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The Forum > Article Comments > Art and child p*rnography > Comments

Art and child p*rnography : Comments

By Kathy Keele, published 4/2/2010

Mention art and p*rnography together and people immediately position themselves at opposite ends of the room.

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"...genuine artistic expression".

this article put up against peter sellsiks pathetic crowing today, to me sees australia moving even more and more to the neo christian moralistic right than its been (since half heartedly, and for a brief moment, in the 1980s and early 90s we actually took an interest in a diversity of cultural expression)

it will take a great deal of effort to claw any sense of sanity and rationalism back into the centre of australian life, and perhaps never actually, perhaps we are now and will ever be a society regulated by madmen (and women :
Posted by E.Sykes, Thursday, 4 February 2010 9:43:09 AM
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Child pornography is horrible.

This comment is not exactly about child pornography, but it is certainly about a form of sado-masochistic pornography that is widely championed by "conservative" religionists all over the world.

Many children were no doubt taken by their parents to see it.

It is even framed with the words "good news".

The many images to be found on this site are pure sado-masochistic pornography.

http://www.spiritlessons.com/PassionofChristPictures.htm

It is also interesting to note that the former head man of the Vatican, who has now been nominated as a saint, used to indulge in mortification of his body in order to become more "spiritual".
He was also reported at the time of the above film, to have said "that is how it happened".

Never mind that NONE of that is "reported" in the Bible.
Posted by Ho Hum, Thursday, 4 February 2010 11:39:57 AM
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Given kathy Keele's position on an government council, the old bureaucratic predilection for interference and control has risen to the surface.

"While the freedom of artistic expression is important to preserve, it comes with responsibilities"

Read: it needs to be limited,

"genuine artistic expression"

Read: Whatever a panel of political appointees find appropriate.

"and obtain appropriate consents"

Read, pay the above panel to give the nod, (which given the consequences of them letting anything controversial through, means the strictest interpretation of the law.)

Given it takes lots of money and up to 2 years for council approval on building plans, this is recipe not just for censorship, but to block all controversial work.

The simplest thing to do would be to clearly define what is child pornography and legal responsibilities to children, and allow the artists to work within this.

Governmental interference in art will mean that the only good art comes from overseas.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Thursday, 4 February 2010 11:56:23 AM
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This is a reasoned, reasonable argument. Apart from the opening I tend to agree with it.
Being who I am, I see all art in its prevailing time context, purpose, skill in which it was created (intrinsic worth)

Clearly I take a different view of "art" than the author and therefore, have limited sympathy for artists freedom of expression as an argument for defense against pornography charges and or special consideration for grants.
To me the role of art has changed from the times of the say Vézère valley artists, there their purpose was an attempt to control their little understood world.
Hieronymus Bosch, painted in a time where art, specifically Church are was to inspire awe and doctrine to the illiterate masses.

Late Turner and such were experimenting in techniques but by this time art had become a form of entertainment much like movies.
Contemporary, abstract art tends to follow this mould, patchy,with the added feature overly self importance often bordering on esotericism and elitism. Where the emphasis is on its creator, provenance not the artifact per se. This includes subsequent artificial pecuniary value. i.e. Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol et al. This is easily testable
I posit that art today is entertainment should be viewed as such. Not as some mystical spiritual event.

It is from this perspective, I say that art (entertainment) should have limitation. Like everyone else they are entitled to push the boundaries go too far then like speeding they have the right to suffer for their 'art' but why should everyone else. I would challenge anyone in simple terms to point out the intrinsic worth cultural, informational of nude photos of children with out referring to esoterica.
Absolute rights in anything don't exist everything is a compromise , the trick is finding the balance. On that level I in theory agree with the harmonizing of the laws.
Posted by examinator, Thursday, 4 February 2010 12:24:48 PM
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Shadow,
Emotion knows no logic,consistency or objectivity? Is there something I missed?
What was the point you are making in the first and last sentences?
They seem either party political or inconsistent with your philosophic basis and your stance in everything else.
You seem to be saying that art is something special above all other reasoning.
"Governmental interference in art will mean *that the only good art comes from overseas*."< Isn't that a consequence of the both the basis of capitalism (survival of the fittest) principal and practice of international trade (fittest = might)? This post seems in *principal* diametrically opposite to your argument in GM seed.
Posted by examinator, Thursday, 4 February 2010 12:59:19 PM
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Ex,

There is a clear delineation between what is illegal and what is offensive. I support the government and police in preventing what is illegal, but when they stray into protecting the public from what may be offensive, they have crossed the line to restricting basic human rights.

