Essay: System, Ambience, Translation

摘要

In their recent account of the proposed Australian Opal Centre (AOC, See pp. 82-87) in Lightning Ridge, filmmakers Catherine Hunter and Bruce Inglis begin with a meditative aerial view of the surrounding landscape. Their camera flies over the dusty field dotted with soft sand-dunes and resilient native shrubs to arrive at the active underground mines that circle the townscape. Rudimentary steel shelters, interlocked with mechanical pulleys, attendant trucks and machinery, mark the point of descent below the ground's surface and signify the invisible human toil that takes place within these confined cavities. Immediately conveyed in this visual sequence is the harsh physicality of this environment and its lived history.