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1

Samuel, Yoshiko Yokochi, Haruki Murakami, and Jay Rubin. "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle." World Literature Today 73, no. 2 (1999): 395. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/40154849.

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2

Fisher, Susan. "An Allegory of Return: Murakami Haruki's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle." Comparative Literature Studies 37, no. 2 (2000): 155–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/cls.2000.0010.

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3

Anupama. A et al.,, Anupama A. et al ,. "History and Self-Realisation, A New Historical Reading of Haruki Murakami’s The Wind Up Bird Chronicle." International Journal of English and Literature 10, no. 5 (2020): 13–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.24247/ijeloct20203.

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4

Cho, Joohee. "War Imagery of a ‘Post Memory’ Novel: Focusing on Murakami Haruki’s 󰡔The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle󰡕." Journal of Korean-Japanese Military and Culture 29 (April 30, 2020): 311–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.47563/kjmc.29.12.

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5

Norihiro, Katō, and Michael Tsang. "The problem of tatemashi in Murakami Haruki’s work: comparing The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and 1Q84." Japan Forum 32, no. 3 (March 5, 2020): 318–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09555803.2019.1679225.

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6

Unsriana, Linda. "Masalah Oedipus Complex Dalam Novel Umibe No Kafuka Karya Haruki Murakami." Lingua Cultura 5, no. 1 (May 31, 2011): 10. http://dx.doi.org/10.21512/lc.v5i1.370.

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Haruki Murakami, a Japanese novelist is an example of a great novelist who has produced his works which have been translated in various languages for a variety of readers in the world. He has also been awarded the Yomiuri Literary Award for his novel Wind-up Bird Chronicle in 1996. In his novel Umibe no Kafuka, Murakami describes the life of a young man and the Oedipus complex problems he experienced. This study will look for root causes of problems in the Oedipus complex problem of Kafka Tamura, to analyze them through methods of role characterization.
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7

Ngo Viet, Hoan. "The Art of Narrative in Haruki Murakami's novel The Wind-up Bird Chronicle from the Perspective of Zen Esthetics." Journal of Science Social Science 64, no. 5 (May 2019): 52–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.18173/2354-1067.2019-0025.

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8

Priya, A. "Haruki Murakami’s Characters and Works-as the Representation of Postmodernism." Think India 22, no. 3 (September 25, 2019): 56–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.26643/think-india.v22i3.8073.

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As one of the most outstanding Japanese authors, Haruki Murakami always comes up with excellent ideas of surrealistic stories. The Postmodern condition is evident in most of Murakami’s novels. A sense of alienation of character and world is evident by a language medium invented to form a kind of rhythmic syntax structure which complements the illustration of the main characters’ subconscious fears and paranoia in the course of his exploration of a seemingly chaotic world. His portrayal of characters is unique and significant that expresses the dichotomy of characters who fight between reality and fantasy. Nevertheless, their ambition to be free from the structures that bound them do not always come true. Some of them left their symbolic mechanism to enter another one. In the end, the characters cannot be the Other; as long as they are still in the clutches of a particular token device they would only be able to be the other. His Characters explore themselves in search of meaning of their existence. His characters often utter speeches which directly contradict their subsequent actions.They are male, middle-aged, leading aimless existences. They enjoy preparing and eating such western foods as spaghetti; they love American pop culture, particularly music of the 1960s and 1970s; and they are hedonistic and idle. They either engage in casual love affairs or fantasize about having them. His novels like After dark(2004) and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994) is postmodern works by the coexistence of the surreal scenes.
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9

Holthaus, Mary Ann. "Novelist and Analyst Search the Japanese Psyche Haruki Murakami .The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. New York, Vintage International, 1998. Hayao Kawai .The Japanese Psyche; Major Motifs in the Fairy Tales of Japan. Dallas, Spring Publications, 1988;Dreams, Myths & Fairy Tales in Japan. Einsiedeln, Switzerland, Daimon, 1995." San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal 19, no. 3 (November 2000): 35–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/jung.1.2000.19.3.35.

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10

Gradolewski, Dawid, Damian Dziak, Milosz Martynow, Damian Kaniecki, Aleksandra Szurlej-Kielanska, Adam Jaworski, and Wlodek J. Kulesza. "Comprehensive Bird Preservation at Wind Farms." Sensors 21, no. 1 (January 3, 2021): 267. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s21010267.

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Wind as a clean and renewable energy source has been used by humans for centuries. However, in recent years with the increase in the number and size of wind turbines, their impact on avifauna has become worrisome. Researchers estimated that in the U.S. up to 500,000 birds die annually due to collisions with wind turbines. This article proposes a system for mitigating bird mortality around wind farms. The solution is based on a stereo-vision system embedded in distributed computing and IoT paradigms. After a bird’s detection in a defined zone, the decision-making system activates a collision avoidance routine composed of light and sound deterrents and the turbine stopping procedure. The development process applies a User-Driven Design approach along with the process of component selection and heuristic adjustment. This proposal includes a bird detection method and localization procedure. The bird identification is carried out using artificial intelligence algorithms. Validation tests with a fixed-wing drone and verifying observations by ornithologists proved the system’s desired reliability of detecting a bird with wingspan over 1.5 m from at least 300 m. Moreover, the suitability of the system to classify the size of the detected bird into one of three wingspan categories, small, medium and large, was confirmed.
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11

Abdou, Wed Abdellatif Ibrahim. "A New Approach to Assessment of Bird Carcass Removal (Scavenging) Time on Wind Farm in Egypt." Ring 41, no. 1 (December 1, 2019): 17–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/ring-2019-0002.

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Abstract Wind farms developing rapidly in order to meet the high demand for energy from green sources. However, the impact of wind farm operation on the environment still needs to be established. The risk to wild birds is drawing the attention of stakeholders and bird conservation organizations. Carcass search is the main method used to assess the impact of wind farm operation on wild birds of various systematic groups and sizes. Assessment of the overall risk that wind farms pose to birds depends primarily on accurate calculation of carcass removal times and the detection ability of the searcher. Most studies have assessed the carcass removal time using pet bird species, pigeons, or various local birds. In Egypt, all studies conducted in operating wind farms up to 2016 had used chickens to assess the carcass removal time and in this way to the estimate the total number of bird fatalities within wind farms. The use of birds killed by a wind farm in carcass removal trials provides the actual time of carcass disappearance, in contrast with the use of other bird species. The removal times of carcasses of parakeets, quails, partridges and chickens were shorter than those of carcasses of White Stork, White Pelican, Honey Buzzard, Black Kites and eagles used in the current study and in another study in Australia. The results of the present study indicate that carcasses of birds killed within the studied wind farm remain for two to three months, while the carcasses of other in species other localities remain no more than 1 to 15 days, which unquestionably influences the calculation of total fatalities and leads to overestimation of the overall risk that wind farms for birds.
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12

Matsyura, Alex, Kazimierz Jankowski, and Marina Matsyura. "BIRDS’ FLIGHT ENERGY PREDICTIONS AND APPLICATION TO RADAR-TRACKING STUDY." Biological Bulletin of Bogdan Chmelnitskiy Melitopol State Pedagogical University 3, no. 03 (October 28, 2013): 135. http://dx.doi.org/10.15421/20133_45.

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<p>In offered research, we propose to observe diurnal soaring birds to check, whether there the positions of birds in formations are such, that the wing tip interval and depth meet the predictions of aerodynamic theory for achievement of maximal conservation of energy or predictions of the hypothesis of communication. We also can estimate, whether adverse conditions of a wind influence the ability of birds to support formation. We can assume that windy conditions during flight might make precision flight more difficult by inducing both unpredictable bird and vortex positions. To this, we need to found change in wing-tip spacing variation with increasing wind speed, suggesting or rejecting that in high winds bird skeins maintained similar variation to that on calm days. The interrelation between variation of mean depth and wind speed should prove this hypothesis. Little is known about the importance of depth, but in high winds the vortex is likely to break up more rapidly and its location become unpredictable the further back a bird flies; therefore, a shift towards skeins with more regular depths at high wind speeds may compensate for the unpredictability of the vortex locations. Any significant relationship between the standard deviation of wing-tip spacing and wind speed suggests that wind has a major effect on optimal positioning.</p> <p>Results of proposed study will be used also as the auxiliary tool in radar research of bird migration, namely in research of flight features of soaring birds. It is extremely important to determine all pertinent characteristics of flock for model species, namely flocking birds.</p> <p><em>Kew words: birds, flock, radar, flight</em></p><p> </p>
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13

Gorlov, P. I., V. D. Siokhin, and A. V. Matsyura. "ОЦІНКА ІСНУЮЧИХ ЗАГРОЗ ВІТРОПАРКІВ ПІВДНЯ УКРАЇНИ ДЛЯ МІГРАЦІЙНОЇ ОРНИІТОФАУНИ." Biological Bulletin of Bogdan Chmelnitskiy Melitopol State Pedagogical University 6, no. 3 (December 2, 2016): 175–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.15421/201685.

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<p>The article presents data on the species diversity, the number of birds, directions and altitudes of flight during the periods of seasonal migrations based on studies of 13 wind farms in the Ukrainian Azov-Black Sea region. In total 194 expedition field trips have been performed for 549 days. There are 3 wind farms in the Black Sea basin, 7 in the Sivash-Dzharylgach basin and 3 in the Azov basin. We registered 100 bird species, but they use the territory of wind farms in different ways: they always present, periodically fly or do not fly to the wind farm. A large number of wetlands located in the Azov-Black Sea region attract waterfowl bird species that dominated (79.8% of the total number in spring and 68.7% in autumn). The analysis of the birds stay at the wind farm sites shows that there were registered not more than 25% of the total number of birds recorded in the study area. The main flight directions were north-east in spring (23.7% of all flights) and south-west in autumn (29.6%). Flying birds were registered at different altitudes, but 89.5% of birds flew in the range up to 50 m above the ground in spring and 79.1% – in autumn. The threats of wind farms on birds was evaluated by integrated management assessment tolls. It was found that just few of birds (about of 1 percent) could fly at dangerous altitudes (45-155 m) over the wind farm areas and cross the wind farm barrier. This wind turbines’ impact on the birds was considered as rather insignificant. The bird deaths caused by collisions with the wind turbines were not registered.</p>
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14

Van Doren, Benjamin M., and Kyle G. Horton. "A continental system for forecasting bird migration." Science 361, no. 6407 (September 13, 2018): 1115–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aat7526.

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Billions of animals cross the globe each year during seasonal migrations, but efforts to monitor them are hampered by the unpredictability of their movements. We developed a bird migration forecast system at a continental scale by leveraging 23 years of spring observations to identify associations between atmospheric conditions and bird migration intensity. Our models explained up to 81% of variation in migration intensity across the United States at altitudes of 0 to 3000 meters, and performance remained high in forecasting events 1 to 7 days in advance (62 to 76% of variation was explained). Avian migratory movements across the United States likely exceed 500 million individuals per night during peak passage. Bird migration forecasts will reduce collisions with buildings, airplanes, and wind turbines; inform a variety of monitoring efforts; and engage the public.
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15

Pennycuick, C. J., T. Alerstam, and A. Hedenström. "A new low-turbulence wind tunnel for bird flight experiments at Lund University, Sweden." Journal of Experimental Biology 200, no. 10 (May 1, 1997): 1441–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.200.10.1441.

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A new wind tunnel for experiments on bird flight was completed at Lund University, Sweden, in September 1994. It is a closed-circuit design, with a settling section containing five screens and a contraction ratio of 12.25. The test section is octagonal, 1.20 m wide by 1.08 m high. The first 1.2 m of its length is enclosed by acrylic walls, and the last 0.5 m is open, giving unrestricted access. Experiments can be carried out in both the open and closed parts, and comparison between them can potentially be used to measure the lift effect correction. The fan is driven by an a.c. motor with a variable-frequency power supply, allowing the wind speed to be varied continuously from 0 to 38 m s-1. The whole machine can be tilted to give up to 8 &deg; descent and 6 &deg; climb. A pitot-static survey in the test section showed that the air speed was within &plusmn;1.3 % of the mean at 116 out of 119 sample points, exceeding this deviation at only three points at the edges. A hot-wire anemometer survey showed that the turbulence level in the closed part of the test section was below 0.04 % of the wind speed throughout most of the closed part of the test section, rising to approximately 0.06 % in the middle of the open part. No residual rotation from the fan could be detected in the test section. No decrease in wind speed was detectable beyond 3 cm from the side walls of the closed part, and turbulence was minimal beyond 10 cm from the walls. The installation of a safety net at the entrance to the test section increased the turbulence level by a factor of at least 30, to 1.2 % longitudinally and 1.0 % transversely.
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16

Zhang, Feilong, Lei Jiang, and Shutao Wang. "Repairable cascaded slide-lock system endows bird feathers with tear-resistance and superdurability." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115, no. 40 (September 17, 2018): 10046–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1808293115.

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Bird feathers have aroused tremendous attention for their superdurability against tears during long flights through wind and even bushes. Although feathers may inevitably be unzipped, the separated feather vanes can be repaired easily by bill stroking. However, the mechanism underlying bird feathers’ superdurability against tears remains unclear. Here, we reveal that the superdurability of bird feathers arises from their repairable cascaded slide-lock system, which is composed of hooklets, a slide rail, and spines at the end of the slide rail as terminating structures. Microscopy with a micronano manipulating system and 3D X-ray microscopy provided high-level visibility into the 3D fine structures and the entire unzipping process of feathers. The hooklets can slide along the slide rail reversibly when suffering external forces, and the sliding hooklet can be locked by the spine at the ends of barbules when larger pulling forces are applied and even slide farther away due to the unzipping of the interlocking structure with large deformation of the barbules. The elongation before separation of adjacent barbs can reach up to 270%, and the separation force can be maintained above 80% of the initial value even after 1,000 cycles of separating and repairing. These results prove that the cascaded slide-lock system ensures the superdurability of bird feathers against tears.
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17

Pennycuick, C. J., Susanne Åkesson, and Anders Hedenström. "Air speeds of migrating birds observed by ornithodolite and compared with predictions from flight theory." Journal of The Royal Society Interface 10, no. 86 (September 6, 2013): 20130419. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2013.0419.

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We measured the air speeds of 31 bird species, for which we had body mass and wing measurements, migrating along the east coast of Sweden in autumn, using a Vectronix Vector 21 ornithodolite and a Gill WindSonic anemometer. We expected each species’ average air speed to exceed its calculated minimum-power speed ( V mp ), and to fall below its maximum-range speed ( V mr ), but found some exceptions to both limits. To resolve these discrepancies, we first reduced the assumed induced power factor for all species from 1.2 to 0.9, attributing this to splayed and up-turned primary feathers, and then assigned body drag coefficients for different species down to 0.060 for small waders, and up to 0.12 for the mute swan, in the Reynolds number range 25 000–250 000. These results will be used to amend the default values in existing software that estimates fuel consumption in migration, energy heights on arrival and other aspects of flight performance, using classical aeronautical theory. The body drag coefficients are central to range calculations. Although they cannot be measured on dead bird bodies, they could be checked against wind tunnel measurements on living birds, using existing methods.
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18

Vanermen, Nicolas, Wouter Courtens, Robin Daelemans, Luc Lens, Wendt Müller, Marc Van de walle, Hilbran Verstraete, and Eric W. M. Stienen. "Attracted to the outside: a meso-scale response pattern of lesser black-backed gulls at an offshore wind farm revealed by GPS telemetry." ICES Journal of Marine Science 77, no. 2 (December 4, 2019): 701–10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsz199.

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Abstract Among seabirds, lesser black-backed gulls (Larus fuscus) are considered to be at high risk of colliding with offshore wind turbines. In this respect, we used GPS tracking data of lesser black-backed gulls caught and tagged in two colonies along the Belgian North Sea coast (Ostend and Zeebrugge) to study spatial patterns in the species’ presence and behaviour in and around the Thornton Bank offshore wind farm (OWF). We found a significant decrease in the number of GPS fixes of flying birds from up to a distance of at least 2000 m towards the middle of the wind farm. Non-flying birds showed a similar avoidance of the wind farm interior, yet presence strongly peaked right at the wind farm’s edge, demonstrated to represent gulls perching on the outer turbine jacket foundations. The findings of this study reveal a strong within-wind farm variability in bird density, a most crucial parameter in collision risk modelling. The method presented here is straightforward and similar studies conducted at other wind farm sites on a range of large gull species (Larus sp.) would allow to assess the potential and species-specific variation in meso-scale response patterns and to gain insight in the underlying ecological incentives, which in turn would provide widely applicable and much-needed input for (cumulative) collision impact assessments.
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19

Rogalla, Svana, Liliana D'Alba, Ann Verdoodt, and Matthew D. Shawkey. "Hot wings: thermal impacts of wing coloration on surface temperature during bird flight." Journal of The Royal Society Interface 16, no. 156 (July 2019): 20190032. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2019.0032.

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Recent studies on bird flight propose that hotter wing surfaces reduce skin friction drag, thereby improving flight efficiency (lift-to-drag ratio). Darker wings may in turn heat up faster under solar radiation than lighter wings. We used three methods to test the impact of colour on wing surface temperature. First, we modelled surface temperature based on reflectance measurements. Second, we used thermal imaging on live ospreys ( Pandion haliaetus ) to examine surface temperature changes with increasing solar irradiance. Third, we experimentally heated differently coloured wings in a wind tunnel and measured wing surface temperature at realistic flight speeds. Even under simulated flight conditions, darker wings consistently became hotter than pale wings. In white wings with black tips, the temperature differential produced convective currents towards the darker wing tips that could lead to an increase in lift. Additionally, a temperature differential between wing-spanning warm muscles and colder flight feathers could delay the flow separation above the wing, increasing flight efficiency. Together, these results suggest that wing coloration and muscle temperature both play important roles in modulating wing surface temperature and therefore potentially flight efficiency.
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20

Taylor, Jan R. E. "Thermal Insulation of the Down and Feathers of Pygoscelid Penguin Chicks and the Unique Properties of Penguin Feathers." Auk 103, no. 1 (January 1, 1986): 160–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/auk/103.1.160.

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Abstract The thermal insulation of the down and feathers of Chinstrap (Pygoscelis antarctica) and Gentoo (P. papua) penguin chicks was measured throughout development in still air and in wind parallel and perpendicular to the plumage. Insulation increased with age. Whole-body insulation of chicks measured in still air (body core to environment) was significantly correlated with the insulation of their pelts at a given age. The insulation of the downy pelts of 10- and 15-day-old chicks was significantly lower than that of all older chicks, and explains the dependence of chicks of that age on continuous brooding by parents, despite their high thermogenic capacities. The down of older chicks provided good insulation in wind speeds of 3-5 m/s. With no wind, the down of Gentoos immediately before molting was a better insulator than feathers of prefledged chicks. The insulation of the feathers of prefledged chicks in parallel air flow up to 5 m/s was 87-112% of its value in still air. However, the insulation increased at higher wind speeds; in Gentoo pelts at winds of 15 m/s, it averaged 136% (maximum 179%) of the insulation in still air. Increasing insulative values of feathers or fur under increasing wind speeds have not been demonstrated previously in any bird or mammal. The insulation of down at various wind speeds and micrometeorological data from the Gentoo Penguin rookery on King George Island, Antarctica were compared. It follows that heat loss of older downy Gentoo chicks is not affected significantly by wind. These chicks can remain within their thermoneutral zones on windy days.
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21

HILGERLOH, GUDRUN, ANDREAS MICHALIK, and BERND RADDATZ. "Autumn migration of soaring birds through the Gebel El Zeit Important Bird Area (IBA), Egypt, threatened by wind farm projects." Bird Conservation International 21, no. 4 (October 26, 2011): 365–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0959270911000256.