When Bill Henson displayed his photos, there was a outcry from a vocal minority, and Rudd stepped in and set the police on the gallery. Shortly after that the police informed the press that the photos in no way infringed the child pornography laws, and the photos were put back on display.

After the Rudd gov got egg on it face, it would appear that it is trying to change the way the game is played. By making it a requirement to get consent, the artist can be prosecuted for not getting consent even if there is legally nothing wrong with his work.

Given that any consent is unlikely if there is chance of public outcry, this is a de facto censorship of anything that is not politically correct.

Given that art is often used to push the boundaries, all that will be left is banality. The Australian film studios are beset with the same PC requirements which is partially why the film "Australia" was such a dud.

As I said, all that is required is simplification of what can legally be done with children and what cannot. It is then up to the police to punish those that over step the boundaries. Having some mindless bureaurocrat deciding what I can see based on what he thinks may be offensive is anathema to me.

With GM, the state governments were controlling the farmers on what was politically correct, and not the scientific evidence. I see no conflict.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Thursday, 4 February 2010 3:02:17 PM
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I suppose it's only natural that this
debate will be divided into two camps -
those who will be against any restriction
of "artistic license" and those who will
defend the protection of children.

Art is such a subjective issue. And in this
case - it involves children - so its sure
to be even more emotive. However, The Australia
Council did invite opinions from a wide variety
of sources before coming up with the protocols.
They tried to collect a balance of many points
of view - and they did it with as balanced a
consultation as was possible. The Australia
Council has also committed to review the protocols
after the first 12 months of operation.

I'm sure that if during this time artists are dissatisfied
with what's being done - the media will hear of it soon
enough. The protocols are a condition of receiving
Australia Council funding - and for this reason alone,
the Council is entitled to impose its protocols - it
didn't have to consult anyone prior to doing so, but
the fact remains - that it did.

I don't see what else it could have done, and why the
storm in a teacup now?
Posted by Foxy, Thursday, 4 February 2010 6:34:12 PM
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I like your post 'zam.

There is so much that could be said about this topic and all the issues related to it.

The success of a lot of art nowadays depends on marketing and media strategy. I think there are a few examples around where people have taken the mickey out of pretentiousness and excesses of self-importance, where it exists, in the arts community - like someone having an elephant or a monkey paint and submitting them for critical review - the reviewers raved, not knowing the work was produced by zoo creatures.

Commercialization on one hand funds a lot of art that we all want to see and appreciate; on the other it cheapens a lot as well. For example, the UK and NY examples of scatalogical pics and sculptures that were successful recently; the fella who was squashing rats against canvas and so on - all so much theatrical nonsense and if it contributes anything to the cultural fabric it might be the sad testimony of what passes for creativity.

Long ago art production was carried out as a craft and as trade businesses with apprentices and assistants; artists worked their way towards artistic freedom meeting at least some standards along the way. Somewhere along the way we began to over value the publicity/ marketing of shock, and devalued the knowledge and skill foundation that one established before fame or notoriety.

As for the Bill Henson ilk; I think they should be charged with causing terminal boredom. To me he is just some old bloke with too much hobby time on his hands who learned how to press the button on a digital camera and market the (very predictable) results as 'cutting edge'. Personally I think the public is way past being 'shocked' with the same old fare
Posted by Pynchme, Friday, 5 February 2010 12:44:14 AM
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Shadow
Sorry this issue is beyond the antics of a politician to garner the conservative vote. Unlike Mad Monks crass attempt.

