SUE DODD
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Gossip pages are "the magazine equivalent of crack." Simon Dumenco, a columnist for Folio, a magazine about the magazine industry No one cares whether the stories about celebs that are made up or true as long as they're entertaining. Fake's what we want. Sometimes I read (and enjoy) a fake celeb-story in a magazine and the fake message is girls, you cannot eat a cheeseburger without losing your decency. Fake politicians lie and get re-elected. Everything is fake. And no one cares. Actuality just doesn't live up to our expectations. We want reality nice and pretty and instant minus the boring bits. When Britney Spears doesn't mime her songs she gets far more complaints. Have you seen the latest play station 2 game where you sing along to all your fave pop songs? The ad on TV showed a guy getting carried away in his loungeroom, pouring a bottle of water over his head and ripping off his t-shirt. The motto is "If you're gonna be a star you've gotta start acting like one". In some ways Gossip pop is about that loungeroom aspiration that's only a game and trying to make up even more stories about the made up stories and trying to make them even more entertaining (in a DIY crap way) and wondering at how fake it all is and wondering at how far it will all go. Sue Dodd completed a Bachelor of Arts, with First Class Honours, at RMIT University, Melbourne in 1997 and a Masters by research in Fine art at RMIT in 2000. Selected performances/solo exhibitions include Gossip Pop, Kings Gallery and Bus Gallery, Melbourne 2003; NW the gig, CLUBSproject, Melbourne 2003; and Pick-Up, Linden Gallery, St Kilda 2002. In 2001 Dodd was the recipiend of funding from Arts Victoria for International and Cultural Exchange.