Bushwalk in the Blue Mountains

Sometimes being a Kook feels exactly like being a complete doofus.


A weekend hike in the mountains

There is a mountain range running north-south along the east coast of Australia called the Blue Mountains- the locals just call them the Blueys. These aren't tall imposing mountains like the Rockies- the highest point is only 1200 meters (~2500 feet)- but these modest mountains are craggy. The terrain is rugged and filled with gorges, sandstone cliffs, and pockets of temperate rain forest; the mountains are so rough that the first British explorers deemed the mountains "impassable". As a mountain biker and a rock climber, I've been looking forward to exploring these mountains. I'm living near the base of the range, so I see them from a distance everyday; they taunt me as I go to work.

The Blueys from a distance

I decided to head into the Blueys for a hike on Sunday. My office-mate Sebastian loaned me a book describing good hikes around Sydney (or "bushwalks"), and I quickly found a hike that appealed to me. The book says: "The hike down from Bowen Mountain is graded 'hard' because of the scramble down the steep rocky gully, requiring you to wriggle under fallen branches, climb over boulders, and push through thick bush. Keep your wits about you, as there generally isn't an established trail to follow." Sounds good to me, though I should have paid more attention to that last bit. (See what I did there? That was foreshadowing. Again.)

Blue Mountains National Park

I don't have a car, so I rode my bike to the trailhead. It was a 30 km ride from Richmond, up relatively steep but mostly paved roads to the top of the range. I gained about 800 meters of elevation, so this wasn't terribly hard, but it wasn't easy. I was rewarded with nice views.

One of many sandstone outcroppings

My trusty mountain bike at the park entrance

I locked my bike to a sturdy tree, swapped my cycling shoes for trail runners, ate a banana, and started hiking down a fire road.

Red-back spiders like to make a home in shoes left on the ground

These forests burn frequently, and most of the trees showed bark scars from small surface fires.

The hike starts at the top of a rocky outcropping and goes straight down a rocky gully to the Grose River. Apparently there used to be a metal wire strung down the gully to give hikers something to hang onto, but there's nothing like that now. It's steep, and there isn't really anything approaching a "trail" to follow. You just go down, towards the river.

This is steeper than it looks. If I had my climbing gear, I would have harnessed up and rappelled.

Really? I travel thousands of miles to the other side of the planet, go for a hike in a secluded mountain valley, and stumble across a Chicago Bulls hat? This was the first and only sign I saw of other human beings throughout the entire hike. I packed the hat out as trash.

After a few kilometers of down-climbing and bushwacking, I found the river. It was beautiful and totally secluded, without a sign of humans anywhere.

There lots of tropical birds along the river, including parrots, cockatoos, and kookaburras, which sound remarkably like laughing monkeys. I utterly failed to capture any pictures of these amazing birds, mostly because I am a terrible photographer. (If you see a good photo on this blog, Carrie took it.)

I was loving the adventurous nature of the hiking. There truly was no trail, so I hopped from boulder to boulder along the river, pushed my way through the forest, or army crawled under thorny bushes. There didn't seem to be any way to get lost- I just made my way down-stream, keeping the river on my right and the rocky cliffs on my left.

Sandstone cliffs like these are common in the Blueys.

Surprise! I get lost

I was expecting to stumble across a fairly large dirt or gravel road that would lead me back up to the ridge and my bike. According to the book, "This road was built to survey a dam site years ago; it was abandoned, leaving a disgraceful open gash which spills sediment into the river". While not exactly idyllic, it sounded big and obvious, so I just kept bushwacking my way downstream, enjoying myself. I periodically would take a bit of my sandwich or a swig of water while I was hiking. Soon my sandwich was gone and my bottle was empty... and all of a sudden I realized that I had been bushwacking along the river for a long time. Probably for too long. Had I missed the trail?

I got a bad feeling in my stomach as I came to realize just how isolated I was. I was alone, and I hadn't seen another human since I entered the mountains. No one else knew that I had gone hiking. I didn't have a proper map or anything particularly useful, like a survival kit or a compass (I left both in my apartment). The cartoon map in my book was entirely useless- it didn't show any features such as other trails or mountain peaks that I could use to determine my location. I had no more food or water, and while I was next to a big river, it was supposedly contaminated with giardia and I shouldn't drink it without treating the water (again, I left a filter and chlorine tablets in my apartment). What a doofus.

