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IASKA residency - daily writings
Created by Kirsten on Fri 04 of Mar, 2005 [00:51 UTC]
Last modified Thu 14 of Apr, 2005
and after the fall
posted by Kirsten on Mon 21 of Mar, 2005 [12:01 UTC]
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hmmm yes well about that rain - well, you can see here what happened - yes It rained, yes it flooded briefly, and now its as if there was never any rain in the sky since forever.....
 Its
all about intentions around here - lots of threatening clouds, however
actual rain is highly dis-proportionate to the amount of feinting,
rumbling, overcasting-and-then-quickly-sunshining business going on
since friday. Sort of like a rotary meeting - lost of big bellies and
much awe-inspiring grumble-mumbles but not much action...
 I
went to Perth on friday and got me some waders... so nothing can touch
me now (in the salt department anyway)... back out on the lake on
thursday, courtesy of the
man-who-runs-the-tafe's-son-who-happens-to-be-here-on-holiday chauffer
service. Also while in Perth finally had a look at Symbyotica,
with a grotesquely wonderful tour of the facilities thanks to Oron
Catts, the Artistic Director. Let me just say first, how COOOOOL this
joint is - we are talking wet labs, we are talking incubators, we are
talking real hands and lungs and feet and embryos in bottles my friends
- plus I saw my first real lab rat! well lab mouse actually. and can I
just say that the mice looked very happy. they even had a little
excercise wheel in their cage and all their noses were waffling madly.
tee hee. . you
will all be pleased to know that I was marvellously professional and
restrained myself from asking to pat one. I also got to look at some..
er.. cells of... something.. through a microscope. I saw the nucleus!
ha! - as you can probably tell by now, I was an avid little chemist in
my early youth, however the impetus wore off somewhere.. however, my
overly-excited reactions aside, Symbiotica is this great little garret
literally on the roof of the School of Anatomy and Human Biology, which
accommodates up to 6 artists at any one time, all of whom are, well,
doing whatever it is that they do, on 6 month residencies, with the
anatomy + human biology departments at their partial disposal. The
aesthetics of the place are just wonderful, and that's before you get
anywhere near the ethics of this whole big fat minefield. Its enough to
make you commit mail fraud, for sure...
 Unfortunately
had to leave the tendons and incubators behind and retun my focus to
making small aluminium structures that sit in-between a projector and a
screen (read: wall) and create narratives, and how to convert Jaycar
colourwheel motors into circulating worlds made from perspex with grass
stuck on it...
 I will post some video of the workshops (which are all going well) when I figure how to upload video to this fine blog thing.
saltmilk
posted by Kirsten on Mon 14 of Mar, 2005
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Sunday 13th March 2005
tried again - different day, different clouds, the rain is coming, what can I do...
had a mystical experience and achieved what is hopefully the first
half of the film... will do the other half when I can get back out
here... the entire lake is no deeper than half a gumboot, however out
in the middle it was a bit scary - like being on ice (i think) - quite
a few groans and cracks, but no cave-ins - also the middle was directly
reminiscent of the Bog of Eternal Stench, with lots of syrupy eddies
coming out of strange ragged holes in the submerged salt-crust... very
yellow and stinky....
got all the way around and back to my starting point - it took 8.5
hours, from 5.30am till 2pm... no break... never have I been so
exhausted... was hoping to do twice as much but physically incapable,
so second half will wait for another day..
   
I hit the dark ground running. Blinking sleep, mud sucking its
private doubts around my feet, tripod banging against my knees,
breathlessly sure to get to the first position, to capture the last
dark of the dawn through the dead trees. Finally there, finally
started, first shot done, next one next. The lake begins to creep up on
me. and before the sun and the day has had a chance to touch the land,
I am gone.
The world cannot enter here. At dawn, no world can enter here, this
lake is alone. And standing here upon its edge, tersely prepared in my
gumboots, armed with my careful plan, hoping foolishly to encompass
this place with my little camera, I have no life
the holy war goes on, and here am I moving step-by-slow-step across
the surface of this white lake, under the largest sky I have ever seen,
aghast at each new form I see through my lens with each ensuing meter
stepped.
