SPCS

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTION OF COMMUNITY STANDARDS INC.

Art shock ‘kills’ PM [John Key] in alley – Sunday Star Times

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ARTIST SAM Mahon has painted a picture of John Key as a corpse and made it part of an interactive game on his website called, “Who killed John Key?”

Mahon, who calls himself a socialist, says he hopes the image “will simply make people curious”. He wants to “put a bunch of ‘Key crtimes’ on to one ring,” he told the Sunday Star Times.

“The painting shows Key’s body slumped against a wall in an alley with a rifled wallet beside him. A half-empty wine bottle, a rat and a half-eaten apple are among the detritus nearby.

Viewers are invited to discover Key’s “killer” by viewing 24 video clues embedded on the picture, most of which are interviews with Key taken from the web. People who guess the killer will be eligible for prizes including a Mahon cast bronze of a dying dove (
“a metaphor for dying hopes”).

Asked if he was worried that people would find the image offensive, Mahon said: “All art is expression and metaphor and the job artists have is to make people feel uncomfortable. Now once you’ve made people uncomfortable you’ve got their attention. And once you’ve got their attention you can begin to change their mind.”

The image will be put on Mahon’s website tomorrow and the names of those who guessed the killer will be posted on election day, Novemberr 26.

Story by Anthony Hubbard (abridged) Sunday Star Times. Page 1, November 13, 2011

Comment: One of the objects of the SPCS is:

“To support responsible freedom of expression which does not injure the public good be degrading, dehumanising or demeaning individuals or classes of people.” (S. 2[f] of SPCS Constitution).

The Society contends that the vast majority of New Zealanders would consider Sam Mahon’s image of our Prime Minister John Key and its use in an “interact game” on his website, as outlined above, highly offensive. It deliberately seeks to degrade, dehumanise and demean John Key over the next few weeks leading up to the elections.

Naked Ambition – TVNZ doco

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The new director of hardcore porn company Eden Digital Ltd, who has replaced American investor John Malcolm Carr, effective 13 September 2011, is Raymond (“Ray”) Sydney Corben Simpson – a resident of Mt Eden, Auckland (see www.companies.govt.nz).

See: US-based critic of economy [John M Carr CPA] has lots more to say

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=154653

see Photo of John M Carr http://www.carr.co.nz/images/jmc.jpg

(John M Carr CPA remains sole director of CVC Group Ltd which owns Eden Digital Ltd and he is a “business partner” of Stephen (Steve) Peter Crow. Carr directs and owns Payroll Solution Services Ltd, which was put into liquidation on the petition of the Inland Revenue Department on 2 September 2011 by the High Court of Auckland pursuant to s. 241(2)(c) of the Companies Act 1993, as well as about 30 other NZ companies. As at liquidation, Carr has advised the liquidators that Payroll Solution Services “held no realisable assets” It “provided services exclusively to companies related to the director” and “ceased to trade in April 2011”).

See: https://www.spcs.org.nz/carr-consulting-p-a-porn-company-director-john-m-carr-and-his-companies-us-shareholder-connections-unmasked/

Ray Smith was Production Manager for the hardcore porn film directed by Steve Crow entitled “RIPE” – featuring 22-year old “Nikki” (not her real name), a three-and-a-half pregnant “wannabe porn star”.  The making of this video was dealt with in graphic detail on the 43 minute TV documentary “Naked Ambition” (recorded on 30 January 2003 and screened on TVNZ Channel One in May 2003);  produced by Creme Media (now owned by Greenstone Pictures, Auckland).

It featured Steve Crow – referred to as “Porn King” and owner at that time of Vixen Direct – a hardcore porn distribution company. It included several scenes with Raymond Simpson together with Steve Crow involved in the filming of the pregnant “Nikki” having sex with two men – co-stars “William a “stripper” aged 24 years and “Andy” a self-declared “exhibitionist” and printer by occupation aged 39 years. Both men were recruited by Crow to take part in his film project. The programme noted that both co-stars were filmed having sex a number of times with “Nikki” over several days, commencing 10 minutes after meeting her “co-stars”.

