Punchline: live recording

DAMP presented Punchline (1999) at 200 Gertrude Street... Reflective of collective identity and anxiety, Punchline performed DAMP’s worst nightmare: that the group would turn on themselves. Having installed a “stand-in” exhibition of found and made objects and cardboard constructed “D-A-M-P” letters, the real work took place at the crowded exhibition opening. DAMP members and anonymous actors who were dispersed throughout the gallery, began performing a series of altercations that eventually built into a full-blown brawl in which much of the exhibition was destroyed. It was an audacious event, the awkward and eruptive nature of which is documented on video and in the re-telling of it by those in the audience, contributing to a mythologising notoriety around DAMP at the time.

– Rosemary Forde, Art Holds a High Place in my Life: DAMP Monograph 1995-, p 11 

DAMP was one of the first artist groups in 1990s Australia to experiment with art and pedagogy, social practice and relational aesthetics, often exchanging places with their audiences. In 2024, 3-ply published Art Holds a High Place in my Life: DAMP Monograph 1995-, curator and scholar Rosemary Forde’s detailed chronicle of nearly 30 years of DAMP’s practice. 3-ply is the independent publishing initiative of former Gertrude resident artist Fayen d’Evie. In recent years, d’Evie had moved away from publishing, to work through blindness and access-led practice. 3-ply’s return from hiatus was catalyzed by Forde and d’Evie’s shared ambition to follow the print launch of Art Holds a High Place in my Life with an audiodescriptive translation. Together with Jon Tjhia, they have developed a concept of an album-as-audiobook, anchored in image description, sensory translation, and collective audiodescription.

Each chapter of the print version of Art Holds a High Place in my Life will be mapped to a track of the album. The content will include narrated readings of new and archival texts by authors and DAMP members; thick description of documentation images from the book; conversation about details not captured by the print images, with DAMP and people who participated in, or witnessed, their performances; audio extracts from DAMP’s video works; and location recordings where DAMP exhibited or performed. As well as providing access for blind audiences, the Art Holds a High Place in my Life album-as-audiobook is an exploration of the potential for blindness to catalyse public conversations, about how we remember art practices – and what is and is not visually recorded.

On Saturday 26 July, join us at Gertrude Contemporary for the first live recording session for the Art Holds a High Place in my Life album-as-audiobook. This two-hour event will bring past and present DAMP members together for a guided conversation, grounded in image description exercises, catalyzing memories of Punchline (1999). The recording session will include opportunities for the public audience to contribute questions to enrich the descriptions, or offer counter memories.  

*This event will be recorded for use in the forthcoming album-as-audiobook project. By entering the space, you consent to this use of material and recorded voice.