I have never felt this small
Nor has life seemed so worthy
four white birds pass overhead, turning sharply and skimming along
the far side of the lake - I hear the hollow phasing whoosh of the air
in their silent wings only after they have passed...
this place is dead yet so alive
the day smugly rises, and the lake holds firm - mesmerizing white
salt wetness stretching out beneath indifferent, silent grey sky - a
thin rash of yellow wheat between. all has always been here, the entire
scape before me. these naked tree-forms, weathered thin and softly
grey, still struggling towards the sky that damned them. still held by
the lake that claimed them. never to return, never to leave
saltmilk
fumblefingers
posted by Kirsten on Mon 14 of Mar, 2005
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Saturday 12th March 2005
Mick dropped me out at the lake before dawn and I went hard - the
most amazing sunrise I've ever seen, cold wind, but it will get up to
40 degrees today out here on the lake - everything looks good,
everything is working, the birds are calling and the sun is thinking
about rising...
It was at this point that I dropped ALL the batteries in the lake.
My fingers are so cold that, on my first battery change, I fumble the
whole thing and even tho I'm on the solid salt crust, the bag of
batteries opens and tumble down into a little pothole at my feet. This
is a lake which is not actually liquid, but syrup, a syrup of sulphur
and salt. The batteries descend into the mud, every last one.
Its only 6.30am and there is nothing I can do. to the right are the first and last shots of the day.
 
the last pair of gumboots in Keller
posted by Kirsten on Mon 14 of Mar, 2005
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Friday 11th March 2005
 A
plan we have. New camera from IASKA which runs in AA batteries
(important out on a saltlake to be able to re-charge cameras for many
hours), many many AA batteries, bottled water, cut lunch, aeroguard, a
plan and my very first pair of Gumboots - which were also the LAST pair
in Kellerberrin.... of course they fitted perfectly.. men's size 5 -
also made by Blundstone so feeling very authentic
Mick Cole, that dear sweet man, is ferrying me out to the saltlake
at 5am tomorro - its a 60 minute round-trip and he is a sweeting (esp
that early on a saturday) - after sunset he will come and get me, and
we'll go have a roast dinner at his place, cooked by his gorgeous wife,
Pat. Very excited about tomorrow - its actually starting!
the theory of the flood
posted by Kirsten on Mon 14 of Mar, 2005 [02:47 UTC]
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thursday 10th march 2005
   
in the middle of having a chat to Donna, the IASKA gallery
co-ordinator, about various ways one might black out the gallery for my
show (more on that later) when she mentions that Kellerberrin is due to
flood on Monday - huh? yeah six inches apparently, coming in from the
nor-west thanks to some cyclone up near Exmouth.... this casual
statement led me to grow a grusome fear that my precious saltlake might
not last the weekend, arg the sky is falling! So - cancelled trip to symbiotica
for tomorrow, cancelled trip to perth, cancelled trip therafter to
Kalgoorlie for Saturday thru Monday (including my private chartered
plane flight over the SuperPit on sunday, and all trains and bus trips there and back... immediately
began pleading with various locals to drive me out to the saltlake at
5am on Saturday morning, so I could try out this chunky-timelapse idea
before the whole place dissolved..... checking the weatherzone site
every 15 minutes...
 The
idea with this timelapse thingo being that you take four still shots in
a quadrant formation around a single, overlapping, central point. then
you take a step forwards. then you do it again. the idea here being
that each quadrant, when captured on a stills camera using auto
exposure, will be a slightly different brightness and coulour world,
and that when you join all four together, you would get a chunky,
mis-matched effect which was still capable of translating to the eye as
belivable animated motion over a period of enough steps forward.... and
the saltlake is the place to do it, partly because of the amazing world
that is that place, partly beacause that world is somewhat static
(very, very static in some ways, you could say) and therefore the
overall effect just might marry with the amazing topography in some
strange way to create a beautiful piece...
 I
have also, since coming here, wondered if I should dedicate the next
couple of years to only making work which deals with the idea of
looking NORTH.. as a faithful Australian New Media practicioner
operating in interesting times, i.e. those of the OZCO new media + CCD overhaul,
I am wondering whether I should take onboard the current trend and look
constantly North for inspiration. At all times. In all ways. I think
perhaps that all Australian artists should, from now on, only produce
work which looked north, in whatever way.
