Holly Childs, 25 April 2017

As part of a new series of posts, we’ve opened up the Auto Italia newsblog and invited contributions from a range of different artists, curators and writers. This week’s post is from Holly Childs, sharing COME MY BABY: 4D running in 2, an excerpt from her text HAVE THE DUSK deepen, which was performed as part of Auto Italia’s Rogue Agents project at Firstdraft, Sydney.

COME MY BABY: 4D
running in 2. Drifting across
sandhills on KI. Cars before
automation.

TWO HEXAGONAL
FLECKS OF pink-green
iridescence dot on the page.

THEY CALL I.T. “rainbow
white”. Oh, splat. A bulk
discount bucket-load tipped
out action shot via
AliExpress, chino calves and
raffia shoes caught half in/out
of shot.

WHAT MAKES it sparkle?
My dad is googling at the
dinner table. I find one last
hexagon, the same as inside
the book, in a wrinkle on my
thumb, but it doesn’t stay put.

Unsure if it came directly
from inside the book, or some
mitosis. “Due to its unique
characteristics, glitter has also
proven to be useful forensic
evidence. Tens of thousands
of different commercial
glitters, identical particles can
be compelling evidence that a
suspect has been at a crime
scene. Easily transferred
through the air or by touch,
yet they cling to bodies and
clothing, often unnoticed.”

HE PHOTOGRAPHS ME
taking selfies next to the
animatronic T-Rex, top floor
of Emporium. When he posts
it online he tags me but crops
out my Osama Bin Laden
“ATTACK ON AMERICA”
t-shirt.

ALSO AT HAND: the
diamond-cut crystal ring my
jeweller gave me for my first
booklaunch; a coded
note-to-self to destroy my
mum’s debit card details —
currently scrawled on a
Post-It® Note stuck inside
my work notebook (as though
someone could read my hand,
decode the note, raid my
bedroom, find the book…
X-ray smize);

Rose gold nailpolish drops to
deep terracotta in low-light.

“CAN’T GRAM things I
don’t know the meaning of,”
he says

Images from Rogue Agents at Firstdraft Sydney, Holly Childs – HAVE THE DUSK deepen, performed by Jana Hawkins-Anderson and Athena Thebus, photographed by Catherine McElhone.