finally, the floor is done!

work in progress: week three

trying out the bullroarer in victoria park

thanks to Nikos Pantazopolous for taking the video x

some raft research and imagery

decorative 'crack boards' used for protection from wind, rain



barge pole physicality



mounds of materials into london

workstations, bullroarers

in the middle of the madness of ordering materials so that i can begin building this week, a little diversion has cropped up which has sparked a tangent for following.....i'm in the process of making a 'bull roarer' so that i can video myself playing it (that is - swinging it above my head), and sending the footage/sound to paeces so that they can present it as part of the gig to be held at the Palais in Melbourne in late February -- an event organised by Marco Fusinato of you dont have to call it music. Seeing as though i'll miss yet another paeces gig, we thought that it would be interesting to have a video presence to supplement their live-ness. So, after whittling away at a piece of hardwood this afternoon, and testing the fledgling instrument for that unmistakable growl produced in the spinning, i was bitterly dissapointed at the distinct lack of any sound other than my own elevated breathing from the effort of twirling it above my head!

A reflief though, as I laid eyes on some aluminium tubing across the room and realised that this might be actually present a more interesting acoustic option - so quickly hacked off a piece, strung it up, and gave it a whirr - and it sounds really great -- more high pitched than a wooden roarer would be. I then decided to drill some holes in the tube to encourage a whistling sound - and it works really well (and is way less country than the hardwood).


bullroarer with decorative woven cord and pine attachment


aluminium bullroarer


workstation in situ

from tube to bike and back
after tube-induced hot-sweats (pollution! bodies! mild claustrophopia!), and toe-numbing walking walking absolutely everywhere (great for the first week but when carrying a laptop to and fro, and that the darkness sets in at 4.30pm....), finding this bicylce just made my day, nay, month!

the first 10 minutes of cruising the streets at 9.00am reminded me how much perception is framed and produced by different forms of movement - that the apparatus' with which we engage with in our worldly negotiations enables particular forms of experience....and so this first ever-london-bike ride felt incredibly fresh....my feeling towards london transformed in that very moment - and space expanded almost infinitely! squirming up and down between ground level and tube level produces such a delirium (you don't really quite understand where you are in the city - which in itself is an amazing spatial experience because it shatters the city into a million fragments, boroughs, precincts, circuses......). So it is so good to now have the option of being in an extremely decentered city - one perpetually broken in the action of jumping from precinct to precinct via underground-tube-ness, or now, having a more flowing, continuous experience enabled by the power of the wheel - yeah!

and speaking of spatial experience and apparatus' of negotiation, my journey from whitechapel, north-west towards kingscross, bound for the london canal museum -- for all its display lameness, was worth it for this one archival photo:


which begins my research into the canals of london, especially the regents canal which cuts very close to the showroom gallery where i'll be exhibiting in march - as i plan to build and navigate a raft down it - more on this soon....