How far had I hiked since getting to the river? The book says it should be five kilometers, but I'm an American- I have no real sense of how far that is. I remembered running a 5k with Carrie, but I couldn't remember how long it took us (15 minutes? 20 minutes?). I was probably going a lot slower while bushwacking, so I convinced myself that the road must still be ahead of me. (It wasn't.)

I kept hiking for what felt like an eternity, trying to swallow my worry. I didn't have much other choice- I couldn't turn around because I didn't think I could find the rocky gully I had descended. Eventually, after what felt like an hour, I stumbled across another human sign.

I was sooo happy to see this. But it was pointing downstream- what did that mean?

This paddle was placed so obviously and intentionally that it must have had an intended message. It pointed downstream, so I assumed the message was "keep going downstream!". I kept going, counting my paces. After counting to 300, I turned around, went back to the paddle, and more thoroughly explored the forest in the area. There was a trail, and once I found it it was huge and obvious.

Wahoo!

But, this wasn't the trail I was looking for. It got me out of the forest and onto a road, but not the road I came in on. I jogged along the road, worried that I wouldn't find my bike before dark. I started to jog by farmhouses, and there was an older couple out front of one of these, caring for their horses. They gave me some good-natured ribbing about getting myself lost, and offered to give me a ride up to where I had left my bike. It turns out this was about 15 km away, so I happily accepted their offer. We chatted in the car- Mick and Jackie live in a city down the valley called Penrith, but they keep horses up in the mountains. Mick works as an environmental compliance officer; Jackie works in University administration. They were wonderfully friendly and cheerful. They said that I had made their day by giving them a chance to help a total stranger. It was such a heartwarming experience, that I almost didn't want to get out of the car. Eventually they dropped me off at my bike and I cycled home. I had been gone for 12 hours, and I was exhausted.

On the nature of Kooks

I've told this story in excruciating detail to set up the following thoughts. I acted like a total kook- I enthusiastically pursued a new experience without very much preparation, and I could have gotten into real trouble. Perhaps I should have delayed this trip until I had the chance to thoroughly research the route, buy the proper topo maps, and prepare the right supplies. But what fun would that have been? If everything had gone smoothly, this hike would have been entirely forgettable, and I wouldn't have the memory of the intense relief I felt when I saw the paddle, or the wonderful interaction I had with Mick and Jackie. My kookiness turned an average walk in the woods into a real adventure.

I'm Still In the States - Carrie Update

So Where Have I Been? -Warning- Crazy Long Post!

    As John noted in his last post, I am not in Australia. When he left, I was actually in Vermont for school. So this post is not going to be about Australia, instead it will cover my residency at VCFA in Vermont last week. Let me give you a bit of background information before diving into the craziness that are residencies...
 
    I am enrolled in a low-residency MFA program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. I work at home (wherever home is) for six-month semesters and then travel to Vermont for 10-day residencies to present my work as well as make a study plan for the coming semester. My school work consists of two parts, studio and visual culture. My studio work consists of my artwork and is overseen/critiqued regularly by an artist teacher (AT as we call it... I have gotten used to using abbreviations for everything despite my best efforts to resist). This AT is someone I have found and proposed to the faculty at VCFA; they are not necessarily affiliated with the institution prior to my proposal. Each semester I find a new AT to work with in order to keep in line with my changing thoughts about my artwork and gain a new person's perspective. In addition to that, during the semester I am responsible for conducting research, which is called visual culture research or our VC projects. During each residency, we are assigned to a new Faculty Advisor (FA) that will help us structure our research and be in long-distance contact with us all semester. My favorite thing about this program is that I choose what to research each semester. I am expected to understand the current dialogues in the 'art world' and to be well versed in art history and critical theory. However, I am not reading the same texts as my classmates.... Are you confused yet? Let me stop the explanation in generalities for now and tell you about my experience.

    I was in Vermont from the 26th of July to the 4th of August. This residency consists of a student exhibition, presentation of student research, lectures by faculty and guests, critiques of student work, and preparation for the coming semester.

VCFA Continuing Student Exhibition August 2012

VCFA Continuing Student Exhibition August 2012

The exhibition space is designed by our Exhibition Coordinator, Kathy Couch. Upon our arrival, it is our job to set up our work and manipulate the space as best we can to fit our ideas. Here are some images of my piece from this residency:

View of my installation from the side.

This is a view inside the window of my installation. I had to cut a hole in the wall which was fun!

View of my installation from the other side. I was very particular in wanting only one side to be open (seen in previous photo). This way someone could walk by and almost miss the whole piece, simulating how we often dismiss nature in an effort to rush from point A to point B.

