What the Earth Said

VIDEO · 2006 · WITH PETER SCULTHORPE

A Collaborative piece with Peter Sculthorpe with footage of the spoliated wastelands of the Tasmanian forests and of Queenstown.

The title What the Earth Said is a pastiched reference to the final section from T.S. Eliot's great poem, The Wasteland, "What the Thunder Said". This work consists of two channels, one from the wastelands of felled trees in Tasmania, the other of the hills denuded from aggressive mining in Queenstown, also in Tasmania. Peter was a Tasmanian, born in Longford near Launceston. These works were set to his symphonic poem Earth Cry which also involves a didgeridoo (yidaki). The didgeridoo voices the sobbing of the earth. Here I wanted to make the footage speak with the music in ful synchrony.