Jim Denley: Alone at Undara

Abstract

Alone at Undara is a mix of recordings made at Undara volcano. The volcano is one of 160 volcanoes in the McBride Volcanic Province, which lies about 200 kilometres southwest of Cairns along the crest of the Great Dividing Range. The province is about 80 kilometres in diameter and is characterized by numerous cones and broad lava plains. Volcanism began in the McBride Province about three million years ago, and the lava flows at Undara are some of the longest on Earth, reaching lengths of 160 kilometres. These recordings were made in October 2001. I played with rocks: scraped, hit, balanced, crushed and dropped. As I walked through the bush it was possible to hear the extreme dryness, and I have recorded my breath with flies buzzing around my head. I juxtapose these recordings with my heartbeat, filtered and processed digitally, to enhance the bass frequencies, to create a kind of body bass melody. I wanted to capture the aloneness and immediacy of a single figure in this vast and elemental landscape to reaffirm the important relationship all of us have to the land, in our world at this time.