presentation at 10 days Winchester symposium

When the sound artist Sebastiane Hegarty invited me to be part of the symposium Chalk: Time Sense and Landscape, that he was putting together for an organisation called 10 Days Winchester, I thought, why not? After some success with funding, I was on my way to England. Arriving in Winchester for the symposium, I stayed with a ex-student's mum, a fortuitous and generous turn of events which, among other things, led me to an extended afternoon ramble on the lane now rebranded as "Keats Walk," as it's evidently where the poet composed the ode To Autumn, on the 19 September 1819. Arriving nearly 200 years later into this specific geography, it was an uncanny experience to enter a Northern-hemispheric autumn in the village-like Winchester, "Among the river sallows, borne aloft / Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies." Everywhere, the stone walls of the local environment were visibly studded with a chthonic memory-strata of chalk and fossils. The symposium itself slotted thematically into this locative aspect, with a wealth of interdisciplinary input - much of which was expressed through the work of sound artists and researchers. There were many highlights but it was an utter privilege to encounter a screening of Guy Sherwin's 16mm works, and to hear hear Ian Rawes of the London Sound Survey discuss his research into London vernacular sound history, and then chat to him enthusiastically afterwards about our respective obsessive collecting of early sounds! 

I presented on my artistic (practice-led) research into extinct bird sounds, delving into the Aotearoan sonic extinction archive and its elisions and mysteries for a largely UK audience, who wouldn't have been too familiar with some of the specific biogeographic context, although the themes of extinction, mutability, recording, memory and silence were echoed in many of the other presentations during the day.  

A few Australian and New Zealand friends happened to be in the UK while I was there, and attended the talk. Among these were Tasmanian artists Tricky Walsh and Mish Meyers, and New Zealand writer and curator Jodie Dalgleish, who eventually published a report on her experience of the symposium at the Eyecontact site, here.


Thanks to Sebastiane, Marius Quint (seen below, moderating my Q&A, and all the other presenters. What a fantastic day!