Buttercup the Sloth

This is Buttercup the Sloth, the first inhabitant of the Sloth Sanctuary in Cuhuita, Limon Costa Rica. Over the last 18 years they have rescued hundreds of sloths, many which cannot be returned to the wild so they care for them for the rest of their lives. We stayed their overnoght and were privy to the baby sloths being fed and weighed in the morning. They are incredible creatures. For more info http://www.slothrescue.org/

swan factory

swinging for wentworth

i have been working on a tv program about australian politics and was reminded of a unrealised project during the election last year.. that i will hve to wait another 3 years to complete. My electorate - Wentworth, has never swung. I was suprised to realise a lot of my friends did not understand the conept of a swinging seat and how important their vote was if they lived in one, so I was proposing a public art event of a flash mob of swing dancers on bondi beach at sunset of a saturday afternoon. I also wanted to film the event, in a style that paid homage to shaun gladwell's 'storm sequence'.
unfortunately i decided not to follow through as the campaign became a circus, and an art event would have been lost in the noise. a least i have lot's of time to recruit now.. and learn some swing dancing myself.
I still have a website however.. http://swingingforwentworth.org

turnaround

ornette coleman inspired happy dance.

the cricket defied the niche hypothesis to become a bird.

and it sung.

and the acoustic spectrum dissolved like a waterfall.

"that bird sounds a lot like a cricket"

he said.

rock n roll.. kinda

I was asked to make some signs for a music video for Perth Band Institut Polaire's debut video clip. The clip is esentially looking a the course of history and imagining if we could change it and or make amends. I am now obsessed with silver lined clouds and want to do more with this.

Below is the video which is super cute, a the combination of loads of peoples efforts, I hope it does well. You can see me skipping next to the Berlin Wall, of course.

between the lines - installation by stephanie carrick and sumugan sivanesan

for our installation at carriageworks as part of the underbelly festival, we decided to look at the social fabric of redfern and weave together culture and history. we used found objects in the area to project the words 'white side of the law, wrong side of the tracks' , and i used fencincing from the area and wove in materials to make wall hangings, the last one being the text 'no one is above the lore'. we also added a sound scape that was currawongs at dawn - the tough adaptable mofo's that they are..

i did an interview about our work here:

http://www.nothingmag.com/_issue19/

and you can find out more about the underbelly festival
here:http://www.underbelly.com.au/

to err is human

Dear notacynic.
I am sorry I forsook you, and have only been embedding youtube videos without explanation. Here is some pictures of my friends, from the top down, to try and capture what's on the inside. I love them all. there's 24 in total on flickr.. but if you refresh this page you'll get new ones..

Steffyc's top shots photoset

THEYAM - Kannur, India

Awesome stuff.

Happy 219th Anniversary!

boat-people.org have fast and furiously put our heads together to produce a 50 minute work for Australia Day, to be conducted on the W-11 tram while traversing the city circle route in Melbourne.

Hop aboard, take the pledge and test your knowledge of Australia to gain certain privileges and stay on the tram. Dinky-di prizes will be awarded by your congenial host - Mrs Bea White, of the John Howard Ladies Auxiliary Fun Club.

Touring significant sites such as Federation Square, the Docklands, and Parliament House - be enlightened of the loose threads vehemently stitched together to form the fabric we brandish with our right to bear flags.

Departs 6.53pm Friday 26th from Federation Square. Free!

For other stops and more information visit:
http://www.tramtactic.net/W-11/timetable-cat.html

deconstructed christmas

about a month ago the happy-go lucky young things i work with decided to have a christmas decorating competion the theme being 'christmas - what it means to you'. of course christmas decorations are not my thing and i quickly dismissed, however in the last few weeks the enthusiasm for said competition amongst the rest of the office reached fever pitch. now as cheesey as it sounds these people are all really nice, genuinely enthusiastic and have really help build a nice atmosphere over the last year.. So, this week rather than be a cynic, i decided to participate and interpret the theme 'what christmas meant to me'. I'm definitely not christian, and will be off camping on christmas day - hopefully without a christmas decoration in sight.. so i decided to 'deconstruct' a christmas tree by ripping off all it's branches and turning those branches into a forest populated with flowers, koalas, and a platypus.

you can see the pole that once was a christmas tree in this photo.. i didn't win the competition obviously and needed to explain my idea through to a few people, but that was kinda the point..

