What Does the Jukebox Dream Of?, Art Gallery of New South Wales

Videogame joysticks, a fossilised radio, VHS tapes spun into haunting life-size figures ... this exhibition reanimates supposedly defunct media.

On display for the first time in Australia, Susan Hiller’s Die gedanken sind frei (Thoughts are free) 2012 is a large-scale installation featuring a customised Wurlitzer jukebox which plays more than 100 revolutionary anthems, spanning 16th-century German peasant ballads to anti-fascist folksongs and contemporary rap. Relocated from its more common setting of the mid-20th-century diner to a shrine-like space, Hiller’s jukebox invites visitors to choose a song and set the soundtrack for the exhibition, which also includes works such as Paul Chan’s Oh why so serious? 2008, David Haines and Joyce Hinterding’s The outlands 2011, Fiona Hall’s Slash and burn 1997, Callum Morton’s Screen #7 Here and There 2006 and Ricky Swallow’s Idol with handle 1997–2007 as well as a series of photographs by Max Dupain.

Disrupting a naturalised, linear story of technological development – where the Walkman is eclipsed by the iPod and so on – the exhibition celebrates the playful ways in which artists envision emancipatory new uses for ‘obsolete’ technologies.

View more: https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/what-does-the-jukebox-dream-of/

Installation view of the What Does the Jukebox Dream Of? exhibition 9 March – 22 September 2024, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales featuring Callum Morton 'Screen #7 Here and There' 2006, and Fiona Hall 'Slash and burn' 1997, artworks © the artists, photo © Art Gallery of NSW, Felicity Jenkins