Christopher Howlett has had over ten years experience in the Creative Industries and over five years in the interactive industry. http://www.christopherhowlett.com/index.html When thinking about how to address the complex political, social and aesthetic implications of Chris Howlett's exhibitions, I had something of a flashback of my own and was drawn to revisit Andrew Feenberg's Critical Theory of Technology (1991). As I recalled, this was one of the first books I had read that specifically engaged capitalist, socialist, economic... http://www.christopherhowlett.com/flashbacks.html Chris Howlett continues to examine the way in which meaning is derived from a multiplicity of places, spaces and texts. By making apparent how these complex discursive practices complicate what is meaningful and meaningless, he wants to make us aware of how... http://www.christopherhowlett.com/flashbacksMetro.html In Flashbacks, his recent two-part exhibition at the Brisbane City Hall and Metro Arts, the energetic Chris Howlett attempted to portray the zeitgeist of our manipulated digital social reality and the ambiguous social identities it engenders. The subtext in this ambitious exercise was an exploration of the impact of this world on art, especially in its current post-avant-garde phase... http://www.christopherhowlett.com/flashbacksReview.html Just who was Michael Jackson? A brilliant entertainer, a Peter pan who never grew up or a paedophile? His appearance changed, along with public perceptions. Multiple versions of Jackson live mundane existences in a pink modernist house in artist Chris Howlett's videos. But the soundtrack gives the vision a completely different meaning... http://www.christopherhowlett.com/flashbacksReview2.html Post Studio Arts is a Melbourne based interactive design studio that creates innovative design solutions. PSA is run by Interactive Designer and Creative Director Christopher Howlett. http://www.poststudioarts.com One of the triggers for the work INOUT was a Four Corners documentary on an exclusive Christian fundamentalist sect called the Brethren which was recently televised on the Australian ABC channel. http://www.christopherhowlett.com/inout.html Why the title Lingua Franca?The concept of lingua franca is of a shared language but derived from different languages - and used as a medium for communication between individuals from different heritages or origins.It is also used as a figure of speech for common ideas. http://www.christopherhowlett.com/arcbiennial.html Political art always suffers from a dilemma: as political, it has an argument to make; as art, it must be complex, ambiguous and open to several different interpretations, writes Rex Butler. http://www.christopherhowlett.com/ima.html Art is not a mirror to reflect reality, but a hammer with which to shape it - Bertoldt Brecht. http://www.christopherhowlett.com/ima.html As we know, trends in fashion are constantly developing and changing. Thanks to postmodern theorists like Fredric Jameson1, we also understand that fashion, like culture generally, is a collage of different eras and styles, writes Grant Stevens. http://www.christopherhowlett.com/thefarm.html The "Hire Me Out" project which took place in Los Angeles was a time based project that ran from 1999 till the end of 2000. It was a conceptual-performance based project that used a situational approach to examine the artist "labour" as a form of "artwork" and brought into question the role of the artist as Author. http://www.christopherhowlett.com/hiremeout.html