triple Lp) 'Have one on me'.

Joanna Newsom- 'Divers'



Nadia Reid. This New Zealand songstress was brought to my attention by my mate Jody Galvin (who is often playing abut town, so keep an eye on her facebook page for info).
Anyway I quickly purchased Nadia's Lp 'Listen To Formation, Look For The Signs' and am enjoying it. This is a single from it.

Nadia Reid- 'Call the day':


Unless you are living under a rock, you would know that Adele has released a new track off her forthcoming LP '25'.  I watched the clip, around 14-15 hours after it was released and it had already gained over 7 million views on you tube! Over 500,000 people gave the track a 'thumbs up' and just over 5,000 didn't like it. I wonder if it meant the other 6.5 million were all apathetic listeners? I think I need to give it a couple more listens to decide were I sit. I checked this a day later and the the track had over 50 Million views. I checked it again around a fortnight later and it had just under 226 Million views!  (yes, 226 million!). Now, around a month after release, the track has had almost 485 Million Views! Yep, wow!  As for the song, I think I am still undecided on how I feel.

Adele- 'Hello'



As part of cassette day (yep, you read right), I finally bought Courtney Barnett's Lp "Sometimes I sit and think and sometimes i just sit' I bought it on cassette, I think 300 copies were made. Here is as song from it called 'Depreston'. This has really grown on me and I really like it. This video is live from the great "A take-away show' series.

Courtney Barnett - 'Depreston' (live):




Jessica Pratt. I stumbled across this next song and can't stop listening to it! Her voice is so intriguing and the lyrics have some great moments. The clip is a fan made one.

Jessica Pratt- 'Back, baby':



Other songs I seem to be connecting with emotionally at the moment:

I have been re-listening to Laura Marling's gorgeous Lp 'Once I was an eagle'. This track is so captivating.

Laura Marling- 'Love be brave'



I have always loved this next song and never realised till recently that the great Jimmy Webb wrote it!
Nina Simone is amazing full stop!
Nina Simone - 'Do what you gotta do'



There are some Modest Mouse songs that I really really like and then there are the rest which I want to like... This track is one I really like and is off the Lp with one of the best titles ever (and has great cover artwork)-  'Good news for people who love bad news'.

Modest Mouse- 'Ocean breathes salty'



It is no secret that I love Neko Case. This next track is just so damn good. I play it on repeat. It is from the LP 'The worse things get, the harder I fight, the harder I fight, the more I love you'

Neko Case- 'Calling cards'



Many years ago, I stumbled across Laura Veirs and really loved her voice.  I kind of forgot about her after a time and recently found her again This track is off the 2005 lp 'Year of Meteors'

Laura Veirs - 'Secret someones'?






All copyright belongs to the respective artists.

"Are our rights as a person, different to our obligations?" & “Who dares judge difference?”

Here are two articles I have written as part of my 'work for the dole' (slave labour) activity.

"Are our rights as a person, different to our obligations?"

At the end of the Second World War, as a reaction to the atrocities which occurred, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were created to ensure such things never happened again. But how successful have we been as a species, or as individuals, in abiding by these articles? How many of us have read the declaration or are aware of it's existence?

 Article 1. states that "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood". There are 30 articles, amongst these it is stated that we have a right to live without discrimination and to live safely, we have the right to a standard of living, a right to education, a right to freedom of thought, a right to practice our beliefs, and that we have a right to seek asylum in other countries from persecution (e.g. to escape from those not abiding by these Articles). But, these are not just our rights to receive, they are also our obligations in treating others.

As a species, we seem to have habit of scapegoating or underplaying our actions and behaviours when we need to justify behaving poorly. In my time working in the family violence field, I came across some perpetrators of family violence who tried to justify hurting the ones they loved, by making comments such as 'I wouldn't have done it, if they didn't keep pushing my buttons',  'They are always provoking me' or 'I'm having a hard time at work, I come home and I want respect. This is the only way they understand'. These people who crossed over moral lines (as well as crossing lines of legal/criminal behaviour), could have been your neighbour, relative, boss, work colleague, friend or … you get my point.  While you or I may not have committed violence against a loved one, chances are that we have acted poorly in some way at some point in our lives. Our behaviour could have been direct- talking poorly to or about others, perhaps we acted in a way which intentionally stopped another from obtaining something they wanted or needed, or even physically hurt them? Or we could have acted indirectly by intentionally ignoring a situation. Perhaps our apathy or lack of action was taken as silent approval of others poor behaviour, which may have then also encouraged that behaviour to continue? However we have behaved, chances are that we have tried to justify this, even though we knew it was wrong (we may even have been ashamed of it), and it is likely to have been behaviour that we would not wish done to us. The question is, why do we do it?

