Film Review - Sully

Chesley Sullenberger (Tom Hanks) and  Jeffrey Skiles (Aaron Eckhart)

The circumstances of the landing of US Airways Flight 1549 onto the surface of the Hudson River in New York City following the loss of both engines captured public imagination and created aircraft piloting history. This film directed by Clint Eastwood with Tom Hanks and Aaron Eckhart in the roles as the Captain, Chesley Sullenberger (Sully) and the First Officer, Jeffrey Skiles provides the step-by-step events as they unfolded in the air, the actions taken by the flight crew to save the passengers on the failing aircraft and the consequent inquiry  by the National Transport Safety Board (NTSB).

On 15 January 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 left LaGuardia Airport on route to Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina. 3 minutes into the flight, the aircraft collided with a flock of Canadian geese disabling both jet engines. With no engine power, limited altitude and no airports in safe distance, Sully decides the glide the aircraft and execute a controlled ditch into the Hudson River. The aircraft design and Sully's expert piloting achieve the almost impossible with an on-water landing without the loss of any crew and passengers. During the following NTSB investigation, multiple computer simulations with experienced pilots reacting under the same circumstances, all crashed when attempting to land at any airport thus confirming Sully's decision to risk ditching into the Hudson River as the only viable option. Successful water landings are, in fact, virtually unknown in aviation history.

Tom Hanks convincingly portrays the quiet, experienced Captain Sullenberger with Aaron Eckhart as the younger but equally professional First Officer Jeff Skiles. The calmness of the flight crew and focus on landing the aircraft successfully was confirmed by cockpit voice recordings which were presented at the NTSB investigation hearing. The live action sequences are augmented  by actual footage of the aircraft itself taken by security cameras on the shoreline and witnesses along the Hudson River as the event occured. Eastwood makes good use of this historical footage merged with the recreated version.

The film has been an exceptional success for Clint Eastwood having the biggest cinema and box office debut in North America and second largest debut world-wide in Eastwood's long career. For Tom Hanks, the film marked the third most successful live-action role he has had career wise. In terms of production costs and investment return, the total cost of $60 million has been more than surpassed by the box office takings which exceed $177.4 million - much to the pleasure of Warner Bros and Village Roadshow.  The film was shot using IMAX cameras and released in both IMAX and standard cinema screen versions.

Sculpture by the Sea 2016 - Exhibition Review

Travelling Bag - Yumin Jing

Sydney's annual sculpture exhibition, Sculpture by the Sea has made is Spring appearance inviting the public to appreciate the dimensional aspects and conveyance of meaning through this art form.

Adaptation - Nihariki Hukku

2016 is its 20th year and perhaps fittingly this year was the first time which the natural elements posed a risk to the exhibition. Unexpected King tides swept onto Tamarama beach and inundated those works located on the beach damaging three and dislodging others from their location. The result was three sculptures were so badly damaged that they had to be withdrawn with  only images on signage remaining where they had once stood. These were not the only ones however which were damaged and other works located on rock platforms close to the seaside also had to be removed.

27 countries are represented this year with entries from India, Germany, Sweden, China, Norway, Italy, Denmark, Brazil, Japan, England, the USA, South Korea, Netherlands, Slovakia, Serbia to name a few. Australia was well represented with roughly half of the entries sourced from this country.  Notably two entries were from sculptors who have passed away. The exhibition is comfortable, predictable and the forms well-executed, however it was safe territory all up. As a free exhibition it is always worth the trip to walk along the coastal path between Tamarama and Bondi Beach.

Manifesto - video installation with Cate Blanchett - Art Gallery of NSW

German artist Julian Rosefeldt has created a series of video installations with Australian actor Cate Blanchett to give visual and audio meaning to a number of the most famous and provocative writings by artists of the modern era. Through a series of monologues edited and reassembled by Rosefeldt, the videos draw on a collage of artists’ manifestos, including declarations by futurists, dadaists and situationists, collected writings by individual artists, architects, dancers and filmmakers such as Sol LeWitt, Yvonne Rainer and Jim Jarmusch.

Blanchett performs in all of these video installations through appearing as 13 different personas including a school teacher, a newsreader, a factory worker, a socialite and a homeless man  exploring the power and urgency of these historical words in the modern world. The monologues are delivered in different settings and locations linked to the identity of each character - from a power plant,  a school room, a manufacturing plant, a television newsroom, a cocktail party lounge room and a family dining room. In one video Blanchett's actual husband, playwright Andrew Upton, features together with their children. Whether intentional or not, Rosefeldt has created a series of parodies of varying strengths and relevance creating an almost bleak and one dimensional of images accentuated only by the absurdity of some of Blanchett's portrayals.  

Manifesto has been  commissioned by the Art Gallery of NSW, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin the Sprengel Museum, Hannover, and Ruhrtriennale – Festival of the Arts.

The exhibition will be screening until January 2017.

Cirque du Soleil - Kooza - Sydney 2016 - Review

acrobatic performers from Cirque du Soliel - Kooza - Sydney 2016

Kooza from Canada's Cirque du Soleil, currently on tour in Sydney, is one of the performing company's more intimate and old-school style circus acrobatic shows. The Big Top (often referred to as the Grande Chapiteau) is smaller with the seating brought forward around the 260 degree circular stage, the performers extending their activities to aisles closest to and around the audience. The clowns, often used a diversions around set, scene and act changes, are half the show, bringing a stronger interaction with the audience. This is intentional as Kooza's creators are seeking to 'create a scenographic environment that offers true proximity to the audience and where danger is palpable' combined with the two circus traditions of acrobatic performance and the art of clowning.

