Jordan Lint

I bought the comic - "Jordan Lint" which is number 20 in the "ACME Novelty Library" by the most amazing Chris Ware from Chicago.

This man has the most amazing technique for telling stories that I have seen in a long while. I had read all of the Jimmy Corrigan series with avid interest but it appears that he's taken even more leaps and bounds in his layouts. The entire of Jordan Lint is sequences of scenes from an entire life and the layouts are crafted which such care that they almost mimic the way in which we remember scenes ourselves. It was a true work of art.

As for the story itself - I absolutely hated the character and almost didn't finish the book at all.

What is it with amazing artists insisting on making me feel revolted?
That "Blankets" guy - SAME BLOODY THING!! Beautiful art - torrid story.

_______________

In MY comic - I made the brave decision to just do my own lettering.
It was quite liberating actually. Last week we had three special guest-stars staying in our house - Jenny Hval and her band from Norway - Havard Volden (with an "o" above the first "a") and Kyrre Laastad. They were touring with Laura Jean, a musician that Nadine and I both love. So on the morning of their departure from the island, we all had breakfast together at Salamanca and Laura was talking with her friend Chris about how becoming too precious about recording can ruin the spirit of the music and it can sound overworked - a phenomenon that affects lots of areas of life, not just creativity. Immediately after this conversation I realised that I have been allowing myself to agonise over aspects of the comic and I need to just get the bloody thing started!!

So thanks Laura Jean - you're the greatest!

Establishing legibility is a thing to pay attention to before inking your letters.

Exhibitions and Art Projects

2010

"Watching this Place" an exhibition at Araluen - I had a piece called "Dog" that I contributed drawings for, made in conjunction with Craig San Roque and Dan Murphy.
"Watching this place" Opening: Friday 19 November, 6.00pm
Exhibition Dates: Saturday 20 November to January 2011

2008

Respond - with Nadine Kessler at the Taste Festival, Hobart, December 27th.

Zines

History - volume #1 - Danzan Rabjaa

Central Oz

I am back in Alice Springs for three weeks, away from beloved Nadine. Working in the AP Lands in the North-West of South Oz. A truckload of driving to be done in the next three weeks ... community to community doing work that is fairly subtle and is often not understood ... sometimes not even by me. It's funny talking to the general nurses in the clinics about what we do, they often look as though we mental health nurses are a bunch of idiots who don't actually do anything, which is sometimes very amusing. At least they're good natured about it all.

I have been invited by Craig San Roque whilst I am here to apply for a group exhibition around living in Alice Springs and responding to the local environment. Some of you might know that I have spent the last 2 or so years slowly adapting one of Craig's essays into a graphic novel - A Long Weekend in Alice Springs. It's nowhere near finished but it appears to be turning into something more concrete as I slowly iron out the kinks and twists so that it's less like a bunch of loosely connected visual concepts with writing on the top and more like a tight (and loose) narrative that interweaves the psychological and mythical concepts in the essay. He wrote in 2003 and it was published in a book on the Jungian concept of the "Cultural Complex". Probably not the normal fare of graphic novel ... but I'm convinced of the ability of the medium to put across complex (no pun intended) and beautiful concepts to the reader as has been proven time and time again.

I chose to do this because at the time I first read the article I was grappling with the problems of Aboriginal Australia and being a white person who feels strongly but in the midst of so much greyness can't actually see clearly what should or could be done about things. The article (amongst other things) helped me to stand back and take on a bigger picture, it assisted my seeing more clearly something that is, at times, unseeable. After reading it and leaving Central Oz I felt that I would like to renew my childhood interest in comic drawing and I wanted to try to write some sort of graphic based book that would talk about working in cross-cultural areas ... and indeed how people coming from other cultures to "save" the other culture actually do more harm than good ... and why. This has been written in countless books but people still swamp these areas of the world and continue to inflict psychic, and tangible damage upon the locals with their well-meaning kindness. In the end I gave up trying to formulate some sort of graphic piece on this idea and started drawing Craig's article for fun. I realised just how powerful it could be in this format (the original article was also ridiculously powerful in its surreality and strangeness) when I looked at what I had done and showed it to Craig.

