ARTISTS TALKING

# 1 [15 November 2009]

I am beginning to send out my 'pigeon post' postcards (aka 'billing and cooing'). These cards will be a part of the exhibition at NSCAD University but will also be part of other shows - in particular Mailbox 141 in Melbourne, a wonderfully quirky exhibtion space in central Melbourne that consists of 19 old pigeon holes, or mailboxes, and run by Martina Copley and Shanley McBurney.

The cards I am sending have text on both
sides, one side printed the other side hand written. The printed side consists of words that naturalists use in field guides to describe the sound of pigeons singing, such as 'oom oom oom' and 'rackitty-coo rackitty-coo'. The hand written text consists of listed diseases that can spread to humans and/or from which the pigeons suffer. I am sending postcards through the postal system as a kind of metaphor for the ancient role of the pigeon post and the carrier/homing pigeon. With each card representing one bird, the songs and the
diseases travel together in text form through the contemporary postal
system. As many as 200 cards will be sent over a period of time and to a number of addresses. The postcards represent [directly replace] the birds – as singers, as the carriers of messages and as carriers of disease.

# 2 [15 November 2009]

I might as well add another post while I can! It is a lovely warm late Spring day here in Melbourne (the heat is early this year) and I anticipate the cold winter of Halifax with some trepidation... During Xmas I will be back in old Blighty, however, catching up with my roots, family and friends, so this may provide some useful seasonal adjustments.

I am working on the sound work for NSCAD which will be along the lines of me trying to 'learn pigeon'. This will follow an idea that is not unlike those audio learning cds that accompany language learning these days.

'New Practical Pigeon Reader!'

'A new set of texts and audio designed for native English speakers to learn Pigeon!'

I don't think I can upload sound bytes to this blog, but there is a small example on my site.

# 3 [22 November 2009]

# 4 [22 November 2009]

# 5 [25 November 2009]

Giorgio Agamben 'The Open: Man and Animal' 2002 (from the chapter entitled Umwelt)

'Uexkull shows that such a unitary world does not exist, just as a space and a time that are equal for all living things do not exist. The fly, the dragonfly, and the bee that we observe flying next to us on a sunny day do not move in the same world as the one in which we observe them, nor do they share with us - or with each other - the same time and the same space.'

and

'There does not exist a forest as an objectively fixed environment: there exists a forest-for-the-park-ranger, a forest-for-the-hunter, a forest-for-the-botanist, a forest-for-the-wayfarer, a forest-for-the-nature-lover, a forest-for-the-carpenter, and finally a fable forest in which Little Red Riding Hood loses her way.'

# 6 [2 December 2009]

# 7 [2 December 2009]

# 8 [8 December 2009]

Andrew Bryant's comments on how useful blogs can be in 'Why professional artists need a blog' is spot on. in particular 'But thinking, talking and writing about what is essentially a visual process, is one of the most difficult things for an artist to do. It can make you feel awkward, pretentious, ignorant, and vulnerable.' and 'For myself, thinking about my visual output is a crucial part of my practice'. I completely agree with both comments.

At the moment I am finding it easier to upload images and add small amounts of commentary rather than writing much. Mostly the articulation comes later in the process - it's important to be in the chaos of making and the not-knowing, not trying to make sense of everything too early. There is a lot of pressure on artists to validate their output and this can really undermine the creative process.

# 9 [13 December 2009]

Bird Diary entry
Sunday 13th Dec 6.50am Coburg nr the Merri Creek
Doves - constant regular surprisingly penetrating call; fairly close though not in this garden; no other birds close. Blackbird trill in distance. A crow calls 1,2,3,4,5. (Crows vocal at Annalea's yesterday). Pretty quiet; mild, low cloud cover. One myna calls 1,2,3. Couple of lorikeets fly over. Doves continuous. Then one wattlebird in distance.
Car passes.
Clock ticks.
Wattlebird, myna - small chucks and squeaks. Doves - 'uh-orrr-or uh-orrr-or uh-orrr-or' a rougher sound than pigeons.
Then
An upset smaller bird, later realised it was a honeyeater; repeated agitated 'cheep'ing, nesting?
Then the larger whistlers sing - pied butcherbird and magpies carol further in distance. An echoey spatial quality to their songs - lovely tone, choral.
All the songs start then stop. There is no general build up or chorus amongst the birds, unlike early Spring. Dispersed, individual phases of song. Small individualised, incidental it seems, no crescendo. All except doves which remain a constant, although even they pause after about half an hour.

Singers:
Spotted Turtle-Dove (Streptopelia chinensis)
Common Blackbird (Turdus merula)
Little Raven (Corvus mellori)
Common Myna (Acridotheres tristis)
Rainbow Lorikeet (Trichoglossus haematodus)
Red Wattlebird (Anthochaera carunculata)
White-plumed Honeyeater (Lichenostomus pencilatus)
Pied Butcherbird (Cracticus nigrogularis)
Australian Magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen)

# 10 [23 December 2009]

Bird diary entry Wed 16th Dec 09

Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon en route to UK

Low cloud cover, mild, 20'c, rain showers, tops of sky scrapers in cloud. Pigeons swoop from roof of hotel - fast and high. Birds of prey hover over Kowloon Park.