Saturday, January 22, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Janet Laurence
title_ Heartshock
date_ 2008
materials_ silican tubing, glass vials, pigmented fluids, tree branch
size_ 7m x 4m x 5m
exhibited_ Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Handle with Care, Art Gallery of South Australia
text_ Curator’s Statement_ Janet Laurence has had a long and profound engagement with the ‘life-world’. Spanning a period of over twenty-five years, her practice has extended to painting, sculpture, installation, photography, architectural and landscape interventions. The major themes that have emerged in the work include: the relationship between the museum, the natural world, and notions of preservation; the exploration of hybrid landscapes, that involve a fusion of natural and urban elements; alchemy and the transformation of elements from one state to another; and the human impact on the environment. Each of these projects is bestowed with a poetic resonance. Her work is not didactic or message driven. Rather, there is a lightness of touch, a respectful distance on the natural world, and a sense of wonderment. Laurence is deeply concerned with the changes in our midst. She asks us to look, hear, feel, smell and look again at the natural world – its architecture, its cultural history, its root system, the flux of light, space and colour. And as we engage in this process, our perception will shift, ever so delicately, as we discover further layers of
glaze, or discover the tiniest green leaf, or look in disbelief at signs of erosion and devastation. It seems that much of the desolation that has currently gripped the Australian landscape is beyond healing, and yet Janet Laurence explores what it might mean to heal, albeit metaphorically, the natural environment. For the Adelaide Biennial she suspends a large dead tree upside-down in the gallery space. Elongated transparent plastic tubes that have been treated with some kind of fluid from within protrude like rain from the edges of the branches. These tubes are at once a laboratory – a space for experimentation – and a prosthetic vascular system for a ‘body’ that has long since expired. As a scientific metaphor, they suggest hope for a solution.
As a ‘natural’ stand-in, these tubular stems act as a metaphorical conductor for the xylem and phloem (plant tissues that carry water, dissolved minerals and foodstuffs). Trees are of course the lungs of our cities – they exchange carbon dioxide and oxygen – and they usually live for several generations. Today, however, very old trees are dying in our cities, while the crops and fields in the outback have been transformed into vast barren expanses. Janet Laurence fuses this sense of communal loss with a search for connection with powerful life-forces. Her work alerts us to the subtle dependencies between water, life, culture and nature in our eco-system. In the face of this, we do yearn for a form of alchemy, for the power of enchantment or transformation. It seems that the only place for that sensation is the place of art. In the tradition of Joseph Beuys, and some of the Arte Povera artists from the 1960s, such as Jannis Kounellis or Mario Merz, Janet Laurence reminds us that art can act as a kind of transformation point for ideas and it can provoke its audience into a renewed awareness about our environment. Victoria Lynn.
http://www.janetlaurence.com/2009/10/heartshock/
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date_ 2008
materials_ silican tubing, glass vials, pigmented fluids, tree branch
size_ 7m x 4m x 5m
exhibited_ Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Handle with Care, Art Gallery of South Australia
text_ Curator’s Statement_ Janet Laurence has had a long and profound engagement with the ‘life-world’. Spanning a period of over twenty-five years, her practice has extended to painting, sculpture, installation, photography, architectural and landscape interventions. The major themes that have emerged in the work include: the relationship between the museum, the natural world, and notions of preservation; the exploration of hybrid landscapes, that involve a fusion of natural and urban elements; alchemy and the transformation of elements from one state to another; and the human impact on the environment. Each of these projects is bestowed with a poetic resonance. Her work is not didactic or message driven. Rather, there is a lightness of touch, a respectful distance on the natural world, and a sense of wonderment. Laurence is deeply concerned with the changes in our midst. She asks us to look, hear, feel, smell and look again at the natural world – its architecture, its cultural history, its root system, the flux of light, space and colour. And as we engage in this process, our perception will shift, ever so delicately, as we discover further layers of
glaze, or discover the tiniest green leaf, or look in disbelief at signs of erosion and devastation. It seems that much of the desolation that has currently gripped the Australian landscape is beyond healing, and yet Janet Laurence explores what it might mean to heal, albeit metaphorically, the natural environment. For the Adelaide Biennial she suspends a large dead tree upside-down in the gallery space. Elongated transparent plastic tubes that have been treated with some kind of fluid from within protrude like rain from the edges of the branches. These tubes are at once a laboratory – a space for experimentation – and a prosthetic vascular system for a ‘body’ that has long since expired. As a scientific metaphor, they suggest hope for a solution.