Craig, as always was highly supportive and encouraged further forays.

Not having written long comics before, not having scripting skills, I decided to just try and draw the whole thing in some way shape or form and then once I had the whole thing laid out I could go through it as a whole and rewrite it so that it worked in comic-form. I've done that, it was a very long process (when you work full-time, writing/drawing long comics takes a loooong time). Now I'm up the stage where I'm sort of rewriting it and restoryboarding it so that it becomes more fluid and things flow. The problem with adapting an essay is that it doesn't always have a narrative. Visually representing abstract concepts may not be a problem in themselves but it seems to me that one of the tricks is to maintain the visual concepts in keeping with some sort of narrative or central point so that the reader of the comic can understand how to read it in the larger picture of the 'story'. Don't know if that makes sense ... I'm only just working out how best to think about these things myself. It's very interesting and in some ways ironing out the bumps in the fabric of the adaptation is somehow more stimulating to me right now than the actual artwork.

Anyhoo - as I mentioned Craig has invited me to be part of an exhibition with him. He will put the manuscript for the Long Weekend up on a wall and I shall put up some of the rough work that I have done so far (as a work in progress) at the new gallery that is run by Dan Murphy (a wonderful and energetic artist from Alice Springs). I'll let ya'll know more about it as it unfolds.

Thanks must be made to Chris Downes who is a charming Yank who lives in Hobart, Tasmania (where Nadine and I now live), who lent me some comics recently by Scott McCloud on the topic of how comics are actually constructed. They were far more informative than I even thought they would be when Chris explained them to me.

I may put up drawing here as time goes by. My music career is on hold for the time being, though I may try to have a gig here in Alice before I leave.

Speak soon maties!!

xx

September

Holy crap - it's been months since I wrote anything here!!

Heading back to central Aus in about a month for a three-week stint at the wonderful Nganampa Health which ought to be grand! Work on "A Long Weekend" is getting a lot smoother with me going through the whole thing and re-storyboarding the whole thing and getting a better flow throughout, streamlining visual concepts etc ... adapting an essay into graphic form is one of the more rewarding things I've done in years.

That nice lad Chris Downes dropped around to have a gander - which was great - it was actually nice to have a comic-maker in my house drinking my tea and giving me pointers. When i head back to central Oz I' dlike to show the man himself - Mr Craig San Roque (the author) where it's at ... I might even be confident enough to start on the actual comic pages.

A cracking film-clip from PVT.

My life UP until now

Here's the synopsis ... ummmm, hmmm.

Blogging seems to be a skill that I have lost, I am unsure as to why. Is it possible to lose your blog-mojo ... your Blogojo?

The problem is that I have such a diverse life that the Collossal Adjective has lost it's specific meaning - I could blog about growing truckloads of vegetable matter in my backyard ... I could blog about my bizarre workplace ... but I don't think you'd understand ... no offence - I don't mean you specifically, I just mean every person I try to explain it to doesn't understand ... and I don't mean that in "Oh why does the world misunderstand me so much" kind of way ... I KNOW why the world misunderstands me ... it's because I work in community forensic mental health in Tasmania. I could also blog about my music ... but although I have lately completely changed my direction into new and abstract forms ... which I think is terribly exciting ... the problem about blogging about it all is that it's all so terribly abstract that I don't know what to write about. I could blog about my brewing wines and beers ... actually that's a GREAT topic - a friend just gave me a pressie for my 30th which was a book about brewing sacred beers with herbs and weeds from various parts of the planet ... sooooo cool. I could also blog about my comic drawing ... but similarly to my brewing ... by the time I've actually got something completed which is worth writing about ... I'm so far into the process that even talking about it seems like old news ... I could also talk about home-renovations ... but there's lots of that on the net ... I don't think I have anything new to add to the world except for my witty banter about not having anything to mention.