Kookas

As I'm sure many of you know the kookaburra is one of my most favourite things on earth. There are a couple who live in a tree next to my house, and they've been making quite a racket for the past couple of months. I did some research and it's because it's mating season meaning lots of cooing and ooing. Also, they go off and do their own thing during the day and when they meet up at sundown they always have a big laugh together. They tend to do the same when they wake at dawn, which subsequently wakes me up and, though early is one of the nicest ways to start a day.


Anyway. Yesterday they were hanging out on my balcony, which is a new step, and they had lots of food in their mouth, and there was additional co-oing coming from a tree.. they've had a baby! and I think it's just beginning to find it's feet or wings or what have you. When I woke this morning to lots of garbled laughter I looked outside my bedroom and the little baby was right there..


How ace. I am very lucky. Last year I had baby owls in the reserve which was amazing, but these guys have more personality and are like right in my face.
You can find out more about the laughing kookaburra here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laughing_Kookaburra

thong thing

so i found this and did this:


and then walked past it for two weeks and it seemed to be doing ok.. last night it fell over so i moved it slightly and did this:


this one has lasted longer than any of the others.. is it because it is 'childish' and therefore easier to understand or let be? is there something unsettling about celebrating and drawing attention to symbols of the working class in an area such as I live.. i will have to test my theories further..

gathering ground

So I went to gathering ground at the block last night, on the coldest day in November for 100 years.. and despite technical difficulties and a wind chill I can safely say just about everyone there was feeling warm inside by the end. It was awesome! It's only on for another two nights but if you happen to read this and live in Sydney GO! Great talent Allan and Aleatha take you on a tour of the block imparting their knowledge and history of this incredibly important site. Included is a smoking ceremony & ceremonial dance, a beautiful projected slide show of some of the people and memories from years ago. A great setup outside of Mundine's Gym with boxers, breakdancers, acrobatics and a band! Then a protest walk leading to the basketball courts where wire mc and his proteges drop rhymes, beats, and some krumping to boot! We then got a fashion show, and it was so nice to see these beautiful girls building confidence (as strange as the idea of deportment is). And finally a number by the redfern community choir and some great videos made by the residents. So fun! And so much talent concentrated in such a small area. I've had conversations with the organisers today, and I feel that this is the most positive event i've seen in my five years of living in Sydney. Credit has to be given to all the people who have been doing things over the past year including the Squat-space guys for the Tour of Beauty, the walking tour of the Block protest that was organised a couple of months ago, and the monthly reggae and hip hop afternoons for slowly helping educate people and contribute to a growing sense of community and understanding in wider Redfern. I think this is a culmination of all those efforts. Last night left me with a great sense of hope, and I'm sure the momentum will only grow of the next couple of nights. I've flickr'd a few photos if you want to check it out. Friday & Saturday 7.30pm - meet outside Redfern Station.

a glove appears!

OK so I've accepted the fact that it probably is all my imagination, but by now I don't really care, as I've become comfortable to what it's evolved into - what it means.. which i will detail when i have more time. This was a gardening glove i found in the middle of the street (the same street as the boots). I placed it in the window sills of one of the workshop spaces on the street and put more flowers in it. Looks good I reckon..

titan arum

I went to see the very rare blooming of the titan arum last night at the botanical gardens - they opened late especially. The Titan Arum is the worlds largest and smelliest flower, and is endangered and only found in the jungles of Sumutra. It is referred to as the carcass flower because it smells of rotting flesh - this is to attract insects to it who the spread the pollen. Apparantly the flower grows 10 centimetres a day. The guys at the botanical gardens are so excited because they have managed (after 12 years!) to get two plants flowering at the same time which will allow for cross-fertilisation and make them leaders in the world for rare plant flowerings. How ace. I had a long chat to one of the horticulturalists who explained the life cycle - see the tree looking thing behind it? that's it's first manifestation, then this dies back into a bulb and then the flowers shoots up and then it dies back to the bulb and then the tree shoots up again and so on. Amazing. Afterward i started thinking about what life must be like for it. The idea of being still yet in constant metamorphasis.. every tiny change must be so pronounced and overwhelming. It kind of turns the way we live life on it's head. When i woke up this morning i realised that i must have changed a little bit overnight too meaning everything is new again becuase i am a little bit different. you can see the flower for one more day in the tropical atrium, and i think the other flower blooms in two weeks for three days.

going green

you know that something must be meaningful to you when it gets into your subconsious - like a mountion of mashed potato ala close encounters of the third kind..
i'm working on a piece at the moment that focuses around the word green, and on my way home grabbed some groceries. funnily enough when i got home and took them out of my bag i realised my brain had been completely one-tracked and i ended up missing a few key ingredients i needed.
the piece i'm making is not about green as in ecology, but about the idea linked to the phrase 'the grass is greener on the other side'.
it's a strange one, and when you think about it sums up many societal and social problems that tend to arise. when i think about it while shopping i end up having soy milk with broccoli and snow peas for dinner.