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SummarySystematic bird observations were performed during autumn 2006 in the migration bottleneck area of Zeit Bay, Egypt (27.73°N, 33.51°E), situated on the coast of the Gulf of Suez, opposite southern Sinai. Owing to the strong northerly winds in that area, considerable pressure exists to construct wind farms. A total of 145,432 soaring birds, including 134,599 storks and 9,376 raptors over a period of 453.6 hours were observed between 20 August and 29 October by two teams working daily in two shifts. White Stork Ciconia ciconia and European Honey Buzzard Pernis apivorus were the most numerous species (91.4% and 5.7% respectively) of all soaring birds observed. As both species migrate early, relatively few birds were recorded passing through in October. A total of 57,179 soaring birds were observed within a range of 2.5 km from the observers, and of these 32,248 were flying at heights up to 200 m. Few individuals of the rapidly declining breeding populations of Egyptian Vulture Neophron percnotperus (‘Endangered’) and Lesser Kestrel Falco naumanni (‘Vulnerable’) passed (8 and 33 respectively). Pallid Harriers Circus macrourus (‘Near Threatened’) however, were more numerous (100) than at other migration sites along the East African-West Asian Flyway (Israel, southern tip of Sinai, Suez and Bab-el-Mandeb). Western Marsh Harrier Circus aeruginosus and Montagu’s Harrier Circus pygargus were also more numerous than at these sites. Some other large migrant species, observed at Suez, Bab el-Mandeb or in Israel, were seen only in small numbers or not at all at Zeit Bay in autumn. Among them, the Steppe Eagle Aquila nipalensis being the best known example of loop migration, entering Africa at Suez and Bab el-Mandeb, is for this reason not expected in autumn at Zeit Bay, while in spring it is a regular migrant. The number of Black Storks Ciconia nigra observed accounted for 4.8% of the flyway population, that of White Storks for 33.3%, Great White Pelicans Pelecanus onocrotalus for a further 3.5% and European Honey Buzzards for 0.8%. The extrapolation of the number of birds passing through the study area during the migration season, suggests that it was used by 92% of the White Stork, 12% of the Black Stork, 5% of the Great White Pelican, 4% of the European Honey Buzzard and 2% of the Pallid Harrier flyway populations in autumn 2006.
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Harel, Roi, Olivier Duriez, Orr Spiegel, Julie Fluhr, Nir Horvitz, Wayne M. Getz, Willem Bouten, François Sarrazin, Ohad Hatzofe, and Ran Nathan. "Decision-making by a soaring bird: time, energy and risk considerations at different spatio-temporal scales." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 371, no. 1704 (September 26, 2016): 20150397. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2015.0397.

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Natural selection theory suggests that mobile animals trade off time, energy and risk costs with food, safety and other pay-offs obtained by movement. We examined how birds make movement decisions by integrating aspects of flight biomechanics, movement ecology and behaviour in a hierarchical framework investigating flight track variation across several spatio-temporal scales. Using extensive global positioning system and accelerometer data from Eurasian griffon vultures ( Gyps fulvus ) in Israel and France, we examined soaring–gliding decision-making by comparing inbound versus outbound flights (to or from a central roost, respectively), and these (and other) home-range foraging movements (up to 300 km) versus long-range movements (longer than 300 km). We found that long-range movements and inbound flights have similar features compared with their counterparts: individuals reduced journey time by performing more efficient soaring–gliding flight, reduced energy expenditure by flapping less and were more risk-prone by gliding more steeply between thermals. Age, breeding status, wind conditions and flight altitude (but not sex) affected time and energy prioritization during flights. We therefore suggest that individuals facing time, energy and risk trade-offs during movements make similar decisions across a broad range of ecological contexts and spatial scales, presumably owing to similarity in the uncertainty about movement outcomes. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Moving in a moving medium: new perspectives on flight’.
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Shahid, Farzeen, Jingshan Zhao, and Pascal Godefroit. "Aerodynamics from Cursorial Running to Aerial Gliding for Avian Flight Evolution." Applied Sciences 9, no. 4 (February 14, 2019): 649. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/app9040649.

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Among the different models that have been proposed to explain the origin of avian flightfrom terrestrial predators, the cursorial and arboreal hypotheses remain the most discussed.However, the fossil data at hand show that, taken separately, both theories have significantlimitations in explaining the origin of flight in bird lineage. Here, we describe an aerodynamicsprinciple that fills in the gaps between those apparently contradictory models. The upslope wind inmountain areas and strong wind in plains provided the meteorological conditions allowingfeathered paravians to glide. The results suggest that smaller, feathered paravians could be lifted toglide down to trees on mountain slopes or even to glide up to high trees in plain areas when meetinga strong airflow as they were pursuing a prey or escaping from a predator. The development ofmore aerodynamical limb feathers was a key factor for gliding down the trees because of thedependency of the resultant force on the surface area of a paravian’s body. Later in the evolutionprocess, paravians learned to change the orientation of their wings to gain higher lifts. The proposedprinciple and the results obtained in the present research help to better estimate the aerodynamicbehavior of extinct species and will also help to design an efficient and beneficial system for futureflying robots.
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24

HEISS, MICHAEL. "Migratory behaviour of bird species occurring in critical numbers at Besh Barmag bottleneck in Azerbaijan." Bird Conservation International 26, no. 2 (September 29, 2015): 243–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s095927091500009x.

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SummaryA narrow coastal plain located between the Greater Caucasus and the Caspian Sea was recently discovered to be a major avian flyway through Transcaucasia. Here at the Besh Barmag bottleneck in Azerbaijan an estimated 1.24–1.51 million migrants passed through in autumn 2011 and a further 0.65–0.82 million in spring 2012, elevating this bottleneck to international importance. Furthermore, 34 bird species were observed in numbers in excess of the 1% threshold of world or flyway population in at least one of the observation seasons. Due to the high concentration of these species, any dangers affecting this passage can be threatening at a population scale. This study therefore aims to describe the migratory behaviour of these 34 species and subsequently to identify the dangers involved in passage through the area. Collision with anthropogenic obstacles was regarded as the main threat in the coastal plain. Ten (40%) of the species studied and observed in autumn 2011 were flying at the lowest altitudes and are therefore under threat on migration through the bottleneck due to overhead power lines, buildings, traffic and hunting. Planned infrastructural developments with heights of up to 200 m (e.g. towers, wind farms) pose a future threat for an additional 13 (52%) of the study species observed in autumn, making a total of 23 species that would be threatened. Only two species, Pygmy Cormorant Microcarbo pygmaeus and Grey Heron Ardea cinerea, can be expected to maintain their currently safe passage in future as they migrate mainly above 200 m above ground level. In spring 2012, all 14 (100%) of the species that used the coastal plain as flyway, migrated below 50 m and are therefore imminently threatened by collision. Although birds migrating over the Caspian Sea were concentrated at the lower altitudes, there was no identifiable threat for migrants using this flyway, but hazards can be expected in the oil production areas further south.
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Villaescusa, Juan A., Emilio O. Casamayor, Carlos Rochera, Antonio Quesada, Luigi Michaud, and Antonio Camacho. "Heterogeneous vertical structure of the bacterioplankton community in a non-stratified Antarctic lake." Antarctic Science 25, no. 2 (March 20, 2013): 229–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0954102012000910.

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AbstractBacterial community composition during summer was analysed in surface and bottom waters of the oligotrophic shallow (4.5 m) Lake Limnopolar (Livingston Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica), using 16S rRNA gene clone libraries and sequencing. Up to 61% of the 16S rDNA sequences found were closely related to sequences retrieved from lakes, glaciers or polar systems. The distribution of these sequences was not homogeneous, with vertical differences found in both bacterial taxa composition and isolation source of the closest match from GenBank. In the surface sample 86% of the sequences were related to bacteria found in soils, seawater or gut microbiota, probably explained by waterborne transport from the catchment, by wind through sea sprays, or local bird activity. Conversely, in the deep samples, 95% of the sequences were closer to bacteria typically described for lakes, glaciers or polar systems. The presence of benthic mosses covering the bottom of the lake favours a more stable deep layer leading to the existence of this biological heterogeneity through the water column, although the lake does not show physical-chemical stratification in summer. This study illustrates a strong influence of external factors on the microbial ecology of this model Antarctic lake.
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Ferraz, Patrícia Ferreira Ponciano, Tadayuki Yanagi Junior, Renato Ribeiro de Lima, Gabriel Araújo e. Silva Ferraz, and Hongwei Xin. "Performance of chicks subjected to thermal challenge." Pesquisa Agropecuária Brasileira 52, no. 2 (February 2017): 113–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/s0100-204x2017000200005.

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Abstract: The objective of this work was to evaluate the effect of thermal challenge at different intensities and durations on the production responses of 3 to 21-day-old broiler chickens. Two hundred and ten Cobb chicks were subjected to dry-bulb temperatures (tdb) of 27, 30, 33, or 36°C for the duration of 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 days from the second day of life onwards. The experiment was carried out in four identical environmentally-controlled wind tunnels. Data on body mass (BM), feed intake (FI), and water intake (WI), all in grams, were monitored daily; and body weight gain (BWG), in grams, and feed conversion (FC) were also calculated. The effect of duration was not statistically significant. Empirical models were adjusted to relate BM, FI, and WI with tdb and bird age. The performance of chicks at 21 days of age was analyzed using the BM, FI, WI, BWG, and FC values. Overall, the development of chicks at 33 and 36°C was better than that of those subjected to the lower tdb of 30 and 27°C. The exposure of chicks to cold thermal challenge in early life can have a carry-over negative effect on their production performance up to 21 days of age.
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Givnish, Thomas J., Kendra C. Millam, Austin R. Mast, Thomas B. Paterson, Terra J. Theim, Andrew L. Hipp, Jillian M. Henss, James F. Smith, Kenneth R. Wood, and Kenneth J. Sytsma. "Origin, adaptive radiation and diversification of the Hawaiian lobeliads (Asterales: Campanulaceae)." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 276, no. 1656 (October 14, 2008): 407–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2008.1204.

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The endemic Hawaiian lobeliads are exceptionally species rich and exhibit striking diversity in habitat, growth form, pollination biology and seed dispersal, but their origins and pattern of diversification remain shrouded in mystery. Up to five independent colonizations have been proposed based on morphological differences among extant taxa. We present a molecular phylogeny showing that the Hawaiian lobeliads are the product of one immigration event; that they are the largest plant clade on any single oceanic island or archipelago; that their ancestor arrived roughly 13 Myr ago; and that this ancestor was most likely woody, wind-dispersed, bird-pollinated, and adapted to open habitats at mid-elevations. Invasion of closed tropical forests is associated with evolution of fleshy fruits. Limited dispersal of such fruits in wet-forest understoreys appears to have accelerated speciation and led to a series of parallel adaptive radiations in Cyanea , with most species restricted to single islands. Consistency of Cyanea diversity across all tall islands except Hawai i suggests that diversification of Cyanea saturates in less than 1.5 Myr. Lobeliad diversity appears to reflect a hierarchical adaptive radiation in habitat, then elevation and flower-tube length, and provides important insights into the pattern and tempo of diversification in a species-rich clade of tropical plants.
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Crawford, Ian, Martin W. Gallagher, Keith N. Bower, Thomas W. Choularton, Michael J. Flynn, Simon Ruske, Constantino Listowski, et al. "Real-time detection of airborne fluorescent bioparticles in Antarctica." Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 17, no. 23 (December 1, 2017): 14291–307. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-14291-2017.

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Abstract. We demonstrate, for the first time, continuous real-time observations of airborne bio-fluorescent aerosols recorded at the British Antarctic Survey's Halley VI Research Station, located on the Brunt Ice Shelf close to the Weddell Sea coast (lat 75°34′59′′ S, long 26°10′0′′ W) during Antarctic summer, 2015. As part of the NERC MAC (Microphysics of Antarctic Clouds) aircraft aerosol cloud interaction project, observations with a real-time ultraviolet-light-induced fluorescence (UV-LIF) spectrometer were conducted to quantify airborne biological containing particle concentrations along with dust particles as a function of wind speed and direction over a 3-week period. Significant, intermittent enhancements of both non- and bio-fluorescent particles were observed to varying degrees in very specific wind directions and during strong wind events. Analysis of the particle UV-induced emission spectra, particle sizes and shapes recorded during these events suggest the majority of particles were likely a subset of dust with weak fluorescence emission responses. A minor fraction, however, were likely primary biological particles that were very strongly fluorescent, with a subset identified as likely being pollen based on comparison with laboratory data obtained using the same instrument. A strong correlation of bio-fluorescent particles with wind speed was observed in some, but not all, periods. Interestingly, the fraction of fluorescent particles to total particle concentration also increased significantly with wind speed during these events. The enhancement in concentrations of these particles could be interpreted as due to resuspension from the local ice surface but more likely due to emissions from distal sources within Antarctica as well as intercontinental transport. Likely distal sources identified by back trajectory analyses and dispersion modelling were the coastal ice margin zones in Halley Bay consisting of bird colonies with likely associated high bacterial activity together with contributions from exposed ice margin bacterial colonies but also long-range transport from the southern coasts of Argentina and Chile. Dispersion modelling also demonstrated emissions from shipping lanes, and therefore marine anthropogenic sources cannot be ruled out. Average total concentrations of total fluorescent aerosols were found to be 1.9 ± 2.6 L−1 over a 3-week period crossing over from November into December, but peak concentrations during intermittent enhancement events could be up to several tens per litre. While this short pilot study is not intended to be generally representative of Antarctic aerosol, it demonstrates the usefulness of the UV-LIF measurement technique for quantification of airborne bioaerosol concentrations and to understand their dispersion. The potential importance for microbial colonisation of Antarctica is highlighted.
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Pennycuick, C. J., M. Klaassen, A. Kvist, and Å. Lindström. "Wingbeat frequency and the body drag anomaly: wind-tunnel observations on a thrush nightingale (Luscinia luscinia) and a teal (Anas crecca)." Journal of Experimental Biology 199, no. 12 (December 1, 1996): 2757–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.199.12.2757.

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A teal (Anas crecca) and a thrush nightingale (Luscinia luscinia) were trained to fly in the Lund wind tunnel for periods of up to 3 and 16 h respectively. Both birds flew in steady flapping flight, with such regularity that their wingbeat frequencies could be determined by viewing them through a shutter stroboscope. When flying at a constant air speed, the teal's wingbeat frequency varied with the 0.364 power of the body mass and the thrush nightingale's varied with the 0.430 power. Both exponents differed from zero, but neither differed from the predicted value (0.5) at the 1 % level of significance. The teal continued to flap steadily as the tunnel tilt angle was varied from -1 &deg; (climb) to +6 &deg; (descent), while the wingbeat frequency declined progressively by about 11 %. In both birds, the plot of wingbeat frequency against air speed in level flight was U-shaped, with small but statistically significant curvature. We identified the minima of these curves with the minimum power speed (Vmp) and found that the values predicted for Vmp, using previously published default values for the required variables, were only about two-thirds of the observed minimum-frequency speeds. The discrepancy could be resolved if the body drag coefficients (CDb) of both birds were near 0.08, rather than near 0.40 as previously assumed. The previously published high values for body drag coefficients were derived from wind-tunnel measurements on frozen bird bodies, from which the wings had been removed, and had long been regarded as anomalous, as values below 0.01 are given in the engineering literature for streamlined bodies. We suggest that birds of any size that have well-streamlined bodies can achieve minimum body drag coefficients of around 0.05 if the feet can be fully retracted under the flank feathers. In such birds, field observations of flight speeds may need to be reinterpreted in the light of higher estimates of Vmp. Estimates of the effective lift:drag ratio and range can also be revised upwards. Birds that have large feet or trailing legs may have higher body drag coefficients. The original estimates of around CDb=0.4 could be correct for species, such as pelicans and large herons, that also have prominent heads. We see no evidence for any progressive reduction of body drag coefficient in the Reynolds number range covered by our experiments, that is 21 600&shy;215 000 on the basis of body cross-sectional diameter.
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Singh, Priyanka, Sameer Saran, and Sultan Kocaman. "Role of Maximum Entropy and Citizen Science to Study Habitat Suitability of Jacobin Cuckoo in Different Climate Change Scenarios." ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information 10, no. 7 (July 6, 2021): 463. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijgi10070463.

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Recent advancements in spatial modelling and mapping methods have opened up new horizons for monitoring the migration of bird species, which have been altered due to the climate change. The rise of citizen science has also aided the spatiotemporal data collection with associated attributes. The biodiversity data from citizen observatories can be employed in machine learning algorithms for predicting suitable environmental conditions for species’ survival and their future migration behaviours. In this study, different environmental variables effective in birds’ migrations were analysed, and their habitat suitability was assessed for future understanding of their responses in different climate change scenarios. The Jacobin cuckoo (Clamator jacobinus) was selected as the subject species, since their arrival to India has been traditionally considered as a sign for the start of the Indian monsoon season. For suitability predictions in current and future scenarios, maximum entropy (Maxent) modelling was carried out with environmental variables and species occurrences observed in India and Africa. For modelling, the correlation test was performed on the environmental variables (bioclimatic, precipitation, minimum temperature, maximum temperature, precipitation, wind and elevation). The results showed that precipitation-related variables played a significant role in suitability, and through reclassified habitat suitability maps, it was observed that the suitable areas of India and Africa might decrease in future climatic scenarios (SSPs 2.6, 4.5, 7.0 and 8.5) of 2030 and 2050. In addition, the suitability and unsuitability areas were calculated (in km2) to observe the subtle changes in the ecosystem. Such climate change studies can support biodiversity research and improve the agricultural economy.
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Kéry, Marc, Gabriel Banderet, Martin Neuhaus, Martin Weggler, Hans Schmid, Thomas Sattler, and David Parish. "Population trends of the Peregrine Falcon in Switzerland with special reference to the period 2005–2016." Ornis Hungarica 26, no. 2 (December 1, 2018): 91–103. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/orhu-2018-0017.

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Abstract We study population trends of the Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) in Switzerland with special reference to the development since 2005 and three study areas, South West Switzerland (4,993 km2, 1960–2015), the Northern Jura mountains (3,270 km2, 2005–2015) and the Canton of Zurich (1,748 km2, 2002–2015). We used dynamic occupancy models, which allow the territory-specific extinction and colonization parameters – the demographic rates (at the territory level) underlying a population trend – to be estimated. The Swiss peregrine population has developed in line with trends observed in many other countries and regions in North America and Europe: after the pesticide-induced collapse between the 1950s and 1970s, the population largely recovered up to the turn of the millennium. However, in recent years, we detected significant declines again: in SW Switzerland, the population decreased from 51 to 33 pairs during 2008–2015 (-35%), in the N Jura from 70 to 40 pairs during 2009–2015 (-43%) and in Zurich from 6–7 to 2–4 pairs during 2010–2015 (-50%). In the same time, the local extinction rate in the three study areas (more than) doubled from (0.05) 0.1 to 0.2, while the colonization rate dropped from 0.3 to 0.1 in one of the areas, while no change was detectable in the other two. We discuss two factors responsible for these strong, recent declines of Swiss peregrines: (1) predation by Eagle Owls (Bubo bubo) and (2) direct and illegal persecution by humans. In addition to these two factors, growing human disturbance (e.g. through climbers, bird photographers, paragliders, hikers, geocachers, etc.) and fatalities due to collisions with man-made structures (power lines, glass, wind turbines, etc.) are also suspected to contribute to the population decline.
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Strokal, Oleksandr. "THE ORIGINS OF OLEKSII DOVHIY’S POETIC SPACE." Studia Linguistica, no. 16 (2020): 115–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.17721/studling2020.16.115-128.

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The article analyzes the nature of linguistic explication of the ideas of Oleksii Dovhiy’s lyrical hero about the features of the universe and the organization of the universe. The author deals with such issues of general theoretical significance as the concept and linguistic worldview. During the research it was found out that Oleksii Dovhiy’s poetry combines the revelation of a son who prides himself on the glory of generations, paternal and grandfather’s moral principles, confession of a fighter for the Fatherland, a manuscript of the medium, to whom all the secrets of the universe are revealed. The language of his poetry reflects the representation of his lyric hero about the three-component world, which consists of the upper, middle and lower tiers. His lyric hero is aware of the HIGHER WORLD as a world of the divine, a world of eternal truths and laws, a world of angels and pure poetry. The main images that fill this world are the images of sun, sky, bird and wind. One of the central concepts that actualize the locus of the MIDDLE WORLD (or world of the earth) in Oleksii Dovhiy’s poetic universe is the image-concept of the LAND. This image is an expression of such lexical and semantic variants of the land tokens as ‘the native land (Ukraine)ʼ and ‘the upper layer of the earth’s crust; soil that is cultivated and used for growing plantsʼ. THE UNDERGROUND WORLD is updated by entering the words «field» and «shadow» in the text. As research has shown, the image of the road in Oleksii Dovhiy’s poetic space is one of the central ones, since, firstly, the verbalizers of this image often act as components that make up the macro-image of the MIDDLE WORLD, and secondly, the image is combined different time shades in the horizontal spatial plane of the author’s world plane. THE UNDERGROUND WORLD is represented in most cases by tokens that are associated with other spatial tiers. However, by entering into the text, such units as «shadow» and «field» acquire contextually predetermined semantic nuances that associatively associate with the lower tier.
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33

Davis, Paul G. "The taphonomy of birds." Paleontological Society Special Publications 6 (1992): 82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s2475262200006420.

