Sitting on twigs

 


© Stephen Cassidy, 1992

Work from Conversations, group exhibition, Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, June-July 2004. A collaborative exhibition of writers and visual artists.

See other works from Word wall.

I smoke baby cigars
‘Smoking baby cigars in the dark of the backyard. Like some Cuban presidente haranguing the crowd with reminders, I proffer a list of romantic anniversaries, our May 4th movement, our July 12th uprising – our moment when everything became new’, I smoke baby cigars.

Cut back to black
‘Cut back to black, thin chill drizzle mid-winter – infinite regression on petrol’. Also called ‘Revhead heaven’, Cut back to black.

Coming back to these stones
‘Coming back to these stones – in the sandy dry reaches of the Coorong in South Australia’s South East birds flicker across the flat water like beads of run-away mercury’, Coming back to these stones.

Landscapes in a rear vision mirror
‘Heading at a moment's notice into Broken Hill, breaking several traffic laws on the Barrier Highway, in the rear vision mirror the land kept switching colours’, Landscapes in a rear vision mirror.

Stopping by Lake George

‘Lake George is a vast stretching freshwater lake, with no outlet. It is only diminished by evaporation. Many stories are told about Lake George, a still point of the turning earth, with all the quiet of the eye at the centre of a hurricane’, Stopping by Lake George.See other work from the Conversations group exhibition, Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, 2004 – a collaborative exhibition of writers and visual artists.

See other work from the Conversations group exhibition, Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, 2004 – a collaborative exhibition of writers and visual artists.

State of origin
Multimedia piece developed with visual artist, Deborah Faeyrglenn, State of origin looked at where we come from, where we go next and where we truly belong. In this work the writer and visual artist combined word, image and computer technology to make visual music. Words and images moved across the computer screen, with no fixed address, State of origin.

The lost art of conversation
Installation, developed with visual artist, Deborah Faeyrglenn, on words, meaning, reflection and infinite (or at least, partial) regression. Three tall thin vertical mirrors stand against the wall, covered in bursts of words. Three matching paper shadows flow out from the wall along the floor. Words on the mirrors flutter and blur into shadows, The lost art of conversation.

balloon
A fictional narrative work in the form of a website, the website as writing. About the adventures of a refugee from the big city who sets up the High Country Thought Balloon Company. A series of brief vignettes about the characters, situations and stories which intersect the path of the balloons as they soar across the skies of the Southern Tablelands and Snowy region. It is about changing perspective, balloon.

Malacoota Inlet
‘Shutdown in a flat, wet land, the line beween sea and sky where grey meets grey, where stricken yachts come in’, Malacoota Inlet.

Sitting on twigs
‘Sitting on twigs in the flat lands, in a piece of country loaded with meaning, like a tightly coiled spring’, Sitting on twigs.

See also

Signature of water
A series of artworks as part of the Waterworks exhibition at Goulburn Regional Art Gallery responding to the shared task of facing up to life on our dry continent. It ranged from short, minimalist animations, using cartoons, to hyperfiction drawing on the styles of crime novels. It was a mix of poetry, storytelling, images and sounds which were heavily influenced by the styles of popular culture and the urban and rural landscapes around us, Signature of water.