Antarctica, An Absent Presence

Background In 2009 I was awarded an Australian Antarctic Division Arts Fellowship which I used to observe and recorded the effects of extreme climate upon various communities and infrastructure in Eastern Antarctica. The principal idea was to chronicle the minutia of everyday life framed within the cold and isolation that delineates the Antarctic and Sub Antarctic regions. While I was curious about the daily operations that occur on ship and station, I was specifically interested in the systems and technologies required to sustain life, and the ways in which order and social cohesion is accomplished. Significance Antarctica, An Absent Presence was co-commissioned by France Culture's Atelier de Creation Radiophonique and ABC Radio National's Creative Audio Unit for radio broadcast in France and Australia and attendant international markets. It was produced in collaboration with Paris based INA-GRM and funded by the Australia Council for the Arts. The significance lays in the context of the presentation which involved two of France's most prestigious cultural organisations. Atelier de Creation Radiophonique has been broadcasting programs of experimenal sound art since 1969 and is considered one of the most important programs operating within France Culture. The INA-GRM was founded by cultural theoriest Pierre Schaeffer in the 1950s and is recognised as one of the leading institutions in the development of experimental music since the post-WW2 period. The Creative Audio Unit at the ABC is a new initiative designed to support and promote experimental sound culture in Australia. Research Antarctica, An Absent Presence provides a compendium of observations using sound recordings and text to convey an experience of the frozen continent different to those presented through the lens of natural history, climate science or human exploration. It is a reimagining of a place marked by a strong sense of absence, empty and white, deserted and silent.