Well, the comments so far indicate this podcasting idea is a Good Thing. I’ll do some more technical tests later this week. Episode 1 will probably be 8 or 9 May.
To podcast or not to podcast? Podcast!
You’d think that with more than a decade’s experience in radio I’d have started podcasting ages ago.
Three years ago I bought an iPod so I could listen to podcasts. It’s languished in a drawer ever since because, to tell the truth, I don’t like blocking out the world and living within a music bubble. Life does not need a soundtrack, but it does need more people paying attention to the reality around them.
I’d also resisted podcasting because as a (former) broadcast professional there was creeping perfectionism. I wanted any podcast o’mine to be really good, lest I be judged by my former peers. But no more.
This Internet thing looks like it’s actually going to catch on. The time has come to start using my production and presentation skills. So, a podcast… How and what, exactly?
Review: Fiona Hall’s “Force Fieldâ€
I’ve always liked the witty, organic forms of Fiona Hall‘s sculpture. A massive collection of her work, Fiona Hall: Force Field, currently fills two floors of Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art. It’s an almost overwhelming but immensely satisfying journey through her mind.
The photograph shows details from “Tender”, a collection of birds’ nests made from shredded US dollar bills. They’re incredibly realistic — especially in the exhibition environment where they’re collected into museum-style glass cases with each species’ nest labelled with its scientific name on the front of the case, the banknotes’ serial numbers listed on the back.
Other works include the finely-detailed sculptures of Paradisus Terrestris made from sardine cans, Scar Tissue, Understorey, Cell Culture and Leaf Litter. There’s also a smattering her photographs, and something about bees.
Cell Culture and many other works such as Dead in the Water are constructed from myriad tiny glass beads threaded on fine wire, shaped with loving attention to detail into precise organic forms. Photographs do not do them justice — you must see them in three dimensions, walk around them, revel in their reality. A video shot on a tropical field trip with botanists in search of blooming water lilies reveals Hall’s passion for getting it right.
Hall’s work explores the boundaries between the natural and the man-made with subtlety and humour. Works like Leaf Litter show how the global plantscape has been shaped by human economic “needs”. I’m still bubbling with the thoughts it triggered the morning after.
Fiona Hall: Force Field is at Sydney’s MCA until 1 June 2008. Free entry. Give yourself at least an hour for just this exhibition, let alone what else the venue offers.
[Photograph: Details from “Tender” 2003-2005; Image from Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery via UTS Gallery.]
What you can do with copyrighted works
I’ve just been reminded that the best Australian source for information on copyright is the Australian Copyright Council, especially their information sheets on permissions, compliance and infringement and websites, the internet and software.
eBay/PayPal discussions continue
If you don’t follow the comments feed, you’re missing a lengthy discussion evolving from my piece about eBay forcing sellers to use PayPal. Maybe they took my admonition to fight amongst yourselves yesterday a little too literally.
Sydney manic after 13 days of rain?
Will Sydney see an outburst of manic behaviour today? I’ve written about The Sydney Effect before. Today is the first sunny day after 13 days of continuous cloud and plenty of rain. Were we more depressed than usual? Perhaps. Will we be manic? Let’s see.