A short trip to the beach along from St Kidare, and then off to the airport. I am not looking forward to a 25 hour marathon-but and buoyed up by the friendships and help I have found in this extraordinary corner of the world. The piece is really only just forming and it will be interesting to see what finally emerges.
An early start again and Claire drives me to Melbourne with luggage. I meet Darren Tofts outside ACMI and we exchange mutual knowledge of friends and projects-he generously gives me a copy of his last book and I promise the same when published, Luckily Alessio the chief curator at ACMI passes and I am able to pitch the idea of putting the Mobile Audience on as a show in 2009. He is keen on the idea and shows me around the extensive facilities, which include a showcase of local school and college talent , professional broadcast studio and an extensive games area. We have lunch with Linda Williams and Simon Perry –who has made some impressive public installations and is definitely on the same wavelength. Linda is happy to include the new installation in the show she is curating for the RMIT gallery in autumn 2008. Claire then drives us to see a rapid-prototyping facility in Hawthorn with a sculpture exchange project in mind. It is impressive and has the latest tools from Israel which are even more accurate and economic than stereo-lithography. Everything seems to be do-able today!
I grab a cab to Jon’s and we have another farewell Malay takeaway.
This is my last day in Bendigo and I am busy packing and cleaning and then to college to return borrowed kit and finish edits. In the evening I give a talk on my work at the gallery, which gets a fair audience and we celebrate with a farewell Malaysian meal. Up late finishing off packing.
Anzac day-and an early start at 5.00 am to catch the dawn events. One of the first there setting up my tripod and checking angles. The grave-faced veterans marched past and I found little space in what had become a large crowd to get a good view of the ceremonies. It was all curiously moving-given the raw deal Anzacs have had fighting ssurrogate wars and loud applause met the vets.
Then a great breakfast at a friend of Donna’s who shows us an early miners house and the shack believed to be the first in Bendigo which belonged to a Chinese Miner turned market gardener. All that will grow here are pepper trees, which strew the yard in pink seeds. At midday I am off on a trek around the wineries arranged by Greg and Vince. We start with a standard winery which is as expected, but end up at a small family run one which makes the best wines in the region. This happy picnic turns tragic as the farmer is clearly in deep despair about the drought. He has no crop and the water which fed his farm has all failed-just a bark filled creek behind the house and every spring dry. This is the true tragedy of the changing weather. Clouds pass over without a drop of rain.
A rush to college to carry on edits, and then off with Carolyn to have a day finding water. We drive to Lake Epaloc and see a vast depression with a tiny pool at the bottom and the rest as dry as dust. We drive round past the yacht club perched absurdly on the edge of this dust bowl. Later we find the cascades from the high granite hills, which supply the main reservoirs of Bendigo. It is all set in an exquisite green valley, but the waters are not exactly a torrent. We end up exploring the edges of the Whipstick forest, which is all black ironbarks and a poisoned, and ravaged landscape raped by the diggers. It has a very dark and unfriendly feel-almost resentful. More roos observe us from a ridge.
A rush to finish videos and photos and then intensive editing. Paper to prepare for Thursday’s talk and applications for galleries plus a promised print for a charity event
Open day at the studio and a small trickle of people, but those who came were enthusiastic. One lady suggested I visit the Buddhist Stupa(temple) being built beyond Eaglehawk, so in the afternoon I pursuaded Claire to drive out that way. It is enormous and remote -huge earthworks and steel frameworks with a giant bronze buddha lying sunbathing with a protective cloth on its face. The visitor centre was run by a very gentle monk from New Zealand who showed us around but proved to be camera shy.
On the way back I caught my first shots of kangaroos-which are as common as rabbits and regarded here with similar indifference-Brits seem bizarre when they jump up and down, but I did. The dive to Castlemaine was based in roseate sunset and the gums looked breathtaking. A farewell meal at the Railway hotel which keeps a simulcraum of Ned Kelly's armour by the bar complete with bullet holes. I eat a T-bone rib steak straight out of the Flintstones-best ever.
