australia

Pollies masks

Posted by hil

The GreensBlog has some politician masks you can download and print. They were intended for halloween, but, you know, they might come in handy in the next few weeks!

Here in Canberra this time around we have a unique opportunity to alter the balance of power in the Senate immediately. The Coalition parties hold 20 of the 40 seats in the Senate, and it only requires the loss of one of their seats to a progressive to bring some accountability back to the Senate. In the ACT we can do that immediately if only 11,000 people change their vote to a progressive one in the Senate. GetUp! is running a campaign and unique multi-party ad to this effect.

From big things little things grow

Posted by hil

Bigthingsx

(photo credit: Australia Post)

Today Australia Post is issuing a stamp set featuring five of the 150-or-so Australian Big Things, large roadside attractions that seem to occupy an odd little corner of our national identity. The legendary Reg Mombassa is the artist, an inspired choice, as his style reflects the quirkiness and humour with which the big things are regarded.

The big merino about an hour up the highway from us in Goulburn was moved a few weekends ago. It’s an almighty concrete ram nicknamed Rambo, but has a souvenir shop nestled between it’s hind legs instead of rambo-ishness. It used to be on the Hume Highway to Sydney, until Goulburn was by-passed, but now it will be again. Sadly it seems that after all the effort, it is visible but not exactly predominant.

There are a few pictures of the move:

IBN News slide show
Newspix gallery
Tiscali News: On the rig

Merino

(Photo by Torsten Blackwood/AFP/Getty Images)

The ABC NSW also has a photo of the ram being built, and details of its construction. It actually is a light glass-reinforced concrete skin. Like a number of other big things, it was made by an Adelaide based company, Glenn Industries.

Merino3

Big Things: Australia’s Amazing Roadside Attractions by David Clark is also a good source if you are interested in how the big things were made, although from my point of view they never give enough detail. I like the stories of those that were made just by one or two people, eccentrics with a bee in their bonnets.

Back to Reg to finish off. This postcard has been on my fridge door since some campaign in 2002. I love the title as much as the drawing:

Australia & accelerating global carbon emissions

Posted by hil

Logo_gcp

A new analysis by Global Carbon Project scientists shows that carbon intensity in the world economy is increasing. While emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are accelerating worldwide, we are gaining fewer economic benefits from each tonne of fossil fuel burned. A study being published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science shows that CO2 emissions increased by 1.1 % per year through the 1990s but the rate of increase jumped to 3 % per year in the 2000s.

In Can climate change get worse? it has The Age looks at the implications for Australia from the same data, quoting Dr
Michael Raupach (senior CSIRO scientist and co-chairman of the Global Carbon Project, who led the international research).

The Age: CO2 emissions speed up over 2000: study
AM: Carbon emissions rise at twice the world rate (audio interview and transcript)
SMH: Australia’s carbon dioxide emissions twice world rate

Update:

The CSIRO media release provides a summary of the Australian focus in Background: Australia’s CO² Emissions in the Global Context:

Australia, with 0.32 per cent of the world population, contributes 1.43 per cent of CO² emissions from fossil fuels. In a global context, and particularly in comparison with other developed regions (the USA, European Union and Japan), these emissions rank as follows:

    • Australia’s per capita emissions in 2004 were 4.5 times the global average, just below the value for the USA.
    • Australia’s carbon intensity of energy (amount of carbon burned as fossil fuel per unit of energy) is 20 per cent higher than the world average, and 25 to 30 per cent higher than values for the USA, Europe and Japan. Therefore, the energy efficiency of fossil fuel use is significantly lower in Australia than in these other developed countries.
    • Australia’s carbon intensity of GDP (amount of carbon burned as fossil fuel per dollar of wealth created) is 25 per cent higher than the world average. It is a little higher than the USA and nearly double that of Europe and Japan. Therefore, the overall carbon efficiency of the economy, per unit of fossil fuel used, is about half that for
      Europe and Japan.
    • Over the last 25 years, the average growth rate of Australian emissions was approximately twice the growth rate for world as a whole, twice the growth rate for the USA and Japan, and five times the growth rate for Europe.
    • The rate of improvement (decline) in the carbon intensity of GDP for Australia is lower than in the USA and Europe.

