Category Archives: Uncategorized

Bouldering_Diary_00

I realise that I have been a climber for close to 25 years. Never been a great climber – my hardest ascent was a soft-touch 25 – but back in the early 1990s I established a bunch of routes down … Continue reading

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Bouldering_Diary_01

There may be a need to say a few words generally. Specifically, perhaps, something about the notion of a line. During the mid-19th century, when climbing first emerged as a dedicated leisure pursuit (distinct from religious pilgrimage or scientific exploration), … Continue reading

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Bouldering_Diary_02

Well, I hardly expected this to happen. All during the Christmas break I had been unable to climb a short roof problem on a small, steep boulder just beside the creek. Then there had been weeks of rain. I went … Continue reading

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Terminology

The notion of socially engaged art practice can be interpreted very literally as art that involves forms of social interaction. So, for instance, Pablo Helguera, in his excellent small instructional handbook, Education for Socially Engaged Art, explains that “what characterizes … Continue reading

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Bouldering_Diary_03

My previous post focused on the small details of an ascent of an unheralded boulder in the bush just behind my home. My emphasis was upon representing the climb as a particular algorithmic procedure and upon depicting something of the … Continue reading

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ALMBWABPBIDCFERTIE_03

Just waiting to get started. Have everything at hand – angle grinder, blades, goggles, ear-muffs and gloves. I am hoping that I can find enough cars. I know of at least four places where there are dumped cars, but some … Continue reading

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ALMBWABPBIDCFERTIE_04

Around mid-afternoon I headed up the Mt Nebo track towards the dumped cars on the south side of the saddle leading up towards Mt Kembla. As I started up the initial steep slope towards the water tower, I became more … Continue reading

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ALMBWABPBIDCFERTIE_05

Mid-afternoon start again. Contemplating walking over in the direction of Broker’s Nose. It’s a long trip that involves heading most of the way up Mt Keira, then north to the freeway and across into a marshy expanse of bush that … Continue reading

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ALMBWABPBIDCFERTIE_06

I have decided to collect seven squares altogether and link them together with hinges. They will be arranged concertina fashion so that both the outer and the inner skins are visible. Seven squares demands seven walks.

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ALMBWABPBIDCFERTIE_07

I had thought of using the cut out metal squares as pages in a book. They would be drilled out with small holes in a grid-based fashion to represent a vision of multiple suns. The first square would contain one … Continue reading

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ALMBWABPBIDCFERTIE_08

I realise that I said nothing substantive about the walk up Mt Keira in ALMBWABPBIDCFERTIE_05. I said nothing about the initial walk up my driveway, which later I would discover was misrecognised by our next door neighbour as the gait … Continue reading

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Bouldering_Diary_04

Been a few days and I haven’t felt like writing. Rapidly ascending that small steep boulder problem has left me uncertain what to do next. I can’t even bother to watch Biggest Loser. In fact, I have already missed the … Continue reading

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ALMBWABPBIDCFERTIE_09

Made an early start today. Decided to do the long walk, the walk over in the direction of Broker’s Nose. Hoping to find that 4wd vehicle abandoned, bogged, whatever in the marshy creek. So up Mt Keira, then out north … Continue reading

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ALMBWABPBIDCFERTIE_10

The conceptual scheme: To illicitly cut out portions of illicitly dumped vehicles. To render bushwalking in illicit terms. To render illicit activities in terms of bushwalking and art, thus to make them, in some sense, licit. To confuse the licit … Continue reading

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ALMBWABPBIDCFERTIE_11

Didn’t really feel like cutting up cars Saturday afternoon. Very hot day and I was already bedraggled from mowing two lawns and pruning some trees, but put a new blade on the grinder, charged the battery and headed off. Inspiration … Continue reading

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ALMBWABPBIDCFERTIE_12

Left late in the afternoon. Low cloud settling over Mt Keira. Up in the direction of the Jumpers. The tree that had once been attached to the broken branch that had held up the daft mountain bike jump had itself … Continue reading

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ALMBWABPBIDCFERTIE_13

And now I am feeling sad that I have only two more walks left. Before I was focused on getting the seven walks completed as quickly as possible, but now would like to slow things down.

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ALMBWABPBIDCFERTIE_14

Note to self: read up again on Land Art. Hunch: the Land Art tradition intervenes in the natural landscape to produce monumental statements. I intervene within an impure environment to produce small, inconsequential statements, phrased as simple, inexplicable absences. Observation: … Continue reading

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ALMBWABPBIDCFERTIE_15

A work, what work? It seems to me that the work is constituted precisely in terms of a complex of ambivalent elements. Walking that is not simply walking. Cutting that is not simply cutting. Writing that does not simply represent … Continue reading

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ALMBWABPBIDCFERTIE_16

Ok, all nostalgia gone. Must get this project done while the weather holds. Indian summer can’t last. So though I hadn’t slept the night before, and the night before that as well – bloody moon – knew that I had … Continue reading

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ALMBWABPBIDCFERTIE_17

To be a parasite upon an unhealthy host. To vandalise vandalism. To intervene by making an inconsequential mark. No point in cutting a whole car in half. I am not, like Gordon Matta-Clark, responding to systems generally. I am not … Continue reading

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ALMBWABPBIDCFERTIE_18

So I had a whole day in front of me – all of Good Friday – to collect the final piece. That would have concluded things nicely. I am going away for a week tomorrow. But I woke up feeling … Continue reading

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ALMBWABPBIDCFERTIE_19

No intention any longer to connect the pieces together with hinges. Instead I will simply hang them up from the ceiling in a line at roughly upper body or shoulder height. I am envisaging that they will be suspended by … Continue reading

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ALMBWABPBIDCFERTIE_20

I can imagine other, possibly smarter and wittier, works. I could, for instance, fashion replica national park wildlife information signs that contain information about the nature of illegal dumping activities. These could be placed prominently next to various dumping sites. … Continue reading

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Whakatane notes

[Written swiftly on a sleepless night in the small NZ coastal town of Whakatane, prior to leaving at 3:30am to drive back to Auckland. It belongs in ALMBWABPBIDCFERTIE only in as much as it provides a general context for my … Continue reading

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