Early start to meet with Dean Keep who is a media artist using mini-narratives on mobiles and doing a Masters at RMIT. He has arranged a lift out to see Lyndal Jone's Eco House project out at Anvoca. We pick up our lift in Brunswick and after a first torrential rainstorm arrive in time at Lyndal's for a seminar on sustainable practice. Very happy to meet up with Sue McCauley and Michael Buckley-who I hadn't seen for ten years and Debbie Ely who I last saw in Bristol 20 years ago at Watershed when curating a new media exhibition, before she moved out here permanently.
The house is beautiful and impressively restored. After lunch we go on a walkabout with Peter Andrews an ecologist who wrote "Back from the Brink"- and is busy pulling up weeds and explaining how with a lifetime's experience of working the land he has seen the landscape change. Having watched and experimented with the movement of water, he has observed the importance of biodiversity - weeds included. And has concluded that to save Australia we need to return the landscape to its original systems.
We dash back to Melbourne for a meal at the Panama club-one of Melbourne's hidden and exquisite nightspots and then on to Mike Stubb's leaving party, where I find just about everyone I know in OZ-Sean Cubitt with Melinda Rackam and Julianne Pearce who happen to be over from Adelaide. A mighty gathering of the digirati and a very nice barbi to boot. I stay at Mike and Sue's to get an early train back to Bendigo for an open studio session in the morning.
Off to Melbourne again-beginning to feel like a yo-yo. Completed the demonstration video and exhibition proposal on the train. Met up with Linda Williams who is co-curating a show on eco themes next year at RMIT gallery in 2008. Very interesting discussion over an excellent pasta on evolutionary theory in relation to ecology-plus the relative merits of OZ and UK. Linda is originaally from Rawtenstall so we both knew the area and she is thinking of relocating before the drought gets worse.
Had a couple of hours in Hardware Lane watching Geoff and his group playing Jazz to packed tables of intent eaters. Very good and warmed up to play my favorite Mile Davis by request!
Arived to find a very tired, but happy Jon after a week on his own with the three children.
A morning photographing Lansell's first house and neighbourhood and filming along the creek. The fountain at the centre of Bendigo is ever more grotesque and significant. Then an intense grapple with the video editing to make a coherent synergy. There is still so much to do and so little time left!
Spent the morning cutting a large woodcut for donation to the Kiwani’s charity art show to be exhibited in the greenhouse in the midst of the park. Then on to film Eaglehawk from Donna’s car. This was a visit to one of the more deprived parts of Bendigo, which in spite of the gold has one of the very lowest per capita incomes in Australia. There are large communities of long-term unemployed. While filming a rather desperate housing project we are shouted at from another car by a very large and angry man covered in tattoos. This was not pleasant and we tactfully retreated.
More bycle-mounted filming . Then editing at college. Tried to help Claire get some action on her insurance-she is still very shaken by the fire and is being given the run-around by the agencies involved. In the evening am invited to a wine tasting by Greg and then on to a meeting of the Kiwani charity club -which explodes into a huge row about the planned art show. A great insight into Aussie dynamics in a small town! Ended the day watching an excellent programme on sustainable energy projects in Australia. It is clear that the solar and geo energy potential here is huge and only receiving nominal support from central government. Australia could hold the key to global warming, but the most promising solar technology is being snapped up by America because of the poor reponse in OZ. Brown coal is still the dominant concern-it is like watching lumbering dinosaurs before their imminent extinction. The Howard government’s continuing love affair with extractive industry is closing down all the innovation which could revitalise the Australian economy.
Interviewed Gail–who is an intense local artist, photographer and aboriginal. I am given a very clear picture of the unspoken racism against other communities including the Jewish one, where many jews have aryianised their names in response. The layers of governance through Free-masonry and Catholicism in the town discussed. A number of further contacts are given, which need to be explored.
