Shannon O’Neill

I’ve been appointed program manager of ANAT’s ‘Embracing Sound Project’ (ESP). Over the next year I’ll be mapping the state of sound arts in Australia, networking and liaising with artists and organisations to see what sort of infrastructures might be desirable, and advocating sound arts to funding bodies and the media. It’s going to be interesting, travelling to parts of Australia that I’ve never been to and meeting lots of people.

There’ll be more info soon on this blog, as well as various email lists and on a forthcoming blog at ANAT, but please get in touch if you have any immediate ideas.

This job is in addition to teaching at UTS, doing a PhD, running Alias Frequencies, oh and trying to make art - so I’m a busy boy right now. I’m going to have to learn how to say no! =)

One thing I’ve let go of is Liquid Architecture, and it was great to go out on a high, with a very successful festival at Carriageworks. See Flickr for some of my photos.

I’ll be in Melbourne for Liquid Architecture this Wednesday thru Saturday. Get in touch if you’d like to meet up!

After work a couple of weeks ago I discovered that my car had a parking ticket, with a $77 fine. Fair enough, I’d parked all day in a one-hour spot. But this was only my second ticket in years of parking in that area ie Abercrombie St and the back streets of Chippendale. Since then, I’ve seen parking cops there every day. What once seemed to be a no-go zone for them is apparently now a priority. So my run of free parking has come to an end.

The university car park charges at least $13 per day. Assuming that I parked there three days per week, 40 weeks per year, that would cost me an additional $1560 per year, on top of the $2500 p.a. I already spend on rego/insurance/petrol/NRMA/maintenance. A total of over $4000 p.a. at a time when I’m trying to reduce my expenses, pay off debts and, god forbid, maybe even save some money, is just too much.

So, as you may have guessed, I bought a bike. Clarence St Cyclery had a sale last week, so I got a $1300 Trek 7500 hybrid bike for $1000 with a helmet thrown in, plus a bunch of other accessories that were also on sale. It’s my first bike since childhood and it’s amazing! 27 speeds and front suspension, which can be locked off for faster performance. I’ve been riding it around my neighbourhood for at least an hour a day, gradually developing my skills, fitness and confidence with the intention of eventually commuting to work. I got an excellent little book called Bike-it!, which has maps of suggested back-street routes for cyclists. There’s also a cool website called Bikely which serves a similar purpose, and I’ll be making my own custsom Google Maps as my knowledge improves.

I’m guessing that my 30 minute drive to work will probably take about 45 minutes by bike. That’s a serious daily workout, especially as the terrain is quite hilly. I look forward to being that fit! In the mean time I’ll be taking the train, or a combination of bike & train, as the uni is right next to Central station.

The next step is to sell my car, which makes me sad as it’s served me well and is a very cute little 1974 Datsun 120Y fastback - a vintage car! It has loads of personality and is instantly recognizable with its blue and yellow panels and random bits of paint - it gets enthusiastic comments from strangers all the time. UPDATE: sold.

With the car sold, even if I spend $1000 p.a. on public transport, taxis and bike stuff, I’ll save about $3000 p.a. That’s a few months’ rent, or a big chunk of HECS debt, or a new computer, or an overseas trip… Yeah, I need to do this.

unsound06

regional australia’s ONLY experimental arts festival

http://www.unsound.org

10-11 november 2006

unsound is wagga space program’s (WSP) biennial experimental arts festival. unsound06 will be the fifth year of the festival’s presentation in the Riverina region. And this year it’s happening on a TRAIN!!! (more…)

Electrofringe/TINA was great this year. My highlights included the new!shop performance/installation, the Corporate Techno and sedition panels, and performances by Lloyd Barrett, DJ Scotch Egg and Robin Fox, but there was lots of other excellent stuff. My panels and gigs also went pretty well, and the nights were full of drinking and fun - all in all a wonderful festival experience. I’ve put some photos up on Flickr.

Now I have to keep my head down to prepare for my end of year PhD presentation next week, as well as finishing off some other work that’s overdue. See you on the other side!

This Is Not Art is on in Newcastle this weekend. It’s my favourite Australian festival - if you’ve never been, you should check it out. I’ll be doing a couple of talks and a couple of performances.

I know that I’ve written bugger all of substance here in ages (and that’s all I’ll say about that, as there are few things duller than a blogger blogging about not blogging) but I had hoped to regale you with some travel anecdotes.

Unfortunately a strange thing happened to me earlier this week - I lost feeling in half of my left hand, or rather it ‘went to sleep’ with a combination of numbness and ‘pins & needles’. I panicked at first, thinking it might be a stroke - after nearly 30 hours of cramped flight home, DVT was a possibility, so I went to the GP and he did the relevant tests and advised me that it wasn’t a stroke and that I should just rest the arm and it’d hopefully be better in a few days.

Well it’s a few days later and it isn’t much better. Some activities such as writing (I’m left-handed) typing and upper body exercise are difficult and make it worse. I’ve been terrified that it might be the beginning of Multiple Sclerosis (I’ve had both an aunt and an uncle die from MS, and the doctors suspect that my mother now has it - so I’m about as high risk as possible) but searching on the web leads me to believe that it’s most likely a case of Cubital Tunnel Syndrome aka Ulnar Nerve Entrapment or Ulnar Tunnel Syndrome (UTS!).

Hopefully it’s due to some temporary inflammation, but if the problem hasn’t gone away in a few more days, I’ll need to see a specialist. For now I should try to stay away from computers and any other aggravation. So there won’t be much blogging for a while (well it’s not a bad excuse…).

I’ve uploaded lots of travel pics to my Flickr page, and there are still plenty more to come, which I’ll try to finish soon.

just arrived back in sydney, but still trying to find my land legs. and qantas is still trying to find my baggage. three times during the trip i had connecting flights, and three times my baggage was lost.

but the trip was fantastic! inspiring, life changing, and all that. i’ll post more words & pics soon!

lost.

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