Welcome to GR Online, a series of short-form articles that take aim at the moving target of contemporary culture as it’s whisked along the guide rails of innovations in digital media, globalisation and late-stage capitalism.
Postnatural, post-wild, posthuman
RACHAEL: Do you like our owl? DECKARD: It’s artificial? RACHAEL: Of course it is. DECKARD: Must be expensive. RACHAEL: Very. Blade Runner (1982) THE COURSE...
Gifts across space and time
A speak/listen trade will always include things that have never been thought or said before as well as the word gifts I wish to give. When things like this appear in a trade, don’t worry – it doesn’t mean I am making things up or holding information back. I’m not ripping you off! It is a sign there is respect in the speak/listen relationship. It is proof the relationship is alive, growing, and we are learning together. This happens a lot when people meet to talk about culture and cultural things.
The view from here
Pure Land, Maryam Azam MY UNCLE’S COMPACT Suzuki Mehran rolls out of the narrow laneways of Muslim Town. My uncle is...
A letter to Catherine Berndt
Readers are informed that images of deceased persons are included in this essay, which may cause unintentional distress. Catherine and...
Things we want to know but forget to ask
In early 2018, on a hot, humid summer’s day, when even the birds were resting in the shade, a...
Class, identity, justice
THE IMAGE IS strong and striking. It is of a young woman; her face unsmiling, her gaze proud and...
The tyranny of closeness
I REMEMBER ENTERING Krakow for the first time, in 1995. I’d arrived at the train station via Paris, Berlin,...
The art of the salon
WE TYPICALLY THINK of the grandest, most impressive parts of European culture in terms of physicality: castles, palaces, libraries,...
A little moment
Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers and shut thy doores about thee; hide thy selfe as it...
From Bosnia to Australia
IT IS DISTURBING and painful to be told that the world that formed you, held you, has now ceased...
Lords of the ring
VIENNA’S RINGSTRASSE, BUILT from 1865 on the site of the old city wall, has long been derided for its...
Behind the scene
IN THE MIDDLE of the twentieth century, most Australian actors who wished to consider themselves ‘legitimate’ would still have...
