Some cauldron action with the help of my father Tibor and brother-in-law Jason Harding’s skill with a camera. The images demonstrate my attempts to use a non chemical means of neutralizing the bacteria that produces a shroud’s abject smell (which will reduce naturally over an extended period of time).
I have been given the opportunity to present at the minding animals conference in Newcastle on the 18th July. The conference runs from the 13th-18th and is filled with local and international speakers from many disciplines discussing animal/human relations.
Below is my abstract.
Becoming Animal: Investigating painting materials and processes that communicate current animal/human relations in Australia
Deleuze and Guattari’s definitive philosophical essay 1730: Becoming-Intense, Becoming-Animal, Becoming-Imperceptible 1987 examines symbioses between animals and human animals in popular mythologies. Their challenge to Western cultural constructions that view animal as other and becoming animal as a process of contagion is discussed in relation to my current practice-led research into the status of animals in Australian visual culture. My reflections on the human animal and becoming in Australian indigenous cultural traditions focuses on the study of animals in rock art and recent fieldwork in Gunbalanya, Arnhem Land. Comparisons between representations of animals in natural history illustration and indigenous painting in Australia seeks to discover the extent to which materials and creative process used in the production of imagery defines the relationship between the artist and their subject.
Laomedia 