It's all talk

And that's fine! There are so many public talks, discussions, debates, slide shows, and lectures you can go to around Sydney. They're mostly free and usually they are interesting and informative.

I sometimes go to the lunchtime talks in the Mitchell Theatre of the Sydney Mechanics School of Arts, at 280 Pitt St. It's a welcoming and relaxing environment, and you don't even need to reserve a seat for these. Just rock up. Here's their programme: https://smsa.org.au/events/

The other day it was a presentation of 'Sydney in the 60s' photography by a former professional Government photographer.

The various universities all have extensive programmes of intellectual stimulation too - often tailored for interested lay folks like me. As part of Sydney University's 'Sydney Ideas' series, for example, there will be a talk on gravitational waves next month, which I plan to get along to. I can't speak too highly of this series. I've been exposed to some of the world's finest visiting brains expounding on science, technology, politics, philosophy, history, futurology. You name it, it comes to Sydney. Here's a link to Sydney Uni events: http://whatson.sydney.edu.au/events  And UTS, WSU, and UNSW all run similar things.

Lots of other organisations do excellent stuff too. One I'd mention is STEP (the South Turramurra Environment Protection group, it stands for).  Not only have they successfully brought about the protection of many bits of precious bushland, but they've produced a variety of books and the definitive high quality bushwalking maps of the northern Sydney region. They also put on regular public talks of a very high standard. No reservations required. Last week I went to a presentation on paleoclimatology. It's a pity there were no climate change sceptics there. The million-year timescale graphs displayed of temperature, carbon dioxide, and sea level, with the seven or eight ice ages followed by a vastly steeper and more sudden effect from industrialisation, make any talk about "climate change has always happened and is completely natural" look ludicrous. Here's a link to STEP: http://www.step.org.au/index.php








There's an umbrella website that collects most of these events together, to make life easy for talkaholics like me. It's called 'Sydney Talks'. Check it out:
https://www.sydneytalks.com.au/

The Goods Line

In New York they've got the High Line - a disused piece of elevated railway track that's now a very popular linear park. Well in Sydney we've now got the Goods Line. It's a similar concept. It's not as long or as elevated, but it's a nice little creation all the same.

It too follows an old freight line - through Ultimo, and it connects the pedestrian tunnel along the southern end of Central Station with Darling Harbour and the Powerhouse Museum. It extends the current walkway which passes the ABC building and UTS.

There are historic references and information boards, there are flower gardens, and lots of whimsical little touches like the solid iron chairs and table tennis tables.


I also found it the perfect spot to take in the full majesty of the Frank Gehry designed 'crumpled paper bag' building of the UTS Business School, the Dr Chau Chak Wing Building.

Illuminating stroll through Ultimo

I heard there was an amazing piece of installation art on show for a few days, in a disused railway tunnel in Ultimo. I headed into town and checked it out. The most amazing thing about it was that neither I nor any of the other visitors there at the time seemed to have a clue what it was about or what message, if any, the artist was attempting to convey.

There were lots of old style sideboard cabinets and glass boxes on tables, with various odd things in them. As you walked around, lights and sounds might or might not come on. I'm very patient with my art. I give it every possible benefit of the doubt. But New York based Australian artist, Ian Burns, was stretching it to the limit with his 'Extended Stage'.

There again, the explanatory pamphlet probably knows what it's talking about. The exhibition's a piece of magic, and it intertwines unexpected phenomena with a wry mix of new media and nostalgia. It draws on the atmosphere and history of this overlooked site, and it creates moments of small spectacle around a rare opportunity for the viewer to explore an unusual space, in the end creating a spectacle of the process of investigation itself. He has a sense of the sublime, and he is preoccupied with exploring that revealing moment when we experience the beautiful and the
ridiculous at the same time. I'd obviously missed all this somehow. See http://newsroom.uts.edu.au/news/2014/04/artist-creates-illuminating-experience-old-tunnel

I spent a couple of hours exploring Ultimo a little further, and found there's lots more than this going on. There was the Hanging Gardens building, there was the ABC, and there was Ultimo TAFE. There was UTS (the University of Technology), with one of the candidates for ugliest building in Sydney (the original UTS tower building), and what may soon be the most interesting building in the country (the Frank Gehrey designed Business School building, called the Dr Chau Chak Wing building, and resembling a giant crumpled cardboard box treehouse thing). I've included a picture, stolen from the UTS website, of what it'll look like when it's finished.


There was the refurbished site of the old Carlton United brewery, with a sparkling new shopping centre, brave bold sculptures, and the completely-new-to-me Central Park (also seemingly called Chippendale Green). One of the Broadway buildings alongside Central Park - the Hanging Gardens building in fact - has a strange horizontal platform sticking out at the the top, with a bunch of mirror reflectors presumably doing something useful somewhere below. I must look this up. I just did. It's a 'cantilevered heliostat, directing light into the complex and becoming a digital artwork at night'. Wow! The Sydney Architecture Archive blog ( http://sydneyarchitecturearchive.wordpress.com/category/buildings/contemporary/uts-gehry/ ) tells me that there are in fact three buildings in this area that are Pritzker Prize winners.

I don't really understand my architecture much better than my art installations, but I often like it a lot more. I decided I rather like Ultimo.

I was going to tell you the story of how Ultimo got its name. Must look it up again. Here it is, lifted straight out of Wikipedia. It's a good story.
           'Ultimo' was originally the name of the estate of Dr John Harris, on 34 acres (140,000 m²) granted to him by Governor King in 1803. It was named for a clerical error in a legal case against Harris that had prevented him being court-martialled. His offence was listed as 'ultimo' (having occurred in the previous month) when it should have been cited as 'instant' (having occurred in the same month). Harris Street is named in his honour.