Night time head torch: SURFACE BEAM
Wednesday, 14 September 2011
SURFACE PRESENCE 2 - SEP 2011
More SURFACE PRESENCE:
Still reacting to the surface:
Night time head torch: SURFACE BEAM
Night time head torch: SURFACE BEAM
SURFACE PRESENCE - SEP 2011
Here's a bunch of images of the platform surface.
The platform isn't of the natural environment - but i think it's a way for me to engage and be present. In fact I think one of the key things about this project for me is looking at, registering and recognising the ways in which we have our presence in this place. It seems so obvious but the means by which we live our little time at the cove become crucial to how we will understand or find an accommodation with the cove itself.
So in terms of our presence I became very drawn into observing and reacting to the surface of the platform.
It's very reactive to the environment - light, water, sand, objects, people.
I began to collect these surfaces:
The platform isn't of the natural environment - but i think it's a way for me to engage and be present. In fact I think one of the key things about this project for me is looking at, registering and recognising the ways in which we have our presence in this place. It seems so obvious but the means by which we live our little time at the cove become crucial to how we will understand or find an accommodation with the cove itself.
So in terms of our presence I became very drawn into observing and reacting to the surface of the platform.
It's very reactive to the environment - light, water, sand, objects, people.
I began to collect these surfaces:
Tuesday, 6 September 2011
THE PLATFORM - SEP 2011
DANCE NOT DANCE CLIMB NOT CLIMB – AUG 2009
SENSING. FEELING. DOING – OCT 2009
CIVILITY AND ALTITUDE – OCT 2009
UNPREDICTABLE SPACES – NOV 2009
TEXTURES IMPRINTS FRAMEWORKS – JUNE 2010
EMBODYING LANDSCAPE AND VERTICAL LEVELS – Sep 2010
THE DAY SNOW CAME - Dec 2010
MEANING AND LOCATION – Jan 2011
THE LOCATION IS WHERE IT SHOULD BE – Jan 2011
IDEA BASE CAMP – Jan 2011
THE COVE – Mar 2011
NAMING SOME THINGS (1) – MAY 2011
NAMING SOME THINGS (2) – MAY 2011
SOPHORIFIC RAIN - JUNE 2011
HAMNATARRUTTIBADGIEE - SEP 2011
PLATFORM
We have completed the first 8 days of being at the cove. The first two or three days were entirely taken up with carry materials and equipment in, setting up camp and building the platform. Monday, tue wed involved a lot of carrying.
This was hard but had a sense of epic about it. Fitzcarraldo-esque. Many, many trips back and forth along the headland coast path, wood, timber, plywood, dibond, tools food, water etc etc. carry by carry it all needed to be moved.
It opened up questions about was the building of the platform worth it?? Why did I want to do it? – why were people supporting my efforts to do it? Would it be art? Or just a bloody dance “stage”.
These anxieties nagged away at me as the platform was slowly (it seemed) constructed. Always takes longer than you plan – each evening I would think I’ll be finished by noon the next day. By the end of Thursday, after working 7am – 9pm days it was completed – and WOW!!! anxieties gone – it was fantastic – beautiful. Art and not art – referential (70’s minimalism)and a little bit Pop but completely contextual (Landart) and functional. There’s also a futurist (well at least the metallic machined sheen) and sci-fi essence to it (Dr. Who, 2001). If it had been a stage it would have failed. For me it had to have another presence, exisitence with complex layers of possibilities, functions and registers. For now we are calling it the Platform – but I want to find a better title for it as a piece of art.
Dan
SURFACE RESPONSE – SEP 2011
SURFACE RESPONSE – SEP 2011
I found myself interested in the surface of the platform whilst people used it – reflections, the rain , stones and sand sitting on the surface, the noise, smears and scuffs of use. It’s very painterly as a material surface – but more so it absorbs the landscape around it through reflection – light.
AN ACCOMMODATION – SEP 2011
An accommodation – SEP 2011
It’s been interesting to see how the climbing has been taken up by the dancers and other visitors to the project. Most people involved have none or little climbing experience. Several have extensive movement (dance, eastern movement arts etc.) experience. So the climbing at first presents the clunky challenge most people encounter – hard, effort, clumsy, rough, silly helmets etc. But after repeating routes a few times a new encounter seemed to be happening – more nuanced, a higher level of problem solving and lower use of brute effort – subtle and then radical changes in composure. I wonder how far these people can recognize climbing as an art form – or the need for high level creative considerations to enjoy climbing.
Over a few sessions the topophillia and topophobia theme became a clear topic – the slow and rapid shifts from nice to not nice, excitement to fear, confidence to panic.