Initially created in 2007 by David Shiner, Kooza is a strong performance and visual show offering intensity and skill in smaller format than many of Cirque du Soleil's conceptually massive spectacles. The clown characters - The Innocent, the King, the Trickster, the Heimloss, the Obnoxious Tourist and his Bad Dog appear throughout with earthy, sometimes rude but genuine humour (The Bad Dog even managing to lift up his canine leg and do a fake urination on unsuspecting audience members).  The acrobatic acts are superb with many highlights including the lithe Mongolian contortionists in duet; the double decker hire wire act (they ride bicycles along the hire wire and have a fencing match); the jaw-dropping Wheel of Death, the solo chair balance act and the blurred hoola hoop routine to name a few. 

As with all Cirque du Soleil Shows, the custom created sounds are provided by a live 8 piece band with perfectly matched music to each moment of the show.  The set design for Kooza, includes a travelling tower called the Bataclan which moves artists in and out of the spotlight, serves as the bandstand and has two flanking curved staircases. A giant fabric structure call the Void with painted motifs of leaves compliments  the Bataclan with additional fabric sails which opena nd close around the tower. This is a clever and inspired set design of a high order which enables the audience to focus easily on the 50 odd performers on stage.

Cirque du Soleil have produced a masterful show which will be in Sydney until November 2016.

Ethics - the professions and business - who do people trust ?

Extract Table from Governance Institute Ethics Index 2016

The release of research commissioned by the Governance Institute of Australia confirms the distrust which the wider community have with a number of key sectors of society. Overall, according to the survey sample, 84% rate ethics as important to a well functioning society however Australian society was rated as being only 'somewhat ethical' showing that there is an perceived ethical deficit.

The survey had a number of key findings of note -

• The ethical score by broad sector is shown in the extract Table (above) demonstrating a high level of confidence in health and education while at the opposite end of the measurement, a very low confidence in the ethical behaviour of large corporations and the media.
• Within the key business sectors, real estate agents have the lowest ethical score with 1 in every 2 people stating that they are unethical. In contrast farmers and agricultural businesses are perceived as being the most ethical.
• Australians rate the ABC as the most ethical media platform.
• The banking, finance and insurance sector has the lowest ethics score amongst all sectors with a particular focus on executive salaries and bonuses, followed by bribery/corruption and poor treatment of customers.
• The top 5 ethical issues in business were rated as: corruption (69%), company tax avoidance (61%), misleading and deceptive advertising (59%), workplace bullying (50%) and discrimination and executive pay (both at 49%).

How was this sample constructed ? 

• n= 1,001
• Gender: 50% male and 50% female
• Work status: 15% were students, 59% working, 9% home duties, 9% retired, 6% not employed
• Location:  21% from Sydney, 19% from Melbourne, 10% from Brisbane, 8% from Perth, 6% from Adelaide with the rest from around Australia
• Age: mainly 22-35yrs: 22%, 36-45 yrs: 22%, 46-55 yrs: 22%, 56-65 yrs: 18%,
• Education: mainly trade certificate: 28%, Bachelor degree: 23% and Post graduate: 11% 
• Household status: mainly single 35% couple with children: 25%  couple without children: 25%  

This survey dovetails with similar research by the Lowy Institute which rates public perception about the professions - on a consistent annual basis it shows an almost identical set of results. The fact that there is a continuing trend of distrust with the same sectors year-by-year should send a clear message that change is needed. Yet, none appears to occur.

An executive summary of the Governance Institute's research can be found at this link:

Governance Institute of NSW - Ethics Index

Blockchain - coming to a database near you

Blockchain is the latest development in secure database and transaction systems, operating on the principle that the recording and storage of every transaction only occurs through a consensus mechanism across the connected computer network. Blockchain is best described as a distributed database system in contrast to the conventional, centralised systems with which we, the consumers, are generally aware.  In simple terms blockchain operates as follows -

• data, for example a single transaction, is encrypted as it is stored,
• access to that data is also encrypted,
• each block within the system is only generated once multiple parties (best described as nodes) reach a consensus and validate the data, 
• as a distributed database, multiple copies of data exist across multiple computer systems which together create the peer-to-peer network,
• the loss of one node means that Blockchain can survive as the master copy is shared via its distributed design,
• it is impossible to alter historical records meaning the data points are immutable. This is one of the strengths of the system as its means that in order to attack the ledger, simultaneous attacks would need to be launched on all copies.

Blockchain's development has been centred on a consortium called R3 which comprises 45 banks including J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs. Other major non-banking corporations now involved include, not surprisingly, Microsoft, American Express, Visa, Mastercard, NASDAQ, NYSE. At the moment blockchain is used for making international financial transfers however the intention is to use it for online transactions. Apps are already being trialled for music distribution, sports betting and a new type of financial auditing. Proposed expansion of the platform will include services such as smart contracts, crowdfunding and auctions.

So what are the weaknesses of this system ? There are quite a few, for example in the legal and regulatory sphere, data privacy (being a foremost one), cyber security (albeit the possibility of breaching the network if not able to corrupt it) and cost-benefits are not fully established. The very fact that large banks like the system, is perhaps reason enough for the wider community to be wary.