book remnants...

Yesterday when out and about thinking and playing with books in the landscape I stumbled over remnants of an early book/land interaction.... and spying the piece was quite a surprise – it certainly has me caused me to consider specific aspects of my forthcoming work – but perhaps a retrack is in order.........

I've long pondered the differences between 'book' knowledge and 'lived' knowledge... (or tacit v/s explicit knowledge) and particularly (given my agrarian heritage) how this relates to life on the farm

In late 2008 I picked up a 'W' volume from my collection of old Encyclopaedia Brittanicas.... I strolled over the paddocks here on my farm at Sams Creek – and presented the volume to the entrance of a wombat burrow (opened to the entry on 'wombats' of course)

this silly, mostly off-hand action was captured in a digital still that I later gave the thoroughly intentionally pretentious title 'beneficium eruditio' (gift of knowledge)

I wondered what a wombat may make of book knowledge about wombats.... I didn't have to wait long to find out....

'restitutio beneficium' (return of the gift)

but I had given such little thought to the artistic merits or possibilities of the initial action as an ongoing interaction that I only recorded the 'results' on my tiny digi camera (not the 'big' digi SLR)..... it was only many weeks later that I realised that my action/interaction and the digital record may indeed be something of enduring interest....... so from the initial interaction sprung alternate book/land action/interactions.......

that brings us up to current times with me and my books out in the paddock... again

and that's when I stumbled over this.....

the remnants of that 'W' encyclopaedia... about 25m from its initial point – it had been out in the weather for over 18 months, had been moved (twice) by flood waters (that had washed rocks and stones and branches over the same territory) but there it was.... looking like a little iceberg washed up on the rocks..... (despite the very different material and scale, I immediately thought of David Nash's 'Boulder” work.... )

There's something in this enduring fragile/strong remnant – and it's a something that I'd like to pursue further.....