RippleFest Pumphouse Residency
WEEK ONE
Great to visit Echuca yesterday for the first day of my four week residency project- as part of the fabulous emerging new Contemporary Regional Arts Festival, "RIPPLEFEST" . First step was video and sound work on the train, then decorating the office/now studio space, including my first ever natural dyeing project -the hessian river backdrop/ 'display board'- died with a mixture of eucalypt and other leaves bundled and tied with rope and boiled for a couple of hours-inspired by and thanks to Louise Upshall @gumnutmagic "Leaf & Color" book. Like my usual cooking method the actual ingredients in the dyeing solution were actually a witches brew of all sorts of scraps and materials at hand- including red onion skins, turmeric, rusty bolts, other leaves and plant materials. I attached Test screen prints/cards hanging on the 'hessian river'/backdrop -experiments with printed linework,texture, stamping and blends.
Great to visit Echuca yesterday for the first day of my four week residency project- as part of the fabulous emerging new Contemporary Regional Arts Festival, "RIPPLEFEST" . First step was video and sound work on the train, then decorating the office/now studio space, including my first ever natural dyeing project -the hessian river backdrop/ 'display board'- died with a mixture of eucalypt and other leaves bundled and tied with rope and boiled for a couple of hours-inspired by and thanks to Louise Upshall @gumnutmagic "Leaf & Color" book. Like my usual cooking method the actual ingredients in the dyeing solution were actually a witches brew of all sorts of scraps and materials at hand- including red onion skins, turmeric, rusty bolts, other leaves and plant materials. I attached Test screen prints/cards hanging on the 'hessian river'/backdrop -experiments with printed linework,texture, stamping and blends.
Fabulous old Eucalypt interior world. Gumleaves glinting in sunlight at rivers edge(video being edited). Main old Echuca bridge contact mic recordings in process.
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The main older bridge at Echuca- edit of photos and sound recordings and translation/reysnthesis with bell sounds, years of weathering and surviving builds interesting textures and patterns.
note:click fullscreen icon next to cog to preview videos at full screen "the forest within a leaf." -Created entirely from mobile phone macro photos of just one or two eucalyot leaves that caught my attention. Water, sunlight and leaves. There is often a rich and diverse intersection or edge between ecosystems such as a river and land. Who knows what creatures and microscopic life forms rely on this also of visual and movement interest. No digital distortion effects just sunlight, the movement of the water and leaves. .
Recordings and soundscapes created from the environments of Echuca and Rochester. . Explored just a little of the huge Kanyapella Reserve approximately 14 kilometres out from central Echuca/Pumphouse. Very dry conditions- the creeks I saw as well as the 'basin' had very little visible flowing water and were reduced to small areas of squishy black mud and a few 'billabong' larger puddles teeming with crickets and mosquitoes, with birds and dragonflies hovering and flittering above plus at least one large black snake sunning itself in the middle of the black mud.
The video focusses on the flocking patterns made by masses of mosquitoes. For me these patterns remind me of the flows of energy, chemistry, electrical currents , nutrients and microorganisms in every part of our living selves and systems. |