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The taphonomy of birds can be investigated with actualistic studies complemented by reviewing Konversat Lagerstätten such as Messel, Green River and Solnhofen.Two field sites were chosen in southern Florida: 1, a freshwater (16–23 ppt salinity) environment in which biogenic carbonate muds were being deposited and 2, a marine (30–34 ppt salinity) environment in which pyritous carbonate muds were being deposited. Ninety-six specimens (36 genera, 40 species) were used in this study (these were obtained from a wildlife centre where they died of natural causes). Experiments were set up in both marine and freshwater sites in the following categories: large protected, unprotected; small protected, unprotected. Protected specimens were placed in metal cages coated with small mesh (1.5mm2) nylon netting.The specimens were allowed to degrade under natural conditions. The following variables were recorded daily over a seventy day period: air and water temperature, humidity, rainfall, wind and current speed and direction, salinity, dissolved oxygen content, pH, and water depth. Specimens from each of the eight categories were sampled at day 1, 4, 7, 11, 28, 56, and 70.Scavengers play a major role in the early taphonomic processes. Unprotected specimens were rapidly removed from the study area by large predators such as alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) and American crocodiles (Crocodylus actus), and Turkey vultures (Cathartes aura). Even protected specimens were prone to attack by more “intelligent” large scavengers such as racoons. Smaller predators include crayfish in the freshwater site and the carnivorous gastropods (Crown conch) in the marine environment. The Crown conch was observed to be a voracious feeder and large numbers rapidly strip all flesh from any carcass within reach of the bottom.Decay proceeds rapidly in the warm waters of the field sites. Within the carcasses temperatures approach optimum bacterial temperatures and large bacterial colonies form within muscle blocks after only one day. The initial decay of the muscle fibres is also rapid (one day) as the muscle myofibrils start to break into short lengths and the myoseptum starts to disintegrate, and has totally disappeared after seven to fourteen days (depending on the initial mass of the bird).From graphs showing plots of percentage weight loss (weight loss as a percentage of original weight) versus time decay can be seen to follow an exponential curve ie. most rapid decay occurs early (as soft tissues decay) then weight loss slows down (after 10 days for small specimens and 28 days for large specimens) as by this time nearly all but the most resistant soft tissues have decayed and the weight loss is due to the removal of skeletal matter to the sedimentary record. Feathers are resistant to the initial stages of decay and the primary and secondary feathers remain attached to the wing bones for up to twenty-eight days even when the soft tissues have been totally removed.The results of the decay experiments have provided directly comparable specimens to those that can be found within the fossil record. This comparison of fossil and modern analogues allows a series of taphonomic thresholds to be defined in the fossilisation of birds.
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Kamenieva, Anna. "Stylistic features of the choral concerto “Witchery songs” by M. Shukh." Problems of Interaction Between Arts, Pedagogy and the Theory and Practice of Education 55, no. 55 (November 20, 2019): 122–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.34064/khnum1-55.09.

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Background. The current paper provides an intonation and dramaturgical analysis of the choral concerto “Witchery Songs” by a contemporary Ukrainian composer M. Shukh (1952–2018). It reveals stylistic features of the late composition, presents an argument for its affiliation to the meditative sphere enriched with new stylistics, which can be seen in the semantics of contemplation, philosophical and psychological focus (the first movement), the concept of “Light” (the second miniature) as well as composure and blissful sleep (final). Objectives. To reveal stylistic features of the choral concert “Witchery songs” in order to understand the multidimensionality of the late style of M. Shukh (2010). Methods. The methodology of the research is based on the genre, stylistic, structurally functional, intonation-dramaturgicaland semantic scientific approaches. Results. The structure of the cycle includes three miniatures created in different years (1993, 2006 and 2009). The composer combined them into a new author’s concept: the unifier was the image of the author’s contemplation, meditation on various images of O. Kryvoruchko’s poetry, which was related to his spiritual universe. The program title of the cycle “Witchery Songs” chosen by the author is general, borrowed from the dramatic imaginary sphere of the first movement. The first movement “Practising witchery on a Gray Seagull” embodies the image of a seagull appearing in different forms: as a white bird, a symbol of purity, and the grey one, which had been grief-stricken and died, leaving behind baby seagulls. The poetic text is abundant with symbols of death (“black water”, “bitter mountain”), and vice versa, with signs that symbolize hope: “clear field”, “pure wonder”, “white grasses”. At the same time, the name of the movement, its folklore bias and content also point to the image of witchery, which is embodied by M. Schukh in thematism through meditation (means of tempo and timbre dramaturgy, “dark” modal and tonal focus). The metrical organization of the movement attracts attention. If the beginning of the introduction is presented in the 4/4 time, then in the enunciation of the main theme (bar 7) the composer uses an odd meter of 11/8 with the subsequent change to 10/8, 5/8, then 3/4. The frequent change of the metric rhythm indicates the relation of the musical stylistics of this theme to the Ukrainian folk-song tradition. The second movement “Night” contains no specific symbolism of practising witchery: the semantics of the night includes rather a genre model of a nocturne with its onomatopoeia (breeze, bells, stars, moon). A beautiful pattern is perceived as an intermezzo between the dramatic text of the cycle exposition and the celestial lullaby, which elevates the earth’s feelings to the Light. The movement reveals a magical picture of nightlife. The composer embodied this contemplative image by creating light meditation. Major colour, quiet dynamics, slow tempo, and chamber-like use of musical expressiveness all contribute to the basic essence of a meditative state – calmness and relaxation. Meditative onomatopoeia interfuses the whole movement – a light breeze, lighting up the stars. The image of the bell is found in all parts: the first soprano part has a poetic text – “the wind tinkles “, the alto one has mormorando, a singing technique, the second sopranos – syllables “din, don” with sonorous singing of the last “n”. In this part the composer often applies the techniques of free development – glissando, tenuto, rhythmic variety – triples, long delays. In such a way the artist sought to “let the performers go”, creating a meditative image of night silence. In the third movement, “Angelic lullaby,” meditative semantics is multiplied, since the genre of lullaby, like meditation, has a calming effect. Thanks to its name the composer gave the song a higher, deeper meaning. Musically, the composer filled the imagery of the movement with an incredibly expressive theme, onomatopoeic techniques similar to the previous movements: imitation of a breeze, hum of birds, stream overflows. Basically, the theme of the movement unfolds with the help of a spiral-like motion technique, the sound of which contributes to the lulling of a baby to sleep. The rhythmic basis of the theme is coloured by the intonational ostinato. The metro-rhythmic structure plays a special role in the dramaturgy of the movement: the composer often changes time signature, a large number of syncopescolour the musical texture, adding depth and at the same time lightness to the texture, and making the choir sound elusively charming. Conclusions. The semantics of the work is formed by stylistic synthesis (folk elements of the musical language embedded in the poetic text of O. Kryvoruchko; sacral signs – bells, angelic lullabies and onomatopoeia), emphasized at the soundintonational level. Taking into account the program subtitle (Practising witchery), the work, at first glance, seems to be a “cognitive dissonance” in the context of spiritual themes predominance in M. Schukh’s music. However, in the original concept of the composition, the composer clarifies for the thoughtful listener his idea – “modulation” way from mythopoetic (earthy) magic to the sacredness of the spiritual type (blissful sleep). The use of folklore stylistics shows that the artist continued the national tradition of O. Koshits, L. Dychko, Ye. Stankovich and others in the choral genre. Such a genre-stylistic decision is today perceived as an actualization of the appeal to traditional folk art, through the lens of philosophicalreligious poetics of author’s thinking.
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35

Martinez, Inez. "Reading for Psyche:." Journal of Jungian Scholarly Studies 7 (June 1, 2011). http://dx.doi.org/10.29173/jjs57s.

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Because of imaginative literature’s extensive renderings of numinous experiences in symbolic forms, a focus on numinous moments in a text can yield an ever-unfolding understanding of the complexity of the factors affecting both positive and negative transformation. Flannery O’Connor’s “Revelation” illustrates typical optimism of religious treatments of numinous experiences with regard to transformation; E. M. Forster’s “The Road from Colonus” exemplifies non-integration of a numinous experience; and Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle offers a vision of integration of numinous experiences as shared in the realm of psyche. These three works are analyzed to demonstrate that each literary treatment of numinous experiences potentially offers specific understanding of the complexities of integrating or failing to integrate numinous experiences; therefore reading literature with a focus on its renderings of numinous experiences is a revelatory approach to reading literature for psyche.
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36

van Erp, Jens A., E. Emiel van Loon, Kees J. Camphuysen, and Judy Shamoun-Baranes. "Temporal patterns in offshore bird abundance during the breeding season at the Dutch North Sea coast." Marine Biology 168, no. 10 (September 18, 2021). http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00227-021-03954-4.

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AbstractThe expanding development of offshore wind farms brings a growing concern about the human impact on seabirds. To assess this impact a better understanding of offshore bird abundance is needed. The aim of this study was to investigate offshore bird abundance in the breeding season and model the effect of temporally predictable environmental variables. We used a bird radar, situated at the edge of a wind farm (52.427827° N, 4.185345° E), to record hourly aerial bird abundance at the North Sea near the Dutch coast between May 1st and July 15th in 2019 and 2020, of which 1879 h (51.5%) were analysed. The effect of sun azimuth, week in the breeding season, and astronomic tide was evaluated using generalized additive modelling. Sun azimuth and week in the breeding season had a modest and statistically significant (p < 0.001) effect on bird abundance, while astronomic tide did not. Hourly predicted abundance peaked after sunrise and before sunset, and abundance increased throughout the breeding season until the end of June, after which it decreased slightly. Though these effects were significant, a large portion of variance in hourly abundance remained unexplained. The high variability in bird abundance at scales ranging from hours up to weeks emphasizes the need for long-term and continuous data which radar technology can provide.
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Alves, José A., Maria P. Dias, Verónica Méndez, Borgný Katrínardóttir, and Tómas G. Gunnarsson. "Very rapid long-distance sea crossing by a migratory bird." Scientific Reports 6, no. 1 (November 30, 2016). http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep38154.

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Abstract Landbirds undertaking within-continent migrations have the possibility to stop en route, but most long-distance migrants must also undertake large non-stop sea crossings, the length of which can vary greatly. For shorebirds migrating from Iceland to West Africa, the shortest route would involve one of the longest continuous sea crossings while alternative, mostly overland, routes are available. Using geolocators to track the migration of Icelandic whimbrels (Numenius phaeopus), we show that they can complete a round-trip of 11,000 km making two non-stop sea crossings and flying at speeds of up to 24 m s−1; the fastest recorded for shorebirds flying over the ocean. Although wind support could reduce flight energetic costs, whimbrels faced headwinds up to twice their ground speed, indicating that unfavourable and potentially fatal weather conditions are not uncommon. Such apparently high risk migrations might be more common than previously thought, with potential fitness gains outweighing the costs.
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Abdullah, Fatma, Vicki Cove, Amaechi Eneh, Anya Kochel, and Rachel Wilson. "18. A Risk Assessment of Wind Farming On Amherst Island." Inquiry@Queen's Undergraduate Research Conference Proceedings, February 20, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.24908/iqurcp.9912.

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Amherst Island is an internationally renowned sanctuary for raptors and is home to 34 avian species at risk. In addition to providing critical habitat for migrating birds, Amherst Island also supports a variety of other taxa including reptiles, amphibians, bats, and butterflies, some of which are endangered. Located in eastern Ontario, the island has been ranked second in biodiversity significance by Islands of Life and has been internationally recognized as an Important Bird Area. Amherst Island gained attention in recent months following a proposal by Windlectric Inc. to install and operate up to 36 wind turbines on Amherst Island as part of the Government of Ontario’s renewable energy initiatives. Despite clear energy and economic benefits, negative impacts of wind turbine installation have also been well documented. Risks associated with wind farming include habitat fragmentation and destruction, increased road traffic, and bird and bat strikes.With the help of contacts at the Association to Protect Amherst Island, Kingston Field Naturalists, and Windlectric Inc., we plan to develop an unbiased risk assessment using data from primary literature and existing wind farms as case studies. We will place special focus on species of concern while weighing potential environmental disturbance against benefits of the green energy movement in Ontario. Our project is intended to act as a holistic, nonpartisan assessment of the benefits and potential concerns involved with the wind turbine project, and where appropriate, we hope to provide recommendations for mitigating damages associated with installation and operation.
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BCR, Shanyce. "Maximum Ride: Angel by J. Patterson." Deakin Review of Children's Literature 6, no. 2 (October 3, 2016). http://dx.doi.org/10.20361/g2kg7d.

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Patterson, James. Maximum Ride: Angel. New York: Little Brown, 2011. Print. In "Angel", Max and her flock are 98% Human and 2% Bird, so they can fly. The flock's names are Fang, Nudge, Gazzy, Angel, and Iggy. They were all created in a lab and called "Experiments". There is also another type of Experiments called an "Eraser". They are half Human and half Wolf. Jeb helped Max and the flock escape the school but then disappeared for 2 years. Max and the Flock stay in a safe house Jeb got them in the middle of nowhere. Since Fang disappeared to go start a gang and Dylan promises Max to fight by her side and keep her safe since Fang is gone. Dylan is a clone of some other Dylan that died somehow and he isn't a part of the Flock. How Max met her half-sister Ella was Max and Fang were looking for Angel so then Max hears screaming and she goes to investigate and leaves Fang so when she gets there this guy is yelling at Ella and Max stops and she tells him to stop and he tries to hurt her but she is dodging the attacks so Max kicks him into the car and he grabs a shot gun and shoots her in the shoulder near her wing is. Then Fang comes down and takes care of the guy and Ella takes Max to her mom’s house to save her and when she wakes up Fang is outside and she sees Dr. Martinez which is Ella's mom who patches up Max's shoulder and Max Seems to have a tracking chip inside her ribcage that was planted inside her when she was little. I rate this book a 5 because it is the best book series ever.Highly recommended: 5 out of 5 stars Reviewer: Shanyce My name is Shanyce. I am 11 years old. I like to read James Patterson and Zac and Heather Brewer books. My favorite book from James Patterson is the Maximum Ride series and the Witch and Wizard Manga series. My favorite book from Heather/Zac Brewer is The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod Series. Right now I'm reading "Angel" by James Patterson.
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Schwemmer, Philipp, Moritz Mercker, Klaus Heinrich Vanselow, Pierrick Bocher, and Stefan Garthe. "Migrating curlews on schedule: departure and arrival patterns of a long-distance migrant depend on time and breeding location rather than on wind conditions." Movement Ecology 9, no. 1 (March 17, 2021). http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40462-021-00252-y.

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Abstract Background Departure decisions in long-distance migratory bird species may depend on favourable weather conditions and beneficial resources at the destination location, overarched by genetic triggers. However, few studies have tried to validate the significance of these three concepts simultaneously, and long-term, high-resolution tagging datasets recording individual movements across consecutive years are scarce. We used such a dataset to explore intraspecific and intra-individual variabilities in departure and arrival decisions from/to wintering grounds in relation to these three different concepts in bird migration. Methods We equipped 23 curlews (Numenius arquata) wintering in the Wadden Sea with Global Positioning System data loggers to record their spatio-temporal patterns of departure from and arrival at their wintering site, and the first part of their spring migration. We obtained data for 42 migrations over 6 years, with 12 individuals performing repeat migrations in consecutive years. Day of year of departure and arrival was related to 38 meteorological and bird-related predictors using the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) to identify drivers of departure and arrival decisions. Results Curlews migrated almost exclusively to Arctic and sub-Arctic Russia for breeding. They left their wintering site mainly during the evening from mid- to late April and returned between the end of June and mid-July. There was no difference in departure times between the sexes. Weather parameters did not impact departure decisions; if departure days coincided with headwind conditions, the birds accounted for this by flying at higher altitudes of up to several kilometres. Curlews breeding further away in areas with late snowmelt departed later. Departures dates varied by only < 4 days in individual curlews tagged over consecutive years. Conclusions These results suggest that the trigger for migration in this long-distance migrant is largely independent of weather conditions but is subject to resource availability in breeding areas. The high intra-individual repeatability of departure days among subsequent years and the lack of relationship to weather parameters suggest the importance of genetic triggers in prompting the start of migration. Further insights into the timing of migration in immatures and closely related birds might help to further unravel the genetic mechanisms triggering migration patterns.
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Banks, Ojeya Cruz. "Atamira Dance Company and Indigenous Performance: The Making of Māori Worlds." Te Kaharoa 8, no. 1 (January 19, 2015). http://dx.doi.org/10.24135/tekaharoa.v8i1.27.

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Mutton bird rituals, harvesting kelp, bush clad hillsides, and the majestic moon illuminating the southern Pacific ocean at Kaka point/Catlins is danced by Aotearoa/ New Zealand’s stand out Atamira Dance Company based in Auckland. Their dancing is accompanied by the mesmerizing soundscape composed by Richard Nunns and Paddy Free, who provide rich audio textures that combine electronica beats with stone percussion and gourd instruments. The work is entitled Taonga: Dust, Water, Wind and premiered in 2009 at the Sky City Theatre in Auckland as part of the Auckland Arts Festival. Louise Potiki Bryant, the distinguished (Kai Tahu) choreographer made the work to ruminate about her great Aunt Rona Williamson, who was born in 1924. The dance was about her experiences of growing up by the sea during the Great Depression, the piece uncovers what could have remained buried family stories.
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Galtbalt, Batbayar, Amanda Lilleyman, Jonathan T. Coleman, Chuyu Cheng, Zhijun Ma, Danny I. Rogers, Bradley K. Woodworth, Richard A. Fuller, Stephen T. Garnett, and Marcel Klaassen. "Far eastern curlew and whimbrel prefer flying low - wind support and good visibility appear only secondary factors in determining migratory flight altitude." Movement Ecology 9, no. 1 (June 13, 2021). http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40462-021-00267-5.

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Abstract Background In-flight conditions are hypothesized to influence the timing and success of long-distance migration. Wind assistance and thermal uplift are thought to reduce the energetic costs of flight, humidity, air pressure and temperature may affect the migrants’ water balance, and clouds may impede navigation. Recent advances in animal-borne long-distance tracking enable evaluating the importance of these factors in determining animals’ flight altitude. Methods Here we determine the effects of wind, humidity, temperature, cloud cover, and altitude (as proxy for climbing costs and air pressure) on flight altitude selection of two long-distance migratory shorebirds, far eastern curlew (Numenius madagascariensis) and whimbrel (Numenius phaeopus). To reveal the predominant drivers of flight altitude selection during migration we compared the atmospheric conditions at the altitude the birds were found flying with conditions elsewhere in the air column using conditional logistic mixed effect models. Results Our results demonstrate that despite occasional high-altitude migrations (up to 5550 m above ground level), our study species typically forego flying at high altitudes, limiting climbing costs and potentially alleviating water loss and facilitating navigation. While mainly preferring migrating at low altitude, notably in combination with low air temperature, the birds also preferred flying with wind support to likely reduce flight costs. They avoided clouds, perhaps to help navigation or to reduce the risks from adverse weather. Conclusions We conclude that the primary determinant of avian migrant’s flight altitude selection is a preference for low altitude, with wind support as an important secondary factor. Our approach and findings can assist in predicting climate change effects on migration and in mitigating bird strikes with air traffic, wind farms, power lines, and other human-made structures.
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Baxevanou, Catherine, Dimitrios Fidaros, Ilias Giannenas, Eleftherios Bonos, and Ioannis Skoufos. "Reduction of Energy Intensity in Broiler Facilities: Methodology and Strategies." Frontiers in Veterinary Science 8 (August 10, 2021). http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2021.671183.

