Creativity Base

I often remind myself that mankind’s seat of power on this planet is something of an illusion. At sea we are reminded that we are no longer at the top of the food chain by wonderful creatures like the Great White Shark, while on land, tectonic movements and geothermal explosions take that sense of humble perspective to a whole ‘nother level. I see events like the ongoing eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland as great calls for us to ponder how insignificant we really are, and remind us all that we are not as well insulated from disaster as we think.

Thanks to the fine people of the twittersphere, I’ve been privvy to two particularly stunning visualisations of the Eyjafjallajökull effect… both photographically in native Iceland, and in animation projected over the European continent. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did- and please take a minute to consider the Earth magnificent power, and just how impotent we are in the face of it.

This first video is a spectacular series of tracking time-lapse shots of the volcano’s ongoing venting, May 1-2 2010. The footage was shot on a Canon DSLR and looks terrific.

The animated visualization below shows flights operating around the first major ash cloud interruptions of April 18-20 2010. It really illustrates the way nature can bring our crazy civilizations to grinding halts with just one big subterranean sneeze!

Naturally, being a creative person, I made my own artistic response- a cheesy T-shirt making light of the situation. Always fond of a pun, ‘Volcanic Ash Got Me Down’ T-shirts and hats are available through our Zazzle store. What’s your take on the volcanic ash scenario, and how did it stir your creative thinking?

Volcanic Ash Got Me Down T-shirt (light) by danimations

I’ve always felt that politics and theatre have fantastic potential to create dynamic and enlightening human experiences together. Striking the right balance when designing a production with a multimedia approach and multiple agendas is fraught with danger though, as Windmill‘s latest production, Nyuntu Ngali reminded me last night.

Written and directed by Scott Rankin of Big h’Art, the play presents itself as a post-apocalyptic love story. The central struggle of the two young leads to survive as fugitives in the Pitjantjatjara desert is frequently disturbed by the piece’s polemic, didactic political statements. While Roam and Eve’s choreographed movement is expressive in an abstract way, their characters’ underdeveloped lives and personalities make empathising with them difficult. This leaves the gate open for the soap-box politics to resound, despite the best efforts of the multi-disciplinary ensemble.

Driven from her community for breaking blood-related laws of union, Eve (Anne Golding) begins her journey as a teenager in the late stages of pregnancy. On the run with Roam (Derek Lynch), the two are confronted by a mortifying prospect: to abandon their child to save themselves, or to turn their backs on their community forever and face the future as three.

Nyuntu Ngali - Roam & Eve entangled in a lovers' knot (photo by missometimes)

From her initial impulse to abandon her child, Eve’s character proves difficult to like. She struggles from adolescence into motherhood, while Roam struggles to develop as provider for his new family. Both neglected their elders’ teaching, and the cautionary note here is clear. Their scenario stands as a warning to all of us to reconsider the knowledge that is the most valuable to us. Rankin’s insight into the value of traditional practise, the way of the hunter-gatherer versus that of a society ‘techno mad’ is pertinent, and well-expressed. Employing a gentle combination of human movement and projected video, traditional Pitjantjatjara skills were depicted as fragile, distant memories. Unfortunatley Rankin’s messages were not always expressed with such a sensitive, soft-handed approach.

Using the familiar technique of taking the audience to the future to reflect on the present, Nyuntu Ngali’s setting is a post climate-change world, where the cities are barren and the well-springs of life are now found in the waterholes of the desert country. To the story’s detriment, Rankin’s agenda to criticise and agitate smothers the lovers’ tale progressively as the play unfolds. The powerfully portrayed narrator’s (Trevor Jamieson) voice becomes the dominant one, mocking the habits of youth enveloped in popular culture. The delusional fantasies expressed in the lyrics and sentiments of commercial music are satirised by the whole cast in a jarring musical-dance montage, while our petro-philia- from the love of the cars to derivative petro-chemical products is detailed explicitly by Jamieson on several occasions. A sequence where actors shadow dance to an R’n'B track labours its point, and was almost as painful and heavy-handed as the young leads’ decision to call their child ‘Petrol Head’.

From the naming of their child, (and the frequent repetition of it) the lovers are reduced to becoming props for Rankin’s political projection. While I personally agree with the director’s central argument, that the ‘just do it’ culture of oil-worship is steering us towards apocalypse, the means in which the message is delivered hampers its effect. The story’s tone is inescapably bleak, and such a course threatens to paralyse its already leftward-leaning middle-class, theatre-going audiences and inspire little action.

Nyuntu Ngali - The full set in action (photo by misssometimes)

Accompanying the lovers verbal and physical narrative were several multimedia elements. While the performed music of Beth Sometimes frequently sapped energy from the performances with its slow tempo and laconic style, the projected live sand-painting of an uncredited indigenous performer was consistently beautiful. Attention was never actively drawn to this element though, while neighbouring video art, mostly unremarkable, was projected on a much grander scale. Cryptic unfolding hinged boxes provided the actors with versatile, collapsible and at times symbolic props, but also created another disparate element in an already dysfunctional world.

While the production design was warm and gentle in general, this rubbed firmly up against the prevailing themes, actions and tone of the central story. I wanted to empathise with Eve and Roam but struggled to connect with the undernourished characters, and was denied any skerrick of hope for humanity at the play’s end. Perhaps ramping up the experience’s intensity to provide the dynamic thrust of a purgative, cathartic experience would have resolved this story more effectively? Despite its good intentions and performances, Nyuntu Ngali left me out in the cold.

Dan Monceaux

I’ve been spending a bit more time on the streets of Adelaide recently (with all the preparations for Lateral Movement) and have taken to taking snapshots with my trusty Skypephone when something piques my interest. I’ve spotted a few peculiar things this last week, and thought I’d share some here at Creativity Base. I’m going to favour pictures over words on this entry, though a little bit of literal context should add to your appreciation of the pictures.

The Coopers cart strolls down Pirie St

I had to lean across my dashboard to take this pic as I drove down Pirie St, one of the commercial arteries of Adelaide’s CBD. It seems Mr Coopers and his famous beer-brewing family have returned to the old ways, and are delivering by horse and cart! No doubt a big part of this is an eye-catching publicity drive, but hey, maybe they’re converting their brewery to run on bio-diesel made from horse manure? Don’t laugh- American dairy farmers are doing it with cow pats…

Mega Dog on Campus

I was wheeling a trolley-load of plinths past the library of UniSA when I spotted this gigantic canine. I never thought I’d ever refer to a dog over 6 feet long as ‘cute’, seeing’s how opposed to dogs I am in the context of Australia’s ecology. Just goes to show there’s an exception to every rule.

The unmistakeable Top Turf van

Someone at Top Turf sure had a brainwave: ‘let’s cover the van head to tail with our premium product!’ Good thing their livelihood is artificial lawn and not chocolate- with the heat we’ve endured this summer, things could have gotten VERY messy. Seriously though- this was probably a very smart business move- not only does their car stick out like the dog’s proverbials, I’m sure it pops up in plenty of conversations and drums up its share of extra business for them. Shame they aren’t promoting Australian native drought-resistant grasses though… planting them is a much better ecological response to our current water shortage than burying good earth under a synthetic blanket.