Responded by looking up all the aboriginal words for water- of which there are very many and all are musical. e.g.
Aroona -Flowing water
Arltunga- Water hole
Awoonga- Sheet of water
This may be a solution to the sound track. Cycled the length of Bendigo creek with the video camera-dry and the remaining trickle busily being encased in pipe-work by orange clad workers. Continued editing with some success at finding the visual genre.
Filming a number of walks in an attempt to get some “flow” imagery. Another catch-up day-blogging and developing photography. Bendigo is very quiet after the Easter festivities. Cloudless and dry as every day, bar one, since arriving. It is hard to tell if it is drought or autumn which is turning the leaves. Started editing at the college on a dedicated workstation. Shocked to hear that Claire escaped with her lfe when her car caught fire and she only just got out before being engulfed in flames.
We set off to see the sea amd old haunts of Geoff and Andrea. We swim at Brighton -about as close to the city as you can get and still find a beach. The sea is reasonable-although we are in the arms of Port Phillips Bay and few people are in the water or on the beach because the air temperature is only 28 degrees Celsius! Lunch at St Kilda's Yacht club with the rudest waiters in Oz and then a quick look at the bustling streets of St Kilda and Lunar Park before training off back to Bendigo.
Took the kids swimming and to the Mall when Jon had to go into work unexpectedly. The Americanisation of Australia is a profound and irreversible fact and is pretty depressing. One can see where the obesity epidemic originates. I got a lift to visit Geoff –a very old college mate who I have seen 3 times in 35 years, but we pick up as if there were no time between. He has a lovely spacious house in Balwyn but misses the Dandenongs where they lived for twenty odd years. His eldest daughter is at La Trobe , as it happens, and moving into town seemed the sensible thing. We see a ring-tailed possom in the garden that night, who gazes at us with huge eyes as if from the bottom of a pond.
Went to meet Naomi Cass at the Australian Centre for Photography, who like the idea for the piece and showed me the space, which could fit well. I will have to make a formal application in the next couple of weeks. Loads more pictures of Fitzroy which remains a rich and fascinating environment for street graphics-which are becoming a separate project with each trip to Melbourne. Then went en famille to Cooke’s Point for dinner and had the privilege of driving Emma’s brand new 4x4 around the grounds at night. Not a good idea for someone who hasn’t driven for 8 years. The brakes were so sensitive we nearly went through the windscreen on first application. Apparently a medium visited the homestead that week and without any prompting went into the so-called haunted room and declared there was a presence who could tolerate women, but not men!
Melbourne again and this time a set of meetings with galleries. I pitched the piece to Suzanne Davies at RMIT Gallery who was interested in the sustainability issues as part of a larger show-there is a group at RMIT working on curating something along similar lines. She has lent me the catalogue of a huge show on gold from a few years back with some very interesting scholarship on the goldfields in the mid-nineteenth century
Then met up with Mike Stubbs at ACMI who is on his last few days there as director before taking a Professorship in Liverpool and running FACT. He thought we might make the Mobile Audience into a co-curated show at both FACT and ACMI-but the problem is one of capturing the external evanescent experience of the locative in a gallery context. It will need careful thought.
A trip up the Yarra River learning the value of riverside properties and how much gas is wasted burning giant torches outside the mega Crown Casino. On to Jon and Jules and a blaze of nephew and nieces-I was babysitting while they dashed of to see Dylan Moran live-Jules is off to the UK tomorrow for a week , so all a bit hectic.
Consolidation day-phoning Melbourne contacts, processing photos and preparing the studio for open day next weekend. Had an early morning vision of how the final piece should work and the need to make water a central thematic-perhaps the new gold in the region.
The Bendigo Mining company are closing a shaft and wanted la Trobe to document the diggings before they are allowed to flood. I wangled a place on the team, so laden with cameras cycled to Kangaroo flat to tog up for a descent into the mine, which extends 14 kilometres under the heart of Bendigo. This is gold mining on a grand scale and the tunnel winds down to the face on a ramp that two trucks can negotiate. The mine is 1 kilometre deep at its nadir-and most of it is bare slate and sandstone reinforced with wire. Safety is paramount and we carry breathing apparatus in case of fire .
