Filmed at Newington Armory, Oh Industry, 2009, mashes popular culture depictions of factory, military and naval labour with the amusements and distractions of early 20th century modern life. Bette Midler’s performance of the song ‘Oh Industry’ from the film Beaches (1988) and the popular film serial The Perils of Pauline (1914) intersect with conveyor belt choreography to suggest how the machine age and its class structures were shaped during the rise of modernity and industrialisation.
“Daniel Mudie Cunningham takes the machine age and its modes of consumption and production and turns them in upon themselves the way a suicide places the revolver in the mouth. If this were a conscious strategy for resistance based on post-colonial mimesis the tactics locate it somewhere between Gandhi and RuPaul proving that if the road to hell is paved with good intentions then the road out is strewn with yellow bricks.”1
Conceived & Performed by Daniel Mudie Cunningham
Dancers: Elizabeth Ryan, Emma Saunders, Mirabelle Wouters
Choreography: Emma Saunders
Director of Photography: Don Cameron
Editor: Vera Hong
Stills Photography: Pete Volich
Production Assistant: David Wheeler
Wardrobe: Catherine White, Jessica Olivieri
Music: ‘Oh Industry’, vocals: Bette Midler, songwriter: Wendy Waldman, from Beaches Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, Atlantic Records, 1988
Closed session performance at Newington Armory, NSW, 24 April 2009
Exhibited in Oh Industry, MOP Projects, 23 July – 9 August 2009
Exhibited in The Armory Exhibition 2009, curated by Mimi Kelly, The Armory Gallery, Newington Armory, 27 June – 27 September 2009
Exhibited in Oh Industry, Tweed River Art Gallery, February 2011
- 1. Gary Carsley, OH Industry: Piston Perfect (Catalogue), MOP Projects, 2009, unpaginated