from little things

It was my friend's birthday on the weekend, and on the way to her party I thought I'd pick up some flowers for her from the shopping centre nearest my house. To get there you need to walk through a lovely nature reserve. I had been woken up most mornings for the past couple of weeks to cries of baby birds so was not so surprised to find a beautiful nest on the ground. It was very small, and I assume that it must have outgrown it's owner. The craftmanship was amazing - some thick white wadding weaved through with some sturdy black plastic thread. At the shops I found a white box and tissue paper - and amazingly some quail eggs! I presented it to my friend who loved it.

greatest love poem

So two of my oldest, dearest, straight but whacky friends got hitched in Carlton Gardens on the weekend and I had to give a speech. I decided I was going to write the best love poem ever written by referencing the best love song lyrics ever written - a postmodern pop pastiche in line with my current obsession with turns of phrase. On assesment of the generally conservative guests I started to worry that my poem would go down like bruce springsteen to the river (ie dive), but my fears were allayed when we arrived at the reception and they had a screen silently playing their favourite movies throughout the evening being electric boogaloo, the karate kid, and bring it on. Here it is:

'The Greatest Love Poem'
for Matt and Foong

Close your eyes give me your hand, do you feel my heart beating?
Beacause I'm crazy for you, touch me once and you know it's true,
You are so beautiful to me
I want to know what love is, I want you to show me
And nothing's going to stop us now
Beacause these dreams are made when I close my eyes,
It isn't hard to see we're in heaven.
So give me the beat boy and soothe my soul, I want to get lost in your rock n roll,
Because everything I do I do it for you
And I will always love you
Sweet child of mine.

i heart major mori

I heart Major Michael Mori. As the name would suggest, he is a Major - for the US Marines, David Hicks' lawyer and one of the most endearing, earnest, just people I have seen speak. I saw him speak a few weeks ago in Sydney at Angel place. He was great. Essentially because he cannot present his case to the US government, he is presenting it to the Australian public in the hope we will demand our government do something. Mori is quite sure that all we have to do is ask (like the british) and David will be returned. But apparantly Ruddock or Howard never have. Why? Dunno. Rather that me hatchet the facts, there's a great audio interview and full transcript of his interview with Andrew Denton available here: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/enoughrope/transcripts/s1709428.htm which is a pretty good summary of the case. Speaking of noble men in dubious positions I also heart John Stanhope, the Cheif Minister of the ACT who nominated Terry Hicks as Father of the Year, released the terrow laws on the internet and tried to get civil unions free of discrimination. He also saved some drowning kid in a river. I found this picture in Newcastle of all places, which reminded me to share the love.

shoe business

another boot appears! This boot was found in the park behind my house.. they are getting closer.. it's another single boot - this one has laces and the other (listed a few posts below) did not, so unless there is a one legged man (i assume from the size of the shoe) whom discards his spare boots willy-nilly i believe that this game might be still on rather than it just being my imagination.. i was beginning to doubt myself, as i had to stop tending the other boot when i went to WA for a week and it had disappeared when i came back. Though, given where i put it it was for all and sundry to grab, and given I don't exactly live in the most broadminded corner of sydney, it's not surprising. It did last about a week up there though, and I would place new, different flowers in it most nights. Anyway, when this boot appeared - placed ever so obviously - i decided to leave it where it was but add flowers again. i have no idea what this is about but it's definitely blossoming into something..

proudly australian?

whilst i'm on the topic of my local supermarket i may as well document a small action i carried out upon it last year, and provide an update on where things are currently at.. so. last year I read about the community of Maleny in QLD and their struggle to stop a Woolworths being built in their town. They opposed the need for a 'one stop shop' in their community and were up in arms about the proposed build site, which was right next to the Obi Obi Creek. Together they had also raised funds to buy the land and create a park. We're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars. That's pretty incredible. They also conducted an environmental impact study and discovered that that area of the Obi Obi creek is a sensitive platypus breeding ground (ie contained up to thirty burrows). Now as far as I'm aware when an animal is an 'endangered' species I their habitats are protcted by law. But somehow with the help of Caloundra council Woolworths managed to 'gazzump' the community, acquire the land and get their building permit. All the background info about the backyard dealing are available here: http://www.malenyvoice.com/. I have never seen a platypus, and have gone on several treks down rivers with the sole purpose of seeing one so I was pretty upset by this. It wasn't until the Maleny community took a full page ad out in The Australian stating their case and asking people to boycott Woolworths that I felt I should do something. I've never met these people and their approach to the whole thing has seemed pretty reasonable so I didn't want to do anything to radical that may actually harm their position or causes or put their name to anything that they were not associated with, so I went down the more subversive route to spark the interest or imagination as it were.. so going on the no skateboards, no knives yadda yadda as you entered the supermarket I added these to the window of the supermarket and a couple of other in the greater area where i live:

