Oceanic connections
[2009-02-10]

drawing, animation: Lisa Roberts
Italy 2006, Sydney 2009

In 2006 I was in Italy.
I stayed in Malcinese,
on the shores of Lake Garda.
Italy had just won the world soccer
and the hot summer night
was filled with the sound
of people and motor bikes.

In the morning I woke
and drew a dream
of feelings mixed
with noise and heat,
and words I read
from Darwin's thesis,
Origin of Species:

Our ancestor was an animal
which breathed water,
had a swim bladder,
a great swimming tail,
an imperfect skull,
and was undoubtedly
a hermaphrodite.

The words connect
with Len Lye's theory
of the 'Old Brain',
in which memories
of our ancestors
emerge spontaneously
as our gestures.

The watery image
also reminds me of John Bechevaise,
who wrote about the energy of the sea.

In the arts and in literature,
the moving sea has been
presented as a sentient power,
moody and capricious:
or as an emotionless,
lifeless force
in unheeding nature.
Yet, because man is part of nature,
he will always find in the sea
a symbol of his own energy.

John Bechevaise
Australia: world of difference
1967; 24

These ideas relate
to the Antarctic experience
of artist Pamen Periera,
who described its

relationship with the mysterious
forces of Nature
and the subtle energies
connected with consciousness...

Pamen Periera
Buenos Aires, 2008

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