(Disclaimer: Michael is my husband)

Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience: new slideshow

Posted by hil

Dino

(Photo credit: Craig Sillitoe)

Today’s online Sydney Morning Herald has a slideshow of new photos by Craig Sillitoe about the making of Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience with a narration by their Head of Creature Design, Sonny Tilders.

Previously: Workshop footage, Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience

Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience: Workshop footage

Posted by hil

Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience (see previous post) has released two videos of their awesome dinosaur puppetry:

Footage from the workshop
Torosaur v. Utahraptor

And here are a couple of stills from their newsletter.

Wwd_03

Steg
in the workshop. if you want an idea of HOW BIG this shows going to be, check out the size of the person working on the BABY brachi in the background (seen through Steg’s legs) … remember, he’s the BABY!

Wwd_14

Ankylosaurus in the workshop. To the right you can see one of the utahraptors in the making. There are two now in their final makeover stage and will be ready to wreak havoc with our first utahraptor who was one of the stars or the walking with dinosaurs launch, facing off with Torosaurus. (You can see someone behind the dino’s head, as an indication of scale)

I can see how you would come to call them affectionate things like baby Brachi and Steg if you were working on the build. I dare say they would have come in for a lot of swearing too! With only about five weeks till the first show in Sydney the makers must be under a lot of pressure.

Melbourne International Puppet Carnival

Posted by hil

The International Puppet Carnival is an exciting new puppetry event happening at Federation Square, Melbourne from today through 2nd July. Take a look through the wonderful line-up on offer – The Carnival, After Dark, Special Events, and workshops.

Men of Steel

Posted by hil
Men of Steel; photo by Liz Christie
Men of Steel; photo by Liz Christie

 

I was delighted to find Liz Christie’s cool Flickr photoset sequence of Men of Steel in full flight at the recent Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Men of Steel made its debut at Art for Puppet’s Sake, the production that showcased the work of the Victorian College of the Arts inaugural class of postgraduate puppetry students in 2004. It’s wildly raucous and messy: a funny, high energy piece of object theatre, by Hamish Fletcher, Tamara Rewse and Sam Routledge.

Men of Steel refers to the little cookie-cutter puppets whose only language is of cries and grunts and shrieks. They perform a miniature circus act of their own with eggs and various kitchen implements, out of which comes dough, out of which come little dough puppets.
— review in The Age

And there is also the giant cookie cutter and the broccoli forest! I saw Men of Steel at the One Van Puppetry Festival in Blackheath in 2005, and it was also on the bill at the Big West Festival last year.

Liz has some other fine photos. I love her backyard set as well – lorikeets, a beautiful grub, and other stunning macros.

Links updated 2015

Flying Spaghetti Monster

Posted by hil

From south eastern Australia, possible evidence that the Flying Spaghetti Monster was known to ancient peoples:

‘The Space Between’ by Peter J. Wilson and Geoffrey Milne

Posted by hil

I’m looking forward to reading Peter Wilson and Geoffrey Milne’s book ‘The Space Between, The Art of Puppetry and Visual Theatre in Australia’. The book has just been published by Currency Press, and was launched last Tuesday at the Arts Centre in Melbourne.

‘A history of puppetry and image related theatre in Australia, written from extensive research but which also offers a personal view from one of Australia’s most experienced and imaginative puppeteers, Peter J Wilson. The book includes practical information on how puppeteers go about their work and documents a host of innovative companies and individuals who helped shape puppetry in Australia in its broadest sense; and looks at how puppetry has influenced, and been a part of, major theatre company’s programming.’

In 2002, when Peter held an Arts Centre Senior Creative Fellowship at the Victorian College of the Arts, he also brought together the celebration that was the first National Puppetry Summit , and he has gone on to develop the first Australian tertiary course in the art of puppetry at the VCA.

Geoffrey Milne is head of Theatre and Drama at La Trobe University, Melbourne. He has worked in theatre since 1967 in many capacities, especially as a lighting designer, and since the mid 1980s as a theatre reviewer for print and radio.

‘The Space Between’ is available from all good bookshops, and retails for $49.95. I’ll have to check when I get my copy, but I think the cover photograph was taken by Jeff Busby, and the featured puppets were made by Rob Matson.