View behind the wall. The hole in the wall allowed a stream of light to hit a portion of the wheel drawing attention to a central spot.

Now that you have seen the finished piece... Here is what went into the making:

     This was my first installation which meant I had to figure out how to execute an idea that was in my head. For those of you who know me, my head is a bit crazy and my ideas usually follow suit. Allow me to describe my thought process as best I understand it. My interests lie in how humans interact with the spaces they inhabit, particularly with in the natural world. My research has led me to look at phenomenology, existentialism, spatial relationships, psychology's play theory, semiotics, American cultural ideologies associated with nature and the wilderness etc. In this work, I wanted to simulate an experience that mirrored the viewers relationship to nature. That brought me to this wheel and wall idea.

     I spent the semester taking photos of a spot in Massachusetts that I frequented regularly. I printed out these images and attempted to rebuild the space I remembered by using collage. Had I just shown these collages, the viewer would have been presented with a daily practice and remnants of another person's journey in understanding a place. I wanted the viewer to have their own experience rather than respond to mine. So came the idea of an installation.

     Here are the questions this piece attempted to answer. How do I create the illusion of control while simultaneously commenting on one's lack of control? How do I construct a piece that forces collaboration, meaning one person cannot experience it as a whole on their own? Can I create a physical barrier that speaks to mediated experiences?

      Then came the building. I had to build something that was light enough / small enough to be shipped to Vermont. Luckily, I was allowed to cut a hole in an existing wall at VCFA rather than bring one. John and my Dad helped me visualize how to make a wheel/stand that could support the weight of almost 2,000 photos and spinning as well as being able to break it down small enough to ship. (That might have been the best challenge.) I also made a small frame for the hole I was to cut in the wall,  in order to make it more appealing for viewers to get close.

    I could not put the photos on the wheel before traveling, because I wouldn't have been able to ship it that way. So immediately after getting to Vermont, I cut a whole in a wall (with a saw that I brought.. not the one seen.) and almost asphyxiated myself with glue from adhering the photos to the fabric. It worked though, and came together beautifully.

     Almost 2,000 photos later, most of which hidden from view under the layers and then hidden again behind a wall, the piece was finished.

     Here is a view of the back of the piece. I had to tension the fabric in a way that allowed the wheel to be a bit untrue (I wanted it to appear unstable, thus making the viewer feel unsure about spinning it) but secure at the same time (in reality the viewer could spin it quite fast with out anything happening to it).
    I put the piece on a pedestal inside to over emphasize the precariousness of the piece. Also, I made the hole in the wall just a bit higher than eye-height so that the viewer had to also stand on a pedestal to fully engage with the piece. Once on the step, the viewer realized they were then too tall to look in, and had to crouch down to see inside. No matter what they did, there was no easy way to experience the piece as a whole. Also the wall was 8' wide, making it impossible for the person looking through the window to also spin the wheel.The work became a collaborative experience between multiple participants.

  This installation stayed up all week. My piece is just one artwork in the larger student exhibition space shown in the first photo. Through out the week, the students sign up for and participate in small critique groups led by either faculty or guest critters (guest artists that are invited to critique our work). These groups consist of between 4-6 students and go on for roughly 2 hours. We spend time going to each students work and reacting to it, giving feedback, and offering our interpretation of the work to the artist. Each critique is made up of different students (we sign up to be with the faculty member or the critter and whomever signs up for that time/person is in the group). These critiques offer constant feedback and different opinions.

    In addition to the presentation/critiquing of our work, we participate in small research group meetings. The first half of the week is spent wrapping up the previous semesters work and the second half is spent drafting a research proposal for the coming semester. Last semester, I researched how memory has been used as a literary tool by authors such as Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Marcel Proust, and Chris Marker. I also looked at how the evolution of the National Park system in the United States influenced cultural ideologies associated with nature. This all feeding into an attempt to understand how different cultures interact with nature and how they see themselves playing a role in the livelihood of the natural world.
    Each student in in charge of designing their own Visual Culture project. With everyone conducting vastly different research projects, it is fascinating to come together and find correlations between my work and someones research on feminist theory, aging, or consumerism, for example. I enjoy finding that my colleagues are often interested in the same philosophical questions as me, but executing the from an entirely different perspective.

