James Newitt 'altered state' By Craig Judd

In this work, James Newitt juxtaposes footage of three performances. They are all singers, that the performers are Africans who live in Tasmania, lends the work a power beyond the intimate voyeuristic qualities of the quasi documentary approach adopted by the artist. This nuanced video installation throws into high relief a complex web of recent economic, socio political and art historical issues.

'Altered State' James Newitt 2006

Around the globe music and singing are about the broad social expression of life experience. They are said to have therapeutic value, they are survival tools. Music and singing make people happy. In theory at least, everyone has a voice, their own sound. In the home cultures of Fabio, Aurelia and Alfred, singing is innately linked to family and to community. Usually involving an extended series of call and response, waiting and listening then reply, in altered state however, the performances are strangely singular and introverted. The performances are staged in the drab and rudimentary domestic environments of 1950’s and 60’s style government housing. Here, we become witnesses in the processes of strategic remembrance (Fabio, Aurelia) and perhaps forgetting (Alfred). The latter sings “original” rap in his mothers lounge room while the former are re-enacting and re experiencing events from the past. James Newitt’s work makes the subject position of both performer and audience one of dis-ease. There is no moment when the self consciousness of the singer and non singer disappears. The absence of subtitles and the split screen format is calibrated to emphasise this quality of awkward separateness.

At present Tasmania is now home to about 1000 people from Africa. Since 1960 severe political crisis (over 30 wars) is the condition of the African continent. With a few notable exceptions, the tenets of liberal democracy- the rule of law, citizens’ rights to regular elections, free expression and association have been shown to be a post colonialist fantasy. In the twenty first century we have become inured to the new languages of post colonialism. Whether it be state sanctioned or caused by civil wars, forced eviction of peoples or as it is politely known, “population transfer”, is commonplace. In altered state the performers are refugees from Sierra Leone, Sudan and Zimbabwe.

What survives, what grows in the wake of immigration? While radical dislocation and displacement have been popular formalist art tools since the 1970’s, this video demands consideration of the psychic and cultural effects of radical dislocation and displacement on refugees from Sierra Leone, Sudan and Zimbabwe.

In this case, it is glib to state that isolation is merely a state of mind. The denial of black white relations, imprisonment and exile are leitmotifs in the cultural history of Australia. Geographically Van Dieman’s Land/Tasmania is even more isolated from the rest of the World than Australia itself. So it goes without saying how weird things are in this singularly conservative, white bred state of Tasmania. Is this place, the hope of a better life?