We spend several claustraphobic minutes checking out an airtight rescue station where you can survive in a pod. As we go deeper the air gets hotter and fouler until at the face we are breathing an acrid soup of exhaust fumes and residual ammonia from the recent blasting.
You can see the quartz reef spangled with Iron Pyrites and hopefully flecks of gold. The whole operation is huge with giant dumper trcks grinding up and down, and at the face exploratory diamond drilling machines looking like something out of Alien. Quite an experience. After six hours underground he relief at being back above ground is huge and the light is blinding. Having a kilometre of rock above you is an odd feeling.
This was the big day and thanks to Greg, I managed to get a press pass to cover the parade, so could move freely around the event. The highlight was the emergence of Soo Loong, the largest dragon outside China, covered in silk and mirrors. Dragons bring good fortune and rain-which they desperately need here. The parade itself reflected the incredible cultural diversity of what appears, at first sight, to be a monolithic white middleclass town. There were Thais and Indonesians, Chinese and Pacific Islanders as well as Buddhists and Tibetan Lamas!
The day of the Bendigo Easter Festival-so spent all day photographing at the Chinese Museum where traditional waking the dragon scenes are enacted using lively teams of lion dancers. Traditional Chinese and Mongolian dance displays etc. Culminating in a torchlit spectacular procession. This is just the preamble to the Easter parade-very impressive and energetic nonrtheless. The anti-Chinese feelings on the goldfields in the mid 19th Century continued into the 1880s, with digger resentment of Chinese mining resulting in the small Chinese community often being scapegoated in the press as purveyors of drugs and prostitution and general low lfe. The introduction of there festivities in the 1890s helped to change that image and to make the Chinese cultural strength a lynchpin of Bendigo life.
Saturday
Left Melbourne for Castlemaine-and visited parts of the festival, including an exhibition in the old gaol. It is converted into an hotel-not very appetizing, unless you like being locked up. The Castlemaine festival includes media arts and photography of very mixed quality with some stunning colour portraits. One very moving show of survivors of the 56 events in Hungary all now living in Victoria.
A generous Lunch with colleagues from La Trobe and Melbourne in an established house with a garden full of walnut and chestnut trees alive with birds from Carrawahs and Cockatoos to Magpies-all singing at the tops of their voices. The Cockatoos throw the chestnuts all over the roof-must be like a perpetual hailstorm. There is a mine in the garden and the tailings are still lethal to plants after 100 years. The whole area is pitted with mineshafts-the public swimming pool disappeared into one a few years back.
Still not seen a live kangaroo-only roadkill on the way back to Bendigo!
Everything shut for Easter in Melbourne so spent the day walking and photographing. Went all around Fitzroy looking for the Contemporary photo gallery-shut as well, but a wonderful pastry shop opposite offered great compensation and coffee. Brunswick Street was a revelation-alternative lifestyles in abundance and all human types on the streets. Wonderfully rich graffiti everywhere. Melbourne has got stencilling down to a fine art. The graphics are quirky and rich and abundant.
Visit to Melbourne to get in touch with galleries and academics. ACMI(Australian Centre for the Moving Image) is a revelation -as are the huge museum developments in Federation Square right by Flinders Street Station. Spectacular in all ways. There is a blockbuster video art show from the Pompidou there with Tony Oursler puppets lurking and talking in unexpected corners. (It was nice to see New Screen Media on prominent display in the bookshop).
The Victoria Gallery of Art (VGA) has a brand new building too with a wonderful collection of indigenous art. I am trying to get a meet with the curator. ACCA(Australian Centre for Contemporary Art) too is brand new and equally angular -it rained while I was there which made the huge rusty external panel look even more striking. Managed to also visit VCA and RMIT Galleries as possible venues. In the old VGA were some great inventions to fill the huge foyer-but best of all was the waterwall at the front which I remeber from 20 years ago.