As a ‘natural’ stand-in, these tubular stems act as a metaphorical conductor for the xylem and phloem (plant tissues that carry water, dissolved minerals and foodstuffs). Trees are of course the lungs of our cities – they exchange carbon dioxide and oxygen – and they usually live for several generations. Today, however, very old trees are dying in our cities, while the crops and fields in the outback have been transformed into vast barren expanses. Janet Laurence fuses this sense of communal loss with a search for connection with powerful life-forces. Her work alerts us to the subtle dependencies between water, life, culture and nature in our eco-system. In the face of this, we do yearn for a form of alchemy, for the power of enchantment or transformation. It seems that the only place for that sensation is the place of art. In the tradition of Joseph Beuys, and some of the Arte Povera artists from the 1960s, such as Jannis Kounellis or Mario Merz, Janet Laurence reminds us that art can act as a kind of transformation point for ideas and it can provoke its audience into a renewed awareness about our environment. Victoria Lynn.
http://www.janetlaurence.com/2009/10/heartshock/
Monday, December 20, 2010
specs + info
High end date projector: http://www.projectorcentral.com/NEC-NP4100.htm
NEC data projector hire: http://www.rentalstogo.com.au/office-equipment-rental-office-equipment-hire-item.php?itemid=354
http://www.rentalstogo.com.au/contact-us.php
Will the projector fit the space: http://www.projectorcentral.com/projection-calculator-pro.cfm
contacted NEC with question about specs for projector for show:
http://www.nec.com.au/About/Contact/Contact-Us.html
NEC data projector hire: http://www.rentalstogo.com.au/office-equipment-rental-office-equipment-hire-item.php?itemid=354
http://www.rentalstogo.com.au/contact-us.php
Will the projector fit the space: http://www.projectorcentral.com/projection-calculator-pro.cfm
contacted NEC with question about specs for projector for show:
http://www.nec.com.au/About/Contact/Contact-Us.html
| NEC NP4100 Projector Specifications | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Comments: 4- and 6-segment color wheels for maximum brightness and appropriate color reproduction | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The NEC NP4100 is manufactured by NEC. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Sheet
Press Release
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
contested sights
from : Total Recall
Contested depictions of the Romantic Tradition
A second instance of take-up of The Sublime by the general public involves Australian national identity. On a recent trip to the "Red Centre of Australia", to Uluru, the spiritual, sacred and nationalistic heart of Australia, I experienced the traffic jams at this famous rock as thousands of people arrived by car to view the sunset. It is a long journey to reach Uluru, from any corner of the country. On any given day, at sunset, hundreds of cars line up as if in the parking lot of a shrine, the occupants spilling out into deck chairs and vantage points to watch a religious spectacle of fading light across the rock face. Since this massive rock is 348m in height, it remains sunlit even after the sun has dropped below the horizon, almost into the period of astronomical twilight. The occasion is quiet and solemn. The parking lot holds vehicles with Australian flags draped across their windows. Is this is a different sense of nationalistic identity from Neudecker's apparent undercutting of German Romantic traditions? There is an air of serious homage at Uluru as people seek a transcendent and authentic viewing experience. Although this is a sacred place for the Pitjantjatjara Aboriginal people, and is protected by their custody, it would seem to represent the spiritual heart of all Australians. Unlike Neudecker's mountains, it is a place of pilgrimage, where we are drawn to a completely memorable and sublime experience.