There was considerable controversy in 2002 when Crow’s plan to use public hospital facilities to film “Nikki” giving birth – in order to include the footage in his porn film, became public knowledge via the media. Critics were incensed by the intended exploitation of the soon-to-be-born child who they claimed would forever be dubbed “the porn baby”. Crow argued that “Nikki” had a right to have the birth filmed and have it included in the film featuring her. It was all about “freedom of expression” he argued. [Read more…]

Art and Porn Divide – Waikato Times

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by Tracey Cooper. Waikato Times 13 October 2011

Revelations that a New York artist is about to give birth in front of a live audience as part of her new installation The Birth of Baby X makes you wonder.

The New York Post has dubbed Marni Kotak “the Preggo Performer”, but the performance artist hopes life itself will be the star of her latest work………………

In 2002, “Nikki”, a porn actor, wanted to film the birth of her child [in the neonatal unit of Waikato Public Hospital], which was to be shown in a pornographic movie [directed by pornographer Steve Crow] with the planned title Ripe.

No-one considered that birth to be the highest form of art.

There was outrage and CYF even applied to the High Court for guardianship of the unborn child.

In his 45-page written judgment Justice Heath said he was satisfied that a demand for pornographic material focusing on aspects of pregnancy and birth existed.

The name given to this particular sexual fetish is maiesophilia.

His decision meant Waikato Hospital had to back down on a decision to ban filming on its premises, but then Health Minister Annette King stepped in, using her statutory powers to ban the filming.

“It just offends me,” she said.

“It is not appropriate for a public hospital to be used to make pornography. I’ve had absolutely 100 percent support in this one.”

One such supporter was Waikato University psychology professor Jane Ritchie, who described the prospect of filming the birth for a porn movie as repugnant.

“It is not like she is doing it in New York,” she said, clearly unaware that nearly 10 years later, someone would do it in New York, albeit not for a porn movie, but still for a public performance.” 

Whatever the merits or otherwise of porn movies being considered art, the story does present an interesting view of the different approaches in the two countries to what is considered art.

Film maker Steve Crow said the movie idea was “just something that evolved”.

“The idea for a film from conception right through to birth.”

If that was said by anyone other than a porn movie maker, it would likely be considered an entirely valid proposition.

If Crow had said the movie would “recontextualise the everyday act of giving birth to a child into a work of performance art” he might have got away with it.

In the end, the filming never took place and Nikki and her “porn baby” – as critics dubbed the child – got on with their lives in a way that Kotek would likely consider to be a continuing performance.

“Real life is the best performance art,” she said.

Kotak has no fear for her or her baby’s safety, despite the unusual birth environment, confident the gallery is as safe as a hospital. She’s already planned her next work, the inevitable Raising Baby X, in which she will “re-contextualise the everyday act of raising a child into a work of performance art”.

It’s unlikely you’d get away with that in this country.

Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/life-style/arts/5777681/Art-and-porn-divide

 

 

Suicide pact charges ‘barbaric’ says lawyer – Dominion Post

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A judge told her to walk away and live, but the lawyer for a woman who escaped serious penalty for her part in a suicide pact in which another woman died says she should not have been charged.

 http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/5858567/Suicide-pact-charges-barbaric [Read more…]

Promotion of the “moral welfare” of children and young persons

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In 1952 the Minister of Child Welfare in the McLarty government of Western Australia, Arthur Watts, introduced amendments to the Child Welfare Act to widen the definition of “neglect” to include children “living under such conditions as to indicate that the mental, physical or moral welfare of the chid is likely to be in jeopardy” [emphasis added]. These amendments were enacted into law with strong support from Liberal Premier Sir Ross LcLarty’s government.

The concept of the “moral welfare” or “moral well-being” of children and young persons is well-documented in case law, as is the nature of activities that when promoted or supported (AND even when there is a tendency to promotion or support), are “likely to be injurious to the public good” or “likely to [put] in jeopardy” the “moral welfare” of  members of the public, including vulnerable children and young persons (see below).

It is the ever-present threat of “likely” harm and injury (mental, physical and moral) and their far-reaching negative inter-generational consequences, as well as the accepted Judaeo-Christian belief in human dignity (“Man made in the image of God” – often not acknowledged), that have undoubtedly undergirded successive governmental decisions (driven perhaps in part by quickened consciences and pragmatism) to enact child protection and censorship laws to safeguard our precious children and young persons from the dangers of exposure to child abuse, family violence, depiction of gratuitous violence and inappropriate sexual content in the media and exposure to morally corrupting hardcore pornography etc. [Read more…]