Incidentally ... I just bought two new CDs that I am terribly chuffed about and I think that the world should know about my attitude as it may just influence you strongly to go out and buy these damn round pieces of plastic joyness. The first was Laurie Anderson's "HOMELAND" which is freaking AWESOME!! The second is PVT (formerly Pivot until they got threatened with legal action by a band called Pivot ... so they cleverly became slysdexic - top move boys), their album is called "Church with no magic" and it's a little challenging for rock ... which I am certain means that it is a classic ... it'll just take about twenty more listens before I get on their wavelength and then WAMMO!! I'll be hooked for life.

First Images last

Here's a possible first page for my future hopeful release of "the Long Weekend".

It's an image of Craig, the author/narrator of the article of the same name that I am adapting into a comic ... so the adapted comic will be Craig writing the article ... so here he is thinking ... and grappling with the concepts that he is writing about. I don't have a scanner for A3 currently so I have just stitched together two half pages ... hence the wonderful line in the middle ... I think that it kind of adds something to the whole ambience of the piece ... and perhaps I'll just continue the trend rather than try to fix it up for the rest of the book ... just kidding.

When I was a kid I used to visit a friend of my father's on the way home from school - Peter Foster ... he was a cartoonist, he was particularly into Will Eisner ... a man who's work Peter must have come across in travels rather than finding in a casual bookshop in Australia in the 80's, not sure about that one, must ask Pete one day. Pete was a humble and happy kind of bloke, also conducted the local church choir which both my parents were in. He drew a an adventure comic strip series (which was all the rage in Australia for a few decades). The main thing that he did and was most proud of was doing a black and white adaptation of "for the term of his natural life" which is an Australian classic story about a gent from England who gets accused of the wrong thing and sent to the penal settlement of Port Arthur in Tasmania and winds up miserable and dead and whatnot.

He was very kind to me and let me see all of his set-up when I was a kid. He had this desk that leaned up so that you could draw on it properly and stuff ... I got one of those recently ... so much better for your neck. And he lent me comics that he thought I might be interested in. Some old-style Batman's ... he gave me a couple of Martian Manhunter comics ... which looking back, I'm surprised that he gave them to me since they were a) rare ... and b) highly risque for a child under 10 years ... but no complaints ... it was interesting stuff. He also had a contract to work with a series of kids "readers" called Eureka. These were the readers that my primary school down the road got so I used to read Pete's comics at school and then walk past his home-studio and stick my head in to see if he was busy.

Anyways - I found out that Peter ... at almost 80 years old ... is trying to get his adaptation of "for the term of his natural life" out in colour ... go Pete!! See the article here.

I have to say though ... I pulled out my old copy that he gave our family in 1993 and had a gander ... his arduous cross-hatching has gone with the digital colouring ... and it's a touch sad because it looks beyortifulll!! But, if it gets out to more folks due to the colours then it'll be a good thing.

(because of course the world is split into things that are good and things that are bad ... yes - it's that simple!!)

June again

Well ... the sky turns darker earlier and earlier in the burn-up to the equinox. What one might think about when one comes to this time of year might tend to focus around the weather. I wonder about our conversation topics ... always about the weather. In days gone by ... that was probably the only topic of conversation. It's possibly just a modern thing - having other things to talk about ... in this specialist world that we westerners who read blogs ... and write them ... the world we live in. So artificial and ... perhaps a tad odd ... but I like it enough to keep on putting energy into it ... so that's all that matters I s'pose.

We're planning fruit-trees ... battling clay-filled soil ... cabbage caterpillars ... filling the roof with insulation ... not with the help of Peter Garrett of course ... a bit late for that.

I hope that I find you all well ... I turn 30 very soon.

Isn't that nice.

Might have a barbecue ... and then keep on drawing.

Suvorov ... and random notes

some random notes from some months back ... some of this has been moved forward ... but an interesting rambling anyways.