Conclusion
In the late postmodern period of our time, post-9/11, The Sublime is alive and well. This paper gives contemporary instances to suggest that the interpretation of the Romantic Tradition is heavily contested. I have argued that the currency of the Romantic Tradition has substance beyond a shallow focus on nostalgia.
If, in her diorama manufacture, Neudecker is singing the German tradition of Romanticism and at the same time being wary of German nationalism and history, then the response must be that her work is received on a whole world scale. It is received in far-flung places such as Australia and New Zealand, where a reading may be informed by post-colonialism. In the same places, other readings may be informed by the commercial imperatives of advertising and the clarity of communication that this requires. Still in Australasia, readings of the romantic tradition are through both an Aboriginal and a European filter. For example, the local lessons from famous Europeans such as Mattias Zurbriggen are etched with naming rites onto the slopes of Aoraki Mt Cook in New Zealand: the Zurbriggen summit route on Aoraki Mt Cook is recallable indeed to those who have experienced it.
I have argued that the Contemporary Sublime is not a let-down, pause, interruption, nor interrogation of banality: it is still a territory of uplift that feeds the positive drivers of the human psyche. It is the line-up of cars at the Uluru sunset. It is the Tasmanian wilderness photograph. The positive psyche reveals itself in film, contemporary art, documentary photography, mountaineering, advertising, and in the 3D digital realm. Just as David Caspar Friedrich foregrounded human figures and human motifs in his vast sublime landscapes, so scale still implies majesty and is conveyed with helicopters on icebergs, ships in bottles, falcons in clifftop sunsets, carparks at Uluru, and battle stations in digital warcraft. As a contemporary landscape artist, I question how to capture the engagement that the public has with sunset at Uluru. I can identify a need to paint that which draws us all to the spiritual heart of this place, but the image of Uluru remains profoundly local in a profoundly international contemporary art market. Even so, contemporary creative practitioners are indeed working with this material: the viewer is invited to reconnect with the past, to satisfy a yearning, or a longing for something better in the future, and to take action now. Clarity of recollection ascribes importance to some events over others, and helps guide us in what we keep. At best, it affords the stubbornness of a residual lift that takes your breath away.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.
http://secondnature.rmit.edu.au/index.php/2ndnature/article/viewArticle/8/10
Sunday, December 5, 2010
epiphany
| Time, Synchronicity and Evolution F. David Peat |
It is the condition of life in a modern, industrial world that we so often experience a sense of isolation and dislocation from the natural world and those around us....
Yet there are also moments in the life of each one of us when we touch what the Irish writer, James Joyce, termed an epiphany, so that "the soul of the commonest object.... seems to us radiant"...
This experience of epiphany is the essential feature of what the psychologist Carl Jung termed a synchronicity. In turn, synchronicities reveal the larger patterns of the cosmos, including those movements of growth, realization and renewal we call evolution. ...
A sense of numiniousness meaning is the key to recognizing the occurrence of a synchronicity. ...
Synchronicities provide us with into the inner structures of both nature and mind but with this proviso - synchronicities do not operate in linear, didactic ways but through metaphor, image and allusion. ...
It opens the door to the suggestion that one may be able to participate, in a direct way, with the inner workings of matter. Or suggests the possibility for the individual, and society as a whole, to enter into a cooperative relationship with the movements of nature and the cosmos. ...
The use of a linear time as the ultimate arbiter of progress is an aberration within the world's cultures. Creativity lies outside time. It embraces both the emergence of new, the unconditioned, and the renewal of the familiar ...
Modern science pictures life in terms of stable eco-systems, and eco-systems interacting through patterns of cooperation and self-organization. In this sense it is the responsibility of each individual to engage and renew their subtle, yet vital connections with the whole. ...
Synchronicities are connections between the internal patterns of the organism and its environment. They can occur both as acts of renewal and in order to catalyze necessary change, or as parts of a person's creativity. ...