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Broiler facilities consume a lot of energy resulting in natural source depletion and greater greenhouse gas emissions. A way to assess the energy performance of a broiler facility is through an energy audit. In the present paper, an energy protocol for an energy audit is presented covering both phases of data collection and data elaboration. The operational rating phase is analytically and extendedly described while a complete mathematical model is proposed for the asset rating phase. The developed energy audit procedure was applied to poultry chambers located in lowland and mountainous areas of Epirus Greece for chambers of various sizes and technology levels. The energy intensity indices varied from 46 to 89 kWh/m2 of chamber area 0.25–0.48 kWh/kg of produced meat or 0.36–1.3 kWh/bird depending on the chamber technology level (insulation, automation, etc.) and the location where the unit was installed. The biggest energy consumer was heating followed by energy consumption for ventilation and cooling. An advanced technology level can improve energy performance by ~ 27%−31%. Proper insulation (4–7 cm) can offer a reduction of thermal energy consumption between 10 and 35%. In adequately insulated chambers, the basic heat losses are due to ventilation. Further energy savings can be achieved with more precise ventilation control. Automation can offer additional electrical energy saving for cooling and ventilation (15–20%). Energy-efficient lights can offer energy saving up to 5%. The use of photovoltaic (PV) technology is suggested mainly in areas where net-metering holds. The use of wind turbines is feasible only when adequate wind potential is available. Solar thermal energy is recommended in combination with a heat pump if the unit's heating and cooling systems use hot/cold water or air. Finally, the local production of biogas with anaerobic fermentation for producing thermal or electrical energy, or cogenerating both, is a choice that should be studied individually for each farm.
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44

"Forestry Research Advisory Council of Canada Annual Report for 1990." Forestry Chronicle 67, no. 4 (April 1, 1991): 427–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.5558/tfc67427-4.

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The Forestry Research Advisory Council of Canada (FRACC) advises Forestry Canada on national forest research priorities and policies. This report covers calendar 1990, during which FRACC held four meetings and visited four Forestry Canada research centres.Once again FRACC prepared a national overview of research priorities with the assistance of the provincial and territorial forest research advisory groups. This appeared in the February 1991 Forestry Chronicle of the Canadian Institute of Forestry. Twenty-three new research priorities were identified in the 1990 overview. Many of the new items were related to the need for predictive models, better resource and land use decision methods, socioeconomic studies, and studies on climate change. This reflects the increasing attention forest managers are giving to public attitudes on resource and environmental matters. At the same time, the forest managers' more traditional long-term concerns about protecting, harvesting, and regenerating forests are still prominent in research priorities. The importance of the Forest Resource Development Agreements in funding forest research was again emphasized.As a result of its deliberations in 1990, Council makes the following recommendations:1. Forestry Canada should ensure that a broad spectrum of forest stakeholders have input to its forest research advisory process, and should encourage other agencies to do likewise.2. Forestry Canada should seek every opportunity to connect its research work with site classification systems. This will broaden the use of research results in ways that maximize their application without having them misapplied in inappropriate situations.3. Forestry Canada should strengthen its linkages with the universities and urge them to do more to broaden their search for graduate students by emphasizing the very real challenges in forestry. Forestry Canada should also consider seconding scientists to universities for two to three years to alleviate a shortage of specific skills and to further the training of specialists in those disciplines.4. Forestry Canada should make every effort to develop other techniques and approaches to enhance cooperative programs along the lines of the National Science and Engineering Research Council partnership model.5. In setting up cooperative programs of research with industry, Forestry Canada should ensure that the participating companies are fully aware of the steps necessary to qualify for favorable tax treatment for their contributions to research programs.6. Forestry Canada should carefully examine its forest economics and policy program to assess its adequacy and to determine whether sufficient linkage has been established with the provinces, industry, and the universities. An in-depth program review of this subject should be undertaken, with full program documentation being assembled and made available to FRACC and Forestry Canada clients and cooperators.7. A serious effort should be made to raise the profiles of Forestry Canada's two specialized institutes so that their role, particularly in relation to environmental concerns, is more widely appreciated in forestry and environmental circles. A change of names should be considered. Drawing on the views of scientists and staff, Forestry Canada should seek alternatives that would give much more stress to the ideas of sustainable development and ecological balance.8. The practice of consulting with staff and involving them in the planning and execution of research programs should be reinforced and firmly embedded in the management culture of Forestry Canada.9. Forestry Canada should actively involve its leading scientists in developing national strategies and plans and in developing research networks.In its work program for 1991, Council will:1. Continue to examine the factors affecting the supply of young scientists and the elements that make for a productive research climate.2. Continue the input of various forest stakeholders to the deliberations of Council so that the forces shaping the future demands on the forest ecosystem can be better understood.3. Identify emerging regional and national issues and priorities in forestry research.4. Continue to work with provincial and territorial research advisory bodies to assemble a national overview of forest research priorities for the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers.5. Study the implications for Forestry Canada's research program of the following reports:(a) The Report of the Standing Committee of the House of Commons on Fisheries and Forestry entitled Forests of Canada: The Federal Role (the Bird Report).(b) The Green Plan of Environment Canada.(c) The report by Pierre Lortie on science policy and the organization of science in Canada.(d) Forestry Canada's report to parliament.6. Make input to developing the new Forest Sector Strategy for Canada due for completion in March 1992.7. Obtain and review an action plan for the forest economics program of Forestry Canada.8. Hold a "think-tank" session to explore in broad terms what the future holds for forest resource management in Canada and the world, and to attempt to assess what this means for forest research at present and in the near future.9. Study the terms of reference of FRACC and make recommendations as required to Forestry Canada.
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45

Brien, Donna Lee. "Just the Sort of Day Jack Had Always Loved." M/C Journal 2, no. 8 (December 1, 1999). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1811.

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Edith and John Power were a wealthy expatriate Australian couple who lived in England and Europe from the early years of the 20th century until their deaths. In 1915 John Power married Edith Lee in London before serving as a surgeon on the Western Front in the Royal Army Medical Corps. After the war Edith and John left Britain to live in Paris and Brussels in the centre of a large international group of avant-garde artists. Edith, who was twelve years older than her husband, and had been married twice before (once widowed and once divorced), was to all accounts the driving force behind John's success as an artist -- he exhibited alongside Picasso, Braque and Kandinsky -- and the great love of his life. The following comes from a book-length fictionalised biography of their lives, narrated by Edith in the early 1960s when she was ninety-two years old. This extract comes from the part of the manuscript dealing with the Nazi Occupation of the Channel Island of Jersey in the second world war; the 'safe haven' to which the Powers had fled in 1938 when war threatened. The first winter under the Germans was very hard and there were reports of old people dying of starvation and exposure. Jack had terrible chilblains and we were both very thin. Cooking fat was only available for doctors to give to invalids, and one poor chap was so desperate that he used sump oil from his car to fry up some gull eggs, and poisoned himself. Sitting down to a plate of boiled potatoes I couldn't sometimes help but reminisce about the wonderful meals we had eaten in Paris and Brussels. How decadent they seemed -- oysters, poached salmon, grilled tournedos with asparagus or a roasted duck, then a glass of champagne, a slice or two of Ange à Cheval and some wild strawberries to finish off with. I also realised how petty all our worries had been up 'til then. We would be upset if the hotel we fancied was booked out for the summer, the bath water cold or a soufflé heavy. When the stock market dropped a point or two we were devastated, and Jack used to sulk for days when he had trouble with a painting or if his frames were not exactly as ordered, the moulding wrong, the gilding scratched or too bright. Such concerns seemed absurd when we faced death every day and misery and fear were all around us. Then the prisoners-of-war arrived from Russia, dressed in rags and even thinner than us. They suffered terribly, working impossibly hard every day on the railway and underground hospital, with nowhere proper to sleep and very little to eat. We felt so sorry for them, and admired those Islanders who, although it was a serious crime, sheltered them if they managed to escape. We had another dreadful reminder of just how awful the Germans could be when they started shooting anyone caught with a crystal radio set. By the summer of 1942 Jack was very ill, although he continued to deny anything was wrong. He finally confided in me just how dire things were one afternoon when we were sitting on the terrace. We were drinking the last of our English tea and discussing how wild the garden had become. One minute Jack was saying how much he enjoyed watching everything return to its natural state, the next he was telling me that he thought he had a cancerous tumour in his kidneys and should see a doctor. I listened in a daze as he detailed the possible treatments and his prognosis, which he anticipated to be poor. Then he stood, drank the dregs in his cup, kissed me and said he had to return to the studio. He had salvaged a piece of wood from somewhere to paint on and didn't want to lose the last light. I was stunned, not wanting to believe what he had told me. I never found out whether Jack suspected the cancer before the Occupation, but if he did, I can't understand why he didn't tell me. We could have gone back to England or over to Switzerland and seen the best doctors. This still puzzles me for Jack was never reticent to seek medical treatment. Tony even laughingly called Jack a hypochondriac, he was so careful with his health, but then again, I know Jack's father had hidden the same condition from his family some forty years before. For many years after the war Ceylon tea only ever tasted of trouble and dismay to me. Nowadays everyone wants to give me tea all the time, especially the nurses. I tell them I'd really like a stiff gin and tonic, but alcohol is another of life's pleasures denied to the elderly. If I could only get out of this bed, I'd get one for myself -- a big one. I have forgotten the name of that doctor we consulted a few days later, but I remember exactly what he said. He confirmed what Jack thought, that the tumours were in his kidneys, but added that they had possibly settled in his lungs as well. In a last (but futile) effort, my poor darling was operated on by this old fashioned surgeon who had to work in the most primitive conditions; without the drugs, anaesthetics or antiseptics he needed. By that time it was difficult to find soap whatever price you were willing to pay, and I gave him some fancy little rose scented tablets to wash up with before he cut Jack open. Jack had never been a fast healer and all the odds were against him; the strain of the advancing cancer, the inadequacy of our diet and the lack of proper medicines. The only foods we could obtain were quite coarse, there was no lean meat to make beef tea or eggs for milk puddings. Jack once said to me something to the effect that the ghastly jokes of fate are not always in the best of taste but they could be extremely witty. I never, however, found anything except the most savage cruelty in his situation, that such a highly trained surgeon had to endure such a crude assault on his body, and that a wealthy philanthropist could suffer so for the want of the most basic requirements of food, firewood and pain killers. My darling, who had been so dreadful when struck down with the slightest illness, was a model patient. It took a long time, but eventually he was able to leave his bed, and the first thing he did was to boil up his own analgesics, potent narcotics which he followed with a stiff whisky. When his condition deteriorated and I had to tend to all his most intimate needs, he was always good tempered and never made me feel I was humiliating or demeaning him. We grew closer than ever, but I knew our time was running out. In another cruel twist of fate Jack was only exempted from deportation to a German internment camp by the sick certificate. An order of 1942 decreed that all the British men not born on the Channel Islands, from the young boys of sixteen to poor old men of seventy, would be transferred to Germany. Thinking about it now, it seems bizarre that such a reasonable bureaucratic rule could regulate the Germans' inhumanity. My darling's last days are as clear in my memory as if they were yesterday. He lay in our yellow bedroom, looking out over the garden to the sea. I only left his side for the briefest periods, and slept in a chair by his bed. Early one morning I woke from an uneasy doze. I looked over to Jack. His face was grey and much too old for his sixty-two years, he was no longer the boy he had always been in my heart. Lying stiffly in the middle of the bed, arms by his side, eyes and lips closed, his breathing was so shallow that his chest hardly rose or fell. I wondered if he felt the weight of the blankets or heard the wind outside. Did he even know how I sat with him? I looked out over the garden. The vegetable patches dug in the chamomile lawn were flourishing, but the grass was long, the roses run to briars, the pond filled with sludge and rotting weeds. I wanted to lie beside my darling and hold him, just as I had each night for so many years, so after I had removed my shoes and placed them together under the bed, I pulled back the sheets and lay on my side facing Jack. He didn't move. I traced my finger across his cheekbones and down his nose to the mouth I had kissed so often. His skin was cool and very dry. I moved over and pressed my body close to his and as he made no sign that this was uncomfortable, I began to relax. The house was quiet and, for the first time in weeks, I sank into a peaceful sleep. When I woke, the soft light of late afternoon was filtering through the curtains. The breeze had dropped outside and I heard a lone bird calling for its mate. Most of the birds had been killed and I thought I would put out some potato bread for him. What depths we were reduced to in those days, eating the gentle creatures around us. It was rumoured that some desperate soul had roasted and eaten a hedgehog, but I still can't believe that was true. There were so many dreadful stories in those days, you never knew what to believe. My hand found Jack's. It was icy. I willed myself not to think of it, but I knew he was gone. I touched his cheek, my fingers slightly warming the cold flesh, then I put my arms right around him and pressed my face into his neck. We lay like that for a long time. Eventually I got up, tucked the blankets around him and closed the window. Downstairs I washed in cold water and dressed in black stockings, black slip and my best black dress. My black shoes were still under Jack's bed, so I laced on my tan brogues. I found my veiled black hat and put it on the sideboard. Even though I knew it was ridiculous, I felt uncomfortable wearing brown shoes with black and returned them to the cupboard. I looked around for my pearls, and realised I had left them upstairs too. I stood outside the bedroom door for some time before I could enter. Then I went in, raised the window and sat on the chair. I don't know what I thought about, but after some time the chirping of the little bird brought me back to the present. I bent and retrieved my shoes from under the bed and placed them beside the door. I could see my pearls lying in a shining mound on top of the blankets just below his hip. As I was picking them up I finally looked at Jack properly. His eyes were closed and his face was relaxed as if in a deep dreamless sleep. He looked years younger. He wore his favourite blue striped pyjamas from Jeremyn Street, but he was a stranger to me. I kissed him for the last time, then lifted the linen sheet to cover the face I had loved so much. I turned away, picked up my shoes and left the room, closing the door behind me. Although I hadn't noticed, that dreadful Sunday, the 1st of August 1943, had been a beautifully hot summer's day, just the sort of day Jack had always loved. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Donna Lee Brien. "Just the Sort of Day Jack Had Always Loved." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.8 (1999). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9912/day.php>. Chicago style: Donna Lee Brien, "Just the Sort of Day Jack Had Always Loved," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. 8 (1999), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9912/day.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Donna Lee Brien. (1999) Just the sort of day Jack had always loved. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2(8). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9912/day.php> ([your date of access]).
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46

Ryan, Robin Ann. "Forest as Place in the Album "Canopy": Culturalising Nature or Naturalising Culture?" M/C Journal 19, no. 3 (June 22, 2016). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1096.

