For the first Marketday stall, (the second and last is here) and second ever public appearance of Aktion Surreal (AS), we got old bits of machinery and computers and bedecked these with meat and offal. Several typewriters made their last stand, in solidarity with some adding machines and old keyboards. Of course our stall was the favourite with the flies attending market day. By the end of the hot February day though, few others were very impressed. Least of all the Christians next to us.
The paintings were by Neil Freeman (link), and these were shown behind the rotting meat and industrial refuse. Mainly either upside down figures or acephals, otherwise known as headless dudes ( the figures were male). You can see some of the paintings in Maria Petriella’s (link) photo above, she was also there. There was a massive bit of machinery out the front – of utterly indeterminate use. For some reason there was string everywhere, maybe to hang meat on. Young Liberals nervously hastened past while Neil snickered.
Phil Crotty (here) also personed the stall. At one point we had to decide what music to play behind the meat and machines. Naturally I had a tape of Einsturzende Neubauten, a German band that played offal, jackhammers, suspension springs and the like. Soon Phil was in charge of the tape deck. So what did he put on? Slim Dusty. Perfect.
Phil’s mock serious presence was alone enough to accentuate the absurdist aspects of The Stall. While Phil was obviously wry, and no one was unaware of how ridiculous it all was, Neil and I were also seriously trying to convince the student body that they should revel in intuitions of cosmic disaster. We three did most of the personing of the stall, gave out the eponymous zine and tried to persuade students to come along to AS meetings, already established for the life of the group on Tuesdays at the nearby ANU bar.
Tim McCann (link) and Kate McNamara (link) were also there at various times. Tim often performed in a radiation suit and gas mask, and for a time he was wearing this costume and prancing around our customised disaster area. Kate got sucked into Aktion Surreal that very day. Others hung around too: Michael Dargaville (link) I think came later, Jasper Peri (link) , the two Matts, Christine Reagan (link), Emma Robertson (here).
Ant Hayes (link) was at the International Socialist stall a couple down. He’d come and check the AS stall out, and with some degree of approval, though he wanted the group to move in an explicitly socialist direction. In time it would. At that stage I would simply recommend the ISO stall to visitors to ours, tho I was still to properly understand the socialist line. However glancing over at our useless machinery and decaying entrails, senior IS figures like Rick Kuhn and Tanya McCovell were already having doubts about AS.
That day I was dressed in a white shirt I’d hand-painted with 3D-looking red globes spouting black tentacles. Tho evenly distributed, my hair is thin and fine. In addition it was spiked, and the result I suffered some kind of calenture. But given the circumstances and a few beers, this just catalysed the madness of it all. My face was saved by the fact I really packed on the makeup back in the day.
Anyway I was glad when we hit the cool of the ANU Bar afterwards, including with some of the socialists like Chris Hughes — believe it or not in those days the place was actually fun.
Phil Crotty (left) and Neil Freeman (R) staff the stall. Ant Hayes and Tanya McCovell are visible sitting at the ISO stall near the edge of the pic. Photo by Maria Peteriella. Tho these pages are in general finished by the time you read, I am hoping to get a better quality print of this up, namely the original I have somewhere.
Gerald Keaney
Return to Aktion Surreal: a history of ideas written in bits.
Dyslexic Writings by Gerald Keaney 
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