"Unassumable Responsibility": Watching Mike Parr

This ‘paper’ is a short personal piece of writing—an interior monologue really—about “being there” at Mike Parr’s "Punch Holes in the Body Politic" at Artspace in Sydney. I wrote this initially at the time and have added to it some what for this occasion but my aim was to record my contradictory experience—thoughts, puzzlings—of attending this show, which of course (as it turned out) was based on ethically compromising the spectator if at all possible by almost forcing them to hurt Mike. I had sent students along and had tried to prepare them as far as I could, but I did not know in detail until after my own experience just what it was that Mike Parr had prepared and indeed even then how much of that which was prepared didn't seem to work, at least as intended. This phenomenon in itself offers distinctive spectatorial challenges. Perhaps Mike’s ideal spectator isn’t an ethical one. I have tried in this writing to record my own process of trying to separate the accidental from the essential, the puzzling but maybe significant from the fuck-ups, while trying to be both an ethical and as much as possible the interactive spectator Mike apparently wanted.The conference was sponsored by A.D.S.A., the Department of Performance Studies, the School of Letters, Arts and Media, and the Faculty of Arts of the University of Sydney

Dry season in the Eastern and North-Eastern wheatbelt

The drought of 1969 ended an 11-year run of good seasons in the eastern and north-eastern wheatbelt. Good years usually have above average rainfall; wheat yields and pasture growth are greatly reduced if rains are well below average. Eighty years records show that half the years must be expected to be below average and about one-third could be well below. This area produces one-third of the State\u27s wheat and has 9 per cent, of its sheep

The soils of the Salmon Gums district, Western Australia

Most of the soils are grey and brown solonized soils. The subsoils, to about 2 m, are calcareous sandy clays with limestone rubble, but there are three main surface variations: sandy surfaced, 5-30 cm deep, passing abruptly to the sandy clay subsoil with lime nodules. The Circle Valley sand and Scaddan sand are major types. Scaddan sand has a domed subsoil clay. Powdery calcareous sandy loam; and clay loam and clay with some lime in the subsoil, but less than in 1 and 2

Land clearing control in the Eastern Wheatbelt

During the last ten years, very large areas of new land have been cleared in the agricultural areas of Western Australia. The latest statistics show that the cleared land now totals 20,000,000 acres compared with 14,000,000 ten years ago

Agriculture in Southern Africa - Part 2—Rhodesia and Belgian Congo

Southern Rhodesia covers 96 million acres and has about 5,000 European farmers. & The value of their produce in 1953-54 was £A42,400,000.* Tobacco (57.7 per cent.), maize (15.1 per cent.), cattle for slaughter (11.3 per cent.), and dairy produce (3.8 per cent.), are the major items. Across the Zambesi River from Southern Rhodesia lies Northern Rhodesia, 850 miles long and 450 miles across in its widest part (see map Plate 3). It has a narrow waist about 100 miles wide where a tongue of Belgian Congo comes in from the north-west. This locality is the great Copper Belt area of Northern Rhodesia and Belgian Congo, along the watershed of streams draining north to the Congo River and south to the Zambesi. Beligian Congo occupies the heart of Africa and embraces much of the basin of the mighty Congo River. Yet it may come as a surprise to know that it is nearly as large as Western Australia, and thus equals about one third of Australia or the United States of America. It extends 350 miles north of the Equator and 900 miles south (see map Plate 4). From its small Atlantic seaboard at the mouth of the Congo, it goes east nearly 1,300 miles to Lake Tanganyika. The annual flow of the Congo River is about twice that of the Mississippi, and is exceeded only by the Amazon

Heavy rains show need for soil conservation practices

Autumn 1953 will stand out in the weather records for the widespread heavy rains in the pastoral areas and wheatbelt. The rains which came from the cyclonic storms of March 22-25, totalled five to 12 inches in many pastoral areas and two to seven inches in the Northern and Eastern Wheatbelt. The steady rain soaked the land, but where the falls were heaviest, runoff to lower parts caused flooding and local inconvenience. All in all, it was a very welcome rain, especially where the previous winter had been dry. In the wheatbelt, ploughing and cultivation were soon in full swing to prepare for planting cereal crops

Soil conservation in Western Australia

Soil is a farmer\u27s basic asset. This issue of The Journal of Agriculture in a new form designed to provide still better service to the farming community, is an appropriate medium through which to remind the man on the land of what the soil means to him—and to the State. The farmer\u27s duties to himself, his family and the State are summed up in the words soil conservation which is merely another way of saying wise land use

Growing subterranean clover on deep sands

SUBTERRANEAN clover cannot be easily established on deep white sands, though it has been successful on many sandy and gravelly surfaced soils. Research in South Australia and Western Australia has shown ways of improving growth on deep sand. Recommendations for Western Australia are made at the end of this article

Salt land survey, 1955

Farmers in Western Australia have reported that they have 181,556 acres of land which has been used for crops or pastures but is now badly affected by salt encroachment. Two thousand, three hundred and five out of a total of 10,576 said that salt land is increasing on their farms. But, on the brighter side, 9,741 said that, on their farms, salt encroachment is not a major problem. Only 835 regard it as a major problem. The 10,576 farms cover 27 million acres