Whip Out Your Exhibits

Not sure when you last went to a museum, but it's unlikely that your guide on that occasion was a whip-wielding dominatrix. More the pity, you groan. Thankfully, you now can pack the lettuce and cream and head off to the surreal institution that is The Animated Museum Of Experimental Stupidity for a bizarre and absurdist journey into… stuff.

As one of ten twisted minds behind Animated Museum, Mark Atterby tries vainly to encapsulate the strange, multi-arts brew that he's part of. “We just came up with a theme for a show that allows us to fit together all the things we do,” he begins.

The exhibits in the museum include the ever vivacious Meg Dunn (as the aforementioned dominatrix), performance poet Steve Smart, cabaret queen Amy Bodassian and comedian Eddy Burger. The mixtape mish-mash runs the gamut, from aardvarks to sock puppets, with a little orchestral punk rock wrapped around it.

Everywhere you look the s-word (surrealism) bobs up. “It's really a framing device,” Atterby admits. “People are doing their own pieces but backed by music. It's a very loose structure. So, as an example there's Eddy Burger, who does a lot of spoken word performance, but also Gilbert & Sullivan. He does this very comic but also very out-there performance.”

The Museum collective have already enjoyed some success with their previous film noir-themed show, so much so that the bods behind Darebin Music Feast invited them back to Northcote's Bar Nancy this year. Indeed, the Darebin event itself reflects some of the Museum's taste for conscious eclecticism, with more than 180 culturally and musically diverse events across three Fringe weeks.

For Atterby, the Feast and Museum are a very good match. “The whole area around here is picking up. There are so many new bars and venues opening up, and I think a lot of people have basically moved out of Collingwood and Fitzroy and are now living around Northcote and Thornbury, so there's a far bigger demand for it. Most nights during last year's festival Bar Nancy was just packed.”

The issue for Atterby and crew, therefore, is more subtle than simply pulling a crowd. Museum's celebrated breadth is also its core challenge; namely, how to be more than a bunch of bits. “What you have to do beforehand is to select what you want in it and also to hand pick the performers,” Atterby says. “Once you have an idea of the type of performance and the structure you want you just leave it to the people involved. It's really sorta like the original idea behind cabaret or revue; so even if some people don't like certain bits it's not gonna last that long.”

While the immediate concentration is on the upcoming Fringe season, Mark Atterby is allowing the possibility of taking the Animated Museum Of Experimental Stupidity (and other such strange concepts) to the wider world. “Well, we'll see how the first night goes,” he jokes modestly, before adding, “We have been asked to do similar things at other places so, yeah y'know, it would be nice. We should consider doing it, I s'pose.”

Understatements aside, there is a refreshingly kinky soul to it all. “Why we like this theme so much is that it gives us a chance to dress up.” Enough said.