____

- As initiated by living out in the desert for three years in Alice Springs as a base for exploring indigenous communities and landforms in the desert I have become interested in far-flung places. I have since moved to Hobart, a different place, a different way of life. Parked in the harbour of Hobart is the Aurora Australis and L'Astrolabe, pretending to be away on trips to the Southern Oceans. Always fascinated by the idea of Antarctica as a child I perked up my eyes at this - perhaps this new place shan't be too boring after all ... hmmm.



How could I engineer a trip to the Southern Oceans?



Geography series (work in progress, something to develop, future plans)

- Central Desert

- Album - Is this a desert? (2006)

- Comic - A Long Weekend.

- Ink art-works of Indigenous peoples.

- Writings.

- Antarctica

- Art/music concept, perhaps a concert series with other artists and musicians in response to works of particular Scientists.

- Co-opt Scientists into being part of art/writing/ part of the music etc.

- Islands ...

- Triguetra concert concept (Sicilia/Salina)




- Tasmania




-



All of them fall under similar umbrellas, or perhaps stem from the same thought-form. They all have links to psychology. Perhaps humans and the brain is truly just an extension of the world that we live in rather than a separate thing. It is formed locally, takes on local attributes, we think we are separate but we are deluded, we are merely atheistic molecules flowing around our designated parts of the globe having our software developed by "Mother Nurture" within the confines of Nature's hardware.

Electric Ecology - Goyder Lane concert number 2 from Joshua Santospirito on Vimeo.

Electric Ecology under Stars

Here's a pic from 2nd of May in Alice Springs, Central Australia of the Goyder Lane concert. 'twas a smashing evening, not too cold, not too hot ... stars a-plenty in the sky above ... and no cars came through the small crowd who had gathered to watch DWT play a series of vaguely connected sci-fi meanderings on his borrowed electric.

Thanks for help setting up the awesome evening must go to Nadine, Hilary, Anneke, Lucas, Amy, and Leonardo - all for helping me make it happen ... when it so nearly didn't due to unforseen events.

I also had the chance to play at the second Wide Open Space festival with the wonderful J9 Stanton on the singing saw! The sound was challenging on the small stage but we soldiered on in fine form.

Whilst in Alice Springs I took the opportunity to catch up with the enigmatic Craig San Roque to discuss the "Long Weekend" comic project which I have been working on for over a year now. I showed him the layouts that I had done up to this this point and Nadine and I threw some thoughts out about where to go from here ... hmmm ... I have no idea. Though it has been interesting indeed to note that I have recently discovered that an old friend of mine from years previous has randomly come out of the woodwork and it seems that she has become a writer of comics since we last saw eachother ... how bizarre ... and now to pick her brains.

I am now back in Hobart with the weather cooling off again. Time to install the insulation we bought the other week ... and snuggle up for the long winter.

ciao
jxo

PS - I will see how the video recording of the Goyder Gig turned out and see if it's worthy of youtubing here on this blog.

Alice

Here's a little something from central aus ... it's kind of nice.

Electric Ecology - Goyder Lane concert number 2

The Long Weekend - font sample page

Here's a random page which Nadine and I have been using to decide upon which fonts to use. This is one font from an American font company called "face front" ... not being that confident in the worlds of fonts I have enlisted the wise and worldly knowledge of Nadine Kessler, she's a font of knowledge ... it's still a strange learning curve for me. There's some more interesting comic fonts here.

You can click on this page for a larger picture ... panel 8 is completely un-inked: I got lazy and since I was just going to use this page to test for fonts I thought it wasn't so important ... though looking at it now, unfinished is sooooo unsatisfying ... even if I have no intention of using it for the final product.

I do intend to use this layout for the final product, this page belongs to the "epilogue" at the end of the long weekend, where Craig's words meander off into obscurity and darkness ...

Drawing

I have returned to the world of drawing with a vengeance.

It's bizarre how when you do a long-term project with no deadline how you can flitter from procrastinator to the FOCUSINATOR!! in the space of a couple of weeks ...