I want to see what this saltlake will look like if it is traversed looking North at all times....
The poultry pavilion and other wonders...
posted by Kirsten on Sun 06 of Mar, 2005
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 off
to the local showgrounds at 6am for a look around before the
temperature gets to the high 30s (which is post 9am). I'm meant to have
an outcome of my residency before I leave, and the last Saturday I'm
here (IASKA openings tend to be on a Saturday) is the same day as the
Keela Dreaming Festival, a big Noongar affair which people come from
miles around to attend. a stage, some bands, lots of food, lots of
kids, lots of grannies, no alcohol, and there you go. all to take place
on the largest tract of green in the entire kellerberrin shire, which I
thought was definitely worthy of a panorama...
 had
a look at the available sheds (including the poultry pavilion - oh yes
please) to see if there was anywhere that made sense to use - I’m not
sure why I'd be presenting at a Noongar festival though, so may do it
elsewhere in town on the same day perhaps - although I am pretty much
in love with that poultry pavilion, however I don’t think it would be
all that terribly suited to what I had in mind...
 btw
the 'mouseproof clockwork' thing is a reference to the fact that the
IASKA gallery gets overrun with mice every year after harvest, hence
all artwork of significant value that is exhibited over the summer
months CANNOT be made of anything vaguely edible... this came to a head
recently when a show had to be rejected on the basis that it was made
of grass and was therefore likely to come to grief... so only
mouseproof artworks thanks... ah and then there's Rest Proof Clockwork, possibly the finest Plaid album.. and um.. if you put those two trains of thought together, you get.. anyway...
I sorted out the entire project map today, skedded everything down
to the hour in true maniac style. 2 main time-lapse shoots (around
Keller and also at that Salt lake of dreams), 5 interviews with locals
for research regarding MOB ,
8 workshops with the school focusing on animating 'paths' throughout
Keller with stills cameras, 1 trip to Kalgoorlie to get my fill of the
Superpit from above and to film country from the train there and back,
1 glider flight to likewise shoot.. um... stuff...., 11 chinese lessons
(with my little book and cd), 1 trip to the Avondale Air show and many
many hours in the studio creating the shadow studies with aluminum
sheeting, wire and fingers and converting snips of sky into panoramic
projected patchworks both still and moving. Also 4 books to be read: The Language Instinct, The Blank Slate, The Art of War
and a wonderfully "correct" history of China, written by the Head of
the Department of the History of the Chinese Communist Party in 1964,
which I'm sure gives a very balanced view of the peoples republic....
I am nearly ready to start doing diagrams, having chewed for many quiet nights now over how to go about these shadow studies...
 Kellerberrin
is, it must be, the Seed Cleaning capital of Australia - there are 5
independant Seed Cleaning contractors in the town centre alone, and as
that makes up half the population (nearly) thats a pretty high ratio. I
realise that seed cleaning probably does not involve individual grain
polishing with a soft cloth, but it gets a smile out of me everytime...
I seem to ride the streets grinning like an idiot quite a bit here
actually... its either the sky or the seed polishers or the smell of
all the hot fields or the bricks that are still radiating heat at
11pm....
incidentally, am in need of gardening tips - there is some nice
barren sand in the shape of a garden out the back which I intend to
mulch and stick something hardy in.... however I am not sure how to
prepare the soil or indeed how to do anything when it comes to
gardening so if anyone wants to enlighten me (no links, still on
dial-up) I will repay you in salt.
whitefella dreaming
posted by Kirsten on Fri 04 of Mar, 2005
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Thursday 3rd March 2005.
 An
amazing day. Caught a lift with Mick Cole, Cultural Development Officer
at Kellerberrin Shire Council and tagged along behind a bus tour in
which Theo, a Noongar man born nearby, showed a bunch of other
indigenous tour operators from around WA around the significant sites
of the area. So good. Amazing salt lakes, learnt about soaks (ie fresh
springs) on Badjalung Mission and the first successful native title
claim there, lots of stories, dreamings, lots of questions.
The massive, low-lying granite outcrops all over this country,
poking thru the wheat, are the coils of waargil, the underground
serpent - he travels underground and the outcrops are pushed up when he
makes his places of rest..