I'm taking about the principals on which you base your moral opinions.
Push the boundaries? of what? pornography?
banality ? If we don't have unbounded pornography we have cultural banality?

For your point to be valid/ make sense pornography has to be a means of political discourse. What was the political point Henson was making?
Pornography in art a la Henson is 'entertainment' and/or bad public manners. There are better ways to make a point.

Conversely Kim Phuc photographed fleeing her burning South Vietnamese village in 1972 is clearly the best way to show the horror terror etc.
www.bagofnothing.com/.../phan_thi_kim_phuc2.jpg

Kim Phuc's photo would hardly engender any sexual connotations but it's point is clear, Henson? in his case art is an excuse.

How do you legislate the difference? It has to be a balancing act
The article was about the practice of reasonable practices/process to achieve that.

Vocal minority ? who told you that? I must have missed that referendum.. perhaps you mean media polls?

How many ways do you want them discredited as being accurately representative of All the public.?

"Australia" was a dud because it was a mediocre melodrama. In the final analysis it says more about the skills/judgement of those who made it. And largely irrelevant to the topic.
Artist's if he accept government's largess it comes with public agendas they either get smart sell a better product or go elsewhere.
Governments are supposedly bound to represent the interests of the nation not pick winners. That's the purpose of private enterprise. Supply and demand!
Posted by examinator, Friday, 5 February 2010 8:04:32 PM
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Does anyone out there recognise the frightening hypocrisy of a society that willfully exposes children to the pornography of violence and prematurely sexualises children in the public arena, promotes distorted images of desirable body shapes, then beats up artists such as Bill Henson for representing the intensity and confusion of adolescence?

Rudd's response to Henson's work was visceral and unmediated by aesthetic distance. I might suggest that he was responding to the power of the images to represent what this society is doing to its children. That is, to my mind, the key issue here, and the primary concern is the warped constructs we have developed around human sexuality that create the sick minds of those who get caught up in child pornography.

There will always be a percentage of humans whose souls are so damaged they can rationalise and justify the evil they do, and those people need to be removed to a place where they can do less harm. But why should we all live in fear of the moral police for the sake of these few? What next? Are we going to put lap-laps on cherubs?

As a society, we need to address the daily small evils we do before we become as sick as them. We flood our children's senses with ugliness from the moment they are born. Don't you think its time to choose beauty instead? It is not artists the authorities should be moralising at, but the advertising industry and media that exploit and prematurely sexualise children for commercial ends.
Posted by Dr Merlyn, Saturday, 6 February 2010 1:16:33 PM
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Foxy,

I understand that the council does not require approval to apply this new censorship.

However, as it is funded almost entirely from the public purse, and constitutes the majority of art funding, it should not be in the position to make these moralistic judgements.

There is a similar case in the US where fundamentalist politicians have allowed federal funding for abstinence only sex education, in spite of huge evidence that it has no effect on teenage pregnancies, abortions, stds, etc.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Saturday, 6 February 2010 3:31:27 PM
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Examinator,

I feel like I am wrestling with a pig again.

For example having seen Bill Henson's work, which is similar to much of the stuff he has being doing for decades, there were young children without clothes. However, there were no nipples, genitals, come hither looks or anything erotic.

Henson did not even consider that he was challenging any boundaries, it was simply that the boundaries of public opinion have moved.

Yet the blue rinse brigade, (Rudd incl) most of whom had never seen the photos, and who would not know art if it hit them between the eyes, automatically assumed: children + no clothes = child porn.

I have been to many of the art museums in Europe, and there are many art works from centuries ago that today's blue rinse brigade would declare pornographic.

I challenge anyone from the blue rinse brigade here, who has actually seen the actual art works (not just the tiny pics on the net) to tell us what he was trying to portray. I bet you that they are simply making judgements based on here say.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Saturday, 6 February 2010 3:59:58 PM
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Excellent post, Dr Merlyn.
Posted by Severin, Saturday, 6 February 2010 5:08:07 PM
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