Looks like one of my favourite directors also likes the idea of the Last Supper:
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/news/story/0,,2282177,00.html
Wednesday, May 28
Saturday, May 24
not quite back to the real world
It’s been less than a fortnight since I left Bundanon, but already it’s feeling like a fairly pivotal turning point in my creative life.
Having moved fairly smoothly from school to university to the workplace, finding myself in jobs (journalism/newspaper editor) that offer plenty of challenges and require a substantial amount of attention from my mind, I’ve never really had the opportunity to spend any great stretch of time on creative projects.
Those that I have pursued have been, invariably, either spontaneous or reactive. My two novel length works-in progress both began life as short stories that simply got out of hand, taking on a life of their own. On the photography front, I’ve been very much of the verité school, shooting what I see, the world ‘as it is’ without my interference. I acknowledge, of course, the choices I make in subject selection, framing, composition and the like, but have rarely been active in setting up or directing a scene or an image. I’d figured this was a stylistic choice, a philosophical consideration of photography as documentation and momentary, but am now wondering whether it was simply a lack of time.
On the writing side, the hope entering the fortnight had been to finish a few projects, in any spare time that may have emerged around our main major ‘life between buildings’ project. Yet after two weeks these never even made it out of the suitcase – this was a place and a time for thinking afresh, for inventing/crafting not polishing; opening doors not closing them.
So instead of wrapping up existing projects, I seem to have started more than I can keep track of. Central is the life between buildings song cycle, to which I intend to co-contribute text along with Rhiannon and Danielle, and work on more visual ideas that will hopefully augment its final presentation.
‘The Last Supper’ is to be a 12-song song-cycle, co-created by the life between buildings team of Serena Armstrong, Danielle Carey, Rhiannon Cook, Julian Day, and, in there as well, me.
The cycle will build upon written texts exploring the last meals of condemned death row prisoners, combining the irresistible motifs of Food and Death.
The idea is to create a work that can stand alone in a traditional performative sense, incorporating visual elements , but there is also strong interest in looking at the ‘event’ possibilities the idea holds, to explore its potential in installation or even ‘happening’ terms, such as incorporating the work into an actual meal with audience interaction, a blurring of the active performer/ passive audience lines.
This idea developed throughout Bundanon and grew richer each day, particularly in the second week. We would share our thoughts and ideas for it, discussing its difficulties and problematic aspects as well as what intrigued us.
Once the idea had developed to a point where we could all see where it might be heading, we were each able to work on bringing our various strengths to it, working on potential texts and some basic musical possibilities.
Amidst all this, as I was being drawn further and further into the surrounds, I also found some windows to experiment with some visual ideas. With a fortnight to spend free of daily concerns (cooking and grooming matters notwithstanding), my early ideas for some photographic series developed, expanded and then shifted quite substantially. For reasons I expect I’ll explore at greater length down the line, I’ve developed a fascination bordering on obsession with red. Red in all its forms, but particularly red as a thread – in this case wool.
‘Threads’ are a theme I’ve begun to quietly follow, but the red is quite recent and appeared quite suddenly, almost violently. Apart from its symbolic elements, which I’ll discuss down the track, I’m quite taken by the difficulties cameras appear to have in processing reds of this intensity.
My early red interventions at Bundanon were quite rushed and quickly executed. I wasn’t sure if the idea even had any lasting worth, and hadn’t fully understood what it was I was trying to say. Spending more and more time wrapping objects, winding the wool around the man-made or natural items that drew me, that seemed to be asking for a red challenge, or echo, I found the time and space to think more about what it was I was trying to do, and say.
I had gone into Bundanon thinking I would look at spending more time on photo manipulation – working with layers to get my photos to look at the relationship between the ‘observed world’, text and music. But instead of post-production and scanning, layering disparate images for a common cause, I found I was more and more drawn towards creating these layers in real-time and real-space.
The poetics of the bush and its musicality was utterly enthralling. I couldn’t face sitting at my computer trying to recreate when here was a chance to create directly, to interact with the natural surroundings and enter into a type of direct dialogue.
Hence the paperbark/paperback project, the Byron rock, the Haydn gum, and variations on the ‘poe-tree’ project. Many more ideas have also been sifting through since my return, with the urge to create kicked along again after seeing Jeanette Winterson, a favourite author, speak at the Sydney Opera House to open the Sydney Writers’ Festival on Tuesday (more about that for another post).
While perhaps seemingly like a fairly haphazard hotchpotch of concepts and threads, each, in their way, has been spawned by the Bundanon and life between buildings collaboration. In the past I’ve tended to work fairly individually, drawing upon my own ideas and bouncing them up against, well, myself.
I think what I’ve taken from this experience is not just the amazing time I had working closely with such creative, inspiring artists (and good friends!), but I have learned how ideas bounced around can grow and develop and take on a life of their own, thanks to the enthusiasm and input of others.
So while we have a common cause in our central project, we all each have other strands to follow, other threads to explore, that each developed, to some extent out, of the collaborative process. The actual ‘practice’ part, the writing or the photography is, for me, still a fairly personal path. I tend to process ideas over a longer period than some, then quietly chip away at them, channelling through my work things I can’t always explain in discussion. I think my strength in working with others is more likely to be a piece of text or a photo that tells a story, rather than ‘discussed’ input as such – that may change, but my work seems to come from a part of me I don’t necessarily have access to in conversation form.
To spend two weeks immersed in this, in such a deeply inspiring place as Bundanon, has been an experience that will ripple through my life for some time.
This was an inspiring group of artists to spend time with, and I like to think we’ll be able to keep working together, even if loosely, under the life between buildings umbrella.
- Benjamin
Having moved fairly smoothly from school to university to the workplace, finding myself in jobs (journalism/newspaper editor) that offer plenty of challenges and require a substantial amount of attention from my mind, I’ve never really had the opportunity to spend any great stretch of time on creative projects.
Those that I have pursued have been, invariably, either spontaneous or reactive. My two novel length works-in progress both began life as short stories that simply got out of hand, taking on a life of their own. On the photography front, I’ve been very much of the verité school, shooting what I see, the world ‘as it is’ without my interference. I acknowledge, of course, the choices I make in subject selection, framing, composition and the like, but have rarely been active in setting up or directing a scene or an image. I’d figured this was a stylistic choice, a philosophical consideration of photography as documentation and momentary, but am now wondering whether it was simply a lack of time.
On the writing side, the hope entering the fortnight had been to finish a few projects, in any spare time that may have emerged around our main major ‘life between buildings’ project. Yet after two weeks these never even made it out of the suitcase – this was a place and a time for thinking afresh, for inventing/crafting not polishing; opening doors not closing them.
So instead of wrapping up existing projects, I seem to have started more than I can keep track of. Central is the life between buildings song cycle, to which I intend to co-contribute text along with Rhiannon and Danielle, and work on more visual ideas that will hopefully augment its final presentation.
‘The Last Supper’ is to be a 12-song song-cycle, co-created by the life between buildings team of Serena Armstrong, Danielle Carey, Rhiannon Cook, Julian Day, and, in there as well, me.
The cycle will build upon written texts exploring the last meals of condemned death row prisoners, combining the irresistible motifs of Food and Death.
The idea is to create a work that can stand alone in a traditional performative sense, incorporating visual elements , but there is also strong interest in looking at the ‘event’ possibilities the idea holds, to explore its potential in installation or even ‘happening’ terms, such as incorporating the work into an actual meal with audience interaction, a blurring of the active performer/ passive audience lines.
This idea developed throughout Bundanon and grew richer each day, particularly in the second week. We would share our thoughts and ideas for it, discussing its difficulties and problematic aspects as well as what intrigued us.
Once the idea had developed to a point where we could all see where it might be heading, we were each able to work on bringing our various strengths to it, working on potential texts and some basic musical possibilities.
Amidst all this, as I was being drawn further and further into the surrounds, I also found some windows to experiment with some visual ideas. With a fortnight to spend free of daily concerns (cooking and grooming matters notwithstanding), my early ideas for some photographic series developed, expanded and then shifted quite substantially. For reasons I expect I’ll explore at greater length down the line, I’ve developed a fascination bordering on obsession with red. Red in all its forms, but particularly red as a thread – in this case wool.
‘Threads’ are a theme I’ve begun to quietly follow, but the red is quite recent and appeared quite suddenly, almost violently. Apart from its symbolic elements, which I’ll discuss down the track, I’m quite taken by the difficulties cameras appear to have in processing reds of this intensity.
My early red interventions at Bundanon were quite rushed and quickly executed. I wasn’t sure if the idea even had any lasting worth, and hadn’t fully understood what it was I was trying to say. Spending more and more time wrapping objects, winding the wool around the man-made or natural items that drew me, that seemed to be asking for a red challenge, or echo, I found the time and space to think more about what it was I was trying to do, and say.
I had gone into Bundanon thinking I would look at spending more time on photo manipulation – working with layers to get my photos to look at the relationship between the ‘observed world’, text and music. But instead of post-production and scanning, layering disparate images for a common cause, I found I was more and more drawn towards creating these layers in real-time and real-space.
The poetics of the bush and its musicality was utterly enthralling. I couldn’t face sitting at my computer trying to recreate when here was a chance to create directly, to interact with the natural surroundings and enter into a type of direct dialogue.
Hence the paperbark/paperback project, the Byron rock, the Haydn gum, and variations on the ‘poe-tree’ project. Many more ideas have also been sifting through since my return, with the urge to create kicked along again after seeing Jeanette Winterson, a favourite author, speak at the Sydney Opera House to open the Sydney Writers’ Festival on Tuesday (more about that for another post).
While perhaps seemingly like a fairly haphazard hotchpotch of concepts and threads, each, in their way, has been spawned by the Bundanon and life between buildings collaboration. In the past I’ve tended to work fairly individually, drawing upon my own ideas and bouncing them up against, well, myself.
I think what I’ve taken from this experience is not just the amazing time I had working closely with such creative, inspiring artists (and good friends!), but I have learned how ideas bounced around can grow and develop and take on a life of their own, thanks to the enthusiasm and input of others.
So while we have a common cause in our central project, we all each have other strands to follow, other threads to explore, that each developed, to some extent out, of the collaborative process. The actual ‘practice’ part, the writing or the photography is, for me, still a fairly personal path. I tend to process ideas over a longer period than some, then quietly chip away at them, channelling through my work things I can’t always explain in discussion. I think my strength in working with others is more likely to be a piece of text or a photo that tells a story, rather than ‘discussed’ input as such – that may change, but my work seems to come from a part of me I don’t necessarily have access to in conversation form.
To spend two weeks immersed in this, in such a deeply inspiring place as Bundanon, has been an experience that will ripple through my life for some time.
This was an inspiring group of artists to spend time with, and I like to think we’ll be able to keep working together, even if loosely, under the life between buildings umbrella.
- Benjamin
Thursday, May 15
it's oh so quiet...
Actually, it's anything from quiet. My head is buzzing with ideas, thoughts and inspiration; my heart is singing and the world around me seems crazy and surreal...
We're back. If it's seemed a little quiet here at the life between buildings projects, it's not that we've slackened off. The internet went down in the last four days of our residency at Bundanon. Gasp. Horror. Just how did some of us cope... Well, it was tough. Believe me. But we survived. And we're now back grappling with the real world and yearning for quiet solitude, strolls along the river bank, wanders through the bush, and endless hours of creativity. Oh to be back in creative la la land again...
Anyhow, give us a few days to readjust back to the chaos of life and we'll tell you more about our last few days, along with some reflections about our residency.
In the meantime, pop on over to alittlehummingbird's and benjamin's photos to get a small taste of some of the things we captured on digital film.
We're back. If it's seemed a little quiet here at the life between buildings projects, it's not that we've slackened off. The internet went down in the last four days of our residency at Bundanon. Gasp. Horror. Just how did some of us cope... Well, it was tough. Believe me. But we survived. And we're now back grappling with the real world and yearning for quiet solitude, strolls along the river bank, wanders through the bush, and endless hours of creativity. Oh to be back in creative la la land again...
Anyhow, give us a few days to readjust back to the chaos of life and we'll tell you more about our last few days, along with some reflections about our residency.
In the meantime, pop on over to alittlehummingbird's and benjamin's photos to get a small taste of some of the things we captured on digital film.
Friday, May 9
Art and Environmental Sustainability discussion
I've reached a turning point in my creative practice and I'm confused about where to go next (you might want to read more about this over in a little hummingbird land). Reduce, reuse, recycle and educate is a mantra I've adopted in most areas of my life - transport, food consumption, communal living etc... Yet when it comes to art, I'm full of contradictions: I often use chemically-based paints on newly-acquired sweatshop-made canvasses; I'm creating material objects that people can add to their collection of consumerables
So what does it mean to make environmentallly sustainable creative work? Is it simply about the material we use? Or is it about artistic intention?
Jules, Rhi and I over the next few hours will chat online about our ideas on the function of art and their relation to environmental sustainability. Feel free join in with us!
So what does it mean to make environmentallly sustainable creative work? Is it simply about the material we use? Or is it about artistic intention?
Jules, Rhi and I over the next few hours will chat online about our ideas on the function of art and their relation to environmental sustainability. Feel free join in with us!
Thursday, May 8
Bundanon - Day Nine
I bounced out of bed at 7am yesterday, despite my insomnia pushing my body through until about 3am the previous night (crawling into bed at 5:30am isn’t unheard of around these parts either – who needs sleep at times like these!). Aside from wanting some alone time to reflect, I was keen to spend the morning by the river… To think about where I’m at, maybe take advantage of the soft morning light (for photography), but mostly just to meditate and soak up my surroundings. I was surprised at the amount of bird life by the shore – willy wag tails, magpies, wrens, kookaburras, king fishers, crimson rosellas all within a few metres of each other. To be a part of that! Wow!
Of course I wouldn’t dream of breaking the Bundanon Artist’s In Residency ‘no swimming’ rule, so I just…um…errr…danced naked across the sand and dipped my toes in? Yes, that’s what I did. The cold certainly didn’t force a sudden intake of breath as I dived in. And I didn’t shout songs of excitement to the birds as I spooned handfuls of icy water over my head. Neither was I able to experience the cool rush of water swirling around my naked body… so… um… yeah I just sat…. oops, I mean danced… and imagined all of the things that might have happened if I’d swum… As I basked in the sun pretending to let my imaginary drenched locks of hair dry, I watched a willy wag tail flit along the shores, glancing quizzically every so often in my direction (HA - he reminded me of the raven and goat that Boyd obsessively painted as a symbol of voyeurism). I wrote in my journal, took a few photos and breathed in deeply… Ah!
Anyway, it seems the sheer power of imagination made for a sensational day. The dreams of an entirely imaginary morning swim refreshed my mind and soothed my spirit. On returning to my studio, a few tangible ideas for writing began to emerge. Fingers itched. My pen began dancing wildly across the room. And so I wrote! Words. On paper. There’re still very raw, but I’ve started. It’s all very exciting.
Let me explain my excitement: I wasn’t sure how much writing I’d actually do while down here. Having experienced intense writer’s block in the last few months, I’d made the decision to focus on photography, painting and sculpture during the residency. In the lead up to the residency, however, I felt like my blockage was starting to dissipate. This was mostly due to a rediscovery of my passion for letter writing. Through a series of letters to a friend, I found words began flowing from my fingers again. It was a fascinating process. And prompted me to commit, while at Bundanon, to daily blogging and scrawling out morning pages. It’s still a slowly unravelling process, however, and I decided to only write creatively if my fingers started itching to throw words on the page. No expectations. No pressure. But this morning my fingers started itching! Hoorah!
These ten days have taught me a lot about my creative process. Like Julian, ‘lounging about, unwinding, enthusiastically talking up ideas, and idly noodling’ – and I’d add, debating hardcore issues, cooking, reading, watching movies and teasing Jules himself – has been crucial for getting the creative juices flowing. Yet so often I’ll feel guilty if it isn’t immediately obviously that what I’m doing is directly productive towards my end goal. Here I’m learning that so much time for me is spent thinking conceptually about an idea – planning, discussing, exploring abstractly - the nitty gritty craftsmanship of creating a work, words on paper, paint on canvass, emerges much later. I love creating first in my head and bouncing those ideas around, exploring all the options and thinking laterally for further options… So talking, lounging around, cooking etc. are really important and valid! Hmm… brains are such strange things…
Speaking of my brain, the contents of it are currently sprawled across our newly acquired second art studio. Not actual brain bits, of course, just a symbolic representation. With paper, textas, nails and creative enthusiasm, I created a giant mind map of our song cycle/installation when I got back from my river adventure. It isn’t often that I have so much space to spread out, so why not! I also thought it was time for the group to start focusing in on our project. What was actually achievable? What ideas should we keep exploring? Were there actual components that we could start writing/composing? Who wanted to do what? What was the scale of the project? I figured having a central space to summarise our ideas – one drawing board rather than five – would be useful for 1. Ensuring that we are on the same wavelength, 2. Nutting out some achievable goals for the final four days of our residency, 3. Ensuring that we found a model that allowed each one of us to use our strengths to their advantage.
Our discussion in the evening demonstrated just how far we’ve come in finding a collaborative model that seems achievable, despite all our initial concerns. We’re finding ways of working together. We’re moving forward. There are still challenges ahead, but I think we’ve reached another turning point. I’m really excited.
We’re going on an adventure tonight… To sleep in the rundown shack across the paddock – the one in which the Swiss artist built her embroidery installation. A night of creative storytelling, poetry reading, insomnia, mandolin playing and – if Rhiannon actually manages to find her way ‘home’ this time – chocolate munching!
Dammit I don’t want to go home…
Of course I wouldn’t dream of breaking the Bundanon Artist’s In Residency ‘no swimming’ rule, so I just…um…errr…danced naked across the sand and dipped my toes in? Yes, that’s what I did. The cold certainly didn’t force a sudden intake of breath as I dived in. And I didn’t shout songs of excitement to the birds as I spooned handfuls of icy water over my head. Neither was I able to experience the cool rush of water swirling around my naked body… so… um… yeah I just sat…. oops, I mean danced… and imagined all of the things that might have happened if I’d swum… As I basked in the sun pretending to let my imaginary drenched locks of hair dry, I watched a willy wag tail flit along the shores, glancing quizzically every so often in my direction (HA - he reminded me of the raven and goat that Boyd obsessively painted as a symbol of voyeurism). I wrote in my journal, took a few photos and breathed in deeply… Ah!
Anyway, it seems the sheer power of imagination made for a sensational day. The dreams of an entirely imaginary morning swim refreshed my mind and soothed my spirit. On returning to my studio, a few tangible ideas for writing began to emerge. Fingers itched. My pen began dancing wildly across the room. And so I wrote! Words. On paper. There’re still very raw, but I’ve started. It’s all very exciting.
Let me explain my excitement: I wasn’t sure how much writing I’d actually do while down here. Having experienced intense writer’s block in the last few months, I’d made the decision to focus on photography, painting and sculpture during the residency. In the lead up to the residency, however, I felt like my blockage was starting to dissipate. This was mostly due to a rediscovery of my passion for letter writing. Through a series of letters to a friend, I found words began flowing from my fingers again. It was a fascinating process. And prompted me to commit, while at Bundanon, to daily blogging and scrawling out morning pages. It’s still a slowly unravelling process, however, and I decided to only write creatively if my fingers started itching to throw words on the page. No expectations. No pressure. But this morning my fingers started itching! Hoorah!
