HELEN HARDESS &
TIANA JEFFRIES
Helen HARDESS & Tiana JEFFERIES, Mimesis and the wee-loo, audio, 2021, 9:41. (best with headphones)
Helen HARDESS & Tiana JEFFERIES, Sympoiesis and the wee-loo, single channel moving image, 2021, 2:19.
Mimesis, sympoiesis and the wee-loo
Mimesis and the wee-loo. Audio, 2021, 9:41.
Bird voices are often beguiling, enchanting, amusing, and even annoying. But what are they saying? How would it feel to be more birdlike? Participants were asked to record themselves voicing avian calls without knowing the identity of each bird. Working from minimal scripts extracted from The Australian Bird Guide, they were asked to inhabit calls such as “quardle, oodle, ardle, wadle, doodle”.
Narrator: Tiana Jefferies
Birds: Aiden Hernandez-Edgar, Cath and Vince Carroll, Claudia, Sam and Rose O’Rourke-Jackson, Darcy Williams, Felix Cehak, Kierra-Jay Power, Lachlan Eunson, Marilena Hewitt, Natalie Lavelle, Stewart Kruger, Tiana Jefferies, Tristan Eyles
Peter Menkhorst, Danny Rogers, Rohan Clarke, Jeff Davies, Peter Marsack and Kim Franklin, The Australian Bird Guide. Clayton South: CSIRO, 2017
Sympoiesis and the wee-loo. Single channel colour video, 2021, 2:19.
Meanjin’s birds have adapted to changing environments before and since colonisation. How can these adaptations act as models for the necessary changes required of humans in an age of climate crisis? Sympoiesis and the wee-loo visualises the relationalities always present in inner-city ecosystems between humans and non-humans. Photogrammetry processes were used to virtually model the overlapping perspectives of suburban and inner-city spaces inhabited by avians and humans. Playful and irreverent costumes were used to speculate human mimesis of these resourceful and resilient fellow dwellers.