Bundanon - Day Four

Putting on our rainbow thinking caps…
Conversation at the 'muso's cottage' is rarely trivial. And I don't think we'd have it any other way. From politics, critical theory, and ethical values, to the current romantic pursuits of certain group members, our daily creative activities are constantly interjected with stimulating, vibrant, humorous and challenging topics of discussion. Take this morning for instance. I step out of my bedroom. Stretch. Yawn. Rub eyes. Search for a clean teacup. Instead of being passed the pot of tea, I’m thrown a handful of questions. Full pelt. Did I think it important to really know someone for an artistic collaboration to be successful? And what models of collaboration are most meaningful to me? The questioner was thrown back a definite NO from me. I think fruitful collaboration – regardless of the model – is possible with anyone. She caught it gracefully, and immediately threw back some further questions. This time I caught them in my cereal bowl and let them soak up some tasty breakfast goodness before responding… For me, good communication is key…

Speaking of which…

When it comes to working on our creative project, I’m feeling we – as a group –struggle with effective communication. We are finding it difficult to reach consensus on a variety of decisions. And this prevents us from moving forward with confidence. Mind you, I don’t think it is just about communication: we have quite a spectrum of life perspectives – a wide range of political and social viewpoints, music tastes, ethical values etc… and very different approaches to the creative process. This makes decisions that respect each individual viewpoint (a vital thing) difficult and time consuming.

But I think if we ensure that strong communication strategies are in place then surely working together will gradually become smoother and more efficient? While I do feel my ideas and opinions are heard, I feel they are often misunderstood or misinterpreted. And I think I'm doing my fair share of misunderstanding as well... I think we all need to listen more carefully and clarify each other’s viewpoints more frequently. For example, I tend to show my emotions immediately; I’m quite a passionate person. I’m generally quite open with how I feel about an issue, but I think I can work more on demonstrating that my feelings about an issue are more fluid than they might seem. I tend to react from an intuitive viewpoint and then analyse and evolve my viewpoint as the conversation flows. Because I’m feeling misunderstood at times, I’m beginning to react by closing off emotionally. I’m then getting frustrated. I think I need to work on being clearer about my personal needs within the group… being more assertive…

Possible solutions? I’ve suggested reading a document I have on consensus decision-making, while Julian has suggested Edward de Bono’s six-hat approach. I like the sound of this. Basically, issues are considered from six different points of view each represented by a different coloured hat: white hat – attention to pure neutral data; red hat – intuition and feeling; gut feeling without justification being necessary; black hat – the logical negative, caution; yellow hat – logical positive; green hat – new ideas and furthering ideas; blue hat – process control, the metacognition…

Anyway, lots of food for our respective thoughts…

Chewing it over…
We’ve discovered the bitter taste of church hymnbooks. Literally. Over the last few days Ben has been incorporating book pages into the papery bark of a tree in the amphitheatre for an installation and a photo series so we all spent some time helping him. A good technique required us to chew the pages in our mouths first and then paste the soggy pages between layers of bark. As we helped him, ideas for incorporating this into a bigger installation began to emerge…

While trying to hold back the occasional gagging reflex, we also spent this time chewing over ideas for a larger group project. As Rhi mentioned yesterday, I’m ready to sink my teeth into something more solid. Having had a few days to relax, and explore the property and a few emerging ideas, I was ready to come together as a group and start honing in on a project(s). We didn’t have de Bono’s hat strategy at this point so it took a while for the conversation to move forward. From my perspective, I felt a strong need to explore more group work opportunities; the beauty of this residency for me, at least, is the opportunity to actually collaborate with other artists. I’m not really interested in working solo: I can do this at home in my own studio.

Julian and I shared with the group our emerging ideas for a song cycle we’ve working on. The interest in working on a group Song Cycle began exciting us. So by the end of the day (and well into the night for the night owls amongst us), we were pleased that today a pivotal point was reached! Hoorah! A commitment to collaboratively write a song cycle… It will be really interesting to see how the next few days pan out. I’m really excited about the project. And I like the ideas that have emerged so far. I’ve never written text for music (except for a few songs my brother and I have written for family functions…) so it will be a very new challenge for me personally. Bring it on!!


