An unnamed woman alone in an apartment conducts an increasingly panicked conversation on the telephone with the man she loves, but who has abandoned her for another. Her assumed fortitude gradually crumbles…
It’s not been a long year for arts and culture – at least, not on The Conversation. We launched the section on October 28, sneaking in at the end of festival season like someone who sneaks in at the end…
I spent most of 2013 living overseas and from afar Australia’s beauty and its fault lines came into sharp focus. In my reading I found myself searching for insight, and three Australian stories stood out…
I’ve nominated these eBooks as notable publications in 2013 based on three criteria. First, I enjoyed reading them enough to finish the whole text on a digital device. Second, they use the digital format…
I love writing and reading Games Of The Year posts. It’s so nice to just once every year be given the liberty to think back on the games you played, not forward to the games you might play in the future…
From limited theatrical releases to the queer film festival circuit – and being refused classification – 2013 has seen films with LGBT content distributed to audiences by a variety of means. Box office…
What follows is not a “best-of” list and is by no means conclusive – but these are some of the Australian TV shows that stood out for me in 2013. Top of the Lake Top of the Lake is a seven-part mini-series…
This exhibition is not just about art, it is about us: the land, the sea, our ancestors. Those words were spoken by Waka Munungurr, ceremonial leader and senior custodian, Djapu clan, at a preview viewing…
Oddly enough and against trend – all those Scandinavian crime novels bobbing up in translation – I spent most of the year travelling Australia in crime fiction. From East (Peter Cotton’s Canberra in Dead…
Warning: this is not a list of the best movies of 2013. There were plenty of movies released this year that stirred up debates about cinema and who makes it. They were the ones that made me sit up and…
Australian improvising trio The Necks – pianist Chris Abrahams, drummer Tony Buck and bass player Lloyd Swanton – recently released their 17th album, Open. Although the three began playing together in…
The Counselor is a collaboration between one of the last century’s literary greats, novelist Cormac McCarthy, and one of the filmmakers who has helped define contemporary, mainstream American cinema, director…
The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in Melbourne recently opened what may be its most ambitious exhibition: Melbourne Now, on display until March 23 2014. It features hundreds of works selected by 30…
Just outside the level-two gallery at the Ian Potter Museum of Art in Melbourne, four black and white photographs capture young Aboriginal men posing with intricate designs on their shoulders, torsos…
We live in exciting times for videogame development. The rapidly growing indie game scene has started to provide an antidote to the creative stagnation of the now mature videogame industry. One such game…
Bogans are here, there and everywhere; the word is a cover for any concept you can imagine. That Nathan Tinkler – the former mining magnate, once considered Australia’s youngest ever billionaire – made…
Super Discount – currently playing at Melbourne’s Malthouse Theatre – is the latest work by Geelong-based Back to Back Theatre company. The project launched to great critical acclaim at the Sydney Theatre…
On Saturday night, Andrew Upton’s production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot opened at the Sydney Theatre Company (STC) – without provoking the executors of the Irish playwright’s estate to anger…
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne