Cricket Poetry Prize – ‘Broadcast Days’
Posted: October 21, 2011 Filed under: Writing Leave a commentThis poem, titled ‘Broadcast Days’, was selected as a finalist in the 2011 Australian Cricket Poetry Prize. It didn’t win, but was ‘highly commended’.
Broadcast days
By Adam Gibson across the rail yards, smoke rising in the afternoon, you heard the sound of whistles and sirens and the Eveleigh railmen screeching metal on metal, and yet, still; the transistor sound of something distant, ghost voices from the Overland Telegraph Line, a lime green capsule transported from that distant ground, hushing all into reverence, carrying like a thread of cotton on the westerly. afternoon barefoot walks from Botany Road, hearing the huddled cheers from the blood-gutter pubs of Chippendale, the secret rituals of the radio broadcast of the match in a time when we believed in soup and buttons, in a time when we thought that everything was possible; but, later, your father livid about the bowling, the grey-eyed uncles not speaking about that catch, mum making herself scarce, invisible, and it dawning on you that sometimes it's better not to know, sometimes it's better not to hear a thing.
‘Upward Inflection’
Posted: October 14, 2011 Filed under: Artwork Comments Off on ‘Upward Inflection’This is a work I did that was chosen as a finalist in the 2011 Kudos Gallery Award. It didn’t win but it was nevertheless good to be selected to exhibit.
‘Megalopolis Kiss’
Posted: October 13, 2011 Filed under: Artwork Comments Off on ‘Megalopolis Kiss’(A work by Adam Gibson and Yi Xing Chen made during the 2010 Shanghai Porosity Studio at Dong Hua University, led by Professor Richar Goodwin and Emma Price from the College of Fine Arts in Sydney.)
Over the past couple of centuries, Shanghai has transformed from a town, to a city, to a “metropolis” and now to its present state of “megalopolis” – a 21st century super-city the size and scope of which never been seen in history. It is a city of massive construction and development but also one with 20 million people living in its confines.
This project investigates how people connect in such a city and how the search for love that can occur in the face of a near overwhelming cityscape. “Megalopolis Kiss” seeks to articulate the stillness that can occur when two people find each other and how the rest of the city’s chaos can be completely blocked out.
It is the city meeting the individual, it is the human face of the super-city … it is the megalopolis meeting the kiss.
This work was exhibited in a video installation in a space at the Dong Hua University at the culmination of the 2010 Porosity Studio
The Arid Country
Posted: November 1, 2010 Filed under: Artwork Leave a commentSome photos taken whilst on a Land and Environment trip with COFA in 2009, to the country around Broken Hill in western NSW, including the Menindee Lakes area – which was bone dry at the time due to drought – and the country around Fowlers Gap.
Horizon boxes
Posted: October 31, 2010 Filed under: Artwork Comments Off on Horizon boxesThese are some works I made at COFA which were exhibited in an exhibition at Kudos Gallery in 2009.
They are made of wood, and rendered with acrylic paint, pulling out from an ordinary photographic snapshot. The intention/idea was to create a work that “captured” the distance of Australia in a very defined space. It was an experiment in creating an object/s which could speak to that distance and yet be something condensed and specific.
I like these works and would consider developing further works along this line in the future.
‘The Shark’ (animation)
Posted: October 29, 2010 Filed under: Artwork, Music Comments Off on ‘The Shark’ (animation)This is a charcoal / rubbing out animation I made for the Aerial Maps’ song ‘The Shark’
It’s not to be viewed as ‘video’ of the song, per se … the tune is more a vehicle, in this specific case, for the animation, rather than the other way round.
‘The Great Australian Silence’
Posted: October 29, 2010 Filed under: Artwork, Music Comments Off on ‘The Great Australian Silence’This is a video I made for the Aerial Maps’ song ‘The Great Australian Silence’.
The footage was filmed in the country around Broken Hill in western NSW, whilst I was on a Land and Environment trip with COFA in 2009. The song is on the Aerial Maps’ album In the Blinding Sunlight.
‘Object Trees’
Posted: October 21, 2010 Filed under: Artwork Comments Off on ‘Object Trees’A drive I did across Australia, from the west coast at Fremantle, WA, to the east coast at Crescent Head, NSW, in June/July 2010 yielded a vast amount of material for my artwork.
This may eventually become a specific overall body of work, but for the moment, I will present elements of that trip as they congeal in my head and in a form of reality.
First cab off the rank is my series of photographs of what I called “Object Trees”, trees where people have placed an incredible array of items on them over God knows how long and for God knows whatever reason. I do have a theory on why this has occurred – to do with a raging against he impotency of the individual when confronted with the vast vast vast landscape and the desire therefore to try to at least make some small mark, some token (yet “knockabout”) scratching on the surface of things – but I will add that later.
In the meantime, some of the images.
Poem of the week project, 2006-2008
Posted: October 20, 2010 Filed under: Writing Comments Off on Poem of the week project, 2006-2008From 2006 to 2008, I conducted an experiment in which I wrote and posted at least one poem per week for two years. The idea was to see if I could write at least one poem I felt wasn’t complete crap and get it to the point where it was polished enough to not fear people reading it. The discipline required to do that for such a period was very good for me (and my writing) and, for better or worse, the stuff I wrote and published during that period was read by an email list of more than 100 people (an era pre-Facebook this was).
There’s a lot of stuff here; if you are bored enough to have a read it will certainly kill some time getting through it all. Overall, the experience of doing this was positive and in terms of it being an “artwork”, I view it as something successful on its own terms – it was a kind of an endurance / performance work in a sense – and is possibly something I will put in action again. In these Facebook days, perhaps it will be even more effective?
Here’s the link http://blinding-sunlight.blogspot.com/
Australia Restless 
