I felt disoriented sailing through shifting reference points towards Antarctica. Bearings are different here than in other places. Maps are re-drawn for each voyage. The light differences are extreme.
Another way to put this:
The disorientation once can feel, moving through the shifting reference points towards Antarctica, is like moving through any new place, as for example, when white people first journeyed through Australian landscapes. Rivers ran the wrong way, the seasons were upside down and the whole place moved to a different rhythm.
How differently we respond to Antarctic landscape, compared with other places, can be revealed through movement improvisations made in response to Antarctic texts. Drawings and voices of movers and observers are sources for animations.
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I re-write the introduction to ‘Thesaurus’:
Antarctica is a place of extremes, and notoriously indescribable.
This thesaurus is presently a collection of words,
illuminated by poetry, imagery and animations.
Roget’s original thesaurus arranged words according to their meanings,
offering a multiplicity of views.
The words here will ultimately be rearranged, revealing an array of animated synonyms and antonyms: the light and the dark of Antarctica.
The interface will change in time.
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I had been feeling disorientated by my own interface.
Stephen Eastaugh’s S.E.W.N. (South East West North) inspired a new animation, and way of approaching the Thesaurus.
My animation, based on Stephen’s images, is Disorientation with personal and Antarctic meanings.
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I met the artist Fiona Davies. For three hours we talked about Antarctica. We discussed how to measure land is to possess it, and how we orient ourselves in new places by bringing to them the perceptions of our homelands.
She has animated some data Mertz (?) took while traveling through ice on the Endurance: changes in location, direction, and location over time.