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Every act of art is able to reveal, balance and revive the relations between a territory and its inhabitants (François Davin, Southern Forest Sculpture Walk Catalogue)Introducing the Understory Art in Nature TrailIn February 2015, a colossal wildfire destroyed 98,300 hectares of farm and bushland surrounding the town of Northcliffe, located 365 km south of Perth, Western Australia (WA). As the largest fire in the recorded history of the southwest region (Southern Forest Arts, After the Burn 8), the disaster attracted national attention however the extraordinary contribution of local knowledge in saving a town considered by authorities to be “undefendable” (Kennedy) is yet to be widely appreciated. In accounting for a creative scene that survived the conflagration, this case study sees culture mobilised as a socioeconomic resource for conservation and the healing of community spirit.Northcliffe (population 850) sits on a coastal plain that hosts majestic old-growth forest and lush bushland. In 2006, Southern Forest Arts (SFA) dedicated a Southern Forest Sculpture Walk for creative professionals to develop artworks along a 1.2 km walk trail through pristine native forest. It was re-branded “Understory—Art in Nature” in 2009; then “Understory Art in Nature Trail” in 2015, the understory vegetation layer beneath the canopy being symbolic of Northcliffe’s deeply layered caché of memories, including “the awe, love, fear, and even the hatred that these trees have provoked among the settlers” (Davin in SFA Catalogue). In the words of the SFA Trailguide, “Every place (no matter how small) has ‘understories’—secrets, songs, dreams—that help us connect with the spirit of place.”In the view of forest arts ecologist Kumi Kato, “It is a sense of place that underlies the commitment to a place’s conservation by its community, broadly embracing those who identify with the place for various reasons, both geographical and conceptual” (149). In bioregional terms such communities form a terrain of consciousness (Berg and Dasmann 218), extending responsibility for conservation across cultures, time and space (Kato 150). A sustainable thematic of place must also include livelihood as the third party between culture and nature that establishes the relationship between them (Giblett 240). With these concepts in mind I gauge creative impact on forest as place, and, in turn, (altered) forest’s impact on people. My abstraction of physical place is inclusive of humankind moving in dialogic engagement with forest. A mapping of Understory’s creative activities sheds light on how artists express physical environments in situated creative practices, clusters, and networks. These, it is argued, constitute unique types of community operating within (and beyond) a foundational scene of inspiration and mystification that is metaphorically “rising from the ashes.” In transcending disconnectedness between humankind and landscape, Understory may be understood to both culturalise nature (as an aesthetic system), and naturalise culture (as an ecologically modelled system), to build on a trope introduced by Feld (199). Arguably when the bush is cultured in this way it attracts consumers who may otherwise disconnect from nature.The trail (henceforth Understory) broaches the histories of human relations with Northcliffe’s natural systems of place. Sub-groups of the Noongar nation have inhabited the southwest for an estimated 50,000 years and their association with the Northcliffe region extends back at least 6,000 years (SFA Catalogue; see also Crawford and Crawford). An indigenous sense of the spirit of forest is manifest in Understory sculpture, literature, and—for the purpose of this article—the compilation CD Canopy: Songs for the Southern Forests (henceforth Canopy, Figure 1).As a cultural and environmental construction of place, Canopy sustains the land with acts of seeing, listening to, and interpreting nature; of remembering indigenous people in the forest; and of recalling the hardships of the early settlers. I acknowledge SFA coordinator and Understory custodian Fiona Sinclair for authorising this investigation; Peter Hill for conservation conversations; Robyn Johnston for her Canopy CD sleeve notes; Della Rae Morrison for permissions; and David Pye for discussions. Figure 1. Canopy: Songs for the Southern Forests (CD, 2006). Cover image by Raku Pitt, 2002. Courtesy Southern Forest Arts, Northcliffe, WA.Forest Ecology, Emotion, and ActionEstablished in 1924, Northcliffe’s ill-founded Group Settlement Scheme resulted in frontier hardship and heartbreak, and deforestation of the southwest region for little economic return. An historic forest controversy (1992-2001) attracted media to Northcliffe when protesters attempting to disrupt logging chained themselves to tree trunks and suspended themselves from branches. The signing of the Western Australian Regional Forest Agreement in 1999 was followed, in 2001, by deregulation of the dairy industry and a sharp decline in area population.Moved by the gravity of this situation, Fiona Sinclair won her pitch to the Manjimup Council for a sound alternative industry for Northcliffe with projections of jobs: a forest where artists could work collectively and sustainably to reveal the beauty of natural dimensions. A 12-acre pocket of allocated Crown Land adjacent to the town was leased as an A-Class Reserve vested for Education and Recreation, for which SFA secured unified community ownership and grants. Conservation protocols stipulated that no biomass could be removed from the forest and that predominantly raw, natural materials were to be used (F. Sinclair and P. Hill, personal interview, 26 Sep. 2014). With forest as prescribed image (wider than the bounded chunk of earth), Sinclair invited the artists to consider the themes of spirituality, creativity, history, dichotomy, and sensory as a basis for work that was to be “fresh, intimate, and grounded in place.” Her brief encouraged artists to work with humanity and imagination to counteract residual community divisiveness and resentment. Sinclair describes this form of implicit environmentalism as an “around the back” approach that avoids lapsing into political commentary or judgement: “The trail is a love letter from those of us who live here to our visitors, to connect with grace” (F. Sinclair, telephone interview, 6 Apr. 2014). Renewing community connections to local place is essential if our lives and societies are to become more sustainable (Pedelty 128). To define Northcliffe’s new community phase, artists respected differing associations between people and forest. A structure on a karri tree by Indigenous artist Norma MacDonald presents an Aboriginal man standing tall and proud on a rock to become one with the tree and the forest: as it was for thousands of years before European settlement (MacDonald in SFA Catalogue). As Feld observes, “It is the stabilizing persistence of place as a container of experiences that contributes so powerfully to its intrinsic memorability” (201).Adhering to the philosophy that nature should not be used or abused for the sake of art, the works resonate with the biorhythms of the forest, e.g. functional seats and shelters and a cascading retainer that directs rainwater back to the resident fauna. Some sculptures function as receivers for picking up wavelengths of ancient forest. Forest Folk lurk around the understory, while mysterious stone art represents a life-shaping force of planet history. To represent the reality of bushfire, Natalie Williamson’s sculpture wraps itself around a burnt-out stump. The work plays with scale as small native sundew flowers are enlarged and a subtle beauty, easily overlooked, becomes apparent (Figure 2). The sculptor hopes that “spiders will spin their webs about it, incorporating it into the landscape” (SFA Catalogue).Figure 2. Sundew. Sculpture by Natalie Williamson, 2006. Understory Art in Nature Trail, Northcliffe, WA. Image by the author, 2014.Memory is naturally place-oriented or at least place-supported (Feld 201). Topaesthesia (sense of place) denotes movement that connects our biography with our route. This is resonant for the experience of regional character, including the tactile, olfactory, gustatory, visual, and auditory qualities of a place (Ryan 307). By walking, we are in a dialogue with the environment; both literally and figuratively, we re-situate ourselves into our story (Schine 100). For example, during a summer exploration of the trail (5 Jan. 2014), I intuited a personal attachment based on my grandfather’s small bush home being razed by fire, and his struggle to support seven children.Understory’s survival depends on vigilant controlled (cool) burns around its perimeter (Figure 3), organised by volunteer Peter Hill. These burns also hone the forest. On 27 Sept. 2014, the charred vegetation spoke a spring language of opportunity for nature to reassert itself as seedpods burst and continue the cycle; while an autumn walk (17 Mar. 2016) yielded a fresh view of forest colour, patterning, light, shade, and sound.Figure 3. Understory Art in Nature Trail. Map Created by Fiona Sinclair for Southern Forest Sculpture Walk Catalogue (2006). Courtesy Southern Forest Arts, Northcliffe, WA.Understory and the Melody of CanopyForest resilience is celebrated in five MP3 audio tours produced for visitors to dialogue with the trail in sensory contexts of music, poetry, sculptures and stories that name or interpret the setting. The trail starts in heathland and includes three creek crossings. A zone of acacias gives way to stands of the southwest signature trees karri (Eucalyptus diversicolor), jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata), and marri (Corymbia calophylla). Following a sheoak grove, a riverine environment re-enters heathland. Birds, insects, mammals, and reptiles reside around and between the sculptures, rendering the earth-embedded art a fusion of human and natural orders (concept after Relph 141). On Audio Tour 3, Songs for the Southern Forests, the musician-composers reflect on their regionally focused items, each having been birthed according to a personal musical concept (the manner in which an individual artist holds the totality of a composition in cultural context). Arguably the music in question, its composers, performers, audiences, and settings, all have a role to play in defining the processes and effects of forest arts ecology. Local musician Ann Rice billeted a cluster of musicians (mostly from Perth) at her Windy Harbour shack. The energy of the production experience was palpable as all participated in on-site forest workshops, and supported each other’s items as a musical collective (A. Rice, telephone interview, 2 Oct. 2014). Collaborating under producer Lee Buddle’s direction, they orchestrated rich timbres (tone colours) to evoke different musical atmospheres (Table 1). Composer/Performer Title of TrackInstrumentation1. Ann RiceMy Placevocals/guitars/accordion 2. David PyeCicadan Rhythmsangklung/violin/cello/woodblocks/temple blocks/clarinet/tapes 3. Mel RobinsonSheltervocal/cello/double bass 4. DjivaNgank Boodjakvocals/acoustic, electric and slide guitars/drums/percussion 5. Cathie TraversLamentaccordion/vocals/guitar/piano/violin/drums/programming 6. Brendon Humphries and Kevin SmithWhen the Wind First Blewvocals/guitars/dobro/drums/piano/percussion 7. Libby HammerThe Gladevocal/guitar/soprano sax/cello/double bass/drums 8. Pete and Dave JeavonsSanctuaryguitars/percussion/talking drum/cowbell/soprano sax 9. Tomás FordWhite Hazevocal/programming/guitar 10. David HyamsAwakening /Shaking the Tree /When the Light Comes guitar/mandolin/dobro/bodhran/rainstick/cello/accordion/flute 11. Bernard CarneyThe Destiny Waltzvocal/guitar/accordion/drums/recording of The Destiny Waltz 12. Joel BarkerSomething for Everyonevocal/guitars/percussion Table 1. Music Composed for Canopy: Songs for the Southern Forests.Source: CD sleeve and http://www.understory.com.au/art.php. Composing out of their own strengths, the musicians transformed the geographic region into a living myth. As Pedelty has observed of similar musicians, “their sounds resonate because they so profoundly reflect our living sense of place” (83-84). The remainder of this essay evidences the capacity of indigenous song, art music, electronica, folk, and jazz-blues to celebrate, historicise, or re-imagine place. Firstly, two items represent the phenomenological approach of site-specific sensitivity to acoustic, biological, and cultural presence/loss, including the materiality of forest as a living process.“Singing Up the Land”In Aboriginal Australia “there is no place that has not been imaginatively grasped through song, dance and design, no place where traditional owners cannot see the imprint of sacred creation” (Rose 18). Canopy’s part-Noongar language song thus repositions the ancient Murrum-Noongar people within their life-sustaining natural habitat and spiritual landscape.Noongar Yorga woman Della Rae Morrison of the Bibbulmun and Wilman nations co-founded The Western Australian Nuclear Free Alliance to campaign against the uranium mining industry threatening Ngank Boodjak (her country, “Mother Earth”) (D.R. Morrison, e-mail, 15 July 2014). In 2004, Morrison formed the duo Djiva (meaning seed power or life force) with Jessie Lloyd, a Murri woman of the Guugu Yimidhirr Nation from North Queensland. After discerning the fundamental qualities of the Understory site, Djiva created the song Ngank Boodjak: “This was inspired by walking the trail […] feeling the energy of the land and the beautiful trees and hearing the birds. When I find a spot that I love, I try to feel out the lay-lines, which feel like vortexes of energy coming out of the ground; it’s pretty amazing” (Morrison in SFA Canopy sleeve) Stanza 1 points to the possibilities of being more fully “in country”:Ssh!Ni dabarkarn kooliny, ngank boodja kookoorninyListen, walk slowly, beautiful Mother EarthThe inclusion of indigenous language powerfully implements an indigenous interpretation of forest: “My elders believe that when we leave this life from our physical bodies that our spirit is earthbound and is living in the rocks or the trees and if you listen carefully you might hear their voices and maybe you will get some answers to your questions” (Morrison in SFA Catalogue).Cicadan Rhythms, by composer David Pye, echoes forest as a lively “more-than-human” world. Pye took his cue from the ambient pulsing of male cicadas communicating in plenum (full assembly) by means of airborne sound. The species were sounding together in tempo with individual rhythm patterns that interlocked to create one fantastic rhythm (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Composer David Pye). The cicada chorus (the loudest known lovesong in the insect world) is the unique summer soundmark (term coined by Truax Handbook, Website) of the southern forests. Pye chased various cicadas through Understory until he was able to notate the rhythms of some individuals in a patch of low-lying scrub.To simulate cicada clicking, the composer set pointillist patterns for Indonesian anklung (joint bamboo tubes suspended within a frame to produce notes when the frame is shaken or tapped). Using instruments made of wood to enhance the rich forest imagery, Pye created all parts using sampled instrumental sounds placed against layers of pre-recorded ambient sounds (D. Pye, telephone interview, 3 Sept. 2014). He takes the listener through a “geographical linear representation” of the trail: “I walked around it with a stopwatch and noted how long it took to get through each section of the forest, and that became the musical timing of the various parts of the work” (Pye in SFA Canopy sleeve). That Understory is a place where reciprocity between nature and culture thrives is, likewise, evident in the remaining tracks.Musicalising Forest History and EnvironmentThree tracks distinguish Canopy as an integrative site for memory. Bernard Carney’s waltz honours the Group Settlers who battled insurmountable terrain without any idea of their destiny, men who, having migrated with a promise of owning their own dairy farms, had to clear trees bare-handedly and build furniture from kerosene tins and gelignite cases. Carney illuminates the culture of Saturday night dancing in the schoolroom to popular tunes like The Destiny Waltz (performed on the Titanic in 1912). His original song fades to strains of the Victor Military Band (1914), to “pay tribute to the era where the inspiration of the song came from” (Carney in SFA Canopy sleeve). Likewise Cathie Travers’s Lament is an evocation of remote settler history that creates a “feeling of being in another location, other timezone, almost like an endless loop” (Travers in SFA Canopy sleeve).An instrumental medley by David Hyams opens with Awakening: the morning sun streaming through tall trees, and the nostalgic sound of an accordion waltz. Shaking the Tree, an Irish jig, recalls humankind’s struggle with forest and the forces of nature. A final title, When the Light Comes, defers to the saying by conservationist John Muir that “The wrongs done to trees, wrongs of every sort, are done in the darkness of ignorance and unbelief, for when the light comes the heart of the people is always right” (quoted by Hyams in SFA Canopy sleeve). Local musician Joel Barker wrote Something for Everyone to personify the old-growth karri as a king with a crown, with “wisdom in his bones.”Kevin Smith’s father was born in Northcliffe in 1924. He and Brendon Humphries fantasise the untouchability of a maiden (pre-human) moment in a forest in their song, When the Wind First Blew. In Libby Hammer’s The Glade (a lover’s lament), instrumental timbres project their own affective languages. The jazz singer intended the accompanying double bass to speak resonantly of old-growth forest; the cello to express suppleness and renewal; a soprano saxophone to impersonate a bird; and the drums to imitate the insect community’s polyrhythmic undercurrent (after Hammer in SFA Canopy sleeve).A hybrid aural environment of synthetic and natural forest sounds contrasts collision with harmony in Sanctuary. The Jeavons Brothers sampled rustling wind on nearby Mt Chudalup to absorb into the track’s opening, and crafted a snare groove for the quirky eco-jazz/trip-hop by banging logs together, and banging rocks against logs. This imaginative use of percussive found objects enhanced their portrayal of forest as “a living, breathing entity.”In dealing with recent history in My Place, Ann Rice cameos a happy childhood growing up on a southwest farm, “damming creeks, climbing trees, breaking bones and skinning knees.” The rich string harmonies of Mel Robinson’s Shelter sculpt the shifting environment of a brewing storm, while White Haze by Tomás Ford describes a smoky controlled burn as “a kind of metaphor for the beautiful mystical healing nature of Northcliffe”: Someone’s burning off the scrubSomeone’s making sure it’s safeSomeone’s whiting out the fearSomeone’s letting me breathe clearAs Sinclair illuminates in a post-fire interview with Sharon Kennedy (Website):When your map, your personal map of life involves a place, and then you think that that place might be gone…” Fiona doesn't finish the sentence. “We all had to face the fact that our little place might disappear." Ultimately, only one house was lost. Pasture and fences, sheds and forest are gone. Yet, says Fiona, “We still have our town. As part of SFA’s ongoing commission, forest rhythm workshops explore different sound properties of potential materials for installing sound sculptures mimicking the surrounding flora and fauna. In 2015, SFA mounted After the Burn (a touring photographic exhibition) and Out of the Ashes (paintings and woodwork featuring ash, charcoal, and resin) (SFA, After the Burn 116). The forthcoming community project Rising From the Ashes will commemorate the fire and allow residents to connect and create as they heal and move forward—ten years on from the foundation of Understory.ConclusionThe Understory Art in Nature Trail stimulates curiosity. It clearly illustrates links between place-based social, economic and material conditions and creative practices and products within a forest that has both given shelter and “done people in.” The trail is an experimental field, a transformative locus in which dedicated physical space frees artists to culturalise forest through varied aesthetic modalities. Conversely, forest possesses agency for naturalising art as a symbol of place. Djiva’s song Ngank Boodjak “sings up the land” to revitalise the timelessness of prior occupation, while David Pye’s Cicadan Rhythms foregrounds the seasonal cycle of entomological music.In drawing out the richness and significance of place, the ecologically inspired album Canopy suggests that the community identity of a forested place may be informed by cultural, economic, geographical, and historical factors as well as endemic flora and fauna. Finally, the musical representation of place is not contingent upon blatant forms of environmentalism. The portrayals of Northcliffe respectfully associate Western Australian people and forests, yet as a place, the town has become an enduring icon for the plight of the Universal Old-growth Forest in all its natural glory, diverse human uses, and (real or perceived) abuses.ReferencesAustralian Broadcasting Commission. “Canopy: Songs for the Southern Forests.” Into the Music. Prod. Robyn Johnston. Radio National, 5 May 2007. 12 Aug. 2014 <http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/intothemusic/canopy-songs-for-the-southern-forests/3396338>.———. “Composer David Pye.” Interview with Andrew Ford. The Music Show, Radio National, 12 Sep. 2009. 30 Jan. 2015 <http://canadapodcasts.ca/podcasts/MusicShowThe/1225021>.Berg, Peter, and Raymond Dasmann. “Reinhabiting California.” Reinhabiting a Separate Country: A Bioregional Anthology of Northern California. Ed. Peter Berg. San Francisco: Planet Drum, 1978. 217-20.Crawford, Patricia, and Ian Crawford. Contested Country: A History of the Northcliffe Area, Western Australia. Perth: UWA P, 2003.Feld, Steven. 2001. “Lift-Up-Over Sounding.” The Book of Music and Nature: An Anthology of Sounds, Words, Thoughts. Ed. David Rothenberg and Marta Ulvaeus. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 2001. 193-206.Giblett, Rod. People and Places of Nature and Culture. Bristol: Intellect, 2011.Kato, Kumi. “Addressing Global Responsibility for Conservation through Cross-Cultural Collaboration: Kodama Forest, a Forest of Tree Spirits.” The Environmentalist 28.2 (2008): 148-54. 15 Apr. 2014 <http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10669-007-9051-6#page-1>.Kennedy, Sharon. “Local Knowledge Builds Vital Support Networks in Emergencies.” ABC South West WA, 10 Mar. 2015. 26 Mar. 2015 <http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2015/03/09/4193981.htm?site=southwestwa>.Morrison, Della Rae. E-mail. 15 July 2014.Pedelty, Mark. Ecomusicology: Rock, Folk, and the Environment. Philadelphia, PA: Temple UP, 2012.Pye, David. Telephone interview. 3 Sep. 2014.Relph, Edward. Place and Placelessness. London: Pion, 1976.Rice, Ann. Telephone interview. 2 Oct. 2014.Rose, Deborah Bird. Nourishing Terrains: Australian Aboriginal Views of Landscape and Wilderness. Australian Heritage Commission, 1996.Ryan, John C. Green Sense: The Aesthetics of Plants, Place and Language. Oxford: Trueheart Academic, 2012.Schine, Jennifer. “Movement, Memory and the Senses in Soundscape Studies.” Canadian Acoustics: Journal of the Canadian Acoustical Association 38.3 (2010): 100-01. 12 Apr. 2016 <http://jcaa.caa-aca.ca/index.php/jcaa/article/view/2264>.Sinclair, Fiona. Telephone interview. 6 Apr. 2014.Sinclair, Fiona, and Peter Hill. Personal Interview. 26 Sep. 2014.Southern Forest Arts. Canopy: Songs for the Southern Forests. CD coordinated by Fiona Sinclair. Recorded and produced by Lee Buddle. Sleeve notes by Robyn Johnston. West Perth: Sound Mine Studios, 2006.———. Southern Forest Sculpture Walk Catalogue. Northcliffe, WA, 2006. Unpaginated booklet.———. Understory—Art in Nature. 2009. 12 Apr. 2016 <http://www.understory.com.au/>.———. Trailguide. Understory. Presented by Southern Forest Arts, n.d.———. After the Burn: Stories, Poems and Photos Shared by the Local Community in Response to the 2015 Northcliffe and Windy Harbour Bushfire. 2nd ed. Ed. Fiona Sinclair. Northcliffe, WA., 2016.Truax, Barry, ed. Handbook for Acoustic Ecology. 2nd ed. Cambridge Street Publishing, 1999. 10 Apr. 2016 <http://www.sfu.ca/sonic-studio/handbook/Soundmark.html>.
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47

Rimbaud, Robin. "Scan and Deliver." M/C Journal 8, no. 4 (August 1, 2005). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2390.