    Now I am back in Illinois, have devoured two books and am about to make the rounds visiting family and friends before heading to Australia. I hope this post gave my family and friends a little insight into my MFA program. Thanks for your patience through this long winded post!
-- Carrie

One week in

I've arrived

Well I made it to my new "home" in the suburbs of Sydney, and I've been here for a week. It certainly won't feel like home until Carrie arrives in a bit more than a month. I traveled for more than 24-hours on three flights, including a 15-hour leg from Dallas to Brisbane. I planned to write a long, complaint-filled post about the horrors of such a long flight; I even thought about plagiarizing some of Lewis Black's classic stand-up lines. But honestly, the flight wasn't really that bad.

Hills outside of Sydney, with some clouds in the valleys.

Flying coach on Qantas was surprisingly civilized and comfortable. I ate dinner, watched a movie, ate a bedtime snack, slept a full eight hours, ate breakfast, watched some tv, read, watched another movie, and then we arrived in Brisbane. It was basically like spending a lazy weekend at home, just confined to a single comfy chair.





My job at the University of Western Sydney

I spent the last week settling into my apartment and learning about the institution that I've joined, so I'd like to show you around the Uni (as the Aussies say). I'm going to focus on the scientific infrastructure that's available to me, as this was one of the major factors that drew me to this job, but I'll also tell you a bit about the town I'm in. And best yet, I have lots of pictures to share.

Richmond

UWS is a big school with 35,000 students, but they are spread across six campuses. The Richmond campus was traditionally the agricultural center of the Uni, so there are just 3,000 students on a campus surrounded by livestock pasture, particularly cows, sheep, goats, and deer (yes really). Richmond itself is considered a suburb of Sydney and it is connected to the city by public transit, but it's a 90 minute train ride to downtown. So this is a relatively sleepy little town with a sleepy little Ag school.

I have many more like this, but I figured that two "horse poo pictures" were enough to demonstrate my point. You can't buy your poo in Richmond- you've got to go 2 km outside of town.

I would describe the feel of the Uni as "pastoral tropics". It's peacefully pleasant, with palm trees everywhere, enough colorful birds to make you feel like you're on vacation, with red tile buildings with exterior floor plans. It's remarkable how many offices have direct exterior doors, as if the architects thought "The weather is always so bloody brilliant, why put the hallway inside? Everyone's door goes outside!"

Palm trees in front of a rugby pitch. I've learned to associate these things with Australia.

Professor's offices go right outside

 

 

Research infrastructure

I didn't come here to sell manure- I came here to do ecological research.  Two years ago UWS got a government grant worth 45 million AUD for a suite of environmental programs. Some of that money went to green building and solar power research, but a very large chunk went towards establishing environmental research into the effects of global climate change on Australian ecosystems. Now, UWS has some of the best research infrastructure in my field, worldwide.

Whole Tree Chambers

 

The below pictures show twelve whole-tree chambers, each of which encloses a single tree, fully controls the temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide concentration, and simultaneously measures rates of photosynthesis and respiration automagically. I'm excited to use these for studies of whole tree physiology that would not otherwise be possible. In particular, we are studying how Australian trees can be expected to respond to the climate conditions expected in the next few decades (hotter, drier, with higher carbon dioxide concentrations).

These chambers are large and impressive in person. Even more impressive- the Eucalypt trees studied here grow fast enough to fill these 8-meter-tall chambers in a single year.

 

Elevated CO2 site

Plots of a natural Eucalypt woodland ecosystem are exposed to elevated concentrations of carbon dioxide in open-air conditions, with no barriers to pathogens, insect pests, or environmental artifacts associated with chambers. Enormous cranes are used to carry researchers around the canopy of these forests to collect samples or measure photosynthesis.

 

The white circular rings are a gas delivery system. If the wind is blowing from the North, valves open and deliver CO2 from the North; the wind naturally carries the CO2 into the experimental plot. If the wind switches to the South, the system responds, opens other valves, and delivers the CO2 from the South. Thus, the system dynamically responds to natural wind conditions to maintain the concentration of carbon dioxide in the experimental plot at elevated levels- mimicking what we expect to happen in a few decades.

Other stuff

Drought is a big deal in Australia, so we have large rain-out shelters to experimentally impose droughts. These shelters remain open most of the time to minimize environmental artifacts, but the panels close when the system senses rain.

We've also got state of the art lab facilities, including clean rooms, high-zoot microscopes, super fast DNA sequencers, and lots of high tech toys for me to play with. To give you an idea of the scale of the resources here, there is a machine that scientists in my field commonly use to measure photosynthesis which costs about $50,000. We had two of these in the lab where I did my PhD research, which was pretty cool. Well, last year this environmental institute bought ten. Ten. That's craziness.

This is a pretty cool place to work. If you want more information, here's the homepage and a news story.