I am continuing the mammoth task of planning the comic rendition of "the Long Weekend in Alice Springs" by Craig San Roque. Perhaps I have come back to doing it again because I am heading to Alice Springs for a long weekend in a couple of weeks ... the stimulation that was required to get the arse back onto the camel ....

Some rather odd coincidences have also led to the recent revival. I was browsing the web after rediscovering Bobby N's fine work ... I found his blog and saw the photos that he sticks up of the monthly comic meet-up some artists have in Melbourne. There I saw an old mate of mine from university ... from about 9-10 years ago Jen Breach ... she's taken up the deadly task of writing comics!! How cool is that!!

I have a much clearer head as to what I still need to find to acheive the bizarre task of putting everything in order ... writing/adapting a long essay with many windy and tricky concepts that are not necessarily visual in nature ... and more strangely enough ... are not necessarily narrative in nature ... well, let's just say it's a challenge. One that I've enjoyed immensely. It's not the art that I've derived the pleasure from at all ... it's just been staring at Craig's words and putting pencil to paper and headbutting the problems of coming up with concepts for how this might be conveyed visually in a way that works.

For research into how other people might attack the problems that I've met with I have looked into some obscure corners ... in fact, although I'm certain there are others out there who may have attempted similar tasks, they are not easy to find. Most interestingly I have discovered some great works of art such as Abstract Comics. But I think that the most relevant material to my task remains the monolithic work Epileptic by David B. I'm not suggesting that my work is anything like David B's work ... far from it ... I've just found his methods in visually conveying concepts and feelings through consecutive panels and pages and his overall pacing of his work to be the most influential to my thoughts about how to attack Craig's article.

Pacing will always drive me nuts I reckon ... without some sense of how that functions I think that a comic will never achieve its end goal. But perhaps I place too much emphasis on such things.

who knows ...

it's fun though.

ROIL

ROIL came to Hobart on Saturday ...

A month or so ago I got a text from Harper saying

"You want a support on the 13th of March"

and I thoughts to meself ...

"hmmm ... "

I thoughts

"hmmm ... probly the Brisbane again ...

A bit sick of playing there ... not quite my cuppa tea"

I thoughts ...

but then I thoughts

"NARRRR, whatthe fark!! I'll do it, could be fun"

So I text

"Sure, who for, what time? and why for?"

Harper texts back

"8pm at Peacock Theatre, ROIL"

I thinks to meself

"ROIL? hmmmmm"

I keep on thinking

"Roil??? ... "

penny drops

"Oh, Chris Abrahams plays with them ... "

"...."

"Hey, Harper - sure fucking thing!!"

"One fucking thing though"

"Can you stop me from stealing Chris Abraham's undies and makin' a dick o' meself?"

Top gig.

Top group.

Mike and James were tops too.

I didn't make a dick o meself.

Inspirational

Endurance

Stuck for 9 months in the growing ice in the Weddell sea

and

The hull succumbed to the pressure - October 27 1915 ... and sank, bow first on November 27;
the last ship of her kind.

Endurance was named after a family motto of Shackleton's
"Fortitudine vincimus" (By endurance we conquer).

Endurance appears to be one part of the major theme in the Antarctic exploration era - Mawson's insane sledging trip in 1912, Scott and Amundsen's race to the pole ... the sinking ship enduring the crushing of the pack in 1915 ... enduring in the hope of a Southerly gale that would part the pack ice.

Dr Phillip Law

Found a cut-out news article from the Progress Press (local newspaper in Eastern suburbs of Melbourne) from April 8th 1997 shoved into the back of Douglas Mawson's "The Home of the Blizzard". My Mum has an old habit of doing that ... finding articles that have to do with a particular topic, she cuts them out and puts them in a book of the same topic, sort of a posthumusly collated appendix.
Dr Phillip Law made the front of the newspaper that week, delivered to thousands of postboxes with the headline "A Fortunate Life" underneath his bespectacled and bebearded face. The article begins by honouring him with the "Boys Own" label, which sets you up thinking that here was an adventurer of bygone eras ... which perhaps he is. He was given the title of Adventurer of the Year by the Australian Geographic Society in 1988 ... long after he had finished adventuring. Interviewed at the age of 85 in this paper he said he wished that they had bungee-jumping back when he was a lad ... but that he had no regrets, just a fortunate life.

