In early 2022 a was a Virtual Artist in Residence with the North Midlands Project. It was wonderful working with Shiona Herbert, a teacher at Coorow Primary School to engage her students in a Media Arts Experiment. We have been able to Ebb & Flow and explore the provocation – “If Water Could Speak” – what is it saying? How can we give voice to water through sharing images, sounds and arising words. Alongside the project, Shiona did this interview with me and the project was extended as a global invitation to participate. I have also worked with a group of community members to explore what kind of connections we could build through Online Creative Collaboration. You can view all the works here. And watch the co-created audio visual mediation below.

I am dancing, drumming, singing and performing my new piano piece ‘Kandinsky’ at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra this week. The seeds first appeared in May last year through working with dancer Suraya Hilal. It has since been further developed on my own and then with dancer Sarah Hamilton. I am excited to show it and excited by the prospect of working with a bigger musical ensemble to bring it to life down the track.

A compilation of instrumental works created for theatre, dance, film and installation works 2000-2010. Listen and buy from Bandcamp : ) Cleaning out the sonic cupboard feels good : )

My first video for” Jack” is being featured as part of the Metropolis Art Prize on Babelgum.

Check it out here and vote so they send me to New York : )

Brian Eno is in Sydney curating Luminous. A festival of music, light, ideas and performance. Having decided to stay home for the winter, instead of a Europe adventure, I have treated myself to a number of events for the festival.
Jon Hassel and Maarifa Street was the first. Totally sublime………..
Here is the moon being dwarfed by Eno’s ever changing projections on The Opera House.

Here is a link to the web cam of the Opera House http://luminous.sydneyoperahouse.com/sails.aspx

Eno’s ’77 million paintings’ an installation with sound and slowly evolving images is gorgeous and one could happily inhabit it for days and come out the other end significantly closer to resolve.

Last night was a “conversation” between Brian Eno and Jon Hassell. Which was funny, intelligent, inspiring, affirming and hmmmmmmmmmm slightly disturbing in terms of the usual questionable white male gender and indigenous politics still being present ….even in these the most admired of my creative thinkers. Over all though wonderful to be present for it.

This was their starting point.

“We both come from an artistic frame of mind which assumes that art is in some sense practiced philosophy, that the decisions an artist makes aren’t separate from the world view that he holds and that art can be seen as a ‘working out’ of social/philosophical/cultural ideas. ” Eno 2009, Sydney Opera House

There is much I could say on this as it really is a very lived reality for me which is both wonderful and fraught with difficulty, as so many of these ‘creative’ decisions seem to be at odds with prudence. Prudence a word which i have been exploring the meaning of on a daily basis of late. I digress, I digress, I digress…. I could go on….. but i won’t for now ……….heading off to Canberra to engage in 2 creative collaborations with 2 old friends……more on that later… I am blessed!

Definition from Wikipedia
Prudence is the exercise of sound judgment in practical affairs. It is classically considered to be a virtue. Virtue is the ability to judge between virtuous and vicious actions, not only in a general sense, but with regard to appropriate actions at a given time and place. Although prudence itself does not perform any actions, and is concerned solely with knowledge, all virtues had to be regulated by it. Distinguishing when acts are courageous, as opposed to reckless or cowardly, for instance, is an act of prudence, and for this reason it is classified as a cardinal (pivotal) virtue.

In modern English, however, the word has become increasingly synonymous with cautiousness. In this sense, prudence names a reluctance to take risks, which remains a virtue with respect to unnecessary risks, but when unreasonably extended (i.e. over-cautiousness), can become the vice of cowardice.

Photo : Sound checking at Mt Kembla with little girls hanging close. Love that look in their eyes. The one that says ” hmmmmmm women don’t play drums like that on TV??? ”

It was a warm sublime afternoon. The orange sun traversed the forest wrapped mountains and settled on our smiling faces as it gently dawned on us that perhaps we were indeed a community. A group of people with shared concerns, inspired by the creative juices that swim amongst us, jointly developing regular means of spending time together and collectively striving for a more sane, sustainable and meaningful existence. Of course later that week it was discovered that we hadn’t drunk enough alcohol to make the pub happy with us. Ahhhhh well. Time to organise some gigs in local halls.