Culture and Value

This is an experiment in finding the symbolic potency of objects.

Please answer the following questions in your own words.

1. Imagine a device like a microwave. You can put objects in this device and turn it on and the device will transmute the objects into twenty four carat gold. This device is mass produced and fairly ubiquitous. How would the world be changed by this device?

2. What is value? How is value significant? How does what you value differ to what your neighbour values? What are values?

3. Look at a beer can. How is it unique in relation to other objects like it? How is it similar?

4. If I told you that this can was used during nuclear experiments related to the effects of radiation on fluids, would your perception of beer can be altered?

5. If I melt the beer can down and make a coin out of it is it more or less valuable?

6. Draw a circle. This circle is a coin. What kind of pictures should go on the coin?

7. Find some mud. Is the mud of value? Take off your clothes and dive into the mud. Cover yourself in it. The mud changes you. Have you changed the mud?

8. Combine two of the following objects: a meat pie, a bottle cap, an onion, a pineapple ring, a thong, a bullet and/or a beetroot. Is the whole greater than the sum of its parts?

9. In what ways is a seagull like a crocodile?

10. Which is more valuable: a seagull or a crocodile?

11. If a butterfly flapping its wings can cause a tornado on the other side of the world, what are the ramifications of nuclear warfare?

12. Explain how you understand the term “alchemy”.

13. Explain how you understand the term “Australian culture”.

By Kieron Broadhurst

... Live bull ant, meat pie, spinifex, aura of Barry Humphries, used Le snack, melted Caromelo Koala, Tazo, petrol Ignition from Madmax’s interceptor, unknown algae, hand worn granite,polished coal, cocktail flag, iron ore from Hancock Prospecting, Naru, Madden Bros, earth, beer can with bullethole,Bottlecap, Mt Everest vs Kosiozko comparison, scrimshaw gum nut, anything with Ned Kelly’s face, Anything with Warnies face, water, asbestos, onion, scrimshaw Concrete, Oak, Australian coin super animal, nail from Moondyne Joes cell, forgetting history, aboriginal flag on anything, Manus island made of suit, Chopper Reids tattoos, eucalyptus oil, grass tree resin on images of Kyle Manoge, fragments of Kathy Freedman’s shoes, irradiated fragments of British nuclear test sites in Australia, the exact amount of a hawaiian pack at Red Rooster, Sex Wax with sand and suncream, John Howards eyebrow, Eureka stockade renactment actors sweat, suncream on seatbelt, Solo, Pasito,Passiona, Chikoroll package, burnout on bitumen, roadkill, Meteorites from the nullabor,anything with skippys face on it, The dad from Round the Twist,black swan feather,blue metal with human blood and flesh, blue tongue lizards kissing, Skippy in the NT eating a meat pie and cooling it off with a chiko roll,opal 5c piece, Chunks of Bon Scotts Freo prison cell, George Calombaris teeth, Samboy bbq flavour, wool wrapped around rice, Kronosaurus teeth,Shark skin signed by Mick Fanning, shark shield, Sunburnt british tourists skin, Dropbear claw, suncream on eye ball, blisters from burnt feet at the waterford plaza shops on a really hot day when you forgot your thongs, thongs, broken thongs, the smaller knife from Crocodile Dundee, crocodile something, artesian basin water, Scale versions of Midnight Oil sorry outfit, the head of the sea gull that stole your last chip, cyborg hand, petrol, yarra river water, bullets made from any statue on swanston st, 7/11,beetroot slices,frozen tinned pineapple, ute, beetroot portraits of priministers, tarp, sun bleached image of Dawn Fraser with the words “don’t look back”, meat pie stain on footy shorts, Hut river coins as official currency, cuttlefish, sheep pellets, Hi-vis, golden brick, holden + ford, rats tail, billabong + rip curl, cane sugar on flood water, cracked mud on salt, salt covered tree root, live snake, killa python, stubbed toe, eye brow piecing in dad’s farm soil, powerade bong cone piece, Boodgie Mick + Johnno B Biscut + Tony Hardy , bits of soap from Tanah Marah the commune turned spa retreat, rusted barbwire with blood with high alcohol content, breathalyser straw, water replacement fluid, all raw materials mined from the Australian continent joined together with tomato sauce, bin tang half filled with pool water, swan river jellyfish,The breath of air after a two wave hold down, mullets, Bore water mixed with rain water, sea ulcer with suncream, gravel rash elbows, transperth seat covering, the eyes of tram guards, Stalegmite from the cave under Two rocks, Aboriginal flag on anything, Sydney 2000 Olympics mascots, something simultaneously racist and unintentionally homoerotic, Joe Hockey coin that is just debt,Something that increases in value when digested,Emu War,Yowie,tim tam slammer,100 grams of Milo, The Ferals, The Veronicas,kurrajong seeds, Itchy bombs, Puffballs, Blood sweat and beer,Crushed Export tins, Hubcaps from a 2001 Toyota Carola…