July 22 Detail of gathered materials
July 31, 2021 In Epic Walk Diaries, poetry, Research By mlantin

Epic Walk Diaries (July 22)

perforated walk
greeted by gurgling starlings
and putrid scents

you test the mud
I wait anxiously
not snapping a picture
so close to the 007 boat
the mud won
special mud

fire in our thoughts
not sightlines
still     we watch water

jets of water for rocks
starving plants nearby

sidewalk fragments
protect the banks
or us rather

gothic highlife in style
a mural in best (uncanadian) color
type with character
and cancel canadian

another rat another railroad

the shoreline apportioned
to industry columns
concrete human-made remains wood
material mountains

hopping column to column
gobbling fat juicy blackberries
no access no problem

lo the northern cafe!
a family oasis with history
solid red vinyl booths checkered floors
low uneven roof
we eat like family
yelp family

the shore gentrifies
groomed for plants fishers readers
not crows ducks gulls cormorants
though community all

—-

[
Start : 1:07pm
End: 4:44pm
Start at Prince Edward and Kent, to the muddy shore, into the mud, back to the car, drive to the next access point, onto the cement fragment shore, back to the car, drive to the next access point, no access to shore, cautious permission given through concrete supply yard, onto bike path, unde Knight St Bridge, to Northern Wood Products, lunch at surprising (and popular!) family run Northern Cafe, past the Cold Fish store, onto walkway through river district, past fishers and readers, to gladstone park, and back along the railroad and bike path, with a lot of blackberry stops, to Lola.
]


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February 18, 2020 In STEAM2020 By Alex Hass

A visiting day

Working with the delightful students here has defined our day today. At 8am, Thomas Asmuth and his digital foundations class viewed the installation and conversed with us about the process of creating it. Afterwards we walked through the campus Bayou (Edward Ball boardwalk trail) and found ourselves seeing it anew through the lens of the local knowledge and memories of our guest walkers. Thomas identified the fish in the water, (blue gill and small mouth bass) and many, many of the plants – he even spotted an exotic, definitely non-indigenous, opportunistic taro plant tribe. How it found its way there is a mystery. Alyx Jeffreys, the student in our feature image, brought a handheld bluetooth digital microscope that allowed us to see the bayou in a completely new way. She also had a regular SLR and took some wonderful images – including this lichen.

photo courtesy of Alyx Jeffreys

The students thought ahead and brought bags for collecting garbage and left the bayou better than they found it. We heard about the behaviours of local wild life (Dylan had intimate knowledge of possums – not as cute as you’d think). We saw lots and lots of spider webs of all kinds. It was unclear whether we were seeing so many because they were made more visible by the rain or if the rain had somehow prompted the creation of more webs. They were hard to photograph but we all tried. The view with the microscope was very interesting, especially viewed sidelong.

  

The collection from this walk collection yielded new pine life, new ferns, and new mushrooms including a tapioca slime mold (ok, not technically a mushroom). Wikipedia claims that this slime mold got its official name, Brefeldia maxima, because it was thought to be particularly ugly. Granted, the specimen we saw was not so big but judge for yourself:

Alyx got a picture of it using her microscope and it looked like snow crystals. I hope we get our hands on this picture to update this post!

In the early afternoon, Nick Crogan, the director of the Pensacola Museum, brought his museum design students to visit us. We discussed all aspects of the exhibit, from conception through to visual technique to production and the the multiple changes and adjustments we all went through in the installation process. We also discussed the unusual format of being highly visible and interactive visiting artists-in-residence and all the advantages that this format has had for us.

Yesterday Noah, a ceramic and sound student had brought up the idea of bringing in physical bowls that could be played in response to the soundscape Simon Overstall created for the installation. He came in with a variety of bowls today and Maria and he experimented with recording them in a rehearsal room using the 360 microphone (Rode NT-SF1 Ambisonic mic). On Thursday we will try recording them in tandem with the installation.

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