Diary

Lines of thought

February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 April onwards Log

March 22, 2007. Newtown

Reading the 1955 journal of an Antarctic winterer reveals precptions of internal and internal landscapes. His word pictures inspire dance!

Lynden Nichols, Lisa Roberts, mixed media, 1984

March 14, 2007. Newtown

Distance

Reading Stephen Muecke, I am inspired to begin writing my Journey. It's the start of writing about what's driving my research in Antarctic animation.

Sometimes we travel to the edge of the city and the words run out at the same time as the houses. Then we might find ourselves in a culture and a community where words might have a completely different purpose to the one we image they have: the landscape changes colour, and we begin to lose our grip.

Stephen Muecke, No road, 1997

March 13, 2007. Newtown

The ability to deconstruct a movement and reassemble it in a new or convincing way is the animator's territory. Many artists have realized their visions using animation as a means to externalize their inner thoughts and unique points of view. Animation gives the viewer the opportunity to gaze at a frozen moment of thought and to experience another person's rhythms.

Christine Panushka , USC, 1997

Cecile Starr, Fine art animation

1987, Reprinted from The Art of the Animated Image, edited by Charles Solomon, published by The American Film Institute

Kinetic Art is the first new category of art since prehistory. It took until this century to discover the art that moves. Had we taken the aesthetic qualities of sound as much for granted as we have taken those of motion, we would not now have music. But now, in kinetic art and animation, we have begun to compose motion. We've all been conditioned to viewing film as an adjunct to drama and literature, as a medium for story-telling. These virtues are absolutely secondary to the kinetic fine-art end of motion composition.

Len Lye, animator, kinetic sculptor, Figures of Motion, 1964

A dummy retreats from the garden of Camden, Still from timelapse sequence, March 12 2007

March 12, 2007. COFA Paddington

COFA is pleased to welcome German photographer Thomas Weinberger as our current artist in residence. His unique photographs involve a dual process whereby the same image is shot twice- once during the day and once at night- both for a long exposure time. This double exposure gives the images an unsettling, errie quality of an urban landscape.

Weinberger's photographs are not simply just a snapshot of everyday life, architecture and the documentation of time, but also function as an exploration of the medium of photography itself.

Thomas Weinberger lives and works in Munich.

COFA Media Arts staff office.

March 9, 2007. Potts Point

Landscape

We can never understand ourselves without the landscape. We cannot understand ourselves outside of the landscape.

The earth is blue like an orange. (Paul Eluard)

Kathryn Yeo, Sydney, Australia

March 8, 2007. Dendy theatre cafe, Newtown

Animated landscapes

Over coffee with Alison Heather, we talked about how animated landscapes can be used in films to refelect (or correspond) to the emotional states of characters. She suggested I see The Human Body by Jorgan Leth, and Dogme films. Also, Audrei Tarkovsky's The Mirror.

Sydney Web Hosting, Marrickville

Meeting this morning with service provider Geoffrey Robinson (Sydney Web Hosting) and Ken (technical assistant), determined that a Wordpress Blog utility launched from a .php based website would be the simplest way to further develop the Antarctic community for my project. We are currently building and testing The Animated Antarctic Thesaurus at www.antarcicanimation.com, trying out ideas for functionality, interactivity, layout, artwork and colour. We looked at a mediawiki structure as a way of organising content and developing an open-access on-line community but decided there were too many issues with spamming to go that path. Jumla is another package 2007-03-12-gardenDummy-300x225.jpg to be reviewed after July deadlines have been passed, when there is more material that needs sorting, and after the site's functions have evolved through user interactions and comments. It was agreed that photographs of Bloggers be included, including pictures of the technical development team (us!). We agreed on allocating one .php page only for each word (for example 'stardust'), with Bernadette's Dictionary definition beneath the first captioned animation entry. All other entries will be placed beneath that. A will be code written to rotate all entries to the top position. In orther words, each time the page is opened, the next captioned animation in line will appear at the top. The scoll bar will also alert viewers to the material below.

Sorting the directories of my hard drive, I collected together all the research Abstracts I've written since September 2006, in preparation for composing Animating the Abstract. There will also be emails, visual diaries, and a box of related items collected since September 2005, to look through. I will scan for recurring words and images and look for shifts in focus, and for the interactions and events that may have helped shift the focus.

March 7, 2007. Australia Council for the Arts, Surry Hills

Synapse - Focus on Art and Science

The Inter-Arts Office at the Australia Council held a panel discussion tonight with artists and scientists who collaborated to create works for Strange Attractors: charm between art and science, an exhibition held at the Museum of Modern Art, Shanhai, China, in 2006.

