Monday the 6th October

Monday the 6th October First day of proper work. Discovered a box of old film equipment in the garage waiting to go to the museum. An exciting find of a super8 camera and projector, an editor, project a scope, and reels and reels of old footage- along with lots of silver backs, small creatures a little like woodlice that like to eat paper. With the museum keys in hand I set off into town laden with my finds. Dashing in and out unloading as the weather constantly changed; glorious sunshine, rain and swirling gusty winds, sun rain sun rain sun rain sun rain sun rain sun rain sun rain sun rain The museum is cold and musty, overflowing with memorabilia, farming machinery, documents and furniture. I headed to the side room, which will be my workspace and began attempting to rearrange things and scatter my newfound tech between power points. I managed to get most of the tech to work, if not very smoothly and was able to watch some of the footage. The opening scene a sequence of people emerging from a tent, a continuous flow like a caterpillar. It made me smile to imagine someone discovering the joy of the stop motion technique. The rest of the film was mainly an ozzie rules football match, and lots of children running around outside. I tried another reel, excited by the box's label of 'Ned Kelly' thinking I had stumbled upon a historic gem. More football! Rummaging through the desk draws I found a stack of old family photos, dating roughly from the 70's, square shaped with cutely curved corners. Using the project a scope- a simple design of a light bulb and angled mirrors- I attempted to project 'boy with cat', one of my favourites of the families shots. It was pretty fuzzy but with a darker space and better projection surface, it could be a winner! Having strewn camera equipment and film everywhere it was time for a break. Outside into the daylight and wide-open street, I headed to the shop/greasy spoon/internet where I was greeted by a Hoover and a few locals chatting. Smacked up on the net and a few cashews, back the 100 yards to base. I discovered a super old singer sewing machine, 1950's radio, two 'brownie' cameras and some old typewriters. I'm keen to try and transfer the maps and weather charts from the collection of Commonwealth yearbooks to fabric and stitch/embroider them. Hopefully by next week the museum will be organised enough to start having coffee mornings or afternoon tea's, so I can try and recruit some sewers and get some more maps and stories of places to explore. With the editor I have been slowly feeding through bits of film punctured and stitched by the sewing machine, and cellotape with museum fluff, and dirt and leafs from the veranda. Watching the strips on the editor is completely different; it gives the viewer more control as you can slow down, stop and whiz through the images. There's also something clinical or archive like about the little screen they appear on- this process of careful watching and note taking is curious and an element I have enjoyed exploring live within previous performances. The typewriters need a little tinkering and maybe new ribbon. I have made some text just as indents; it's satisfying to bang out writing. The idea of writing as leaving a trace, from simply running fingers, touch, being, traces through air, movement through land, an "unconscious inscription": and that connection to the notion of longing, historically "the longing mark, or impression, left by the mothers desire". This natural human yearning is an element I try to comprehend through my work. Always writing whether in text or action. Reading 'On Longing' (Stewart, S) and discovering a multitude of tech and bizarre artefacts I'm drawn to the thought of narrative generating objects and how what I already understand about these objects will effect how I utilize and interact with them. With this residency, place and time as a new context for me I feel my immediate reaction has been to search for stories, before I begin to generate my own through personal response. However I am aware that as I am doing the discovering of objects and items I am already creating a narrative, as it cannot be an independent thing, my perception and interpretation always taints things. As for gathering information through story telling, again as the situation for this to happen is so preconceived and with my processing of the information I will carry with me assumptions and memories to the places I visit.

The video attatched is actually a sonic performance, but I can only upload videos, so its in a video file- just so you know thats why the screen is black!