As I read the brief interview I got a few chills frommy childhood up my spine ... he talks about Antarctica's beauty - "I think it's an extremely beautiful place and that's what grabs most people. Anyone who's been to the Antarctic is absolutely enthralled with the genuine beauty of the scene and the magnitude of it all. everything is on such a grand scale, you feel humbled by the experience of nature" ... I imagined slowly approaching cliffs of ice and slowly realising how bloody big they truly are ... I imagined ice-clad mountains ...
"Climbing up to a mountain peak and looking out beyond that and realising that yours are the first eyes in the history of the world to see that sight. I was in the Antarctic during the exploration era. I just happened to be there in that exciting time. Nobody can ever have that feeling again."

He was the first man to scuba dive in the Antarctic and his wife Nel was the first woman to travel to Antarctica.

I need to go buy a Boys Own Annual.

1772 - the Antarctic

1772 saw Captain Jimmy slipping his way in and out through the high Southern latitudes.



Returning to London he told the poms that the far Southern lands had no future, though he also reported sightings of seals in the South which, only a few years later, were returning top notch bucks to GB and the USA. And in the early 20th century over 20 whaling companies were in big business in the Antarctic regions.



Douglas Mawson wrote in his introduction to "The Home of the Blizzard" -

"what will be the role of the South in the progress of civilization and in the development of the arts and sciences is not now obvious. As sure as there is here a vast mass of land with potentialities, strictly limited at present, so surely will it be cemented some day within the universal plinth of things."



A friend -

2010 das ist Hammer!

Some thoughts I'd like to rapsodise about - MONA FOMA was awesome to be part of.

The magic Anthony Magen of Helmethead did some ripper visuals for me to bounce off of. Doing three 20 minute concerts in a period of two hours was bizarre but forced me to create something of a beginning, middle and end within a much briefer time-frame than I've done before ... which was an interesting challenge. Mags and I discussed methods briefly beforehand but not having a complete idea of how it would work (and the fact that Anthony's bags had been lost by the airline) kept the whole endeavour on an edge ... and on the beautiful Peacock back wall ... rul noice!

I'd love to thank Brian Ritchie for his blind faith in accepting us for the bill, it was pretty surreal and gracious of the big lug!
Long live Surfer Music!

Other tops things that happened in the festival were -

PURSUIT - Jon Rose, Paul Bryant, Rod Cooper and some other bloke who's name escapes me. Awesome excuse to ride bicycles around the Princes Wharf building in the dark with freakin' fun toys made by Rod and co.

HELMETHEAD - Rod Cooper and Anthony Magen completely captivated the hooligans in the PW1, and FRICK! the screen attached to Rod's Helmet got even BIGGER ... Anthony's squirming maggots and fairy lights were beautiful!!

TIMEART ENSEMBLE - but I missed them ... shit!

MATT WARREN - his Beach Boys installation in Kelly's Garden was really quite beautiful and it was a great headspace to walk into after really loud gigs. The little toy piano in the sand played notes that echoed for minutes with the sound of waves ... ahh.

IHOS: KIMIKISS (Falling asleep) - this was full-on theatre!! twenty minutes of slowly evolving, surreal, eye-battering and ear-carressing Greekness. Incredible ... don't see it twice! You'll have nightmares.

CAT HOPE - two things - ABE SADA, SADA ABE: bass drone from about fifteen Bassists surrounding the audience - I could feel the vibrations in the pit at the bottom of my bowels!
and WOLF AT HARP: Four drummers at once ... quite beautiful and textural piece that brings together four drummers - disciples of differing drumming worlds - swing, indie, classical and technical metal. Cat created a new musical notation that allowed for improvisation and breadth within a vague framework ... the notation was fucken exciting too ... my wife, the graphic-design-obssessed, became thoroughly obssessed with the notation more than the music ... despite also being a drummer.