Featured scientists and artists included:

Drew Berry (VIC)-artist/scientist, The Walter & Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne - science partner

Peter E Charuk (NSW)-artist, Dr Caroline Sutton, Dr Alan Williams, Bruce Barker-scientists, CSIRO Biodiversity & Conservation Group; CSRIO Marine & Atmospheric Research Group, Hobart - science partners

Justine Cooper (NYC/NSW)-artist, The American Museum of Natural History, NYC -science partner

Julie Ryder (ACT)-artist, Dr Christine Cargill-scientist, Centre for Biodiversity, Australian Botanic Gardens, Canberra-science partner

George Khut (NSW)-artist, John Tonkin (NSW) - artist/scientist

Hellen Sky (VIC)-artist, Paul Bourke (WASP) , Dr Chris Fluke-scientists, Department for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne, University-science partner

Mari Velonaki (NSW)-artist, Dr David Rye, Dr Steve Scheding & Dr Stefan Williams - scientists Australian Centre for Field Robotics, The University of Sydney-science partner

The panel agreed that artists collaborating with scientists helps to develop new audiences for science, and that artists offer different perspectives on scientific work. Later, Drew Berry referred me to the following science animators: hybridmediacalresearchanimation.com, Jeff Johnson, fivth.com, David Goodsell, Anatomical travalogues, NY, Nick Woolridge, University of Toronto, Peter Morse (WA) who went to Antarctica on an AAD Fellowship, and Rob Lue at Harvard University.

March 5, 2007. Newtown

33s 151e, 8am and 5pm, March 5 2007. Evening and morning 4-frame looping sequences start to track the changes in my Sydney garden.

March 6, 2007. Sydney

I'm looking into the best set-up for digitally animating, using an animation stand.

March 6, 2007. Melbourne

Depending on your budget of course there are a many ways to go.

A camera with complete manual control is advisable. I did look at digital SLR cameras and found that the CanonEOS 350D ( around $1200-1500) is pretty good and we got one for the VCA. We also purchased the Canon EOS 5D ( $5000+) which is a bit better because the sensor is larger (not to be confused with mega pixels, the actual physical size of the sensor. The closer in size to a 35mm film frame the better). These cameras have interechangable lenses which is great, but if it is to be on a rostrum, you don't need more than one lens.

Personally, for my own at home use, I couldn't afford any of the above and ended up buying a Panasonic Lumix digital camera. It has full manual control, but a fixed Leica lens. I cannot change lenses. This cost me around $700 a year ago and I am pretty happy with the shots so far.

A problem you might come up with SLR cameras is a 'line out' while animating. You will be able to use a line out to a monitor/computer to see all your menu functions and line up the shot, but it may be tricky flicking between the shot taken and line up the next shot through the same line out if you know what I mean. You can check with the camera dealer and see if you can. With non SLR cameras you can do it because you look through a viewfinder or come straight off the sensor. I am sorry if this is sounding confusing.

I have shot a music video with a domestic 4 megapixel, happy snap camera and saw it screened at ACMI and it looked really good. It had full manual control, but had some irritating features that required some guessing during the shoot.

You can import all your frames directly into an editing program, like Final Cut, After Effects, Premiere, Quicktime etc etc and play it back.

Alternatively, you can buy frame capturing software and hook up either a video camera or digital stills camera. Some programmes require a 'plug-in' for the digital stills camera and some programmes don't take digital stills cameras.

Stop-Motion Pro (PC only): http://www.stopmotionpro.com

BTV Pro (Mac, maybe PC too): http://www.bensoftware.com

Frame Thief: http://www.framethief.com

All these have onion-skinning so you can track your previous frame and then store your image straight to hard-drive. So they are great for checking your animation as you go and fun to use. You will just need to check how high the resolution will go. If your end product is video/tv then it is probably fine, if you want to blow up to 35mm, I think I would use the frames directly from camera to an editing programme. You could try both ways and see what you like. You can download free trials from the site.

You can also check camera reviews at: http://www.dpreview.com/

This is a very helpful site which goes into too much detail for me, but you'll be able to pick out the relevant information easily enough. Canon,Nikon, Sony/Minolta, Panasonic Lumix and Olympus are all good brands and some people will favour one over the rest in the same way choose Holden over Ford, or PC over Mac, but I reckon you just need to keep an open mind. Pentax seems good value, but make suer it can take rechargeable batteries and an AC power supply too.

