Present Encounters : Papers from the conference of the Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, 1996

Contrasting with this range of rich ideas and insights of artists, as well as the way in which they are communicated in this exh ibition , I have over the last eighteen months, been acutely aware in Hong Kong, Australia, China and Vietnam of the dominance of what I was looking at (i .e. art works) by other images from far afield, usually from television and mostly of sport. I need , therefore, to explain my 'threat to the role of the arts and a l l that is important to l ife' scenario, that is, a threat to things of importance spiritually, cultura l ly, economically and pol itically. Slide of World Cup football match There are many challenges to the role of the arts and the work of artists, however, I refer here only to the most common and most menacing which is world sport, rea lised and championed through the reach of global terrestrial and satellite television. This is not in fact a new concern . George Orwell in his 1 945 essay, 'The Sporti ng Spirit' contrasts the base fascination with , and complex power relationships on and off the field , of competitive nation vs. nation sports events. Slide of Hanoi domestic satellite dish For example, over the last five years i n Hanoi, access to international sporting fixtures via satel lite television has risen from nothing to widespread coverage . The d ifference between 1 945 and now is that the entrepreneurs in this particular arena have got smart designing for i ntegration of the structure of their sports events i nto the technology of a ubiquitous del ivery system . Slide o f PNG satellite dish I am, of course, referring to the competition the arts are having , and I believe losing, with other forms of experience generation and value formation. This is a serious dilemma as i ndividual artists throughout the Asia-Pacific reg ion are coming up against competition from i nternational consortia that g lobally source and distribute information ideas and values. Slide of car race from Race Cam For me, the APT demonstrates two important things in relation to the role of the artist . Firstly, the creation of important orig inal works of art is well in hand, and secondly, the fact that relationships between individual artists and major institutions can facilitate projects of a scale and style which are of interest to a very broad cross section of the public. Works have been imagined and developed both theoretical ly and practically, and then realised specifically because of this faci litating relationship. In a sense these artists and this i nstitution need each other to achieve this complementary (dare I say possibly competitive) advantage. The next step in bolstering an artist's role in the communication area might be to shape up to the demands and potential of a broadcast media. Here I am not referring, for example, to the i nternet or specific new technologies but rather to conventionally u nderstood mass media. Slide of Goal Post and Stump Cam from Singaporean Television One of the technologies, of course, that puts sport at the forefront of public broadcasting is an invention l ike Goal Post Cam or Stump Cam. So, relati ng back to the arts, this may require , as was the case with cricket, an evolved form of media-responsive works combining technological developments that can relay the essential experiences to mass audiences. I should mention that i n the abstract of this paper I was only half joking about the suggestion of 'Paint Brush Cam'. I do not want to suggest artists be wholly institution bound , however, it is sobering to note that regard less of what we think, the current survivors in the global competition for ideas generation and agenda setting are themselves merging into even bigger delivery u nits that can command sufficient resources to finance and exploit global technologies. Slide of Metro Media Technologies, Brisbane 57