Gingin Day-trip

After Brett showed my >>hilariously misguided narrative to the Head honcho, I received an invitation to poke around the Gingin observatory (Australian International Gravitational Observatory: AIGO)! A few days of bunny-hopping the scheduled departure ended in a very long car-trip. So on the very last day of my brother's scholarship-internship-thing, i finally got to visit him and see what they actually get up to out there.

Here are some things i learned that day (in some kind of order):

- Gingin is far away (but not as far as India)
- Aircon is so good.
- Ticks are hard to kill.
- Redback web is incredibly strong and light.
- Ferro-fluid is fascinating.
- 40 metres is an impressive drop.
- I cannot understand skype lectures on parametric instability after a long car-trip.
- Skype lectures are more fun to draw than listen to.
- Medical-grade-clean is not clean enough for AIGO; when AGIO says clean, they mean as-few-particles-as-physically-possible-clean.
- Dark matter/energy is a neat way of saying "we don't know what it is, but we know it's there." Also, it is heavy.
- Pysicists write terrible poetry.
- Cretaceous chalk is made of plankton.
- Trilobites could grow to the size of an umbrella.
- $10,000 seismometers make running left and then right infinitely more entertaining.
- The words "the inverse pendulum is causing problems" lead to a terrible, awkward silence.
- Physicists named the first really massive telescope that was bigger than any other telescope at the time The VLT (Very Large Telescope).
- The Leaning Tower of Gingin would make a wicked set for a STOMP performance, especially if someone dropped a drumstick.
- There is very little private research into pure physics because there is no direct link to industry and therefore very limited opportunity for funding outside govt research grants.
- Exception: new vibration-isolation technologies that can be sold to mining companies for aerial gravitational surveys.
- AIGO's vacuum has less in it than Space.
- Niobium would make the purest xylophone you would ever hear.


And now, please enjoy this non-automated slide-show:

^ The Absentees

^ "you can come in, just don't touch or breathe on anything."

^ Looking for suspension? Check this action out!

^ not for baking potatoes

^ "Pre-cleaned springs: clean enough to eat off, clean enough to sew inside someone, not clean enough for AIGO"

^ "It's not clean unless it's AIGO-clean!"

^ ultrasonic and acid baths.. i think.. and lots of latex.

^ for the discerning physicist

^ full of nothing

^ actually shut away from the world

^ the seismometer!

^ what comes out of the seismometer

^ skype presentation

^ very clean drinking water

^ good job, guys.

^ a place for everything

^ nicely air-conditioned at ground-level only.

^ not joking

^ "Try some eccentric orbits!"

^ giant pendulum

^ I am the Stair Master.

^ not-so-clean water

^ balloon goes here

^ and you have a very long time to wave goodbye

^ everybody is tired from making moon-craters.

^ THE END

*All likenesses published with permission from the people they resemble.

Are you still here? Perhaps you would like to see an official presentation, >>Einsteins Messengers, from the american observatory, LIGO.

Museum Again!

School has resumed and the museum is back to its eerie old self again. I could easily lose track of time in there if it wasn't for my drawing buddy's occasional huff of frustration.  This time we hit the skeletons straight away. It's usually a good idea to do some quick warm-up sketches first, but no, we both got bogged down in a half-hour marsupial marathon. Having not warmed up, i probably spent much longer than was necessary, but i'm pretty pleased with the result.

"Gah, can we do something with fur now??", came a very sensible suggestion. Sitting still on the floor, hunched over a sketchbook is hard work for you back - remember to move around, kiddies! 

My friend, who is just getting back into drawing, found the 2hr session simultaneously relaxing, meditative, challenging and exhausting. It wrings your brain in much different (and subtle) ways to what is required in day-to-day exchanges and problems.

She watched over my shoulder as i drew this last one, so i felt pressured to set a good example and not be lazy with my looking and judging and shape-relationships. Subsequently, mr monkey has very nice proportions.. but i used a HB pacer or something, which is great for skeletons, but the tone/texture didn't turn out as nice as it could've.

In the end, we still didn't make it past the buffalo. Next time, i'm going to see what's around the corner.
Also, i'm quite sure there was a small child who kept substituting the word 'dinosaur' as a desriptor for 'skeleton'. Awesome.

Another bit of serendipity: On the way to the museum, met an old artist with a lot of opinions about a lot of things. I sat and talked with him and another artist for a bit; he was surprised to find a student so into drawing in an academic environment where the war between concept and craft rages on. I actually find the debate extremely helpful and stimulating as long as i can observe it at arms length, taking everything with a pinch of salt and forming my own philosophies that can withstand arguments from either direction. Art for me is no longer something to be learned, but a platform from which to learn about the world.

Stuffed Animals

Another drawing expedition with another friend!  This time we partied at the WA Museum, which is FREE.  I must say it was a very pleasant way to spend the afternoon: good company, good pencils and dozens of small children running around the biggest still life setup you could ask for.

I remember museums being eerie, muffled spaces with static animals watching you from every corner. It took so long for me to get back there and over-write those impressions.  The lighting is dim and the walls are sound-proofed; once you enter the space, your senses take time to adjust from the bright, echoing foyer. I found this affected my drawing; I wanted to spend longer on each drawing, relaxing into a rhythm, just drawing for the sake of feeling the pencil against the paper. I used a H conte pencil.. took a while to warm up and find what kind of marks it was good for, but perseverance is rewarding.

Drawing at public displays is extremely good for developing your concentration. People are watching you and you have to ignore them to a large extent. As you learn to acknowledge and engage your audience in a relaxed manner, you really appreciate how encouraging it is for people to watch you developing a skill that is becoming less and less common. I love it when kids tell me how they draw all the time, and when parents say "see, keep practicing and you'll be that good." People need more ways to express themselves, the more languages you feel comfortable with, the better.