Robert Stephenson, Lecturer in Animation, Victorian College of the Arts

Converging supervision

Today was my first official meeting with my supervisor at COFA, artist/scholar John (Hobart) Hughes, and the current Abstract for research was presented for review. The on-line research tools - this Blog and the Animated Antarctic thesaurus - were also discussed. It was acknowledged that as well serving as a journal and archive of findings, ideas and encouters, the Blog allows for comments from others, including supervisors. With one supervisor in Sydney and one in Melbourne, the Blog offers opportunities for assessment, review and discussion. The Blog also tracks the research journey.

John was the first person I had spoken with at an art college about doing a PhD, and he was very interested in supervising a project about Antarctic landscape. In September last year I had asked Dr Simon Pockley, with whom I had studied at RMIT in 1995, to be my academic superviser. I had not yet decided on a host university, yet since that time Simon has been communicating with me on-line and face to face in Melbourne, which helped me a great deal to shape the current Abstract.

Standard Blog software (Wordpress), with a 'comments' utility, is being set up now to replace the current pages, which are simply pages on my website called 'Blog'. Up to this point, comments have been emailed to me and uploaded individually, after clearing permission to publish. An animated Antarctic thesaurus is in the process of being designed and built as a website embedding a wiki structure and a Blog of its own, to develop an on-line community of Antarctic base workers, and to invite comment. Artists such as Michaela Gleave, who have composed imaginative responses to the Antarctic landscape, are also starting to contribute to this project, stretching the conventional definitions of 'animation' and 'Antarctic landscape'.

John suggested, as had Simon Pockley very early in our discussions, that I consider the land itself as an interface and organising framework for my study. At our first meeting in Melbourne, Simon had told me the story of the Gwion Gwion Aboriginal people, and how their stories are revealed through the land's physical features, embodiments of Dreamtime spirits. Important ideas that embedded values, were originally shaped physically by an artist. The values were held within sacred objects, 'message sticks'. These were carried along 'songlines' to give voice to the people of traditional laws.

Earth as an interface

March 3, 2007. Northcote, Victoria, Australia

I've long believed that the convergence of cartography with web enabled social software will transform the world as we know it. The earth itself becomes a repository of its stories - a kind of Wikipedia with geospatal co-ordinates:

Vital signs

Simon Pockley

Coincidentally, this afternoon I interviewed a young German student about renting a room in our house. A student of interface engineering. Her Masters thesis involves assessing the usability of cartographic (visually mapped) interfaces against those that are text-based.

Walking along King streeet on my way to meet John I had been contemplating the connections between the Gwion Gwion story Simon had told me and the notices I had found on his website ('Flight of Ducks'), tracking the whereabouts of some Aboriginal sacred objects. He is interested in their journeys, it seems, from the Dreamtime to e-Bay.

John picked up on a dominant idea in my study: that people might be looking at the same place, but will see it in different ways. That we perceive in unique ways is both our strength and weakness. Working together, we can share knowledge to expand our individual understandings and perceptions. The fact that we have different perspectives is also the cause of some tragic and comical misunderstandings. Different readings of the Bible, for example, have fueled religiuos wars. John told be how he and Bruce Curry composed a live slide show/performance piece, 'Even orchestra', based on this very idea (See Cantril's Filmnotes). Dressed as a bird and an insect, their performance comprised dialogues of repeated misunderstandings and miscommunications.

When I mentioned that I'd begun a timelapse sequence of our front garden, he told me about an on-line community art project, 1001 Nights, made by the initiating artist after a great personal loss, to provide her with a daily ritual and connection with other people.

Finally, technical issues were discussed, including the computer and camera hardware and software I will need for animation. Monkey Jam, After Effects and Premiere were recommended. John has booked me into one of his undergraduate, 7 week courses to learn Adobe 'After Effects,' as well as his 'Landscape Animation' excursion in Broken Hill in June.

A point I forgot to mention was that some people have experienced slight exposure shifts during animating and I have heard a variety of explanations for this error. If possible, borrow someone else's camera for a test drive to see if this is a problem. We haven't encountered it as yet with the Canon EOS 350 with four productions shot with it last year. The only time we saw this problem was when the animator had the exposure control set to 'Aperture Priority' which will correct the exposure whenever there is a change in conditions as the camera sees it.. For example if the character walks into more light and reflects more light back to the camera, the aperture will respond accordingly. This function should be turned off.

