Judith Wright Centre - Thu Sep 6

The term "multimedia artist" usually inspires slight reservation. And rightly so, the use of multimedia in art is so pre-foetal in its exploration and execution it can’t hope to compare with the babies of art such as photography or cinema. Linda Neil’s multimedia performance, entitled The New Passion Club, initially sparks fear in this reviewer when she quotes Ani DiFranco, in complete seriousness, alongside Goethe. The stage is scattered with random props, seemingly an outward display of the performer’s inner life, or rather, her bedroom. The show is largely based on song, with Neil taking up violin, guitar or keys to accompany her plainly weak, and at times painful, voice, which could be easily overlooked if her lyrics weren’t taken from the back pages of her high school notebooks; all too often a hackneyed line comes out like the end of Se7en — you know she’s about to rhyme "desire" with "fire" but you just don’t want to believe it. Between songs are some spoken-word pieces, which are about as affecting as ad breaks, and you get the feeling you’ve been dragged along to some cousin’s high school drama piece (your mum has warned you not to call it a play). There is some sloppy and uninspired video art displayed at times, but none of it adds any further dimension to the performance, and I would hazard that it’s more dressing than ingredient. While I hate to guess at Neil’s intentions, her multifaceted approach fails to make her seem as multifaceted as she seems so convinced of being; rather this is art spread too thin to be as weighty as it wants. Showing all sides of a thing really doesn’t give an audience more than a superficial view of sides, when a single perfect line of song or dialogue could reveal oh so much more.

PAUL RANKIN

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