‘Brett Whiteley at Baudelaire’s Grave, c. 1989’ | by Unknown | gelatin silver photograph | 14.3 x 9.3cm | National Portrait Gallery, Canberra Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2010
Hazel de Berg’s recordings take place in the homes or work spaces of the subjects rather than a recording studio. This allows something of these places into the recording whether birdsong, traffic or an r&b song playing in the background. In the recordings, de Berg herself remains enigmatic, the ghostly presence operating the machine. An exception to this can be found in this recording of Brett Whitely who, in the course of the interview, expresses frustration with the recording not being in a conventional Q&A format. De Berg can be heard offering questions and prompts about the themes and symbols in some of the paintings sitting in the room where the recording was made.
Interview with Brett Whiteley (O’Keefe remix)
Recorded on 5 March 1970 by Hazel de Berg.
2015 mix by Ella O’Keefe
‘Brett Whiteley interviewed by Hazel de Berg for the Hazel de Berg collection’
Courtesy of the National Library of Australia, TRC 1/461
Special acknowledgement to Duncan Felton, NLA Oral History & Folklore Branch
Described in a 1961 article from the Canberra times as a ‘tape-recorder enthusiast from Sydney’ Hazel de Berg was a photographer and radiographer and oral historian. She spent much of her life collecting the words and voices of Australian poets, artists, writers, composers, actors, academics, publishers, librarians, scientists, anthropologists, public servants and some politicians. Subjects were asked to speak about their lives and work and while De Berg asked questions, for the most part she edited her voice out of the final recordings. Her archives are not then a repository of interviews, but of voices, speaking directly and intimately to the listener. The recordings take place in the homes or work spaces of the subjects rather than a recording studio. This allows something of these places into the recording whether birdsong, traffic or an r&b song playing in the background. In the recordings, De Berg herself is an enigmatic presence, the ghostly presence operating the machine.