March 5, 2007. Newtown

Animating the Arctic and Antarctic

Gleave, M. 2006 Exhibition, Raining Room (Diamond dust), Firstdraft gallery, 2006 Sydney

Michaela Gleave, a Sydney based installation artist who is yet to go south, responded to an Antarctic word through an installation designed to provide a physical experience of a phenomenon she had researched and imagined: diamond dust, "Tiny crystals of ice in cold air, brilliantly reflecting sunlight" (Hince, 2000; 98).

I saw her installation as an animation - a room animated by actual water falling through light. I was imaginatively transported into an Antarctic atmosphere. Here, an artist's understanding of a word is physically extended into a space and time you can walk through and touch. How might such a work be represented on-line, and linked to the word and its definition, and evoke an experience of the artwork?

In June 2006, when I was in London, I found a sound sculpture in the National History Museum, made by Max Eastley. He was one of the artists who had travelled to the Arctic as part of the Cape Farewell project. A line of variously shaped glass shards were suspended by fine steel cables, along along a long wall. A small mechanism turned the top of each cable, causing the shards to strike into each other randomly. The sound was that of the millions of tiny bells I heard at Ace Lake, beyond Mawson, where the sun shone through a clear blue sky, warming black dust particles that had landed on a nearby glacier. The glacier was melting, crystal by blue crystal. Melodic ringings sounded through Antarctic air from vast distances, yet I could also put my ear to hear a single crystal tone.

March 2, 2007. Northcote, Victoria, Australia

The film that would interest you is Smoke

Harvey Keitel takes photos of the street each morning at the same time.

Simon Pockley

March 4, 2007. Newtown

Unwound, Stills from animation

A long (789 frame) stopmotion animation sequence of gauze unwinding is filmed in high resolution, and compliled as a low resolution animated gif file. Too large (7.7MB) to upload on this site, this sequence is more appropriate for compiling in video format and output to DVD. Less memory hungry line-drawn animations, made using Flash, or smaller (177 KB)stop motion sequences like the one below, are more efficient for on-line work.

Breath, Christine McMillan, 2007

This short (68 frame) sequence, made recently by Christine McMillan, was made by optomising her higher resolution camera original files and recompiling these as an animated gif (177 KB).

March 3, 2007. Northcote

From Grease to pancakes

Listening and watching an Antarctic expeditioner describe the formation of new sea ice, and its progression from 'grease' to 'pancake', I learn that...

Ice crystals form on the surface of water, and join together to become grease ice. Grease ice is impossible to break because it's already lots of little particles on the surface of the water held by surface tension. With continued cold conditions, the grease ice thickens by producing more more crystals and these bond together. The resuting ice sheet becomes harder and less flexible. While it is still somewhat flexible, water movement can break up the new ice sheet and round out the edges into pancake ice. Further thickening results in the formation of more rigid sea ice.

Ken Wilson

March 2, 2007. Newtown

with shaddow, detail, Symmetrical Planting installation, Christine McMillan, 2006

Symmetrical Planting (McMillan, 2007)

March 2, 2007. Nullo Mountain, Australia

Well Butler (Oxford) and others (Soule) detail how postmodernism was very much the creation of the city and of dissilusioned french Marxists. Despite all the talk about 'recognising the other', this seems to have been limited to the human world and did not cross over into nature. Australian writer William Lines has also written an essay 'The smell of the coffee house' on this in his book 'Open air essays'. Re antarctica, I have a friend who has been there 8 times I think, ... so he might be a good person to chat to?

Certainly the idea of an email Antarctic journal every 2 weeks to you might be very very interesting. My experience is that scientists (myself included) don't realise the power of this method. Some very deep stuff emerged in the wilderness journals kept by 5 of us in my thesis. The scientist in my examiners thought that phenomenology wasn't science but art! Thus it might be of interest to you. I think it's both!

Certainly I would think both participatory action research and hermaneutic phenomenology might have relevance to art-based research. I believe we may also share an interest in the need for something that follows postmodernism? I just hope it is not anthropocentric and can extend the compassion beyond the human species!

Dr Hayden Washington

The Wilderness Knott

Abstract of thesis submitted for Doctor of Philosophy, University of Western Sydney

Haydn Grinling Washington, 2006

Over the last thirty years the meaning of the word 'wilderness' has changed in Australia, and it has come under sustained attack on philosophical, cultural, political and 'justice' grounds. Why has this happened? Why have wilderness campaigns drastically slowed? Why do some people no longer use the term? How has the term become so confused? What could be done to reduce this confusion? This thesis investigates the 'Wilderness Knot' - the confusion and tangled meanings around 'wilderness'. In the literature this 'knot' is comprised of at least five strands; philosophical, political, cultural, justice and exploitation. Normally people focus only on the last of these strands, its economic exploitation. 'Wilderness' as a term is in a unique philosophical position, being disliked by both modernists and many postmodernists alike.