Times of crisis occur in the life of an individual, and of a society or species. When old forms of behavior are insufficient to meet a new challenge, the boundaries between inner and outer, individual and collective consciousness, external pattern and internal behavior, dissolve. This may lead to a period of numinous dreaming, collective social fantasies and desires, and great artistic expression - and finally, a sudden surge within "the spirit of the age". ...
Friday, November 26, 2010
launching into lebenswelt
Meaning begins with perception of the Lebenswelt (proposed by Husserl), the Lived World
Perception starts, according to Merleau-Ponty, with the preconscious moment the external comes into contact with the body. The conscious interpretation of input, as neurologists have affirmed, follows the experience by a significant lapse.
Our experience of perception comes from our being present] at the moment when things, truths, and values are constituted for us; that perception is a nascent Logos; that it teaches us, outside of all dogmatism, the true conditions of objectivity itself; that is summons us to the tasks of knowledge and action. It is not a question of reducing human knowledge to sensation, but of assisting at the birth of this knowledge, to make it as sensible as the sensible, to recover the consciousness of rationality. This experience of rationality is lost when we take it for granted as self-evident, but is, on the contrary, rediscovered when it is made to appear against the background of non-human nature.
Merleau-Ponty Primacy of Perception,1945,
Perception starts, according to Merleau-Ponty, with the preconscious moment the external comes into contact with the body. The conscious interpretation of input, as neurologists have affirmed, follows the experience by a significant lapse.Sunday, October 31, 2010
Viktor Schauberger - The movement of water
"People think I am crazy.
Maybe they are right. In this case it does not matter whether there is one more fool more or less on earth.
But if it turns out that I am right and that science is wrong, then God have mercy on mankind!"
The natural movement of water is the ascending spiral.
Maybe they are right. In this case it does not matter whether there is one more fool more or less on earth.
But if it turns out that I am right and that science is wrong, then God have mercy on mankind!"
Victor Schauberger
The natural movement of water is the ascending spiral.
Vortexes in Nature
Visible Vortexes
Victor Schauberger was a forester in the Austrian mountains who observed and studied nature for a long time. He created the slogan ”understand and copy nature” ( he used the word biotechnology around 1920). The main part of his work was about water. The work brings us to helix of flow and energy. Helixes may be found in our DNS, in flowing rivers, in the air and in many other things of our environment. Since water is contained in nearly everything, even in a burning flame(*1), and it covers around 70% of the Earth, we will find helixes and their energy where we find water as well. This paper should open the door to that knowledge of Schauberger about water and its motion with the eyes of TRIZ (talking about water nearly means to talk about everything). Science/bionics lately found out that shark skin produces small helixes and helps to save energy. Schauberger discovered facts like those much earlier than others. He was a man of the future whose secret may only be recognized with the eyes of TRIZ. The underlined numbers you find in this paper do stand for the inventive Princilples.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
islands
Australia is the largest Island in the World, with an estimated population of just over 20 million people. Australia has 8222 Islands...
