a month in Sydney

It seems strangely like fate, ending up in a studio with another copy of the poster “EVERYTHING THAT CAN HAPPEN IN A DAY”. This one is less yellowed and worn than mine at home has become. (I remember Lisa saying that someone had brought it back from overseas for her...) It’s a nice link between the month in Berlin and this month in Sydney. And again a reminder that time is short, but so much is possible.

I haven’t really planned anything specific here, except to follow things as I encounter them. Though, I thought perhaps I’d do another variation of the postcard maps, but a little differently... This time maybe I’ll use them as tools to determine where I might go, rather than just recording where I have been. So, instead of following a standard city map, I’ll draw my own, maybe using other maps as references, but only taking the drawing with me. Of course, it would just be a guide, not a restriction – perhaps I would update it as I go along or when I get home, and fill in the gaps or elaborate on the detours and experiences triggered by the drawing from the beginning of the day. At home there is a compact street directory for Sydney from 1998, and in the studio there is a bicycle map of the inner suburbs, which I could use as references.




Here is the first attempt:




I ended up riding home in the steadily increasing rain, and I enjoyed trying to figure out where I was from the drawing and the vague memory of the map I looked at in the studio. I followed the railway lines for some of the way, and when I wasn't sure if I'd gone to far or not I consulted the map of the train lines in a station. It's interesting how differently the same terrain can can be mapped, when the purpose changes. The bicycle map is great - it points out the quiet streets, and detours to avoid hills.

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Before that, I watched a late afternoon thunderstorm from the studio window, and tried to film it before the batteries ran out on my camera. It was quite spectacular – the 4pm sunshine was warm and drowsy, but dark clouds began building up slowly on the horizon. Then flashes of lightning zigzagged across the sky at random intervals, followed by thunderous rumbles, while every fifteen minutes or so planes would be descending shakily towards the airport. And then it started to rain and people walking by took refuge under umbrellas, while the thunder continued. The whole afternoon somehow escalated in noise, from the windless silence broken by a low hum of traffic, then thunder, rain, and car wheels spraying water from puddles…




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Flying here yesterday, I filmed out the window while we were ascending and descending. It was overcast in both cities, and as the plane cut through the clouds the light flickered over the wing, with flashes of bright white.

 


In between it seemed as if we were flying over endless planes of white snow.