The methodology is qualitative, involving participatory action research (PAR) and hermeneutic phenomenology. The PAR was done with the Blue Mountains Wilderness Network near Sydney, which investigated the confusion around 'wilderness', and sought to reduce this by entering into dialogue with supporters, critics and community members interested in wilderness issues, notably the local Aboriginal Traditional Owners (TOs). Eleven in-depth interviews with scholars (including critics) of wilderness were carried out to feed into this PAR. The hermeneutic phenomenology made use of the wilderness journals of five of the Network, and sought to gain a deeper understanding of the experience of wilderness itself, and also the lived experience of encountering the wilderness knot.

The PAR provided many insights into the knot, especially regarding the need for dialogue to reduce the confusion. It demonstrated the delicacy needed to gain meaningful dialogue over an issue which raises real passions about social and environmental justice. It took three years to develop meaningful dialogue between TOs and conservationists. Recognition of such sensitivities is an important part of understanding why dialogue often fails, and confusion remains. There was also insight into the complexities and difficulties of collaborative efforts to promote dialogue.

All the scholars interviewed agreed that large natural intact areas ('lanais') should be protected, though some did not call them 'wilderness', but used other terms (for example; quiet country, core lands, wild country). Clearly some scholars do not know the formal definitions of wilderness as basically a large natural area, or if they do they prefer to use their own personal definition or meaning. Some of the confusion around 'wilderness' is actually a smokescreen when one finds out what people really mean. Although there are differences or sticking points between conservationists and TOs, none of these appear so great that both groups would not work together to protect 'wilderness as lanai'. The spectra of issues entangled in 'the land' and 'wilderness' are presented textually and diagrammatically, as are the ways forward to untangle meanings and reduce confusion. The political naivety of academia is discussed in regard to 'wilderness as lanai' (considering increasing threats). There is a need for greater rigour in identifying which meaning of 'wilderness' is actually being referred to. There is also merit in promoting recognition that 'wilderness' is in fact a tribute to past indigenous land practices, not a disregard of indigenous history. The idea of shared 'custodianship' or stewardship is suggested as a way forward.

The wilderness journals demonstrated that the power of the wilderness experience is deeply felt, and many profound qualities were covered by the participants. They also expressed the loneliness of a wilderness advocate embedded in consumer culture, as well as the frustration, anger and despair around reconciling the reality of such places with what is said about 'wilderness', and the fanaticism involved in various positions on the issue. However, there is also the quality of dialogue as a positive response, where finding common ground reduces confusion and untangles some of the meanings - and brings hope for the future of such areas. The wilderness knot can indeed be loosened, as this thesis demonstrates. However, it will be an ongoing project for all those involved. The art to keeping 'wilderness as lanai' is not just 'eternal vigilance', it is an eternal ongoing dialogue about its meaning and values.

March 1, 2007. Newtown

Unwound, Still from animation

Christine McMillan presented her installation, 'Symmetrical Planting' at the Second International Conference, Art in Early Childhood, University of New England, Australia, 5-9 February 2007. Composed as part of an artist in residency at the New England Regional Art Museum in Armidale NSW, her work involved wrapping a symmetrically planted group of poplar trees with surgical gauze, in an interweaving pattern around and between them. Over time the gauze absorbed smells of wood and leaves. I helped in 'winding up' the work, unwinding lengths of gauze from the trees and rolling them into balls. Christine then distributed these to some of us who were at the conference, with instructions to document what we do with them. Here is one frame in an animated sequence made today, in which the gauze unwinds, and moves in wavy motions like the sea yielding up its treasures from the deep. But these are treasures from the land: bits of dried leaves, twigs, soil and (a surprise) some echidna spines that Christine gave me from her collection.

a crystal-cruel mirror

Browsing through Flight of Ducks (Pockley, Ongoing), I find the following words by the author's father, Dr. F.J.A. Pockley. Writing about his 1976 trip into central Australia, where he had already travelled in 1933, he could just as well have been writing about the Antarctic ice desert and the 'lifechanging' effects it has on many people.

The land is detached, indifferent, remote from all human emanations. There are no ghosts, no spirits, no aura of civilization. Impassive and neutral it makes no judgement, but merely reflects one's self back on one's self, one's true self in a crystal-cruel mirror. A self acutely aware that it contains the fruits of other men's genius down the ages and that this store has limitations.