Caroline Huf — Back to the Mallee

Here's a work in progress from one of the Australian artists we had the pleasure to meet and spend time with at Calperum Station. Her process is stop motion photography, which has a physicality often lacking in other moving image processes. I think her work has a great sense of play to it as well. Enjoy!


back to the mallee from Caroline Huf on Vimeo.

John Reid — Walking the Solar System, Pt. 2

The statement below from John Reid and a short video of his performance 'Force of Habit' from 2000 sheds more light on his work shown in the previous post (his video from Kioloa can be found there as well).

 

Friday 3 June Late afternoon: The walk onto the rock platform skirting Snapper Point near Kioloa, NSW, is a disorientating sensory experience. The exposed and slightly off-kilter Permian sediments form the headland on one side and, on the other, is the sizeable rolling swell of the Tasman Sea. It brought to mind a performance work that I did in 2000 titled, ‘Force of Habit’ (see Video 01, the only visual compilation to exist). In it my body is positioned horizontally on a gallery plynth. Armed with a briefcase, I assume a posture as if I’m walking to work. By virtue of being at odds with the force of gravity my limbs fatigue in a few minutes, the walking pose collapses and the artwork concludes. The performance derived some formal dramatic tension from the body being under physiological stress. Conceptually, however, the work was in dialogue with Australian artist, Stelarc, and his thesis that the brain and technology are in a mutinous relationship against the rest of the body in order to attain gravitational escape velocity.

John Reid — Walking the Solar System

Those of us from the Land Arts program who came to Australia owe a lot to John Reid, so it is a real honor to be able to show some of his work on this blog. During the month of June, Mr. Reid focused his time on the body of work tentatively titled, "Walking the Solar System." Below is a brief statement about his working process along with images and a video from the series. The video is the one he showed us at Kioloa, which I wrote about in my post "Report from Kioloa."

The idea of imaging the human figure going about everyday life (ie walking to work) as a body in the solar system began with the 2002 performance, 'Force of Habit.' A similar work was performed in 2005. In 2011, several performances were undertaken in the field for the video camera with the production assistance of Bill Gilbert and Frank Thirion. The disconnect between the figure and the ground raises for consideration the locus of the figure orbiting about the sun intersecting with a particular place that is at that point in space but at another orientation and point in time. At issue for the final resolution of these recent works is whether to show only still photographs of ‘the walks’, or only the video of ‘the walks’, which ones of either, and to decide on a title as an entrée to the contemplation of the central idea.

Bill Gilbert — Walking Constellations and Grids

Not enough can be said about Bill Gilbert, co-founder and director of the Land Arts of the American West program at the University of New Mexico. The success of Land Arts has helped generate the Art & Ecology area at UNM and continues to play a significant role for place-based art in the southwest.

In Australia, Gilbert had a unique opportunity to focus on his own projects, which are based on the physical act of walking as a means of experiencing place. Below is Bill in his own words about his work in Australia, along with working images

For each map I use an arbitrary system of navigation to subvert my conscious mind and have a direct encounter with the surface of the planet. In that sense my walking is more in line with the Situationists than the Brits (Long & Fulton): sort of a wilderness Derive. I worked on two series in AU both using absurd systems to determine my paths. At Calperum, I did an Australian version of my "attempts to walk the grid." I've now done them in Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas (in the states) and Mongolia and Japan. The ground being fairly flat and obstacles few and far between. I came pretty close this time.

At Kioloa, Jigamy and Calperum I did walks in which I used constellations from the southern Hemisphere's night sky to navigate my way across the land. At Kioloa, I followed Scorpio from coast to rain forest, beach to thicket. This walk will be paired with another Scorpio walk completed at the San Rafael Swell, UT in Land Arts, mesa to river bottom. At Jigamy, I traced Lepsus on the forest floor in honor of the year of the hare and AU's problem with rabbit populations. At Calperum, I walked Hercules through the Mallee Woodlands and met a charming, if flustered, Emu. This walk will be matched with another Hercules path I followed at Otero Mesa, NM again with the Land Arts program.

My current struggle is with how best to translate the experiences to the gallery and/or web. In addition to the maps, I am playing with photos, sound recordings, and plant identification info.

Grid near Calperum Station, SA, Australia

Scorpio South— Kioloa, NSW, Australia

Scorpio North — San Rafael Swell, Utah, USA

Lepsus walking points

Lepsus —between Pambula Lake and the Tasman Sea

Hercules South points

Hercules South in the mallee woodlands in South Australia

Joseph Mougel — Bellbirds

Brother Joseph has done some terrific work in Australia. One work he began fairly early on was inspired by the Bellbirds, whose unique "ping" call we all encountered at one point or another on the Far South Coast (specifically, at our first field location at Pambula Lake, near the town of Eden). The work has developed into a sound installation, utilizing paper coffee cups collected throughout our travels in Australia. Below is Joseph's statement, along with his recording of the Bellbird calls and supporting images.

