Straight out of Brisbane is a festival of independent and emerging arts, culture and ideas. It’s on again this 2nd to 7th December, in locations in and around Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley. I didn’t get along last year, but by all accounts it is a worthy enterprise. I also find it interesting as an example of the increasingly naturalised synergy between “grassroots”/DIY production, alternative politics, hipness, and avant-gardism. Blurb follows.

SOOB is dedicated to excavating the best in Brisbane’s independent cultural production.

By independent we mean art and culture that is not produced for profit, is created outside of the framework of multinational corporate enterprise or large-scale government-funded arts organisations, is promoting and fostering
DIY aesthetics or is excluded from mainstream public debate.

In 2002, its first year, Straight Out of Brisbane featured more than 300 local and inter-state artists, speakers and performers, in a program of over 100 talks, panels, exhibitions, workshops and gigs.

An estimated 3,000 punters enjoyed a diverse array of underground culture that included events as diverse as electronic cabaret, prank workshops, noise toy construction classes, Queensland’s best zine fair, an obligatory warehouse party, and even a few artists’ talks and exhibitions.