The Royal Australian Navy’s Surface Fleet Review: Why it matters

In late February, the long-awaited Independent Analysis into Navy's Surface Combatant Fleet (the Surface Fleet Review) was released. Although the full report is classified, we can glean considerable material from the executive summary alone. Based on the 2023 Defence Strategic Review and conducted in that year’s third quarter, the Surface Fleet Review recognises Australia's "strategic circumstances" require its Defence Force to provide a greater deterrent to potential foes.
Politics0 Comments242 views
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Cubism vs. Chiaroscuro: How Ripley uses art as symbolism

If you haven’t heard of The Talented Mr Ripley before, it’s essentially Saltburn’s predecessor. Written by Patricia Highsmith in 1955, the psychological thriller is a classic ‘eat-the-rich’ narrative, focusing on an aspirational (yet sociopathic) middle-class man trying to muddy his paws in his pursuit to join the bourgeoisie. Recently, a new adaptation of this story, Ripley (2024), has come out, and is available to watch on Netflix (if you have the time and/or can stand slow-paced noir directorial styles).
Film and ProductionVisual Art0 Comments420 views

Taylor Swift, we need to talk

Every so often, I find myself in conversations with acquaintances, friends, and family over the unavoidable topic of Taylor Swift. Unavoidable because, in 2023 and 2024, it seemed as if Swift was everywhere and everything.
Pop CultureVoice0 Comments354 views

Art in the algorithmic age: Navigating creativity amidst hyper-categorization

We’ve all heard of the creation of a ‘persona’ in the world of visual art – think back to the moustache of Salvador Dali, the unibrow of Frida Kahlo, and more recently, the faceless, elusive nature of Banksy. Like the identity cultivation techniques utilized by pop musicians, film directors, and politicians alike – visual artists find themselves questioning their own identities as creatives: does the artist resemble their art? Does the art resemble the artist?
Visual Art0 Comments141 views

Elvis and Priscilla: The known icon and unknown wife

You know him as the King of Rock and Roll. A musical superstar. You’d likely know of his drug addiction struggles and highly documented death. The chaotic and glitzy high-budget musical biography Elvis (2022), directed by Baz Luhrmann, certainly depicts this. However, if you strip back the extravagant set designs and intense choreography, you’re left with a story that has been glossed over entirely in Luhrmann’s Elvis. The raw, real, and gripping story of Priscilla Presley.
Film and Production0 Comments69 views

Wilson Tucker was flung into Parliament. Is he finding his feet?

To say Wilson Tucker was “elected to the WA Legislative Council” in 2021 attributes a certain intentionality to the good folk of the Mining and Pastoral Region that is perhaps undue. For sure, Tucker did win the fifth available seat for the district, fair and square, in an election conducted scrupulously according to the laws of the day. But his constituents can only be said to have “elected” him in the sense they “elected” to stub their toes while walking past their coffee tables that morning. The people spoke, but it came out a bit funny and sounded better in their heads.
Politics0 Comments195 views

Modern sculpture: Seventy-five years since the Leps hoax

Seventy-five years ago today, the staff and students of UWA were treated to a lecture by the esteemed Monsieur Jean Leps. Leps was an up-and-coming Alsatian-American avant-garde modernist sculptor who had only recently burst onto the fine art scene with the release of his book In My Little Finger by Sprunz and Scribner, a New York publishing house. In a stroke of good fortune, the St George’s College Fine Arts Society had managed to procure his services for a brief lecture in Winthrop Hall.
Campus AffairsVisual ArtVoice0 Comments177 views