Bellbirds

Bell Miners live in communal groups in the forests of southeastern Australia. They establish territories in which they feed on the honeydew secretions of insects that, in turn, feed on eucalyptus sap. Many of the forests are managed by the timber industry, which periodically thins sick, small, or malformed trees from the ecosystem. Due to the culling of trees, the forest fails to support the diversity of insect and animal life that a mature forest would normally sustain.

As trees are removed from the forest, the timber industry ships them to Japan to be processed into paper, which then returns to Australia in the form of consumer goods.

Bellbirds recreates the birds’ natural habitat through a collection of coffee cups and sound installation, which will ultimately allow for audience interaction with the piece. The variously branded cups are evidence of the diversity of businesses offering society caffeinated beverages, while the paper from which the cups are made suggests the plethora of trees absent from the forest. A recording of the bird’s intermittent calls emanates from the cups. As viewers enter the space, they trigger the birds to defend their forest from intruders, leading to a crescendo of sound. The installation maintains the frequency and intensity of the bird calls for the period of time that the viewers remain in front of the piece, only returning to the original intervals of bird calls and silence after the audience has left the immediate area.

6/26-28 Final Days

The field portions of our Australian journey now at an end, we spent the last few days back in Canberra at the ANU School of Art (again...they have flats on site for use by artists in residence!!!). We met up again with some of our new Australian friends and generally just tried to bring closure to the whole experience. See album.

My post about our following night back in Sydney can be found here.

As I bring my account of our time in Australia to a close, I know that for those of us lucky enough to have participated in this extraordinary opportunity, it will continue to inform our work indefinitely. I will continue to post updates on the development of work started in Australia as we work toward the October show at the Bega Valley Regional Gallery, where our work will be shown alongside Field Studies artists with the Eden Project. Currently, works in progress from Land Arts and Field Studies artists are on exhibition at the ANU School of Art in a show entitled, "Expression of Intent."

6/24-25 Bonfire...Then Back to Canberra

On our last full day at Calperum Station, I helped Cedra document work she was doing in the field. Most of the photos were taken on her camera and will be used to create paintings. I have a few preliminary photos (and included 2 related drawings in this photo set). This particular piece was inspired by tiny lime-green melons, which grow naturally in the area. Stay tuned for finished paintings...and all of our completed projects from work started in Australia.

Later that evening we went to a pub and got Joseph some (SURPRISE!) balloons for his belated birthday (he got sick on the actual day...and of course didn't want to advertise it was his birthday anyway. Luckily Cedra remembered!). Back at camp, Bryn set fire to his "Wicker Man" which slowly burned away in the mesmerizing flames.

The field portion of the trip now completed, we set out the next morning, June 25, for Canberra. Along the way we had a group photo taken at the border between the Shire of Hay (say Ha-aaaay!) and the Shire of Wakool (say Way COOL!). Joseph provided the opportunity for the full group photo, which also made for fun photos of him trying to beat his timer with balloons in hand. Then Liz rolled in the grasses to prove that, even though it was actually full of spurs and prickly things, it looked so soft from a distance that it made her want to roll around in it. Kudos to you, Liz. Then we came across a bizarre burning field (likely intentional). Still don't know the full story with this one... Enjoy.

Cedra Wood — Journal Project

Here's a look at some work in progress from one of the Land Arts alums here in Australia, Cedra Wood. At UNM, Cedra made some stunning paintings based on photos from her Land Arts experience and other staged scenes, usually in outdoor settings. In Australia, she continued in this vein, placing herself in the role of performer on several occasions for photos that will be used as source material for paintings.

In addition to this ongoing project, one of Cedra's main projects in Australia is to fill the pages of a Never Ending Story-style book with writing and images based on her Australian experiences. The book itself looks medieval — it is romantic and intimidating at the same time. And toting this thing around must have been a constant reminder of her commitment. Below is a statement from Cedra about the project. The final image below is the journal used as a prop in her last performance role at Calperum.

Both the beauty and disadvantage of a journey like this is that so much happens every day, and you're whirled through a thousand successive moments that you want to remember in crystalline detail. Photographs help--and believe me, I took tons of them (O bless the digital age), many of which will serve as visual references for paintings in the studio later--but just as important to me was to keep a written and hand-drawn record of the events, thoughts, ideas, performances, and conversations that occurred. So often during travel, brains and lives expand in significant ways, and I wanted to remember how and why mine did, this time.

6/23 Murray River Walk

On Tuesday, June 22 we returned to Calperum Station. I took the opportunity to relax a little and get caught up on some things. I also made plans for what to do on the 23rd, which, I had decided, would be to walk to the Murray River. I've read before that the Murray is "the Mississippi of Australia." Now, however, its flow is completely managed by numerous dams and locks. Ill effects of human activity in the environment is plentiful around Calperum. I wondered if their were any similar signs with the river. More than that, I wanted to see the force that helped shape the area long before people existed here.

