by Diego Ramírez. 

Without an over-the-top tokenism of the organisation or artists involved, an exchange between spaces contributes little to the liberal myth that a 6 x 6 white room can transform the socio-political fabric of reality. The presumption that saying or thinking the “right things” amounts to something is superstitious at best. But maintaining a cultural dialogue between a plethora of spaces is often quite productive. Let’s remember that urban cities in this beautiful country-nent are so distant from each other, that traversing them requires the same effort overseas artists exert to cross national borders. I’m of the humble view that collaborations are best undertaken at random too: one day might be an exchange between artist-run spaces, the other with a collective of buffoons fundraising to train in Paris. I’m sure there’s people out there trying to weave a blanket for Pluto—I want to see that. However, I do not want to see long ass forms coming out of mopey offices called “ARIs”, compulsively asking for details they don’t need. It prevents makers from travelling interstate, sabotaging the range of artistic movement. I am sure Blindside is gentle on the emails and the admin, otherwise it would have been a practical torment to stage this show. (Admin-frantic ARIs are always weirdly inflexible about gallery sitting and installation schedules.)
        CC: Artsworkers, please don’t “arts admin” with a Protestant ethic. Email after email, pedantic requirements and rules displace art making as a priority and centre risk management as the purpose of the exchange—draining pleasure from everything that is alive like a malevolent force, until the entire world turns grey.
        BCC is the title of an exhibition initiated by Naarm/Melbourne-based Blindside, curated by Cool Change in Boorloo/Perth. BCC,standing for blind carbon copy (in case A.I. already fried your brain and you can’t figure out the acronym by yourself), approaches this function as a logic of distance and invisibility, incorporating an unacknowledged presence in a conversation. BCC’s curatorial statement positions this entity as a near familiar presence—rather than an other or a voyeur—that is simply waiting for the chance to become legible, within a shared network. The friend of a friend, the partner’s parents, the corner dweller at the party. These awkward shadows who are destined to become known. It is a relatable theme that speaks to the carpal tunnel syndrome-d reality of our daily lives. Mimicking this dynamic, the curators brought together artists that should-know-each-other or should-be-known to formalise an encounter. The email here is concept and medium, as these far-away artists sent their work via the Internet, avoiding the logistical nightmare of transporting artworks. Although I have never used the BCC function myself, or have been included as a BCC in somebody else’s thread (can’t imagine this ever happening with good intentions), I’m interested in this show’s approach to the email as an all-encompassing force.



Stepping into Blindside’s new premises in North Melbourne—I forgot they moved and initially went to their old address at the Nicholas Building—one encounters six works of eclectic mediums. The layout establishes the act of witnessing and extraction as overarching themes by positioning two moving image works that touch on ecology, North and South of the space. These are Cass Lynch and Mei Swan Lim’s fascinating video Dampland 2 (2024), which addresses Noongar stories as witness accounts of landmass shifts across centuries; and Reece Cahill’s Warholian take on an oil rig shot during sundown called hard times (2021-2026). Facing each other, these videos are a through line that resonates smoothly with Gemma Weston’s WITNESSING (2024-2025), a dizzying mural of A4 prints transcribing social media ‘stories’. This triad stands out as the conceptual core of the exhibition, as the rest of the works appear to be floating in a more tenuous relationship with each other. Thus, the notion of BCC as a witness of extraction is pushed to its limits, making one wonder if we are all blind carbon copies in a totalising email.
        Dampland 2 is an eight minute single-channel video mounted on a humble flat screen with headphones. It consists of Lynch’s voiceover, shots of water flows, layers of iconised waves and an engrossing sound design. The spoken track is about the Swan Coastal Plain in WA and its changing sea levels, distorted through the climate crisis. Lynch invokes traditional Noongar stories to explain the sea level rise by those who experienced it 20,000 years ago. It’s an engaging example of oral traditions and how contemporary artists continue to honour this lineage through experimental techniques. Lim’s atmospheric sound design is generous to the spectator, who may find themselves entranced by Dampland 2. Due to the intimate quality of Lynch’s narration, I felt like I was listening in at times, rather than being the subject of address—an interesting device in the context of BCC.



Cahill’s hard times is more subdued, presenting footage of an oil platform off the coast of WA on a CRT monitor for an hour. Recorded on a static tripod from the shore at dusk, it captures how the night envelops the oil rig until it becomes a series of meaningless lights. The video is reminiscent of Andy Warhol’s Empire (1965), a Super 8 film about the Empire State waking up at night. This style of video-making is inherently slow, presenting a challenge for the artist and the viewer. Cahill’s hard times, like Warhol’s Empire, is about everything that surrounds the object in the frame, rather than the shot itself. We know that when we go to sleep, the oil rig is consuming the soul of the earth. This eerie realisation—registered at any given moment in the punitive economy, and polluted air we breathe—animates the action in the video. There’s so much happening outside the frame, that little occurs within it. hard times triggers this experiential reflection and the embodied realisation that we are immersed in an extractive system.
        WITNESSING by Gemma Weston is a sprawling mural of 268 A4 sheets. The sheets exclusively depict white Comic Sans on a black background, evoking the labeller aesthetic that office workers, zine makers, and punks seem to be fascinated with. Weston’s sheets extend into Blindside’s tucked-away office, and I’m happy to report that it is a small space—the marker of a good ARI (I shall be donating this EOFY). Weston made the text by transcribing social media ‘stories’ for as long as the transmission was on screen. Therefore, advertisements tend to be more detailed. It is a confronting mass because it flattens war crimes with sponsored creams, reflecting the media assault that floods most people’s attention until cognition shuts down. The most banal entries were the most interesting for me, ranging from ‘The White Stripes over a montage of children learning and doing craft activities’ to ‘A baby Jesus statue looks like Phil Collins.’ Trying to read as many of these captions as I could, a portrait of the artist’s algorithm began to emerge: there’s a lot of alternative rock in there. Mixing some entries about arts leadership with bombs, I suddenly felt like I was going through the remnants of a voracious consumption disguised as labour.



The entry that most captured my attention was ‘Tarot reading: The Moon, The Sun, The Wheel of Fortune.’ These promiscuous cyphers dating back to the late Medieval period are floating here without interpretation, despite their capacity to accommodate a wide range of meanings. This line is emblematic of how contemporary users disengage with information, leaving behind a trail of slogans whose function becomes sheer circulation. Such a barrage of un-interpreted “content” encourages a passivity that verges on hypnotism. The tarot reading ironically speaks to this condition, as it displays a never-ending cycle. With the tarot of Marseilles on hand: astral bodies weep as industries hollow the earth at night (The Moon). The economy purports to return these resources in the morning through shitty extractive services, like private/public transport, social media, or A.I.-powered email (The Sun). No choice, forever on repeat, day after day, spinning on a wheel (The Wheel of Fortune). Kill me.
        It is noteworthy that an exhibition about the BCC email function attracted works that spoke to a sense of disaster. One suspects it is becoming increasingly clear that we are data cows in a unified system of exploitation that encompasses public and private enterprises. This logic of extraction influences everyday life too, for it becomes a naturalised protocol that informs how we relate to each other. The oil rig absorbs fuel like the bohemian bureaucrat extracts social capital out of their precious community one email at a time. Everything is take, take, take.

Angus Bowskill, Reece Cahill, Cass Lynch, Mei Swan Lim, Ella Valentine, Gemma Weston, and Clare Wohlnick, BCC, Blindside, 8 July – 1 August 2026.

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Photography by Sebastian Kainey.