Inventing Eric Michaels

The late American media theorist and ethnographer Eric Michaels worked in the central desert community of Yuendumu in the 1980s, before dying of AIDS in 1988. This essay provides a detailed account of his life and work in the desert, and draws upon his critical writing output and his posthumously published diaries to consider his unique status as a writer. It details Michaels's singular approach to the development of the Aboriginal art movement in Yuendumu, and his theorisation of the new media production, in which he played a key role. Michaels's notion of a 'cultural future' is critiqued in light of the defining aspirations of the self-determination period.