Got waved towards a woman's dreaming place while all the fellas
carefully looked the other way. Amazing feeling in this place, in the
shade of a great wall of Boulder Rock. Very cool on such a hot day.
Eerie but calming. I'm still calm. I cant remember when I was this
calm.. apparently I am also now extra fertile as a result of going
there. huzzah.
 Also
along was Graham Ellis-Smith, who works for the wheatbelt cultural
bureau (or something) and seems to know an awful lot about all things
dreaming, despite looking alot like my old dean of music at UWS,
Michael Atherton, and just as british. However. Graham specializes in
whitefella dreaming programs when not regaling stories about working
with Carmen Lawrence on the Badjalung land title claim...
 Doomed
symbiotic relationship of the day: the Boodie Rat is a now extinct
small native ratty-thing of the area, whose diet used to consist solely
of a certain nut from beneath a certain species of tree (which no-one
present at the telling of this anecdote could remember the name of) -
however, the nuts were too hard for the Boodie Rat to actually crack
and eat them, so the Boodie would gather up and plant the nuts and then
proceed to eat the green shoots as the nuts sprouted. As the wheatbelt
manifested, the land was cleared and hence the special trees were all
cut down. The Boodie Rat improvised by shifting its habits from rather
motivated horticulture to simply eating the green shoots of wheat that
had begun to sprout everywhere. The usual colonial wrath for all things
inconvenient ensued and henceforth the Boodie Rat is but a bygone story
of sharing and caring. I wonder if Symbiotica know about this fabulous symbiotic relic in their home state..
The sky thing. projected images of skies shone thru miniature
shadow sculptures of warped but evocative nature or detritus...
producing a shadow vista with sky behind... yes please think i...
touchdown
posted by Kirsten on Fri 04 of Mar, 2005
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Wednesday 2nd March 2005
Disclaimer: this is my first ever blog and intended to be a way of
working thru the process of a 6 week residency at Kellerberrin, a teeny
tiny little town in the wheatbelt of Western Australia. During this
experience, the plan is to do some workshops with young people of the
area and make some work besides. Lots of ideas looking for a bit of
space, silence and time. This blog is a record and a process. Hopefully
I will find a speedy balance between daily notes, thoughts, process,
dodgy but well-meant diagrams and quaint observations.
Arrived on Monday and have been busily meeting everyone in town
ever since. So four meetings in all :) Am blithely accommodated in the
Craftbarn, which is the shopspace next door to IASKA gallery. All very
barny with lots of throwrugs, large pillows with beading and mustard
walls. It is huge, however, and there is a BATH in the adjoining
bedroom so all could not be finer. Once i get over my paranoia at
housing all my technology in a barn, that is. Still breathing a sigh of
relief everytime I come back and the laptop+cameras are still there.
Semitrailers every.. um.. four minutes?... crumbling and charging past
along the Eastern Highway outside my front door, the road that runs
from Perth to Kalgoorlie. There is a Superpit in Kalgoorlie.. which is
an open-cut goldmine of massive, massive scale and of undoubtably
tragic environmental consequence.. with monster trucks and everything..
definitely going on a trip to explore that one.
Morning spend passengering with Felena from IASKA to Mukinbudin, a
delightful small settlement which is 1.5hrs from Kellerberrin and
possibly equally as flat. Much wheat stubble, fences, sky. Always so
much sky. I think it's all going to be about sky.
Went to see Hal, a teacher at Kellerberrin Public School with
Felena to discuss my impending workshops with students... looks like it
will have some sort of animation bent and involve the year 9-10 kids.
Everyone in Keller (as its called) seems relatively well adjusted
however.. how do you do a workshop with normal, adjusted children? Who
have no particular screaming urge to learn the somewhat irrelevant
skillset that you base yr sniffy little city life around? eek - however
Im sure the joy of animating with digital stills cameras and exploring
how movement within the frame can imply narrative while being a blob of
dirt and a stick could be quite funky to a 14 year old, if i can figure
out how to approach it... at least they're not the sydney girls choir
(35 of sydney's finest gels refusing to sing or acknowledge yr presence
for three sessions until I started playing them Zap Mama - very close
call).
Anyway. country air. enough said.
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