Cedra joined me on this extraordinary walk. It is approximately 3 miles from Calperum Station traveling south-east. Like my walk to the salt lake a few days before, it featured several changes of scenery — from cess pools and dead trees to sun-parched mud and mammoth bird's nests and finally to the surprisingly serene Murray River itself. Once there, Cedra and I broke for lunch. It was truly peaceful and quieting. Not quiet — things rarely are — but the sounds we heard, primarily occasional bird calls, had that effect. I took a little nap by the riverbed. After about an hour and a half or two hours, we started back. The pics don't do it justice, but here they are anyway.

6/20-21 Fred's Place

On Monday, June 20 the Land Arts crew plus John and Frank (an ANU post-grad) set out for Fred's place, approximately 20-30 min west of Calperum Station. There we would camp for the next couple of nights. This was the closest thing to a true UNM Land Arts experience so far in Australia. We were in a more remote location, we had only the barest equipment for cooking and there were no bathroom facilities (helloooo shovel!). Personally, this was a very important couple of days. I felt like I could walk forever and not reach any other human. And since my process, both in Land Arts and here in Australia, comes from direct contact with the environment, this kind of space was an important factor in allowing myself to be uncensored in my work. Generally speaking, I've found it difficult to get into a sustained rhythm of uncensored artistic activity for the past several years. I've had my moments, but they have been sporadic. This was a significant reason why I wanted to come to Australia.

Unlike my previous walk to the salt lake near Calperum Station, my walks here did not lead me out of one kind one environment and into another. It was entirely mallee, a term that describes these types of eucalypts as well as the particular environments where these plants are dominant. It was more minimal than other areas we'd visited. To my eye there weren't many varieties of plants, the main ones being the mallee and spinifex, which is a low-growing tussock grass with sharp-pointed leaves. These were the reason for my packing tape shin guards, which worked quite well to prevent constant pricking. Otherwise, this was not a densely overgrown environment. Much of the loose, red sand was exposed. I traveled perpendicular to the ridges, which run exactly east-west (you can see it clearly on the satellite images to the left). This made for fairly easy navigation to and from camp. My pics.

Our Map

Frank, Cedra, Bill, Joseph, John and Blake

Mallee and Spinifex

Evening as Cedra wraps up work on a drawing

6/18-19 Intro to Bookmark and Calperum

Filling in the gaps, because there's more to the trip than I was able to complete while I was still in Australia...

Calperum Station is located on the Bookmark Biosphere Reserve north of Renmark in South Australia. The Station promotes awareness of the unique environment of the Biosphere through educational and community outreach programs. From 6/18-24, we stayed on site along with eight ANU art students (aside from two nights when the Land Arts folks went camping not far from there...more on this later). The people who work at Calperum were truly generous and great in every way. Grant, who runs the place, was very keen to the idea of working with artists as a means of communicating issues of the Biosphere to the broader public. In the U.S., such openness to artists by people in scientific fields seems rarer. Possible residency for the future??

The station and its surroundings were quite varied and strange, as I saw on a couple of my long walks. Some of the nearby lakes look utterly bleak, like they belong in a haunted forest. Others are completely dried out, with a top layer of encrusted salt (and more salt beneath the surface, as found by Joseph in his hole-digging). The mallee, which is the unique environment around which the biosphere was formed, are quite lovely and strange. These eucalypts produce several trunks from a single underground root, called a lignotuber. Something like 80% of these trees were removed from Australia to create grazing lands. On the two nights away from Calperum, we stayed deeper into the mallee woodland to experience this type of environment more closely. Here's some pics of Calperum and my walk to the salt lake.

Calperum Station and the Murray River Basin

My Path from Calperum Station to the Salt Lake

Out of the Mallee onto the Crusty Rocks

Salt Lake

Yoshimi Hayashi — Just One Cup

Although he's away in New Zealand, Yoshi is continuing his work with souvenir spoons begun in Australia. He sent me some images and writing about the project:

June 6th, 2011
Gunnedah, New South Wales
"There are alot of Aborigines that live up in there."  Chris commented.  "And cows too", I replied.  "Yes, cows also."  Chris agreed.

June 14th, 2011

“Surfer’s Paradise Australia, Sea World”

“They have seals that can balance a ball!”  I said excitedly.  “Yeah, and its near that crocodile guys zoo.”  Joseph added.

Statement:  “Just one cup”,  2011

What does it really mean to know a place? How do we know that we actually know it at all?  Why does it matter that one own a bit of a place?  Why do we find it so necessary to make a mark on a place or to collect a memory of our visit?  To leave those memory or to be left with and burdened by someone else’s life journey summarized in a small shiny utensil.  Is it a functionless taboo object or should we just use it and live in this moment?