Mac

RESEARCH BACKGROUND: 'Mac ' a radio play, grew out of 2010 project, 'Ground Truth' in which Carter created a sound history of the region of Victoria known as the Mallee. Part of this research involved retracing the life journeys of Wotjobaluk man 'Jowley' and labourer poet John Shaw Neilson. In about 1900, Neilson was admitted to hospital suffering from nervous exhaustion. In 'Mac', Neilson is visited by voices and apparitions, most especially a Wotjobaluk man by the name of 'Jowley', whom he might have met but who in life eluded him. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION: The radiophonic composition 'Mac' transposes the storylines of Jowley and Neilson. Jowley was raised by white people after being discovered, alone, in a hollow log. It is unclear whether he was lost, abandoned or stolen. The play imagines a pre-settled and unsettling auditory terrain where a 'polyphonic chaos' still reigns. From this cacophony, an alernative history emerges, one where unrealised aspirations criss-cross one another. RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE: This play was commissioned by ABC Radio National and recorded at ABC Collinswood, South Australia at the end of 2010 and it was broadcast the following September. 'Mac' achieved peer review via the commisison and subsequent broadcast and it featured a cast of leading Australian actors, including Lisa Flanagan and Rory Walker.