These ten days have taught me a lot about my creative process. Like Julian, ‘lounging about, unwinding, enthusiastically talking up ideas, and idly noodling’ – and I’d add, debating hardcore issues, cooking, reading, watching movies and teasing Jules himself – has been crucial for getting the creative juices flowing. Yet so often I’ll feel guilty if it isn’t immediately obviously that what I’m doing is directly productive towards my end goal. Here I’m learning that so much time for me is spent thinking conceptually about an idea – planning, discussing, exploring abstractly - the nitty gritty craftsmanship of creating a work, words on paper, paint on canvass, emerges much later. I love creating first in my head and bouncing those ideas around, exploring all the options and thinking laterally for further options… So talking, lounging around, cooking etc. are really important and valid! Hmm… brains are such strange things…
Speaking of my brain, the contents of it are currently sprawled across our newly acquired second art studio. Not actual brain bits, of course, just a symbolic representation. With paper, textas, nails and creative enthusiasm, I created a giant mind map of our song cycle/installation when I got back from my river adventure. It isn’t often that I have so much space to spread out, so why not! I also thought it was time for the group to start focusing in on our project. What was actually achievable? What ideas should we keep exploring? Were there actual components that we could start writing/composing? Who wanted to do what? What was the scale of the project? I figured having a central space to summarise our ideas – one drawing board rather than five – would be useful for 1. Ensuring that we are on the same wavelength, 2. Nutting out some achievable goals for the final four days of our residency, 3. Ensuring that we found a model that allowed each one of us to use our strengths to their advantage.
Our discussion in the evening demonstrated just how far we’ve come in finding a collaborative model that seems achievable, despite all our initial concerns. We’re finding ways of working together. We’re moving forward. There are still challenges ahead, but I think we’ve reached another turning point. I’m really excited.
We’re going on an adventure tonight… To sleep in the rundown shack across the paddock – the one in which the Swiss artist built her embroidery installation. A night of creative storytelling, poetry reading, insomnia, mandolin playing and – if Rhiannon actually manages to find her way ‘home’ this time – chocolate munching!
Dammit I don’t want to go home…
Bundanon - Day Eight
I'm writing this entry two days late. In fact, that day was a bit of a washout for me; I was hungry, grumpy and tired and to be honest I can't remember much about it. So instead I'm going to share with you a few micro-observations from my last few days.
1. The Island
Apparently somewhere near here there is a mystical island that has held fascination for many of the AIRs (Artists In Residence - official Bundanon lingo). Yesterday I was passed by Maggie our English visual artist comrade, her shoes in hand and clothes hitched around her waist, whispering to me about her quest to wade to the island in question, high tide or not. Later Dan mentioned with eager wide eyes about the same fabled land.
This morning Rhi actually found the island and said it's no big deal.
2. Grasshopper.
Yesterday at dusk a green grasshopper flew out of nowhere and landed on my camera. Dan and I took about 90 or so photos of him. Or her. He (or she) was extremely photogenic and seemed to enjoy posing: lifting each leg one at a time and grinning the whole time. Good chap.
3. Pulpit Rock.
In recent months I've been obsessed with the time-lapse feature on my digital camera, taking endless shots of the Bendigo Prison before it closed. I have found very few interesting things to capture in this way here at Bundanon, however. My one idea has to mimic Arthur Boyd's obsession with Pulpit Rock, a fairly grand bunch of rocks on top of one of the biggest hills around here. He painted those rocks endlessly it seems, mostly captured at the scene from across the river. I've been doing the same from different times of the day using my camera. I've discovered that still this is a fairly uninteresting idea. The most interesting thing about it is the way that the water changes over time, prompting Danielle to suggest that that might be the angle I'm looking for. Perhaps. So far it's entailed braving endless lantana at high tide, although the resulting peace and quiet waiting for the shots to unravel has been really rewarding. Enforced reflection.
4. Snack.
I have lived an enforced Snack-free diet these past two days (i.e. Cadbury Snack, the cheapest and crummist chocolate around to which I am hopelessly addicted). Despite the fact that Rhiannon has gone on a Snack-run to Sydney for me I am doing surprisingly OK. Dan has helped by making me non-Vegan rice pudding as have others with their superb cooking. Except whoever took the extra mandarins this morning shall get a stern talking to.
5. Piano.
It has taken 10 or so days of lounging about, unwinding, enthusiastically talking up ideas and idly noodling but I have really recaptured my interest in playing the piano. It's been great having a grand piano right outside my bedroom upon which I can muck around at any time of the day (except, it transpires, at 10am when certain people are sleeping).