they lasted a couple of days before they took them down, but the thing is i walk past there on my way home and i'm a bit of a night owl and the supermarket was always closed and i just whacked new ones up. this lasted a few weeks before I felt I'd made my point. It was quite fun really. I also wrote to the MD of Woolwoths who sent back a very detailed explanation of their case which sounded quite rational (a bit like the nuclear energy debate does).. anyway, I emailed the community with these images and they were very pleased and put them on their website here: http://www.malenyvoice.com/obiobi/Your_Opinion/pages/sydney.htm . So a year on and and after the flouro debarcle I thought I'd revist. triplej's hack did a story which you can listen to here: http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hack/notes/mp3s/woolies.mp3 it's very interesting. And arcording to Maleny's website (which was updated last week) the woolworths has opened. nobody is shopping there. their perishables are going off and they are being underwritten by other supermarkets in the chain in that area. It does seem like a pretty stupid and futile exercise on the part of Woolworths. What is inspirational is the way the community have banded together and continue to be vigilant. If you have some time you should check out all the amzing and creative actions they've taken over the past year. Actually you can see the remnants one of the platy stickers on the bin full of flouros in the post below.

when light turns dark

I captured this on my new phone as i was walking past my local supermarket rather late at night the other week. They must have a 'let's replace all the flouro tubes in our shop with new ones' night. Anyway, seeing them all in their rubbish bins like that just doesn't look right. Interesting but not right. Anyway, I did my research and fluoro lights contain mercury that, when released into landfill (by crushing etc) has a toxic effect on plant and animals and if it gets into the water supply, well it's all wrong. Bad supermarket. Anyway I found this Australian company - SITA environmental solutions (part of a french company) who recycle the tubes and use all the elements for a whole bunch of stuff. The glass gets turned into glass wool for home insulation and the mercury goes to some dental thing (an amalgam - whatever that is). Anyway cool huh. I think I shall be enlightening my supermarket of their existence. You can read more about what they do with the tubes here:
http://www.sita.com.au/upload/file/file_200592313534747941.pdf

sticking the boot in..

for the past, i'd say, month i have been playing a game of cat and mouse or perhaps a one to many game with a single bludstone boot that appeared on the street i live. Every couple of days it gets moved to a new location. On my walk home I find it, put it in a new crevis, and then a couple of days later it moves somewhere else. I finally felt this had gone on long enough and decided to raise the stakes a little.. last night i stuck the boot in a very prominent place hanging out of a wall with flowers in it. This morning I walked past and it was still there, although someone had taken one of the flowers. which is cute. I am quite excited to see what happens next..

Lafarge eco systems are a company in kenya who have, over thirty years, created complete ecosystems from depleted quarries. They rehabilitate the wasteland by planting casuarina pine (an australian tree) which is the only tree to thrive in the limestone conditions. Once grown, the pine nettles drop to the ground and decompose which add nutrients to the ground. This takes a long time, but they discovered the red millipede (locally abundant) was able to feed and digest the nettles which greatly sped up the process. Once the layer of nutrients is returned to the ground other insects, birds and animals return (birds, bats etc) which add to the dispersal of nutrients, and then they thin the pines and introduce local plants and vegetation.
They have created a variety of ecosystems including grasslands and have even restored wetlands from sterile, murky quarry water. This land is protected, and they have introduced mammals such as giraffes, buffalos, and hippopotamuses successfully. Incredible stuff. I became aware of them because of Owen and Mzee. You'd probably remember this story from the huge tsnumai. A baby hippo had been washed out of a river in Kenya and into the sea and he was stranded on coral. He was rescued by Lafarge and named Owen. When they released him in the park he immediately latched onto a 100 year old tortoise named Mzee who is now his adopted mother. It's seriously cute. Anyway their keeper has kept a blog from the very beginning and continues to update it every couple of days. Have a look here: http://www.lafargeecosystems.com/main/blog.php?mod=view&page=1