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- Time:
- Too early for lunch, but too late to eat a snack in case lunch is soon
- Temperature:
- Cold today; the first feeling of winter in the air; puffy jacket required. Grey.
- Sounds:
- Small, insistent, piping songs of tiny blue wrens, defiantly blustering their presence on the table in front of the annexe.
- Recordings – including, but not limited to:
- Various water recordings from Rocky Valley creek and numerous small rivulets on Spion Kopje Fire Trail
- Diary readings recorded in the dam
- Small textured plinkings obtained by plucking everlasting daisy petals close to the microphone
- Crunching walking sounds
- The old swing
- Dad’s spanners, recorded clinking in their bag but also banged up against old play equipment and dragged along the fence inside the dam
- Activities:
- I present an artist’s talk at Mt Beauty Secondary College. I describe my making process and the fact-finding mission that this residency has entailed. I play them an audio soundscape that I’ve made and edited with some of the sounds I’ve collected here, as well as some footage of my previous work, to provide context and background.
- I drive up to the high plains, where I previously scouted some locations for re-creating some of the photographs from Dad’s photo diary. Cope Hut is an excellent location for the sitting rock pose, although it’s super windy. Re-posing the photographs isn’t as easy as I thought. I set up the tripod and camera and fix the automatic timer setting. Once I press the shutter, I have 10 seconds to leap into place and try and approximate Dad’s shape, gaze and physical orientation according to the photograph of him. It’s very haphazard, and I suppose it would have been a good idea to have another person there – a photographer to pose me as specifically as possible according to the image. But actually there’s something about trying to do this on my own; the impossibility and imprecision of it that I enjoy.
- I then take my camera and equipment up Mt Cope, for another photo re-creation, this time Dad with just his shorts and boots on, looking out over the view. I’m glad there’s no one else around for this one, as I follow the same procedure as before, jumping in to place with only 10 seconds, but this time I’m running topless across the spagnum moss, hiking up my shorts as I go, to get to the spot before the shutter goes off.
- I’ve looked at the images that I’ve taken very briefly, but I will edit them with filters and saturation later, in my own time, with some space to reflect.