Emerging Projects

As I begin summarising the emerging ideas of the group, I’m excited to see how far we’ve actually come in only four days…

Song Cycle | Music – Julian, Rhi, and Serena; Text – Ben, Dan, Serena; Visual – Ben, Dan, and Julian
Tomorrow we plan to start working on this project, generating ideas and gathering material. We’ll probably work in smaller groups and alone for the most part…We’ve decided to initially explore the theme of ‘Last moments of life’ and see where it takes us. We also decided to work as collaboratively as is possible. ie. We’ll all have input in each other’s work…

Song Cycle | Julian (music) and Dan (text)
Jules and I are still exploring themes and ideas. We’re interested in working in a way where the text and music feeds off each other, rather than a situation such as me writing a text for which Julian might then set to music. So far ideas have centred on notions of authority: the questioning of power structures and systems; different political structures; authorities in music and writing etc… and then ways we might be able to play with that in the work. Some examples include democratising the creative process: sharing this with the performer and audience; experimenting with non-linear structures and narratives: eg. Performing different songs simultaneously in different rooms so the audience could choose which order they view the songs… hmmm many more ideas to explore…

The Red Installation/Photo Series | Ben + others
Ben is still wrapping things in bright red wool – tractor parts, wood, burrawang leaves, and trees. He’s also got Serena and I knitting red scarves (eek!). Aside from serving as a series of installations around the property – intrusions and interventions on the landscape – the wrapping is in preparation for a photo series. As far as I understand, the red theme is quite symbolic. Rarely seen in the Australian bush, usually serves as a warning sign: poisonous mushrooms, red back spiders etc… or perhaps it’s simply a reflection of Ben’s connection with his root chakra… (cheeky grin!)

The Book Tree Installation/Photo Series
When Ben isn’t wrapping things, he’s sneaking pages of books amongst the papery bark of a tree in the amphitheatre. Again this project is emerging as both installation and a photo series… Exploring themes of decay and intrusion, the project is starting to extend beyond Ben’s original vision. We all spent a few hours today helping him to insert pages of the books onto the tree (I discovered chewing them first helped the process!) and as we did this other ideas began to emerge… Perhaps I could explore painting on the tree with natural ochres? How could my bark paintings relate to this installation? It was fun working collectively and we were intrigued at the different methods that emerged… oh and we’re using recycled materials, which will literally decay over time…

Photo Series | Rhi + others
This project focuses on looking at the beauty of detail…
Rhi is currently indulging and delighting in her obsessive-compulsive streak by collecting hundreds of close up images from the bush and sorting them by colour (Ben, Dan and Julian are also taking images to contribute to this project). She plans to build some larger images by using these as ‘mosaic tiles’. One idea she wants to experiment with is the image of a naked woman… She might also look at working with Dan to write some text/music to incorporate into the artwork… Tomorrow Ben, Rhi and I are going to work together to take some shots for Rhi’s naked woman, which she will then pixilate and use to then build up her mosaic image (no guesses as to who get to take all their clothes off!!)

Bundanon Community of Artists | Rhi + Dan (and others?)
This project is still in the ideas stage. We haven’t yet talked too much about directions in which we can head. But we’re keen to look at interviewing some of the artists who’ve worked/lived here with the intention of creating a radiophonic work (with Serena’s and Julian’s help?). Our motivation is a desire to explore the importance of community… (the Bundanon community and the larger surrounding community)

Solo Flute Work | Serena
Serena has been working on a solo flute piece. We spent the other night listening to some solo works by Matthew Bienek and talking about what we thought constituted a quality flute work. She is open to the idea of incorporating this into a bigger group project if appropriate.

Bark Painting | Dan
I’ve finished priming some of the bark with white paint and in the next few days will start painting. I’m thinking about using some of the other bark for sculptures. I’m also keen to explore incorporate some of my ideas with Ben’s installation…

Art and Sustainability | Dan (+ others)
I’m really interested in researching ideas about sustainability in art with the idea of developing some projects over the next few months. Being web-addicts, Julian, Rhi and I have decided to initiate this research by holding an online debate between the three of us over the next few days. I think this will be a really interesting and fun way to explore different ideas and concepts.

Time lapse Photography | Julian
Julian’s current idea is to recreate or model some of Arthur Boyd’s images using time-lapse photography, particularly the sceneries that Boyd obsessively created (eg. Pulpit Rock). There is the potential for sound/music as well…

The Cow project
We’re all still quite traumatised by the baby cows (who are still crying and moaning for their parents). Serena has made some sound recording of the cows, while Dan and Jules – who spent the afternoon with them – have taken some images. Whether we do anything with this footage remains to be seen… but the separation of mother and child has certainly made a huge impact on many of us!

Cloud Animation | Jules
Jules has been working on an animation of cloud pictures using time lapse techniques...

hhmmmm... perhaps there are things I've missed??


PS.

Jules has finally found phone reception! Down on the sandbank of the river. Mind you in the time it took to make three long phone calls, the tide began creeping in significantly. And so when Jules turned to head back home he discovered he was standing on a small sand island...