Onward and upward for MOFO ... funded for the next four years, no less.


__________
A shortened version of "One of several centres" by Alex Kershaw, filmed in Alice Springs in 2007.
The long version (the one in the art galleries) had me in it in one of the segments stacking chairs. The screens and the seating arrangements for the art-piece was done by my old mate Trent Jansen and the sound was done by the wonderful Gail Priest.

ABC

Here's a nice titbit on the ABC website where I got interviewed by Siobhan Maiden (down from Launceston) as part of the MONA FOMA!!


Macroscopic is how guitarist Josh Santospirito describes the music he makes.
Detailed textures within landscapes inform the music Josh creates.

The dirt, bark and sand of Australia inspire sounds Josh he loops live in his improvised performances.

The electric guitarist performed in the Peacock Theatre as part of Mona Foma 2010.

His project Drive West Today is a collaborative one, and for Mona Foma Josh worked with visual artist Anthony Magen who created backdrops to the music.

After living in isolated places in Australia Josh developed his own style of music.

"I didn't have anyone else to play with so had to play on my own, and improvising was much more fun than playing something composed.
"I lived in Alice Springs for three years and worked in Aboriginal communities which influenced my music.
"It reconstructed my view on living and what is important in life.
"The vastness of Australia is filled with lots of shapes and colours and if you remove yourself from cities where most Australians live, you do start to reconstruct your way of thinking and that has influenced my music quite heavily.
"I grew up playing classical guitar but felt it was always someone else's music.
"I enjoy the thrill of not knowing what I am going to be doing in ten seconds.
"I feel letting go and seeing where a performance goes is often rewarded.
"I like to create recreate the mood of moving through a landscape, the feeling of driving up the Stuart Highway for days on end, staring out the car window.
"My music is sort of a soundscape."

The name Drive West Today comes from a sense of exploration that is part of everything Josh does.

"West is a romantic concept I have had since I was a kid.
"I always wanted to go to Broome, but I never got there.
"The name I suppose evokes a propulsion, the immediacy of driving right now, the demand, drop everything and take off."

Anthony Magen provided unique backdrops for Josh's music.

He describes his work as a cacophony of visual mess, but the effect they create is a mesmorising.
Anthony places objects on an audio visual presenter which are projected onto the back wall of the theatre, the beautiful natural rock of the Peacock Theatre.

Objects he uses include fake grass, jelly, lasers, tealights, water, an egg beater, kiwi fruit, maggots and lots of simple objects that create interesting textures and shapes.

"I avoid the MTV approach to visuals" explains Anthony.
"People like to see their rhythms and visuals match, but I don't like to work that way.
"I prefer the random nature of art and the stories and threads that can be created are magic, there is no way of controlling it and making it the same every time.

Anthony likes the detail the audio visual presenter device creates.

"It allows you to interrogate an object visually.
"When you see an object like a maggot or a tealight its interrogated beauty, it becomes something different and beautiful.
"You can get a sense of otherness which enhances the spontaneous nature of the music."

DWT @ MOFO 2010!!

Whew!

I'll be fuggered.

The performaces that I done with Anthony Magen at MOFO were great fun
... the format was exhausting - a bit.

I was a titch delirium tremens after three 20min performaces in 2 hours ... twice.

I must admit that I was a touch nervous in the beginning of the workshop that I gave about inspiration, landscapes and soundscapes ... but once I read out Jen's poem and the audience started asking questions - including the dickhead front-right - it all started to gel a teensy bit and I was more in me element.

Yesterday I was on ABC radio in Hobart on Rick Goddard's show from 2:00pm. They have a much nicer studio than the Edge Radio one ... it has see-through windows into the next 3 rooms ... which seems a touch fancy-pants ... and a room (which I was in) which is for sound-recording etc ... verrrry nice! Played a couple of ditties on the spot and spoke with Rick himself.