We made the journey to the New Australian Flag gallery one unassuming Thursday afternoon. The gallery can be found on the corner of Barrow and Walsh St, abruptly ending the string of houses along the street. The flagpole that is mounted on the roof offers an example of a ‘new Australian flag’ and is immediately conspicuous when approaching the gallery. After pausing to appreciate the display of various sculptures and flags in the gallery’s shopfront, we followed directions to a door along the side of the building. We needed to firmly knock a few times to get the attention of Arthur (artist-in-residence in the full sense of the phrase); he was busy composing music inside. Arthur welcomed us in, flicking various light switches on around the room. Virtually every available wall-space was covered with art. Large colourful sculptures crowded the area. We were drawn immediately to a transparent humanoid effigy with printed words plastered to the inside of the cranium. A plasma globe pulsated away at the centre of the head.
Arthur has also made an isomorphic keyboard which, he says, makes playing chords easier, particularly if you haven’t learnt traditional music theory. This is because the intervals are regular and the same for every chord so you don’t actually need to learn the notes.
Arthur then showed us a synthesizer program that he created with the aid of a programmer and which takes the form of a touchscreen keyboard. It contains four rows of keyboard notes – this facilitates hand movement in any direction
He shows us several different keyboards, the eeriest of which is a quarter tone keyboard (the keys are so slim that it takes a concentrated effort to hit the right one — Arthur says he’s working on this). This keyboard produces sounds reminiscent of a horror-movie soundtrack, the quarter tones warping into each other in our ears. He shows us his diagrams for the keyboard restructure that are plotted in black and white paint on a clear plastic overlay.
Arthur questions the overly complex nature of traditional theory, in both his music and his visual art. His interest in making a new Australian flag, he says, revolves around doing what makes sense. He refers to the Australian government’s passing of the The Australia Act 1986. This Act marked two significant developments; the High Court of Australia became the highest court of appeal, and the UK could no longer legislate for Australia. Whilst the UK had not been legislating here for decades, and the ability to appeal to the UK Privy Court had been limited since 1975, many see 1986 as the moment where, as previous Chief Justice of the High Court Anthony Mason put it, Australia became ‘masters of our own legal destiny’. Arthur’s new Australian flag designs commonly remove the Union Jack and draws inspiration from the Aboriginal flag.
New Australian Flag:
78 Barrow St, Coburg VIC 3058
The Coburg Meddler 