http://www.islandsofaustralia.com/
http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/islands/
http://www.islandsofaustralia.com/
King Island ~ http://www.kingisland.org.au/Default.asp?ID=2
| Place | Capital City | Number of Islands |
| Australian Capital Territory | Canberra | - |
| New South Wales | Sydney | 102 |
| Northern Territory | Darwin | 887 |
| Queensland | Brisbane | 1955 |
| South Australia | Adelaide | 346 |
| Tasmania | Hobart | 1000 |
| Victoria | Melbourne | 184 |
| Western Australia | Perth | 3747 |
http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/islands/
Australian Capital Territory
- Aspen Island
- Bowen Island (in Jervis Bay Territory)
- Pine Island
- Spinnaker Island
- Springbank Island
- Mako Island
New South Wales
- Bowen Island in the Jervis Bay Territory
- Chatsworth Island in the Clarence River
- Clark Island, an island in Sydney Harbour
- Cockatoo Island, an island in Sydney Harbour, originally used as a prison and later developed as a shipyard
- Dangar Island, a small forested island in the Hawkesbury River
- Darling Island - no longer an island
- Esk Island - north arm of the Clarence River
- Fort Denison - also known as Pinchgut
- Five Islands Nature Reserve A group of islands off the coast near Wollongong
- Garden Island - no longer an island
- Glebe Island - no longer an island
- Goat Island, a rocky island in Sydney Harbour
- Green Island, a small island north of Smoky Cape
- Harwood Island in the Clarence River
- Lion Island, located at the entrance to the Hawkesbury River
- Long Island, in the Hawkesbury River
- Lord Howe Island, a small island in the Pacific Ocean 600 km (373 mi) east of the Australian mainland
- Montague Island, 9 km offshore from Narooma on the south coast of the state
- Muttonbird Island an island off Coffs Harbour
- Oxley Island
- Pinchgut - see Fort Denison, a former penal site and defensive facility in Sydney Harbour
- Pulbah Island, the largest island in Lake Macquarie
- Rodd Island, a small island in the Parramatta River
- Scotland Island, an island in the north of Sydney
- Shark Island, an island in Sydney Harbour
- Snapper Island, an island in Sydney Harbour
- Spectacle Island, an island in the Hawkesbury River
- Spectacle Island, an island in Sydney Harbour
- Solitary Islands
- Wasp Island, the only island in Durras Inlet near Batemans Bay[2]
- Woodford Island, an island in the Clarence River on the far North Coast of the state
Northern Territory
- Bathurst Island
- Bickerton Island
- Crocodile Islands
- Croker Island
- Elcho Island
- Goulburn Islands
- Groote Eylandt - Dutch for "Great Island"
- Howard Island
- Marchinbar Island
- Melville Island, the second biggest island in Australia (excluding the mainland)
- Sir Edward Pellew Group
- Tiwi Islands
- Vanderlin Island
- Wessel Islands
- West Island, Torres Strait
Australian Capital Territory
- Aspen Island
- Bowen Island (in Jervis Bay Territory)
- Pine Island
- Spinnaker Island
- Springbank Island
- Mako Island
New South Wales
- Bowen Island in the Jervis Bay Territory
- Chatsworth Island in the Clarence River
- Clark Island, an island in Sydney Harbour
- Cockatoo Island, an island in Sydney Harbour, originally used as a prison and later developed as a shipyard
- Dangar Island, a small forested island in the Hawkesbury River
- Darling Island - no longer an island
- Esk Island - north arm of the Clarence River
- Fort Denison - also known as Pinchgut
- Five Islands Nature Reserve A group of islands off the coast near Wollongong
- Garden Island - no longer an island
- Glebe Island - no longer an island
- Goat Island, a rocky island in Sydney Harbour
- Green Island, a small island north of Smoky Cape
- Harwood Island in the Clarence River
- Lion Island, located at the entrance to the Hawkesbury River
- Long Island, in the Hawkesbury River
- Lord Howe Island, a small island in the Pacific Ocean 600 km (373 mi) east of the Australian mainland
- Montague Island, 9 km offshore from Narooma on the south coast of the state
- Muttonbird Island an island off Coffs Harbour
- Oxley Island
- Pinchgut - see Fort Denison, a former penal site and defensive facility in Sydney Harbour
- Pulbah Island, the largest island in Lake Macquarie
- Rodd Island, a small island in the Parramatta River
- Scotland Island, an island in the north of Sydney
- Shark Island, an island in Sydney Harbour
- Snapper Island, an island in Sydney Harbour
- Spectacle Island, an island in the Hawkesbury River
- Spectacle Island, an island in Sydney Harbour
- Solitary Islands
- Wasp Island, the only island in Durras Inlet near Batemans Bay[2]
- Woodford Island, an island in the Clarence River on the far North Coast of the state
Northern Territory
- Bathurst Island
- Bickerton Island
- Crocodile Islands
- Croker Island
- Elcho Island
- Goulburn Islands
- Groote Eylandt - Dutch for "Great Island"
- Howard Island
- Marchinbar Island
- Melville Island, the second biggest island in Australia (excluding the mainland)
- Sir Edward Pellew Group
- Tiwi Islands
- Vanderlin Island
- Wessel Islands
- West Island, Torres Strait
Queensland
Fraser Island, 200
Great Keppel Island, 2007
- Bishop Island - no longer an island (Port of Brisbane wharves construction in the mouth of the Brisbane River extended over this island)
- Bribie Island
- Brisk Island
- Brook Islands - made up of three islands: North, Tween and Middle.