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As I sit here, the radio announcer announces a feature on the forthcoming Big Brother series, another chance to engage in this collective shared experience, another opportunity to revel in your very own voyeuristic impulse, what once was private is now made public. Curiously it’s almost fifteen years ago since I released the first Scanner recordings Scanner 1 [1992] and Scanner 2 [1993] featuring the intercepted cellular phone conversations of unsuspecting talkers, which I edited into minimalist musical settings as if they were instruments, bringing into focus issues of privacy and the dichotomy between the public and the private spectrum. Sometimes the high frequency of cellular noise would pervade the atmosphere, at other junctures it would erupt into words and melt down to radio hiss. Intercepted in the data stream, transmissions would blend, blurring the voices and rupturing the light, creating audio transparencies of dreamy, cool ambience. In many ways they pre-empted our reality culture as it exists today. Having the technology to peel open virtually any zone of information and consume the contents, I used the scanner device itself – a modestly sophisticated radio receiver – to explore the relationship between the public and private spheres. Working with sound in this manner suggested a means of mapping the city, in which the scanner device provided an anonymous window into reality, cutting and pasting information to structure an alternative vernacular. It was a rare opportunity to record experience and highlight the threads of desire and interior narrative that we weave into our everyday lives. The sounds of an illicit affair, a liaison with a prostitute, a drug deal or a simple discussion of “what’s for dinner” all exist within an indiscriminate ocean of signals flying overhead, but just beyond our reach. Applying the tools in this manner, I was able to twist state-of-the-art technology in unconventional ways to intercept highly personalised and voyeuristic forms of info food: sound recordings, phone scans, modem and Net intercepts, all of which became material for my multi-layered soundscapes. Every live performance, recording or mix that has followed is still in its way a “true” representation of that moment in time and in that way relates to performance art in the temporality of its data – a “Sound Polaroid” – a way of capturing the moment in sound similar to that of a Polaroid camera, which seizes an image and immediately exposes it to permanence of interception. Is there an innate desire to remain invisible and yet hear the world, scanning it for its stories and secrets? Today for our media saturated culture, this almost fetishistic desire to know all, is expressed in the publishing of private communications, of letters, faxes or telephone conversations, giving rise to all kinds of debate on the nature of privacy and the extent to which its protection can be legislated for. Images come to mind from Wim Wender’s film Wings of Desire where the lead character is a fallen angel left on earth to try and understand the madness of mortal behaviour. At various points he is able to pass through public spaces, the library, an underground train, people’s innermost thoughts and concerns become audible to him while he remains invisible to them. It is here that these Scanner CDs mirror this fantasy of the 20th century: to know everything and to have access to all secrets without being observed. This desire continues to inform our entertainment and cultural channels and looks to continue to do so for some years yet. This listening-in and scanning of the private channels has a clear relationship to surveillance, and connects to an aesthetic explored in works such as the seminal video piece, Der Riese – The Giant (1983) where the artist collaged the contents of surveillance cameras from German supermarkets, subway platforms, traffic crossings and shopping centres, using the tools of commercial voyeurism. Without a director, nor actors nor script, this is a dehumanised exploration of a contemporary history of our post-modern times. Connecting the invisible dots between Vertov’s The Man with a Movie Camera and the Rodney King TV footage, this detached work resonates and celebrates new technology’s ability to film and map everything, scanning our landscape for future reference. We watch with a constant anticipation of resolution, of catching a moment, yet the suspension finally gives way to an exquisite boredom, the true revelation of watching others. The film closes with an alien landscape, unmarked by any human presence, moving over a simulated environment, a toy-town yet still patrolled by the power of surveillance. This corporate datasphere, revealed as a kind of digital fingerprint through its storage and distribution, has moved from security and surveillance to entertainment consumption. For me, zooming in on these spaces in between – between language and understanding, between the digital fallout of ones and zeros, between the redundant and undesired flotsam and jetsam of environmental acoustic space, led to a focus towards the cityscape. Scanning technology led towards an understanding and reading of the environment and city in a fresh manner. If an accent suggested a certain class, age or attitude, then how suggestive was the raw sound around these conversations, how influential was the location where each conversation was held? Sound is ever-present, sometimes as a constantly shifting whir, as a damp grain of footsteps, as the drone-like spangle of distant traffic, as the seemingly motionless air that ripples past our ears, or as the elegant stuttering trill of a bird overhead. How influential was this common envelope of space, the environment in which we consume sound and music? How does one define the spaces between music and sound? When we listen to a Walkman, how do we distinguish between that which is intended – the sound carrier – and that which is incidental: passing traffic, the roar of a plane, the screech of a train door, your own footsteps? Whether active (creator) or passive (listener) we set up a virtual space in which we are each free to explore the sonorous and acoustic strata of what is an intimate yet global expression of space, a simple translation of the social transformations wrought by new technologies. Projects that have followed since then have expanded upon these notions. In 1998 Liverpool became this cityscape of focus, where I produced a project, Stopstarting, which explored the acoustic debris of the city, premiering at the International Symposion on Electronic Art (ISEA) conference in September of that year. For this project I chose significant points of sound located in the city, partly based on random questions in interviewing local people, partly out of self-interest. From these I mapped out a walk that took me from one point to another, minidisc in hand, recording the acoustic data in that place, mapping out the city in sound, teasing out the language that the city speaks. I wanted to create, in a sense, a sound work similar to the opening scene in Robert Altman’s movie Short Cuts (1993), in which a helicopter hovers gently over the densely packed city landscape and the film scans into moments in the daily lives of its inhabitants. It is a motion across a city, an architectural electronic scanning of an almost invisible sound wave. Liverpool, like most cities, has its very own unique sound dialect. Historically one can recall the sound of the docks, the railway station, the Cavern Club where the Beatles played their earliest live shows, their brittle tunes floating through the air of memory. As in Der Riese, voices, traffic lights, announcement speakers, buses, building work, footsteps, telephones and cash machines became the key subjects, the lead players, and were manipulated and transformed into a composition that captured this Sound Polaroid of Liverpool at this particular point in 1998. The following year Surface Noise (1999) which explored the wow and flutter of my own city, London; taking people on a red Routemaster bus journey across the city from Big Ben to St. Paul’s Cathedral, where the sheet music of “London Bridge Is Falling Down” became the score and A-Z for both musical and geographical direction following a Cageian use of indeterminacy. Where each note fell onto the map of the city between these two points not only suggested a location at which to record but also a route that the bus would later follow with the public aboard. Performances followed this routing every night for three nights, at intervals throughout the evening, each re-assembling fragments of the city in terms of sound and image, suggesting the slight shifts in tone and shape in similar places but at very different hours, so that a busy West End street at 18:00 would transform into a ghostly emptiness at 21:00. Surface Noise became a form of alternative film soundtrack, where the film was simply the view through the dusty window of a double-decker bus. Through the brief space of a bus journey the work drew upon many of our common reserves of sonic recognition, mingling the folk memory of the nursery rhyme, the background roar of traffic and the private sounds we make, secure in the knowledge that no one else is listening. Most recently I was commissioned to create a work to celebrate Italian film director Michelangelo Antonioni’s 90th birthday. 52 Space (2002) uses sounds of the city of Rome and elements of his movie The Eclipse (1962) to create a soundtrack of an image of a city suspended in time, anonymous and surreal. The resulting work is a distilled narrative of seductive conversation, musical fragments and scanned city soundscapes. Selecting a series of 52 framed images from the closing moments of the film slowed down to a kind of mnemonic slide show and accompanied by audio culled from the movie, processed with twinkling elements from the soundtrack’s original melody, the live performance conveys a complex and mysterious chronicle, offering up a space for contemplation and reflection as the soundtrack weaves an imaginary narrative. It’s almost as if you are gently floating through the city, experiencing this dream-like state. All of my works have explored the hidden resonances and meanings within memory and, in particular, the subtle traces that people and their actions leave behind. My role has often been to discover and reveal these layers of history, scanning across the mediums, so the works are part urban guide, part urban geography and part detective fiction, raising questions about public and private space. Engaging with the tools of surveillance and scanning technology has given rise to an understanding of communication that was otherwise hidden. Revelation followed from a discovery of the possibilities of these devices. Recording and redirecting these moments back into the public stream has enabled me to construct an archaeology of loss, pathos and missed connections, a momentary forgotten past in our digital future, radioactive fossils of sound, image and the imagination. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Rimbaud, Robin. "Scan and Deliver." M/C Journal 8.4 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0508/05-rimbaud.php>. APA Style Rimbaud, R. (Aug. 2005) "Scan and Deliver," M/C Journal, 8(4). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0508/05-rimbaud.php>.
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48

Callaghan, Michaela. "Dancing Embodied Memory: The Choreography of Place in the Peruvian Andes." M/C Journal 15, no. 4 (August 18, 2012). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.530.

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This article is concerned with dance as an embodied form of collective remembering in the Andean department of Ayacucho in Peru. Andean dance and fiesta are inextricably linked with notions of identity, cultural heritage and history. Rather than being simply aesthetic —steps to music or a series of movements — dance is readable as being a deeper embodiment of the broader struggles and concerns of a people. As anthropologist Zoila Mendoza writes, in post-colonial countries such as those in Africa and Latin America, dance is and was a means “through which people contested, domesticated and reworked signs of domination in their society” (39). Andean dance has long been a space of contestation and resistance (Abercrombie; Bigenho; Isbell; Mendoza; Stern). It also functions as a repository, a dynamic archive which holds and tells the collective narrative of a cultural time and space. As Jane Cowan observes “dance is much more than knowing the steps; it involves both social knowledge and social power” (xii). In cultures where the written word has not played a central role in the construction and transmission of knowledge, dance is a particularly rich resource for understanding. “Embodied practice, along with and bound up with other cultural practices, offers a way of knowing” (Taylor 3). This is certainly true in the Andes of Peru where dance, music and fiesta are central to social, cultural, economic and political life. This article combines the areas of cultural memory with aspects of dance anthropology in a bid to reveal what is often unspoken and discover new ways of accessing and understanding non-verbal forms of memory through the embodied medium of dance. In societies where dance is integral to daily life the dance becomes an important resource for a deeper understanding of social and cultural memory. However, this characteristic of the dance has been largely overlooked in the field of memory studies. Paul Connerton writes, “… that there is an aspect of social memory which has been greatly ignored but is absolutely essential: bodily social memory” (382). I am interested in the role of dance as a site memory because as a dancer I am acutely aware of embodied memory and of the importance of dance as a narrative mode, not only for the dancer but also for the spectator. This article explores the case study of rural carnival performed in the city of Huamanga, in the Andean department of Ayacucho and includes interviews I conducted with rural campesinos (this literally translates as people from the country, however, it is a complex term imbedded with notions of class and race) between June 2009 and March 2010. Through examining the transformative effect of what I call the chorography of place, I argue that rural campesinos embody the memory of place, dancing that place into being in the urban setting as a means of remembering and maintaining connection to their homeland and salvaging cultural heritage.The department of Ayacucho is located in the South-Central Andes of Peru. The majority of the population are Quechua-speaking campesinos many of whom live in extreme poverty. Nestled in a cradle of mountains at 2,700 meters above sea level is the capital city of the same name. However, residents prefer the pre-revolutionary name of Huamanga. This is largely due to the fact that the word Ayacucho is a combination of two Quechua words Aya and Kucho which translate as Corner of the Dead. Given the recent history of the department it is not surprising that residents refer to their city as Huamanga instead of Ayacucho. Since 1980 the department of Ayacucho has become known as the birthplace of Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) and the ensuing 20 years of political violence between Sendero and counter insurgency forces. In 2000, the interim government convened the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC – CVR Spanish). In 2003, the TRC released its report which found that over 69,000 people were killed or disappeared during the conflict and hundreds of thousands more were forced to leave their homes (CVR). Those most affected by the violence and human rights abuses were predominantly from the rural population of the central-southern Andes (CVR). Following the release of the TRC Report the department of Ayacucho has become a centre for memory studies investigations and commemorative ceremonies. Whilst there are many traditional arts and creative expressions which commemorate or depict some aspect of the violence, dance is not used it this way. Rather, I contend that the dance is being salvaged as a means of remembering and connecting to place. Migration Brings ChangeAs a direct result of the political violence, the city of Huamanga experienced a large influx of people from the surrounding rural areas, who moved to the city in search of relative safety. Rapid forced migration from the country to the city made integration very difficult due to the sheer volume of displaced populations (Coronel 2). As a result of the internal conflict approximately 450 rural communities in the southern-central Andes were either abandoned or destroyed; 300 of these were in the department of Ayacucho. As a result, Huamanga experienced an enormous influx of rural migrants. In fact, according to the United Nations International Human Rights Instruments, 30 per cent of all people displaced by the violence moved to Ayacucho (par. 39). As campesinos moved to the city in search of safety they formed new neighbourhoods on the outskirts of the city. Although many are now settled in Huamanga, holding professional positions, working in restaurants, running stalls, or owning shops, most maintain strong links to their community of origin. The ways in which individuals sustain connection to their homelands are many and varied. However, dance and fiesta play a central role in maintaining connection.During the years of violence, Sendero Luminoso actively prohibited the celebration of traditional ceremonies and festivals which they considered to be “archaic superstition” (Garcia 40). Reprisals for defying Sendero Luminoso directives were brutal; as a result many rural inhabitants restricted their ritual practices for fear of the tuta puriqkuna or literally, night walkers (Ritter 27). This caused a sharp decline in ritual custom during the conflict (27).As a result, many Ayacuchano campesinos feel they have been robbed of their cultural heritage and identity. There is now a conscious effort to rescatar y recorder or to salvage and remember what was been taken from them, or, in the words of Ruben Romani, a dance teacher from Huanta, “to salvage what was killed during the difficult years.”Los Carnavales Ayacuchanos Whilst carnival is celebrated in many parts of the world, the mention of carnival often evokes images of scantily clad Brazilians dancing to the samba rhythms in the streets of Rio de Janeiro, or visions of elaborate floats and extravagant costumes. None of these are to be found in Huamanga. Rather, the carnival dances celebrated by campesinos in Huamanga are not celebrations of ‘the now’ or for the benefit of tourists, but rather they are embodiments of the memory of a lost place. During carnival, that lost or left homeland is danced into being in the urban setting as a means of maintaining a connection to the homeland and of salvaging cultural heritage.In the Andes, carnival coincides with the first harvest and is associated with fertility and giving thanks. It is considered a time of joy and to be a great leveller. In Huamanga carnival is one of the most anticipated fiestas of the year. As I was told many times “carnival is for everyone” and “we all participate.” From the old to the very young, the rich and poor, men and women all participate in carnival."We all participate." Carnavales Rurales (rural carnival) is celebrated each Sunday during the three weeks leading up to the official time of carnival before Lent. Campesinos from the same rural communities, join together to form comparsas, or groups. Those who participate identify as campesinos; even though many participants have lived in the city for more than 20 years. Some of the younger participants were born in the city. Whilst some campesinos, displaced by the violence, are now returning to their communities, many more have chosen to remain in Huamanga. One such person is Rómulo Canales Bautista. Rómulo dances with the comparsa Claveles de Vinchos.Rómulo Bautista dancing the carnival of VinchosOriginally from Vinchos, Rómulo moved to Huamanga in search of safety when he was a boy after his father was killed. Like many who participate in rural carnival, Rómulo has lived in Huamanga for a many years and for the most part he lives a very urban existence. He completed his studies at the university and works as a professional with no plans to return permanently to Vinchos. However, Rómulo considers himself to be campesino, stating “I am campesino. I identify myself as I am.” Rómulo laughed as he explained “I was not born dancing.” Since moving to Huamanga, Rómulo learned the carnival dance of Vinchos as a means of feeling a connection to his place of origin. He now participates in rural carnival each year and is the captain of his comparsa. For Rómulo, carnival is his cultural inheritance and that which connects him to his homeland. Living and working in the urban setting whilst maintaining strong links to their homelands through the embodied expressions of fiesta, migrants like Rómulo negotiate and move between an urbanised mestizo identity and a rural campesino identity. However, for rural migrants living in Huamanga, it is campesino identity which holds greater importance during carnival. This is because carnival allows participants to feel a visceral connection to both land and ancestry. As Gerardo Muñoz, a sixty-seven year old migrant from Chilcas explained “We want to make our culture live again, it is our patrimony, it is what our grandfathers have left us of their wisdom and how it used to be. This is what we cultivate through our carnival.”The Plaza TransformedComparsa from Huanta enter the PlazaEach Sunday during the three weeks leading up to the official time of carnival the central Plaza is transformed by the dance, music and song of up to seventy comparsas participating in Carnavales Rurales. Rural Carnival has a transformative effect not only on participants but also on the wider urban population. At this time campesinos, who are generally marginalised, discounted or actively discriminated against, briefly hold a place of power and respect. For a few hours each Sunday they are treated as masters of an ancient art. It is no easy task to conjure the dynamic sensory world of dance in words. As Deidre Sklar questions, “how is the ineffable to be made available in words? How shall I draw out the effects of dancing? Imperfectly, and slowly, bit by bit, building fragments of sensation and association so that its pieces lock in with your sensory memories like a jigsaw puzzle” (17).Recalling the DanceAs comparsas arrive in the Plaza there is creative chaos and the atmosphere hums with excitement as more and more comparsas gather for the pasecalle or parade. At the corner of the plaza, the deafening crack of fire works, accompanied by the sounds of music and the blasting of whistles announce the impending arrival of another comparsa. They are Los Hijos de Chilcas from Chilcas in La Mar in the north-east of the department. They proudly dance and sing their way into the Plaza – bodies strong, their movements powerful yet fluid. Their heads are lifted to greet the crowd, their chests wide and open, eyes bright with pride. Led by the capitán, the dancers form two long lines in pairs the men at the front, followed by the women. All the men carry warakas, long whips of plaited leather which they crack in the air as they dance. These are ancient weapons which are later used in a ritual battle. They dance in a swinging stepping motion that swerves and snakes, winds and weaves along the road. At various intervals the two lines open out, doubling back on themselves creating two semicircles. The men wear frontales, pieces of material which hang down the front of the legs, attached with long brightly coloured ribbons. The dancers make high stepping motions, kicking the frontales up in the air as they go; as if moving through high grasses. The ribbons swish and fly around the men and they are clouded in a blur of colour and movement. The women follow carrying warakitas, which are shorter and much finer. They hold their whips in two hands, stretched wide in front of their bodies or sweeping from side to side above their heads. They wear large brightly coloured skirts known as polleras made from heavy material which swish and swoosh as they dance from side to side – step, touch together, bounce; step, touch together, bounce. The women follow the serpent pattern of the men. Behind the women are the musicians playing guitars, quenas and tinyas. The musicians are followed by five older men dressed in pants and suit coats carrying ponchos draped over the right shoulder. They represent the traditional community authorities known as Varayuq and karguyuq. The oldest of the men is carrying the symbols of leadership – the staff and the whip.The Choreography of PlaceFor the members of Los Hijos de Chilcas the dance represents the topography of their homeland. The steps and choreography are created and informed by the dancers’ relationship to the land from which they come. La Mar is a very mountainous region where, as one dancer explained, it is impossible to walk a straight line up or down the terrain. One must therefore weave a winding path so as not to slip and fall. As the dancers snake and weave, curl and wind they literally dance their “place” of origin into being. With each swaying movement of their body, with each turn and with every footfall on the earth, dancers lay the mountainous terrain of La Mar along the paved roads of the Plaza. The flying ribbons of the frontales evoke the long grasses of the hillsides. “The steps are danced in the form of a zigzag which represents the changeable and curvilinear paths that join the towns, as well as creating the figure eight which represents the eight anexos of the district” (Carnaval Tradicional). Los Hijos de ChilcasThe weaving patterns and the figure eights of the dance create a choreography of place, which reflects and evoke the land. This choreography of place is built upon with each step of the dance many of which emulate the native fauna. One of the dancers explained whilst demonstrating a hopping step “this is the step of a little bird” common to La Mar. With his body bent forward from the waist, left hand behind his back and elbow out to the side like a wing, stepping forward on the left leg and sweeping the right leg in half circle motion, he indeed resembled a little bird hopping along the ground. Other animals such as the luwichu or deer are also represented through movement and costume.Katrina Teaiwa notes that the peoples of the South Pacific dance to embody “not space but place”. This is true also for campesinos from Chilcas living in the urban setting, who invoke their place of origin and the time of the ancestors as they dance their carnival. The notion of place is not merely terrain. It includes the nature elements, the ancestors and those who also those who have passed away. The province of La Mar was one of the most severely affected areas during the years of internal armed conflict especially during 1983-1984. More than 1,400 deaths and disappearances were reported to the TRC for this period alone (CVR). Hundreds of people were forced to leave their homes and in many communities it became impossible to celebrate fiestas. Through the choreography of place dancers transform the urban streets and dance the very land of their origin into being, claiming the urban streets as their own. The importance of this act can not be overstated for campesinos who have lost family members and were forced to leave their communities during the years of violence. As Deborah Poole has noted dance is “…the active Andean voice …” (99). As comparsa members teach their children the carnival dance of their parents and grandparents they maintain ancestral connections and pass on the stories and embodied memories of their homes. Much of the literature on carnival views it as a release valve which allows a temporary freedom but which ultimately functions to reinforce established structures. This is no longer the case in Huamanga. The transformative effect of rural carnival goes beyond the moment of the dance. Through dancing the choreography of place campesinos salvage and restore that which was taken from them; the effects of which are felt by both the dancer and spectator.ConclusionThe closer examination of dance as embodied memory reveals those memory practices which may not necessarily voice the violence directly, but which are enacted, funded and embodied and thus, important to the people most affected by the years of conflict and violence. In conclusion, the dance of rural carnival functions as embodied memory which is danced into being through collective participation; through many bodies working together. Dancers who participate in rural carnival have absorbed the land sensorially and embodied it. Through dancing the land they give it form and bring embodied memory into being, imbuing the paved roads of the plaza with the mountainous terrain of their home land. For those born in the city, they come to know their ancestral land through the Andean voice of dance. The dance of carnival functions in a unique way making it possible for participants recall their homelands through a physical memory and to dance their place into being wherever they are. This corporeal memory goes beyond the normal understanding of memory as being of the mind for as Connerton notes “images of the past are remembered by way of ritual performances that are ‘stored’ in a bodily memory” (89). ReferencesAbercrombie, Thomas A. “La fiesta de carnaval postcolonial en Oruro: Clase, etnicidad y nacionalismo en la danza folklórica.” Revista Andina 10.2 (1992): 279-352.Carnaval Tradicional del Distrito de Chilcas – La Mar, Comparsas de La Asociación Social – Cultural “Los Hijos de Chilcas y Anexos”, pamphlet handed to the judges of the Atipinakuy, 2010.CVR. Informe Final. Lima: Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación, 2003. 1 March 2008 < http://www.cverdad.org.pe >.Bigenho, Michelle. “Sensing Locality in Yura: Rituals of Carnival and of the Bolivian State.” American Ethnologist 26.4 (1999): 95-80.Connerton, Paul. How Societies Remember. Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 1989.Coronel Aguirre, José, M. Cabrera Romero, G. Machaca Calle, and R. Ochatoma Paravivino. “Análisis de acciones del carnaval ayacuchano – 1986.” Carnaval en Ayacucho, CEDIFA, Investigaciones No. 1, 1986.Cowan, Jane. Dance and the Body Politic in Northern Greece. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1990.Garcia, Maria Elena. Making Indigenous Citizens: Identities, Education and Multicultural Development in Peru. California: Stanford University Press, 2005.Isbelle, Billie Jean. To Defend Ourselves: Ecology and Ritual in an Andean Village. Illinois: Waveland Press, 1985.Mendoza, Zoila S. Shaping Society through Dance: Mestizo Ritual Performance in the Peruvian Andes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.Poole, Deborah. “Andean Ritual Dance.” TDR 34.2 (Summer 1990): 98-126.Ritter, Jonathan. “Siren Songs: Ritual and Revolution in the Peruvian Andes.” British Journal of Ethnomusicology 11.1 (2002): 9-42.Sklar, Deidre. “‘All the Dances Have a Meaning to That Apparition”: Felt Knowledge and the Danzantes of Tortugas, New Mexico.” Dance Research Journal 31.2 (Autumn 1999): 14-33.Stern, Steve J. Peru’s Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest: Huamanga to 1640. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982.Taylor, Diana. The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003.Teaiwa, Katerina. "Challenges to Dance! Choreographing History in Oceania." Paper for Greg Denning Memorial Lecture, Melbourne University, Melbourne, 14 Oct. 2010.United Nations International Human Rights Instruments. Core Document Forming Part of the Reports of States Parties: Peru. 27 June 1995. HRI/CORE/1/Add.43/Rev.1. 12 May 2012 < http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6ae1f8.html >.
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49

Vavasour, Kris. "Pop Songs and Solastalgia in a Broken City." M/C Journal 20, no. 5 (October 13, 2017). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1292.