Met up with Sean Cubbitt who is nicely set up at Melbourne University-which seems to be powering forward to become one of the world's top ten research universities. Certainly a high level of student and staff engagement with subject and a sense of groves of academe to match. Rob Hassan is researching theories of speed and new media-which is a dimension often overlooked outside the pages of Paul Virilio and goes down well with a beer!
Busy day-spent the morning struggling to coax photos out of a huge 6x7 Mamiya, with mixed success - made a trip to the Chinese Museum documenting the past of the community in town-a circular hall wrapped around with the enormous paper dragons which feature in the Easter parade. Tried to get permission to film. Then cycled out of Bendigo to visit the original Chinese cemetry-rows of tiny stones and mounded graves in amongst the more ornate European stones. the modesty and separateness gives one pause. On the way passed a car graveyard which had a different resonance. In the evening met various curators and friends of the gallery-some interesting festival proposals which might include the installation are in the offing.
Tuesday Day 10
Waking up here is a joy-each morning a magpie flutes its musical notes and the swarms of green paraqueets chatter excitedly. Spent the morning sorting out film for the 6x7 camera Donna has lent me. At lunch interviewed Gerri Gill who is a lecturer at La Trobe and has a very similar approach to the moment indigenous peoples were overwhelmed by the gold rush. They were already knocked back by two devastating waves of smallpox, which seem to have spread from Arnhem Land in the north- contracted from visiting Javanese fishermen! So the Europeans are not entirely to blame.
In the afternoon spent an hour or two browsing the special collection in La Trobe Library, which has original texts and images from the early days of Bendigo- terrifying to see the chaos and mud of the goldfields and the attempts to impose architectural order on a ravaged landscape.
For a time Bendigo was the wealthiest town in the world. Met up with a local restaurateur Greg who spun me the whole story of George Lansell candle maker –who became the richest man in the Commonwealth and had a tunnel built from the stables in Fortuna house to his strong box. They carried two tones of gold at a time in sealed drays, which traveled under guard on the train and then the boat to England –never leaving sight of the guards. Hopefully will meet Russell Jack today –on Greg’s promise-the man who organized the Chinese Museum and the Easter parade.
A slow start trying to arrange contacts with aboriginal officers and curators in Melbourne. Then out to the bit of bush left in Bendigo to document how it once looked everywhere. The idea is to peel off visual layers as historical analogues within the final installation. I will have to retake most of this when I get my hands on a large format camera. The bush still tries to reclaim lost territories. My ultramodern flat keeps being invaded by foraging ants with a liking for the toaster!
Took the train back to Bendigo through the parched countryside and made it back in time for an Private view at the View Street Gallery. Met some more artists and curators and will go to the Castlemaine Festival to meet more.
Then a few hours photographing the neighbourhood and trying to work out a methodology for the piece. Everything is still new enough to have the aura of difference.
Melbourne: We set off with a tour of the city past the Grand Prix racing circuit and casino-which is a glimpse of the scaale of what Britain will experience through the new gambling developments. The amount of high rise development here is incredible, in the 20 years since my last visit.
We were on a trip to Cook’s Point on the edge of the bay to a family celebration at an old settlement on the salt marches built by a Scotsman called MacDonald in the 1860s. He apprently became rich by buying land and blocking the access of his neighbours to the sea. The house was built in stages, starting with a wooden hut, which is part of the preserved buildings here. In one room is a fish–keeping area full of water which was built below the dairy to keep it cool. It is crawling with snakes and signs are everywhere in the grounds. Emma who lives here nearly trod on a Tiger snake in the cellar last week. The place is also haunted in one of its rooms –I certainly got a ten minute fit of shivers during the walk around! It was interesting to meet salt of the earth solid labour voters at the party who nevertheless have virulent anti –aboriginal attitudes.