Accommodation / Knowing: - finding out (phyisically and psychologically) more about what is possible – finding an accommodation with the place. By this I mean - taking time to explore ledges, cracks, resting positions, seeking holds, friction and cognitively applying body technique. This is on routes off the ground but also at ground level. This interesting because the more time you spend climbing in a place opens up a level of confidence not there at the beginning. This seems obvious – but is very tangible in action – fear of the unknown is what hampers most of my climbing. The more you know (through finding an accommodation with the situation and rock) about the place and especially a rock face at height the better you move and climb. BEING AT HEIGHT.
HAMNATARRUTTIBADGIEE - SEP 2011
HAMNATARRUTTIBADGIEE - SEP 2011
Two nights back at home.
Very tired – change of environment, shift in duties, catching up on back log of emails….planning for return to cove tomorrow.
Beautiful to see family – lots of love and then tantrums and tears…emotional creatures all of us. Even in a week the kids seem to have grown. Anna (2) seemed to have tons more words and Leo (3and1/20) more boyishness. It’s been tiring at the cove working long days in all weather – but Maggie has had a hard job too – working and having the kids – full time effort and no rest. I know that is really not easy and it doesn’t have the routine change being at the cove brings. I’d love for her to be at the cove too.
Wild creatures we saw:
Seals, Dolphins, Snails, Kestral, Cormorants, Gulls, Otter / Mink, Midges, Caterpillars, Slugs, Pollack, Whitebait…
Tunes that crept around my head:
A message to you Rudy = hamnatarruttibadgiee
Voodoo Chile
Motorbreath
Ice Ice baby
hamnatarruttibadgiee
hammataruttibagdie
hamaturuttibagie
hamma aggie tohruti
hama aggi torudie
ham asse heige twao hruti
hammas higgee twoa hrudi
ham ass higgee toa rhudi
amm ass higg toa hudi
ama saggie tooyoodee
amass higee toura hoodi
amass gge toorwa hudee
amass age toowa uddee
ama sage towyou rood ee
am essage too yoo roodee
amess sage too yoo roodee
a message toyoo Rudy
NOT THE FIRST DANCE HERE - SEP 2011
Not The First To Come This Way To Dance
I found out some interesting stuff about the location. An older man was picking dulse and carrageen moss at low tide.
The flattish area just before our camp was the place where people would come to dance. They would come on good weather with a couple of musicians.
He told me about the rocks where the young people would come down to carve their names and to propose to each other.
We found names back to 1909. He told me to look out for M O’D... his carving
He told me that the stream near our tents is The Madmans Well. The place to drink from to cure madness. I climbed up a bit to find the source. It was very overgrown. He said “... ah well... no-one is bothered with those things any more”.
He asked what we were up to and as he was leaving suggested that “You wouldn’t want to be drinking to much from the well and go too far the other direction”.
Seal
In order to be there we need “civilisation”. We need our tents, our shopping, our “community”. We make effort. For the seals it is just home. We are outsiders. Perhaps it is the human condition to be outside.
Alpha and Climbing
Getting there. Top Dog. Being The Best. Succeeding. Conquering. Getting it over and done. Moving on to the next challenge
or
Taking the time to enjoy. Meandering. Postponing the end.
Intimacy
I begin to know the cove. I can see it smell it. Hear it. Lots and lots of detail. The climbing gives an extra dimension to the memory. I think if I just climbed without the other activities I would remember less clearly. The focus would be on the effort, the routes, the achievement. The sound recording, the building, the dancing, the videoing and photographing are given a new perspective by the ascents. The vertical becomes just another dimension with it’s own qualities and potentials. Not the object of the excercise which can happen when visiting a place just to climb. This vertical dimension gives a wider frame. For some reason the memory of the sound of the pebbles is very linked to this.
Sound
The sound environment is very contained. In the cove it is intense even when it isn’t so loud. When you step out from the cove, through the arch, there is a release, a peacefulness. Twice I sat for over an hour in the middle of the dark night... stars disappearing gradually behind rain clouds, as I recorded the time of the high tide in the cove.
Climbing
My fear becomes a little more balanced but I still like to downclimb after climbing up. Remembering the accident I saw several years ago, every time I sit back into my harness. Pleasure in climbing returns to being as strong as the fear. It is a gift to get this back. The topophilia rises and the topophobia recedes, always in movement, like the tide or the breath. No longer sudden overwhelming floods of topophobia.
Home
Back home. Pleasure. The bath feels very very hot. A nice easy meal. Tonya says I am slow. She thinks this is a good thing. I am tired.
Stresses begin to return. The afterburn of the cove sustains but fades. I gather ante-burn material to take back to the camp with me on Wednesday.
My perspective. My evaluation process is unstable. What is important? What do I like? What do I want? The patterns, the “logic” of the Derry life takes hold of me. Work, money, responsibilities. I find my attitude swings from re-attachment to dismissal.... where is the balancing place between... do I want a balancing place? If you stay too long in one place as you climb you get tired and it gets more difficult to move on. If you rush you miss the pleasures and learn nothing....
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