Why do we at times, feel that we can act outside of our obligations to treat others with dignity and which is not in the spirit of brotherhood? Instead, we act in ways which are essentially immoral. In ways in which we would not want to be treated, nor have our loved ones treated.  And then there is this- we prefer to see those we act poorly towards, as being seen as 'less than human', as being “deserving” of our poor behaviour? Sometimes we demonise others or see them as a threat.

 

During the Second World War, the Nazis probably found it easier to treat their fellow humans inhumanly by seeing them as something other than human and as being “deserving” of what was done. "This is not the same' I hear you yell out in anger. It isn't, but it is. It boils down to something fundamental about the way we view others and treat them, which is contrary to the way in which we would wish to be treated. It is also about our attempts to justify this behaviour.

The atrocities of the Second World War, affected us as a species so strongly that we vowed never to allow such things to happen again, not to us or our loved ones. But sadly, when it comes to those we think poorly of, or have prejudices against, we appear to find it easy to justify skirting around or stepping over the lines of right and wrong. Perhaps the Universal Declaration of Human Rights needs to include some articles on self reflection and exploration of where our feelings of anger, prejudice and hatred stem from (and then some additional articles on our responsibility to safely work through the these issues, to minimise their impact on others). It doesn't make sense that we would treat someone/s we didn't know or hadn't had any contact with, in a manner which suggested that had personally done the most heinous of things to us. It doesn't make sense to me that we would treat a stranger in a manner different to how we would want to be treated. But maybe that is just me?

matthew schiavello

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights can be found at:

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Who dares judge difference?”

When someone is born different, there can be many different reactions from other people, reactions such as acceptance, outrage, anger, love, joy, happiness, pity, shame, loathing, condemnation, to name but a few. Why? Often those that claim to be the most devout can have the strongest reactions. When these reactions are positive and lift people up, when they create an atmosphere of acceptance and love for who people are, this can be a wonderful thing that can enrich a community and can assist people in becoming the best person that they can be. But, when people are hated and hurt (physically, emotionally and/psychologically) just because of who and how they are, questions arise such as: why is this occurring? How does it effect the community, is this ok and how benefits from this negative behaviour?

Some differences can be easily seen and others not so easily. People may have been born without a limb/s, with poor or no vision, people may have been born thinking or feeling differently. There are lots of ways that people can be different. Mind you, this statement is itself preposterous, as no one is born the same or identical, we are all different, even identical twins have different fingerprints. Some people see certain differences as being acceptable or unacceptable. The question is - who is to say which differences are acceptable or unacceptable?

When people say others are born wrong, or are an abomination, who are these people to judge? Who has a right to treat others poorly as a result of perceiving their 'difference' as being 'wrong'? For those that are religious or devout, If a divine creator created us, and made us just as we are, who has a right to judge what the creator has created, who dares label the creator's creation as 'wrong'?

The question that comes from all of this is- What kind of a community would we want our children and loved ones to live in? One filled with love and acceptance, where people are shown how to love others for who they are, or a community in which your children and loved ones are judged, where they may try and hide their 'difference' (for fear of being judged), where they may worry and dread the consequences of being seen as 'different'?

Matthew Schiavello 2015.

All copyright matthew schiavello 2015 (doesn't really need to be said does it? as copyright is implied the moment I put my creative work out into the world).

Great news for us men, we still earn more than women. In other news scrotoplasty demand set to skyrocket!

On the 27th of October, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the “Characteristics of Employment, Australia, August 2014” and the breaking news is that women still earn a lot less than men. While this was true for all age groups, women aged between 35-44 can expect, on average, to earn $642 a week, less than men. It seems that this a good time to be a man!