That is all.
1. The Island
Apparently somewhere near here there is a mystical island that has held fascination for many of the AIRs (Artists In Residence - official Bundanon lingo). Yesterday I was passed by Maggie our English visual artist comrade, her shoes in hand and clothes hitched around her waist, whispering to me about her quest to wade to the island in question, high tide or not. Later Dan mentioned with eager wide eyes about the same fabled land.
This morning Rhi actually found the island and said it's no big deal.
2. Grasshopper.
Yesterday at dusk a green grasshopper flew out of nowhere and landed on my camera. Dan and I took about 90 or so photos of him. Or her. He (or she) was extremely photogenic and seemed to enjoy posing: lifting each leg one at a time and grinning the whole time. Good chap.
3. Pulpit Rock.
In recent months I've been obsessed with the time-lapse feature on my digital camera, taking endless shots of the Bendigo Prison before it closed. I have found very few interesting things to capture in this way here at Bundanon, however. My one idea has to mimic Arthur Boyd's obsession with Pulpit Rock, a fairly grand bunch of rocks on top of one of the biggest hills around here. He painted those rocks endlessly it seems, mostly captured at the scene from across the river. I've been doing the same from different times of the day using my camera. I've discovered that still this is a fairly uninteresting idea. The most interesting thing about it is the way that the water changes over time, prompting Danielle to suggest that that might be the angle I'm looking for. Perhaps. So far it's entailed braving endless lantana at high tide, although the resulting peace and quiet waiting for the shots to unravel has been really rewarding. Enforced reflection.
4. Snack.
I have lived an enforced Snack-free diet these past two days (i.e. Cadbury Snack, the cheapest and crummist chocolate around to which I am hopelessly addicted). Despite the fact that Rhiannon has gone on a Snack-run to Sydney for me I am doing surprisingly OK. Dan has helped by making me non-Vegan rice pudding as have others with their superb cooking. Except whoever took the extra mandarins this morning shall get a stern talking to.
5. Piano.
It has taken 10 or so days of lounging about, unwinding, enthusiastically talking up ideas and idly noodling but I have really recaptured my interest in playing the piano. It's been great having a grand piano right outside my bedroom upon which I can muck around at any time of the day (except, it transpires, at 10am when certain people are sleeping).
That is all.
Forcing others to suffer for your art
The other night we watched Irreversible and Funny Games, two films that deliberately target our vulnerability to manipulation through our trust of the art object, or any structure for that matter. This has led to us to ideas of manipulating our audience in various ways - through disruption, playing with the theatrical 'fourth wall', toying with narrative flow, injecting 'twists' along the way, inflicting mild (and hopefully harmless) forms of torture, delaying or denying gratification, et al.
Irreversible played with this obviously through its structure (told backwards, so that your point of view towards the situations and your sense of empathy towards the characters need continual readjustment) but also through more insiduous means - the first 30 minutes, for instance, feature a sub-sonic tone imperceptable by the ear but felt strongly in the body, creating a very tangible sense of unrest, whereas the final 10 minutes feature very strong strobe lighting that could potentially trigger seizures in those suffering from photosensitive epilepsy (I think there's a warning to this effect on the DVD cover).
Whilst I have great empathy for people with epilepsy (my father being a sufferer) and would therefore never condone this, I nonetheless wonder if the following scenario taken from today's paper could be interesting to us from the 'disruption' point of view.
Hackers' posts designed to cause epileptic fits
Computer attacks typically do not inflict physical pain on their victims.
But in a rare example of an attack apparently motivated by malice rather than money, hackers recently bombarded the Epilepsy Foundation's website with hundreds of pictures and links to pages with rapidly flashing images.
The breach triggered severe migraines and near-seizure reactions in some site visitors who viewed the images. People with photosensitive epilepsy can get seizures when they're exposed to flickering images, a response also caused by some video games and cartoons.
The attack happened when hackers exploited a security hole in the foundation's publishing software that allowed them to quickly make numerous posts and overwhelm the site's support forums.