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Abstract:
IntroductionMusically-inclined people often speak about the soundtrack of their life, with certain songs indelibly linked to a specific moment. When hearing a particular song, it can “easily evoke a whole time and place, distant feelings and emotions, and memories of where we were, and with whom” (Lewis 135). Music has the ability to provide maps to real and imagined spaces, positioning people within a larger social environment where songs “are never just a song, but a connection, a ticket, a pass, an invitation, a node in a complex network” (Kun 3). When someone is lost in the music, they can find themselves transported somewhere else entirely without physically moving. This can be a blessing in some situations, for example, while living in a disaster zone, when almost any other time or place can seem better than the here and now. The city of Christchurch, New Zealand was hit by a succession of damaging earthquakes beginning with a magnitude 7.1 earthquake in the early hours of 4 September 2010. The magnitude 6.3 earthquake of 22 February 2011, although technically an aftershock of the September earthquake, was closer and shallower, with intense ground acceleration that caused much greater damage to the city and its people (“Scientists”). It was this February earthquake that caused the total or partial collapse of many inner city buildings, and claimed the lives of 185 people. Everybody in Christchurch lost someone or something that day: their house or job; family members, friends, or colleagues; the city as they knew it; or their normal way of life. The broken central city was quickly cordoned off behind fences, with the few entry points guarded by local and international police and armed military personnel.In the aftermath of a disaster, circumstances and personal attributes will influence how people react, think and feel about the experience. Surviving a disaster is more than not dying, “survival is to do with quality of life [and] involves progressing from the event and its aftermath, and transforming the experience” (Hodgkinson and Stewart 2). In these times of heightened stress, music can be a catalyst for sharing and expressing emotions, connecting people and communities, and helping them make sense of what has happened (Carr 38; Webb 437). This article looks at some of the ways that popular songs and musical memories helped residents of a broken city remember the past and come to terms with the present.BackgroundExisting songs can take on new significance after a catastrophic event, even without any alteration. Songs such as Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans? and Prayer for New Orleans have been given new emotional layers by those who were displaced or affected by Hurricane Katrina (Cooper 265; Sullivan 15). A thirty year-old song by Randy Newman, Louisiana, 1927, became something of “a contemporary anthem, its chorus – ‘Louisiana, they’re trying to wash us away’ – bearing new relevance” (Blumenfeld 166). Contemporary popular songs have also been re-mixed or revised after catastrophic events, either by the original artist or by others. Elton John’s Candle in the Wind and Beyonce’s Halo have each been revised twice by the artist after tragedy and disaster (Doyle; McAlister), while radio stations in the United States have produced commemorative versions of popular songs to mark tragedies and their anniversaries (Beaumont-Thomas; Cantrell). The use and appreciation of music after disaster is a reminder that popular music is fluid, in that it “refuses to provide a uniform or static text” (Connell and Gibson 3), and can simultaneously carry many different meanings.Music provides a soundtrack to daily life, creating a map of meaning to the world around us, or presenting a reminder of the world as it once was. Tia DeNora explains that when people hear a song that was once heard in, and remains associated with, a particular time and place, it “provides a device for unfolding, for replaying, the temporal structure of that moment, [which] is why, for so many people, the past ‘comes alive’ to its soundtrack” (67). When a community is frequently and collectively casting their minds back to a time before a catastrophic change, a sense of community identity can be seen in the use of, and reaction to, particular songs. Music allows people to “locate themselves in different imaginary geographics at one and the same time” (Cohen 93), creating spaces for people to retreat into, small ‘audiotopias’ that are “built, imagined, and sustained through sound, noise, and music” (Kun 21). The use of musical escape holes is prevalent after disaster, as many once-familiar spaces that have changed beyond recognition or are no longer able to be physically visited, can be easily imagined or remembered through music. There is a particular type of longing expressed by those who are still at home and yet cannot return to the home they knew. Whereas nostalgia is often experienced by people far from home who wish to return or those enjoying memories of a bygone era, people after disaster often encounter a similar nostalgic feeling but with no change in time or place: a loss without leaving. Glenn Albrecht coined the term ‘solastalgia’ to represent “the form of homesickness one experiences when one is still at home” (35). This sense of being unable to find solace in one’s home environment can be brought on by natural disasters such as fire, flood, earthquakes or hurricanes, or by other means like war, mining, climate change or gentrification. Solastalgia is often felt most keenly when people experience the change first-hand and then have to adjust to life in a totally changed environment. This can create “chronic distress of a solastalgic kind [that] would persist well after the acute phase of post-traumatic distress” (Albrecht 36). Just as the visible, physical effects of disaster last for years, so too do the emotional effects, but there have been many examples of how the nostalgia inherent in a shared popular music soundtrack has eased the pain of solastalgia for a community that is hurting.Pop Songs and Nostalgia in ChristchurchIn September 2011, one year after the initial earthquake, the Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) announced a collaboration with Christchurch hip hop artist, Scribe, to remake his smash hit, Not Many, for charity. Back in 2003, Not Many debuted at number five on the New Zealand music charts, where it spent twelve weeks at number one and was crowned ‘Single of the Year’ (Sweetman, On Song 164). The punchy chorus heralded Scribe as a force to be reckoned with, and created a massive imprint on New Zealand popular culture with the line: “How many dudes you know roll like this? Not many, if any” (Scribe, Not Many). Music critic, Simon Sweetman, explains how “the hook line of the chorus [is now] a conversational aside that is practically unavoidable when discussing amounts… The words ‘not many’ are now truck-and-trailered with ‘if any’. If you do not say them, you are thinking them” (On Song 167). The strong links between artist and hometown – and the fact it is an enduringly catchy song – made it ideal for a charity remake. Reworded and reworked as Not Many Cities, the chorus now asks: “How many cities you know roll like this?” to which the answer is, of course, “not many, if any” (Scribe/BNZ, Not Many Cities). The remade song entered the New Zealand music charts at number 36 and the video was widely shared through social media but not all reception was positive. Parts of the video were shot in the city’s Red Zone, the central business district that was cordoned off from public access due to safety concerns. The granting of special access outraged some residents, with letters to the editor and online commentary expressing frustration that celebrities were allowed into the Red Zone to shoot a music video while those directly affected were not allowed in to retrieve essential items from residences and business premises. However, it is not just the Red Zone that features: the video switches between Scribe travelling around the broken inner city on the back of a small truck and lingering shots of carefully selected people, businesses, and groups – all with ties to the BNZ as either clients or beneficiaries of sponsorship. In some ways, Not Many Cities comes across like just another corporate promotional video for the BNZ, albeit with more emotion and a better soundtrack than usual. But what it has bequeathed is a snapshot of the city as it was in that liminal time: a landscape featuring familiar buildings, spaces and places which, although damaged, was still a recognisable version of the city that existed before the earthquakes.Before Scribe burst onto the music scene in the early 2000s, the best-known song about Christchurch was probably Christchurch (in Cashel St. I wait), an early hit from the Exponents (Mitchell 189). Initially known as the Dance Exponents, the group formed in Christchurch in the early 1980s and remained local and national favourites thanks to a string of hits Sweetman refers to as “the question-mark songs,” such as Who Loves Who the Most?, Why Does Love Do This to Me?, and What Ever Happened to Tracey? (Best Songwriter). Despite disbanding in 1999, the group re-formed to be the headline act of ‘Band Together’—a multi-artist, outdoor music event organised for the benefit of Christchurch residents by local musician, Jason Kerrison, formerly of the band OpShop. Attended by over 140,000 people (Anderson, Band Together), this nine-hour event brought joy and distraction to a shaken and stressed populace who, at that point in time (October 2010), probably thought the worst was over.The Exponents took the stage last, and chose Christchurch (in Cashel St. I Wait) as their final number. Every musician involved in the gig joined them on stage and the crowd rose to their feet, singing along with gusto. A local favourite since its release in 1985, the verses may have been a bit of a mumble for some, but the chorus rang out loud and clear across the park: Christchurch, In Cashel Street I wait,Together we will be,Together, together, together, One day, one day, one day,One day, one day, one daaaaaay! (Exponents, “Christchurch (in Cashel St. I Wait)”; lyrics written as sung)At that moment, forming an impromptu community choir of over 100,000 people, the audience was filled with hope and faith that those words would come true. Life would go on and people would gather together in Cashel Street and wait for normality to return, one day. Later the following year, the opening of the Re:Start container mall added an extra layer of poignancy to the song lyrics. Denied access to most of the city’s CBD, that one small part of Cashel Street now populated with colourful shipping containers was almost the only place in central Christchurch where people could wait. There are many music videos that capture the central city of Christchurch as it was in decades past. There are some local classics, like The Bats’ Block of Wood and Claudine; The Shallows’ Suzanne Said; Moana and the Moahunters’ Rebel in Me; and All Fall Down’s Black Gratten, which were all filmed in the 1980s or early 1990s (Goodsort, Re-Live and More Music). These videos provide many flashback moments to the city as it was twenty or thirty years ago. However, one post-earthquake release became an accidental musical time capsule. The song, Space and Place, was released in February 2013, but both song and video had been recorded not long before the earthquakes occurred. The song was inspired by the feelings experienced when returning home after a long absence, and celebrates the importance of the home town as “a place that knows you as well as you know it” (Anderson, Letter). The chorus features the line, “streets of common ground, I remember, I remember” (Franklin, Mayes, and Roberts, Space and Place), but it is the video, showcasing many of the Christchurch places and spaces only recently lost to the earthquakes, that tugs at people’s heartstrings. The video for Space and Place sweeps through the central city at night, with key heritage buildings like the Christ Church Cathedral, and the Catholic Basilica lit up against the night sky (both are still damaged and inaccessible). Producer and engineer, Rob Mayes, describes the video as “a love letter to something we all lost [with] the song and its lyrics [becoming] even more potent, poignant, and unexpectedly prescient post quake” (“Songs in the Key”). The Arts Centre features prominently in the footage, including the back alleys and archways that hosted all manner of night-time activities – sanctioned or otherwise – as well as many people’s favourite hangout, the Dux de Lux (the Dux). Operating from the corner of the Arts Centre site since the 1970s, the Dux has been described as “the city’s common room” and “Christchurch’s beating heart” by musicians mourning its loss (Anderson, Musicians). While the repair and restoration of some parts of the Arts Centre is currently well advanced, the Student Union building that once housed this inner-city social institution is not slated for reopening until 2019 (“Rebuild and Restore”), and whether the Dux will be welcomed back remains to be seen. Empty Spaces, Missing PlacesA Facebook group, ‘Save Our Dux,’ was created in early March 2011, and quickly filled with messages and memories from around the world. People wandered down memory lane together as they reminisced about their favourite gigs and memorable occasions, like the ‘Big Snow’ of 1992 when the Dux served up mulled wine and looked more like a ski chalet. Memories were shared about the time when the music video for the Dance Exponents’ song, Victoria, was filmed at the Dux and the Art Deco-style apartment building across the street. The reminiscing continued, establishing and strengthening connections, with music providing a stepping stone to shared experience and a sense of community. Physically restricted from visiting a favourite social space, people were converging in virtual hangouts to relive moments and remember places now cut off by the passing of time, the falling of bricks, and the rise of barrier fences.While waiting to find out whether the original Dux site can be re-occupied, the business owners opened new venues that housed different parts of the Dux business (live music, vegetarian food, and the bars/brewery). Although the fit-out of the restaurant and bars capture a sense of the history and charm that people associate with the Dux brand, the empty wasteland and building sites that surround the new Dux Central quickly destroy any illusion of permanence or familiarity. Now that most of the quake-damaged buildings have been demolished, the freshly-scarred earth of the central city is like a child’s gap-toothed smile. Wandering around the city and forgetting what used to occupy an empty space, wanting to visit a shop or bar before remembering it is no longer there, being at the Dux but not at the Dux – these are the kind of things that contributed to a feeling that local music writer, Vicki Anderson, describes as “lost city syndrome” (“Lost City”). Although initially worried she might be alone in mourning places lost, other residents have shared similar experiences. In an online comment on the article, one local resident explained how there are two different cities fighting for dominance in their head: “the new keeps trying to overlay the old [but] when I’m not looking at pictures, or in seeing it as it is, it’s the old city that pushes its way to the front” (Juniper). Others expressed relief that they were not the only ones feeling strangely homesick in their own town, homesick for a place they never left but that had somehow left them.There are a variety of methods available to fill the gaps in both memories and cityscape. The Human Interface Technology Laboratory New Zealand (HITLab), produced a technological solution: interactive augmented reality software called CityViewAR, using GPS data and 3D models to show parts of the city as they were prior to the earthquakes (“CityViewAR”). However, not everybody needed computerised help to remember buildings and other details. Many people found that, just by listening to a certain song or remembering particular gigs, it was not just an image of a building that appeared but a multi-sensory event complete with sound, movement, smell, and emotion. In online spaces like the Save Our Dux group, memories of favourite bands and songs, crowded gigs, old friends, good times, great food, and long nights were shared and discussed, embroidering a rich and colourful tapestry about a favourite part of Christchurch’s social scene. ConclusionMusic is strongly interwoven with memory, and can recreate a particular moment in time and place through the associations carried in lyrics, melody, and imagery. Songs can spark vivid memories of what was happening – when, where, and with whom. A song shared is a connection made: between people; between moments; between good times and bad; between the past and the present. Music provides a soundtrack to people’s lives, and during times of stress it can also provide many benefits. The lyrics and video imagery of songs made in years gone by have been shown to take on new significance and meaning after disaster, offering snapshots of times, people and places that are no longer with us. Even without relying on the accompanying imagery of a video, music has the ability to recreate spaces or relocate the listener somewhere other than the physical location they currently occupy. This small act of musical magic can provide a great deal of comfort when suffering solastalgia, the feeling of homesickness one experiences when the familiar landscapes of home suddenly change or disappear, when one has not left home but that home has nonetheless gone from sight. The earthquakes (and the demolition crews that followed) have created a lot of empty land in Christchurch but the sound of popular music has filled many gaps – not just on the ground, but also in the hearts and lives of the city’s residents. ReferencesAlbrecht, Glenn. “Solastalgia.” Alternatives Journal 32.4/5 (2006): 34-36.Anderson, Vicki. “A Love Letter to Christchurch.” Stuff 22 Feb. 2013. <http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/christchurch-life/art-and-stage/christchurch-music/8335491/A-love-letter-to-Christchurch>.———. “Band Together.” Supplemental. The Press. 25 Oct. 2010: 1. ———. “Lost City Syndrome.” Stuff 19 Mar. 2012. <http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/blogs/rock-and-roll-mother/6600468/Lost-city-syndrome>.———. “Musicians Sing Praises in Call for ‘Vital Common Room’ to Reopen.” The Press 7 Jun. 2011: A8. Beaumont-Thomas, Ben. “Exploring Musical Responses to 9/11.” Guardian 9 Sep. 2011. <https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2011/sep/09/musical-responses-9-11>. Blumenfeld, Larry. “Since the Flood: Scenes from the Fight for New Orleans Jazz Culture.” Pop When the World Falls Apart. Ed. Eric Weisbard. Durham: Duke UP, 2012. 145-175.Cantrell, Rebecca. “These Emotional Musical Tributes Are Still Powerful 20 Years after Oklahoma City Bombing.” KFOR 18 Apr. 2015. <http://kfor.com/2015/04/18/these-emotional-musical-tributes-are-still-powerful-20-years-after-oklahoma-city-bombing/>.Carr, Revell. ““We Never Will Forget”: Disaster in American Folksong from the Nineteenth Century to September 11, 2011.” Voices 30.3/4 (2004): 36-41. “CityViewAR.” HITLab NZ, ca. 2011. <http://www.hitlabnz.org/index.php/products/cityviewar>. Cohen, Sara. Decline, Renewal and the City in Popular Music Culture: Beyond the Beatles. Hampshire: Ashgate, 2007. Connell, John, and Chris Gibson. Soundtracks: Popular Music, Identity and Place. London: Routledge, 2003.Cooper, B. Lee. “Right Place, Wrong Time: Discography of a Disaster.” Popular Music and Society 31.2 (2008): 263-4. DeNora, Tia. Music in Everyday Life. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. Doyle, Jack. “Candle in the Wind, 1973 & 1997.” Pop History Dig 26 Apr. 2008. <http://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/candle-in-the-wind1973-1997/>. Goodsort, Paul. “More Music Videos Set in Pre-Quake(s) Christchurch.” Mostly within Human Hearing Range. 3 Dec. 2011. <http://humanhearingrange.blogspot.co.nz/2011/12/more-music-videos-set-in-pre-quakes.html>.———. “Re-Live the ‘Old’ Christchurch in Music Videos.” Mostly within Human Hearing Range. 7 Nov. 2011. <http://humanhearingrange.blogspot.co.nz/2011/11/re-live-old-christchurch-in-music.html>. Hodgkinson, Peter, and Michael Stewart. Coping with Catastrophe: A Handbook of Disaster Management. London: Routledge, 1991. Juniper. “Lost City Syndrome.” Comment. Stuff 19 Mar. 2012. <http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/blogs/rock-and-roll-mother/6600468/Lost-city-syndrome>.Kun, Josh. Audiotopia. Berkeley: U of California P, 2005. Lewis, George H. “Who Do You Love? The Dimensions of Musical Taste.” Popular Music and Communication. Ed. James Lull. London: Sage, 1992. 134-151. Mayes, Rob. “Songs in the Key-Space and Place.” Failsafe Records. Mar. 2013. <http://www.failsaferecords.com/>.McAlister, Elizabeth. “Soundscapes of Disaster and Humanitarianism.” Small Axe 16.3 (2012): 22-38. Mitchell, Tony. “Flat City Sounds Redux: A Musical ‘Countercartography’ of Christchurch.” Home, Land and Sea: Situating Music in Aotearoa New Zealand. Eds. Glenda Keam and Tony Mitchell. Auckland: Pearson, 2011. 176-194.“Rebuild and Restore.” Arts Centre, ca. 2016. <http://www.artscentre.org.nz/rebuild---restore.html>.“Scientists Find Rare Mix of Factors Exacerbated the Christchurch Quake.” GNS [Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences Limited] Science 16 Mar. 2011. <http://www.gns.cri.nz/Home/News-and-Events/Media-Releases/Multiple-factors>. Sullivan, Jack. “In New Orleans, Did the Music Die?” Chronicle of Higher Education 53.3 (2006): 14-15. Sweetman, Simon. “New Zealand’s Best Songwriter.” Stuff 18 Feb. 2011. <http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/blogs/blog-on-the-tracks/4672532/New-Zealands-best-songwriter>.———. On Song. Auckland: Penguin, 2012.Webb, Gary. “The Popular Culture of Disaster: Exploring a New Dimension of Disaster Research.” Handbook of Disaster Research. Eds. Havidan Rodriguez, Enrico Quarantelli and Russell Dynes. New York: Springer, 2006. 430-440. MusicAll Fall Down. “Black Gratten.” Wallpaper Coat [EP]. New Zealand: Flying Nun, 1987.Bats. “Block of Wood” [single]. New Zealand: Flying Nun, 1987. ———. “Claudine.” And Here’s Music for the Fireside [EP]. New Zealand: Flying Nun, 1985. Beyonce. “Halo.” I Am Sacha Fierce. USA: Columbia, 2008.Charlie Miller. “Prayer for New Orleans.” Our New Orleans. USA: Nonesuch, 2005. (Dance) Exponents. “Christchurch (in Cashel St. I Wait).” Expectations. New Zealand: Mushroom Records, 1985.———. “Victoria.” Prayers Be Answered. New Zealand: Mushroom, 1982. ———. “What Ever Happened to Tracy?” Something Beginning with C. New Zealand: PolyGram, 1992.———. “Who Loves Who the Most?” Something Beginning with C. New Zealand: PolyGram, 1992.———. “Why Does Love Do This to Me?” Something Beginning with C. New Zealand: PolyGram, 1992.Elton John. “Candle in the Wind.” Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. United Kingdom: MCA, 1973.Franklin, Leigh, Rob Mayes, and Mark Roberts. “Space and Place.” Songs in the Key. New Zealand: Failsafe, 2013. Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday. “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans.” New Orleans Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. USA: Giants of Jazz, 1983 (originally recorded 1947). Moana and the Moahunters. “Rebel in Me.” Tahi. New Zealand: Southside, 1993.Randy Newman. “Louisiana 1927.” Good Old Boys. USA: Reprise, 1974.Scribe. “Not Many.” The Crusader. New Zealand: Dirty Records/Festival Mushroom, 2003.Scribe/BNZ. “Not Many Cities.” [charity single]. New Zealand, 2011. The Shallows. “Suzanne Said.” [single]. New Zealand: self-released, 1985.
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50

Eyssens, Terry. "By the Fox or the Little Eagle: What Remains Not Regional?" M/C Journal 22, no. 3 (June 19, 2019). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1532.