Some have cheekily speculated that this may prompt an increased demand for gender reassignment surgery. Savvy females are expected to make a mad rush towards scrotoplasty as they chase equal pay! The desire to make the same money as males is not limited  by age. Edna Crabapple, 58 of Thornbury, stood at the front of her local greengrocer and yelled at passing males-“I want what you have and I won't take no!” Jerry Hallwell, 29 of Berwick, feels this may be a much easier way to finally get a pay rise and at the same time lessening her workload! Ms Hallwell said “I was going to apply yet again for a promotion at work, but worried the many hours I would put into preparing for the interview, would again come to naught due to competing against males. I have always lost to my male colleagues in the past, who did half as much work, were less qualified and were half as bright!” Ms Hallwell feels that you need balls to get ahead in business and instead of whinging and having things stay the same, she has decided to take the bull by the proverbial, and to make change by changing! Jane Manse, 38 of  High St, North Fitzroy (who would like to remain anonymous), has always felt that she was in the wrong gendered body and worries that the gender reassignment surgery she has been putting off, due to binge watching her favourite television programs on Crapflix, will now be even further away as the expected raising demand for surgery blows waiting lists out.

This will come as good news for share holders in publicly listed gender reassignment surgerys/ boutiques. Jeff Hood, CEO of 'Snip and Stitch' who's motto is 'fixing what God botched', has denied this article is a beat up designed to boost flagging stock prices. Males unable to read between the lines, see this as a great opportunity for the smart male to invest their extra $642 per week, into well performing and future blue chip stock - Snip and Tuck Limited. There is some bad news though for women hoping to jump on the gravy train of malehood, unfortunately gender reassignment surgery is expensive and not covered by medicare.

When asked why such important surgery is not included under medicare, the honourable ex Prime Minister A Butt, has been quoted as saying “If this expensive procedure was funded through medicare, people may take advantage of the system and we could have an explosion of people changing genders willy nilly". His esteemed Liberal predecessor supported this view and felt that people changing genders willy nilly, or doing anything willy nilly at the tax payers expense, was un-Australian. He then hastily added,  unless of course the person was an elected official representing the people. 

Janice Jones, manager at the Department of Births, Deaths and Marriages, worries that her department is already overworked and the significant increase in workload, due to updating the gender in birth certificates, would be too much for her small department to handle. "Being a small department, the increase in work would be too much for us",She is quoted as saying. Barry Hogg from the Department of Human Suffering, says he can help. “We can assist Mrs Jones', née Hogg's, department, by sending them some illiterate and ill-matched-to-the-role job seekers as part of 'the work for the dole program'". Mr Hogg added "As they are only paid an hourly rate of 70 cents or less, and are forced to participate or else have their unemployment payments cut off, these lazy bludgers are a godsend for my mates and siblings in businesses, who shouldn't have to pay minimum wage, especially when it impacts on their profit margins!", he later corrected himself and said that he meant to say that the work for the dole program provides cost effective employment and skills training for the unemployed and makes them 'job ready'. 

Getting back to medicare, male feminists have joined in on the call for medicare to cover gender reassignment surgery. Mary Craig told us that many other men in his biweekly sewing-circle group, share his hope that they can one day finally, really feel what it is like to be a women oppressed by the patriarchy. When asked if he realised that he would be effectively taking a $642 a week pay cut as a female, Mr Craig spluttered "no" as he dropped a stitch. He then added that it could be just as effective to imagine what it is to be like a woman, than actually having surgery to be one.

matthew schiavello. 2015.

Written by me, matthew schiavello for my compulsory 'work for dole' activity. I own all copyright (2015). I am 'paid' 69 cents an hour to participate in this compulsory activity, which is writing for 'community' publications. Unfortunately my activity has no training attached, they know nothing about me or my work/education background (luckily for me I took some journalism subjects back in university). I have to write and submit at least one article a week for use in one of two particular publications. For my compulsory 15 hours of work a week (and article submission/s), I am paid a total of $10.40. Outside of this, I also am looking and applying for actual jobs which are a 'good fit' for my skills and temperament.  I have no idea why these jobs (writing for community publications) are not going to journalists, or even student journalists and paying them an appropriate wage!  Why is our government creating and supporting such exploitative programs?

We seem to live in a civilised society which thinks it is acceptable to exploit the disadvantaged and the creative. Why are jobs being taken out of the job market and filled instead with forced slave labour? Who benefits from people being paid  69 cents an hour?  I hear support in the media and on talk back radio, for these 'work for the dole' programs, why aren't we or our government instead focusing on creating jobs and/or helping people find jobs which are a good fit for them, which treat them with respect and dignity and which pays a fair living wage? Isn't that the Australian thing to do, rather than encourage and support forced slave labour?

If you know of any jobs going in the community sector which have a creative element to them, which are supportive and respectful of the disadvantaged and which pays a fair living wage, please keep me in mind! 

My resume is on Linked in: matthew-schiavello

My artistic/creative folio is here:  http://www.matthewschiavello.com/

Matthew.