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Donna Confetti's wildlife pelt drawings blended with the sheep skin rug depicting a map of Australia and the rabbit skin kangaroos in the Skin City (fur and hide) shop window. Their dislocation from the art space brought into question the artist's intention-were they operating as art, lakes or substitutes? This installation was one of a series which formed part of the work, The authentic Placebo, exhibited in conjunction with the Brisbane Fringe Festival. This series exhibited in Valley businesses included: Wildlife Pelts in Skin City, the Placebo Suit of Armour in Station pharmacy, the Mixed Relation Dolls in Best Friends Toy Shop, Ideal Books for Boys and Girls in Red Books and Shakespear's Cunning Stunts (sic.) in Excelsior Meat Co. These installations acted as points of infiltration and also points of surveillance, as Confetti turned the viewer into the viewed, videoing the audiences and re-presenting them as part of an installation at the Institute of Modern Art.
The debate surrounding public surveillance in the community formed one of the central ideas for The authentic Placebo. In Confetti's work welfare is the domain of authority (whether it be governmental, parental, medical or scientific) rather than of the individual. Parallels were drawn here between medical and scientific paternalism, and the practice of public video surveillance. Isolated by pools of light, toy chairs, a children's sleigh, a prosthetic leg and children 's crutches acted as metaphors for subjects under surveillance. These illuminated objects represented the child and the disabled person, who are traditionally disempowered by their placement in the care of an authority. The objects' arrangement was recorded by chalk traced around each shadow, forming distorted portraits. These fixed shadows, like photographs, were