Within the hackers' posts were small flashing pictures and links - masquerading as helpful - to pages that exploded with kaleidoscopic images pulsating with different colors.
"They were out to create seizures," said Ken Lowenberg, senior director of Web and print publishing for the foundation, which is based in Landover, Maryland.
He said legitimate users are no longer able to post animated images to the support forum or create direct links to other sites, and it is now moderated around the clock. He said the FBI is investigating the breach.
Security experts said the attack highlights the dangers of websites giving visitors great freedom to post content to different parts of the site.
In another recent attack, hackers exploited a simple coding vulnerability in Senator Barack Obama's website to redirect users visiting the community blogs section to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's official campaign site.
The hackers who infiltrated the Epilepsy Foundation's site did not appear to care about profit. The harmful pages did not appear to try to push down code that would allow the hacker to gain control of the victims' computers, for instance.
"I count this in the same category of teenagers who think it's funny to put a cat in a bag and throw it over a clothesline - they don't realize how cruel it is," said Paul Ferguson, a security researcher at antivirus software maker Trend Micro Inc. "It was an opportunity waiting to happen for some mean-spirited kid."
In a similar attack this year, a piece of malicious code was released that disabled software that reads text aloud from a computer screen for blind and visually impaired people. That attack appeared to have been designed to cripple the computers of people using illegal copies of the software, researchers said.
May 8, 2008 - 1:41PM
AP
Irreversible played with this obviously through its structure (told backwards, so that your point of view towards the situations and your sense of empathy towards the characters need continual readjustment) but also through more insiduous means - the first 30 minutes, for instance, feature a sub-sonic tone imperceptable by the ear but felt strongly in the body, creating a very tangible sense of unrest, whereas the final 10 minutes feature very strong strobe lighting that could potentially trigger seizures in those suffering from photosensitive epilepsy (I think there's a warning to this effect on the DVD cover).
Whilst I have great empathy for people with epilepsy (my father being a sufferer) and would therefore never condone this, I nonetheless wonder if the following scenario taken from today's paper could be interesting to us from the 'disruption' point of view.
Hackers' posts designed to cause epileptic fits
Computer attacks typically do not inflict physical pain on their victims.
But in a rare example of an attack apparently motivated by malice rather than money, hackers recently bombarded the Epilepsy Foundation's website with hundreds of pictures and links to pages with rapidly flashing images.
The breach triggered severe migraines and near-seizure reactions in some site visitors who viewed the images. People with photosensitive epilepsy can get seizures when they're exposed to flickering images, a response also caused by some video games and cartoons.
The attack happened when hackers exploited a security hole in the foundation's publishing software that allowed them to quickly make numerous posts and overwhelm the site's support forums.
Within the hackers' posts were small flashing pictures and links - masquerading as helpful - to pages that exploded with kaleidoscopic images pulsating with different colors.
"They were out to create seizures," said Ken Lowenberg, senior director of Web and print publishing for the foundation, which is based in Landover, Maryland.
He said legitimate users are no longer able to post animated images to the support forum or create direct links to other sites, and it is now moderated around the clock. He said the FBI is investigating the breach.
Security experts said the attack highlights the dangers of websites giving visitors great freedom to post content to different parts of the site.
In another recent attack, hackers exploited a simple coding vulnerability in Senator Barack Obama's website to redirect users visiting the community blogs section to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's official campaign site.
The hackers who infiltrated the Epilepsy Foundation's site did not appear to care about profit. The harmful pages did not appear to try to push down code that would allow the hacker to gain control of the victims' computers, for instance.
"I count this in the same category of teenagers who think it's funny to put a cat in a bag and throw it over a clothesline - they don't realize how cruel it is," said Paul Ferguson, a security researcher at antivirus software maker Trend Micro Inc. "It was an opportunity waiting to happen for some mean-spirited kid."
In a similar attack this year, a piece of malicious code was released that disabled software that reads text aloud from a computer screen for blind and visually impaired people. That attack appeared to have been designed to cripple the computers of people using illegal copies of the software, researchers said.
May 8, 2008 - 1:41PM
AP
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