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Abstract:
IntroductionI work at a regional campus of La Trobe University, Australia. More precisely, I work at the Bendigo campus of La Trobe University. At Bendigo, we are often annoyed when referred to and addressed as ‘regional’ students and staff. Really, we should not be. After all, Bendigo campus is an outpost of La Trobe’s metropolitan base. It is funded, run, and directed from Bundoora (Melbourne). The word ‘regional’ simply describes the situation. A region is an “administrative division of a city or a district [… or …] a country” (Brown 2528). And the Latin etymology of region (regio, regere) includes “direction, line”, and “rule” (Kidd 208, 589). Just as the Bendigo campus of La Trobe is a satellite of the metropolitan campus, the town of Bendigo is an outpost of Melbourne. So, when we are addressed and interpellated (Althusser 48) as regional, it is a reminder of the ongoing fact that Australia is (still) a colony, an outpost of empire, a country organised on the colonial model. From central administrative hubs, spokes of communication, and transportation spread to the outposts. When Bendigo students and staff are addressed as regional, in a way we are also being addressed as colonial.In this article, the terms ‘region’ and ‘regional’ are deployed as inextricably associated with the Australian version of colonialism. In Australia, in the central metropolitan hubs, where the colonial project is at its most comprehensive, it is hard to see what remains, to see what has escaped that project. The aim of this article is to explore how different aspects of the country escape the totalising project of Australian colonialism. This exploration is undertaken primarily through a discussion of the ways in which some places on this continent remain not regional (and thus, not colonial) how they keep the metropolis at bay, and how they, thus, keep Europe at bay. This discussion includes a general overview of the Australian colonial project, particularly as it pertains to First Nations Peoples, their knowledge and philosophies, and the continent’s unique ecologies. Then the article becomes more speculative, imagining different ways of seeing and experiencing time and place in this country, ways of seeing the remains and refuges of pre-1788, not-regional, and not-colonial Australia. In these remains and refuges, there persist the flourishing and radical difference of this continent’s ecologies and, not surprisingly, the radical suitedness of tens of thousands of years of First Nations Peoples’ culture and thinking to that ecology, as Country. In what remains not regional, I argue, are answers to the question: How will we live here in the Anthropocene?A Totalising ProjectSince 1788, in the face of the ongoing presence and resistance of First Nations cultures, and the continent’s radically unique ecologies, the Australian colonial project has been to convert the continent into a region of Europe. As such, the imposed political, administrative, scientific, and economic institutions are largely European. This is also so, to a lesser extent, of social and cultural institutions. While the continent is not Europe geologically, the notion of the Anthropocene suggests that this is changing (Crutzen and Stoermer). This article does not resummarise the vast body of scholarship on the effects of colonisation, from genocide to missionary charity, to the creation of bureaucratic and comprador classes, and so on. Suffice to say that the different valences of colonisation—from outright malevolence to misguided benevolence–produce similar and common effects. As such, what we experience in metropolitan and regional Australia, is chillingly similar to what people experience in London. Chilling, because this experience demonstrates how the effects of the project tend towards the total.To clarify, when I use the name ‘Australia’ I understand it as the continent’s European name. When I use the term ‘Europe’ or ‘European’, I refer to both the European continent and to the reach and scope of the various colonial and imperial projects of European nations. I take this approach because I think it is necessary to recognise their global effects and loads. In Australia, this load has been evident and present for more than two centuries. On one hand, it is evident in the social, cultural, and political institutions that come with colonisation. On another, it is evident in the environmental impacts of colonisation: impacts that are severely compounded in Australia. In relation to this, there is vital, ongoing scholarship that explores the fact that, ecologically, Australia is a radically different place, and which discusses the ways in which European scientific, aesthetic, and agricultural assumptions, and the associated naturalised and generic understandings of ‘nature’, have grounded activities that have radically transformed the continent’s biosphere. To name but a few, Tim Flannery (Eaters, “Ecosystems”) and Stephen Pyne, respectively, examine the radical difference of this continent’s ecology, geology, climate, and fire regimes. Sylvia Hallam, Bill Gammage, and Bruce Pascoe (“Bolt”, Emu) explore the relationships of First Nations Peoples with that ecology, climate, and fire before 1788, and the European blindness to the complexity of these relationships. For instance, William Lines quotes the strikingly contradictory observations of the colonial surveyor, Thomas Mitchell, where the land is simultaneously “populous” and “without inhabitants” and “ready for the immediate reception of civilised man” and European pastoralism (Mitchell qtd. in Lines 71). Flannery (Eaters) and Tim Low (Feral, New) discuss the impacts of introduced agricultural practices, exotic animals, and plants. Tom Griffiths tells the story of ‘Improving’ and ‘Acclimatisation Societies’, whose explicit aims were to convert Australian lands into European lands (32–48). The notion of ‘keeping Europe at bay’ is a response to the colonial assumptions, practices, and impositions highlighted by these writers.The project of converting this continent and hundreds of First Nations Countries into a region of Europe, ‘Australia’, is, in ambition, a totalising one. From the strange flag-plantings, invocations and incantations claiming ownership and dominion, to legalistic conceptions such as terra nullius, the aim has been to speak, to declare, to interpellate the country as European. What is not European, must be made European. What cannot be made European is either (un)seen in a way which diminishes or denies its existence, or must be made not to exist. These are difficult things to do: to not see, to unsee, or to eradicate.One of the first acts of administrative division (direction and rule) in the Port Phillip colony (now known as Victoria) was that of designating four regional Aboriginal Protectorates. Edward Stone Parker was appointed Assistant Protector of Aborigines for the Loddon District, a district which persists today for many state and local government instrumentalities as the Loddon-Mallee region. In the 1840s, Parker experienced the difficulty described above, in attempting to ‘make European’ the Dja Dja Wurrung people. As part of Parker’s goal of Christianising Dja Dja Wurrung people, he sought to learn their language. Bain Attwood records his frustration:[Parker] remarked in July 1842. ‘For physical objects and their attributes, the language readily supplies equivalent terms, but for the metaphysical, so far I have been able to discover scarcely any’. A few years later Parker simply despaired that this work of translation could be undertaken. ‘What can be done’, he complained, ‘with a people whose language knows no such terms as holiness, justice, righteousness, sin, guilt, repentance, redemption, pardon, peace, and c., and to whose minds the ideas conveyed by those words are utterly foreign and inexplicable?’ (Attwood 125)The assumption here is that values and concepts that are ‘untranslatable’ into European understandings mark an absence of such value and concept. Such assumptions are evident in attempts to convince, cajole, or coerce First Nations Peoples into abandoning traditional cultural and custodial relationships with Country in favour of individual private property ownership. The desire to maintain relationships with Country are described by conservative political figures such as Tony Abbott as “lifestyle choices” (Medhora), effectively declaring them non-existent. In addition, processes designed to recognise First Nations relationships to Country are procedurally frustrated. Examples of this are the bizarre decisions made in 2018 and 2019 by Nigel Scullion, the then Indigenous Affairs Minister, to fund objections to land claims from funds designated to alleviate Indigenous disadvantage and to refuse to grant land rights claims even when procedural obstacles have been cleared (Allam). In Australia, given that First Nations social, cultural, and political life is seamlessly interwoven with the environment, ecology, the land–Country, and that the colonial project has always been, and still is, a totalising one, it is a project which aims to sever the connections to place of First Nations Peoples. Concomitantly, when the connections cannot be severed, the people must be either converted, dismissed, or erased.This project, no matter how brutal and relentless, however, has not achieved totality.What Remains Not Regional? If colonisation is a totalising project, and regional Australia stands as evidence of this project’s ongoing push, then what remains not regional, or untouched by the colonial? What escapes the administrative, the institutional, the ecological, the incantatory, and the interpellative reach of the regional? I think that despite this reach, there are such remains. The frustration, the anger, and antipathy of Parker, Abbott, and Scullion bear this out. Their project is unfinished and the resistance to it infuriates. I think that, in Australia, the different ways in which pre-1788 modes of life persist are modes of life which can be said to be ‘keeping Europe at bay’.In Reports from a Wild Country: Ethics for Decolonisation, Deborah Bird Rose compares Western/European conceptualisations of time, with those of the people living in the communities around the Victoria River in the Northern Territory. Rose describes Western constructions of time as characterised by disjunction (for example, the ‘birth’ of philosophy, the beginnings of Christianity) and by irreversible sequence (for example, concepts of telos, apocalypse, and progress). These constructions have become so naturalised as to carry a “seemingly commonsensical orientation toward the future” (15). Orientation, in an Australian society “built on destruction, enables regimes of violence to continue their work while claiming the moral ground of making a better future” (15). Such an orientation “enables us to turn our backs on the current social facts of pain, damage, destruction and despair which exist in the present, but which we will only acknowledge as our past” (17).In contrast to this ‘future vision’, Rose describes what she calls the ‘canonical’ time-space conceptualisation of the Victoria River people (55). Here, rather than a temporal extension into an empty future, orientation is towards living, peopled, and grounded origins, with the emphasis on the plural, rather than a single point of origin or disjunction:We here now, meaning we here in a shared present, are distinct from the people of the early days by the fact that they preceded us and made our lives possible. We are the ‘behind mob’—those who come after. The future is the domain of those who come after us. They are referred to as […] those ‘behind us’. (55)By way of illustration, when we walk into a sheep paddock, even if we are going somewhere (even the future), we are also irrevocably walking behind ancestors, predecessor ecologies, previous effects. The paddock, is how it is, after about 65,000 years of occupation, custodianship, and management, after European surveyors, squatters, frontier conflict and violence, the radical transformation of the country, the destruction of the systems that came before. Everything there, as Freya Mathews would put it, is of “the given” (“Becoming” 254, “Old” 127). We are coming up behind. That paddock is the past and present, and what happens next is irrevocably shaped by it. We cannot walk away from it.What remains not regional is there in front of us. Country, language, and knowledge remain in the sheep paddock, coexisting with everyone and everything else that everyone in this country follows (including the colonial and the regional). It is not gone. We have to learn how to see it.By the Fox or the Little EagleFigure 1: A Scatter of Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo Feathers at Wehla. Image Credit: Terry Eyssens.As a way of elaborating on this, I will tell you about a small, eight hectare, patch of land in Dja Dja Wurrung Country. Depending on the day, or the season, or your reason, it could take fifteen minutes to walk from one end to the other or it might take four hours, from the time you start walking, to the time when you get back to where you started. At this place, I found a scatter of White Cockatoo feathers (Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo—Cacatua galerita). There was no body, just the feathers, but it was clear that the Cockatoo had died, had been caught by something, for food. The scatter was beautiful. The feathers, their sulphur highlights, were lying on yellow-brown, creamy, dry grass. I dwelled on the scatter. I looked. I looked around. I walked around. I scanned the horizon and squinted at the sky. And I wondered, what happened.This small patch of land in Dja Dja Wurrung Country is in an area now known as Wehla. In the Dja Dja Wurrung and many other Victorian languages, ‘Wehla’ (and variants of this word) is a name for the Brushtail Possum (Trichosurus vulpecula). In the time I spend there/here, I see all kinds of animals. Of these, two are particularly involved in this story. One is the Fox (Vulpes vulpes), which I usually see just the back of, going away. They are never surprised. They know, or seem to know, where everyone is. They have a trot, a purposeful, cocky trot, whether they are going away because of me or whether they are going somewhere for their own good reasons. Another animal I see often is the Little Eagle (Hieraaetus morphnoides). It is a half to two-thirds the size of a Wedge-tailed Eagle (Aquila audax). It soars impressively. Sometimes I mistake a Little Eagle for a Wedge-tail, until I get a better look and realise that it is not quite that big. I am not sure where the Little Eagle’s nest is but it must be close by.I wondered about this scatter of White Cockatoo feathers. I wondered, was the scatter of White Cockatoo feathers by the Fox or by the Little Eagle? This could be just a cute thought experiment. But I think the question matters because it provokes thinking about what is regional and what remains not regional. The Fox is absolutely imperial. It is introduced and widespread. Low describes it as among Australia’s “greatest agent[s] of extinction” (124). It is part of the colonisation of this place, down to this small patch of land in Dja Dja Wurrung Country. Where the Fox is, colonisation, and everything that goes with it, remains, and maintains. So, that scatter of feathers could be a colonial, regional happening. Or maybe it is something that remains not regional, not colonial. Maybe the scatter is something that escapes the regional. The Little Eagles and the Cockatoos, who were here before colonisation, and their dance (a dance of death for the Cockatoo, a dance of life for the Little Eagle), is maybe something that remains not regional.But, so what if the scatter of White Cockatoo feathers, this few square metres of wind-blown matter, is not regional? Well, if it is ‘not regional’, then, if Australia is to become something other than a colony, we have to look for these things that are not regional, that are not colonial, that are not imperial. Maybe if we start with a scatter of White Cockatoo feathers that was by the Little Eagle, and then build outwards again, we might start to notice more things that are not regional, that still somehow escape. For example, the persistence of First Nations modes of land custodianship and First Nations understandings of time. Then, taking care not to fetishise First Nations philosophies and cultures, take the time and care to recognise the associations of all of those things with simply, the places themselves, like a patch of land in Dja Dja Wurrung Country, which is now known as Wehla. Instead of understanding that place as something that is just part of the former Aboriginal Protectorate of Loddon or of the Loddon Mallee region of Victoria, it is Wehla.The beginning of decolonisation is deregionalisation. Every time we recognise the not regional (which is hopefully, eventually, articulated in a more positive sense than ‘not regional’), and just say something like ‘Wehla’, we can start to keep Europe at bay. Europe’s done enough.seeing and SeeingChina Miéville’s The City and The City (2009) is set in a place, in which the citizens of two cities live. The cities, Besźel and Ul Qoma, occupy the same space, are culturally and politically different. Their relationship to each other is similar to that of border-sharing Cold War states. Citizens of the two cities are forbidden to interact with each other. This prohibition is radically policed. Even though the citizens of Besźel and Ul Qoma live in adjoining buildings, share roads, and walk the same streets, they are forbidden to see each other. The populations of each city grow up learning how to see what is permitted and to not see, or unsee, the forbidden other (14).I think that seeing a scatter of White Cockatoo feathers and wondering if it was by the Fox or by the Little Eagle is akin to the different practices of seeing and not seeing in Besźel and Ul Qoma. The scatter of feathers is regional and colonial and, equally, it is not. Two countries occupy the same space. Australia and a continent with its hundreds of Countries. What remains not regional is what is given and Seen as such. Understanding ourselves as walking behind everything that has gone before us enables this. As such, it is possible to see the scatter of White Cockatoo feathers as by the Fox, as happening in ‘regional Australia’, as thus characterised by around 200 years of carnage, where the success of one species comes at the expense of countless others. On the other hand, it is possible to See the feathers as by the Little Eagles, and as happening on a small patch of land in Dja Dja Wurrung Country, as a dance that has been happening for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years. It is a way of keeping Europe at bay.I think these Cockatoo feathers are a form of address. They are capable of interpellating something other than the regional, the colonial, and the imperial. A story of feathers, Foxes, and Little Eagles can remind us of our ‘behindness’, and evoke, and invoke, and exemplify ways of seeing and engaging with where we live that are tens of thousands of years old. This is both an act of the imagination and a practice of Seeing what is really there. When we learn to see the remains and refuges, the persistence of the not regional, we might also begin to learn how to live here in the Anthropocene. But, Anthropocene or no Anthropocene, we have to learn how to live here anyway.References Allam, Lorena. “Aboriginal Land Rights Claims Unresolved Despite All-Clear from Independent Review.” The Guardian 29 Mar. 2019. <https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/mar/29/aboriginal-land-rights-claims-unresolved-despite-all-clear-from-independent-review>.Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation).” On Ideology. Trans. Ben Brewster. London: Verso, [1971] 2008.Attwood, Bain. The Good Country: The Djadja Wurrung, the Settlers and the Protectors. Clayton: Monash UP, 2017.Brown, Lesley. The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary: On Historical Principles: Volume 2. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993.Crutzen, Paul, J., and Eugene F. Stoermer. “The ‘Anthropocene’.” Global Change Newsletter 41 (May 2000): 17–18.Flannery, Timothy F. “The Fate of Empire in Low- and High-Energy Ecosystems.” Ecology and Empire: Environmental History of Settler Societies. Eds. Tom Griffiths and Libby Robin. Edinburgh: Keele UP, 1997. 46–59.———. The Future Eaters. Sydney: Reed New Holland, 1994.Gammage, Bill. The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2012.Griffiths, Tom. Forests of Ash. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001.Hallam, Sylvia. Fire and Hearth: A Study of Aboriginal Usage and European Usurpation in South-Western Australia. Rev. ed. Crawley: U of Western Australia P, 2014.Kidd, D.A. Collins Gem Latin-English, English-Latin Dictionary. London: Collins, 1980.Lines, William. Taming the Great South Land: A History of the Conquest of Nature in Australia. Berkeley and Los Angeles: U of California P, 1991.Low, Tim. The New Nature: Winners and Losers in Wild Australia. Camberwell: Penguin Books, 2003.———. Feral Future: The Untold Story of Australia’s Exotic Invaders. Ringwood: Penguin Books, 1999.Mathews, Freya. “Becoming Native: An Ethos of Countermodernity II.” Worldviews: Environment, Culture, Religion 3 (1999): 243–71.———. “Letting the World Grow Old: An Ethos of Countermodernity.” Worldviews: Environment, Culture, Religion 3 (1999): 119–37.Medhora, Shalailah. “Remote Communities Are Lifestyle Choices, Says Tony Abbott.” The Guardian 10 Mar. 2015. <https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/mar/10/remote-communities-are-lifestyle-choices-says-tony-abbott>.Miéville, China. The City and the City. London: Pan MacMillan, 2009.Pascoe, Bruce. Dark Emu, Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident? Broome: Magabala Books, 2014.———. “Andrew Bolt’s Disappointment.” Griffith Review 36 (Winter 2012): 226–33.Pyne, Stephen. Burning Bush: A Fire History of Australia. North Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1992.Rose, Deborah Bird. Reports from a Wild Country: Ethics for Decolonisation. Sydney: U of New South Wales P, 2004.
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