SURA MEDURA - Blog 2

IN TO THE NIGHT

I have always wanted to go a rainforest (a boyhood dream)..so Sinharaja national park was high on my list of Sri Lankan adventures.  If I am going to talk about it in my work I need to understand what it is to stand in one and bear witness. Most of the forests n Scotland have been degraded by human hand ( though there are some notable exceptions!) and this is a place that is under threat from the gradual encroachment of rice paddies, tea plantations and unregulated tourist development. The ecosystem goes right back to Gondwana land - the huge ancient supercontinent.

I managed to convince my fellow artists to join me.

We were not disappointed. We combined it with a trip to Udawalawa national park. We all left buzzing having seen every kind of plant and animal imaginable - tree crab, owl, viper, elephant, toucan, crocodile, mongoose,  sambhur dear, kangaroo lizard, peacocks, macaque & grey langar monkey, fruit bat, butterfly, 3 kind of giant eagles, leaches, giant spiders, a plant that ants live inside, minute and detailed treecreeper vines in bountiful explosion. The cicadas abruptly turn on and off, in a noisy shower of rain sweeping through the canopy.

I went out at late at night to record the nights sounds on the edge of the forest after winding up the mysterious roads in a thunder storm:

Because of everything
It’s breathing, together.
Firefly drop and dip
Thunder head
You roar in to the night
Spark and shudder
Call and response
Fairy light garland flashing under the eaves
Chiming in
Pulses
A crazy scattering vital rhythm

I have been working late and Sura Medura when there is only me, the security guard and the adopted dog Hadi. It is a bit spooky at night here. I am interested in this fear and reverence for the natural world. Its mystery. Seeing flashes of distant lighting or hearing an odd bird call is a moment of private veneration.

Mocking up what I experienced in the rainforest I have joined some of the recorded and experimental sounds together with some abstract visuals and pointed the projector on to the palm trees, then hooking a bluetooth speaker in the branches. I set this off in a random digital chain that starts to make its own jungle polyrhythm.

The bamboo scaffold that I have been building (not my usual to be construction worker but it has been fun to bind it together with bits of found wood and coconut rope) I hope to place among this projection environment. A sort of fantasy piece of architecture. 

I have been reflecting on how I’d like to develop this space as a sort of discussion tent where people could come in and reflect on climate change that could pop up anywhere. We need spaces like this! A blingey installation on the outside// a space for contemplation and healing on the inside.

On my cycle over I find the leafs of the breadfruit most fascinating. Some are big I can even wear them as a kind of costume.  I have been using the iPad to live draw on to them. Picking out the veins. It reminds me of the lagoons, rivers and irritations channels I have observed here in Sri Lanka.  With projection I can make the leafs vibrate with energy and they become sort of portals in to another dimension. After a few iterations this is beginning to shape up in to an installation.