- Coochiemudlo Island
- Curacoa Island
- Dunk Island
- Esk Island
- Eclipse Island
- Fantome Island
- Falcon Island
- Fisherman's Island - no longer an island (Port of Brisbane wharves construction in the mouth of the Brisbane River extended over this island)
- Fitzroy Island
- Frankland Islands
- Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world
- Goold Island
- Great Keppel Island
- Green Island
- Heron Island
- Hinchinbrook Island
- Lizard Island
- Magnetic Island
- Moreton Island
- Mornington Island
- North Stradbroke Island
- Northumberland Islands
- Orpheus Island
- Palm Island
- Peel Island
- Pelorus Island
- Pentecost Island, Queensland
- Percy Island
- Prince of Wales Island, Queensland
- Restoration Island
- Saibai Island
- Shaw Island
- Snapper Island
- South Stradbroke Island
- Southern Moreton Bay Islands (Queensland)
- Sunday Island
- Torres Strait Islands
- Wellesley Islands
- Whitsunday Islands
South Australia
- Granite Island
- Hindmarsh Island
- Kangaroo Island, Australia's third largest island (excluding the mainland)
- Neptune Island
- Nuyts Archipelago
- Flinders Island
- Pearson Isles
- St Francis Island
- St Peter Island
- Torrens Island
Tasmania
Tasmania is a large island state off the south coast of the island continent of Australia. Islands that are in the State of Tasmania are: 240 islands listed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Islands_of_Tasmania- Albatross Island
- Bruny Island
- Cape Barren Island
- Clarke Island
- De Witt Island
- Eddystone Island
- Flinders Island
- Goat Island
- Hogan Island
- King Island
- Louisa Island
- Maatsuyker Islands
- Macquarie Island
- Maria Island
- Pedra Branca
- Robbins Island
- Rodondo Island
- Sarah Island
- Schouten Island
- Waterhouse Island
Victoria
- Anser Island
- Barrallier Island
- Bennison Island
- Beveridge Island
- Chinaman Island
- Churchill Island
- Corner Island
- Duck Island
- Elizabeth Island
- French Island
- Gabo Island
- Griffiths Island
- Herring Island
- Joe Island
- Kanowna Island
- Lady Julia Percy Island
- Mud Islands
- Norman Island
- Pental Island
- Phillip Island
- Raymond Island
- Rotamah Island
- Shellback Island
- Snake Island
- Sunday Island
- Swan Island
- Tullaberga Island
Western Australia
Main article: List of islands in Western Australia
- Archipelago of the Recherche
- Barrow Island
- Bonaparte Archipelago
- Buccaneer Archipelago
- Cape Leeuwin Islands
- Carnac Island
- Dampier Archipelago
- Dirk Hartog Island
- Garden Island
- Houtman Abrolhos
- Lacepede Islands
- Molloy Island
- Montebello Islands
- Ronsard Island
- Rottnest Island
- Rowley Shoals
- Scott and Seringapatam Reefs
- Wedge Island
External Territories
- Ashmore and Cartier Islands
- Australian Antarctic Territory
- Achernar Island
- Masson Island
- Hawker Island (68° 39'S, 77° 52'E)[3]
- Frazier Islands (66° 14'S, 110° 10'E)[3]
- Giganteus Island (67° 37'S, 62° 33'E)[3]
- Christmas Island
- Cocos (Keeling) Islands
- Coral Sea Islands
- Cato Island
- Elizabeth Reef
- Middleton Reef
- Willis Island
- Heard Island and McDonald Islands
- Norfolk Island
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