BIG SKY - DUALING IDEAS

It was purchased new prior to picking up a scrappy old copy of Dark Emu in a country secondhand bookshop. Big Sky was a subsequent book written by Bruce Pascoe, so Dark Emu was read first. One has to admit not being terribly enthused about reading these books, such is the reputation of indigenous gripes, but one remained curious enough to want to; and was eventually pleased that these publications had been read.

Dark Emu had been reprinted several times, so it must have had some desirable qualities; it had won awards too. Indeed, the book turned out to be a good, informative read. It was well structured, well written, and well researched. It had none of the hype that one feared, that bold, nagging claim for attention and rights. Pascoe presented a solid case for his thesis, that Aborigines were not meandering hunter gathers with no fixed settlements, suggesting no rights to place, backing up this idea with texts from the early explorers' and settlers' diaries and writings, along with archaeological and historical evidence. One finished the book with a whole new vision of Aboriginal Australia that turned previous understandings into poor, dumb, political cliches: the argument was persuasive, so one was keen to read more.

Strangely, Big Sky shared its authorship, with Professor Ray Norris being the co-writer. One was puzzled; why two authors? Was Pascoe's first draft just too short; or perhaps not sufficiently 'learned'? It seemed odd to have the title 'Professor' on the cover. Why? It looked as though the publishers might have been hesitant about this, using a finer lettering for this word than that used for the bolder names, as if the inclusion of this title was thought inappropriate, with the letters reading faintly, fading into their black background with an optical fuzz: but they were there. Might this naming be an attempt to give the book some stature; some 'academic' standing; some 'real' substance?#

Did this ‘professor’ title get promoted for what might be the same reasons as Debra Dank declared herself as ‘Dr’ - PhD – in Terraglossia, seeming to want to add some semblance of intellectual depth to an unfamiliar subject? – see: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2025/12/terraglossia-first-nations-experience.html. One wondered . . . why? Why the title? Why two authors? How did two people collaborate to give one text?

This latter uncertainty was soon resolved: each author has the various portions of the book written by them identified by their name 'Bruce' or 'Ray.' There was no sense of a conversation here. Each author appeared to press on with his own particular approach to the subject. Was the intention to present the ‘naive,’ perhaps more intuitive indigenous view in parallel with that of the 'professor's 'scientific' approach? The cut-and-paste structure of the book made one wonder about this editorial decision that seemed to have nothing to do with such an aligned strategy, no matter how one might interpret it. Was this subsequent book, that looked to be nicely named to match the titles of the previous books - Dark Emu and Emu Dreaming# - so as to perhaps to help the purchaser's recall, a mere potboiler cashing in on the other successes?

As one read the book, there seemed to be no systematic connection between the two texts other than that they were interspersed in a somewhat ad hoc manner, with themes hopscotching along leapfrogging each other almost in spite of the other's writing.

It all appeared strange, making the subject look as though it was too big, too uncertain, or too amorphous to articulate clearly. Both texts seemed anecdotal, making very broad and general statements that seemed to lack depth, certainty, and commitment. The rigorous referencing of the Dark Emu argument was not there. One was given a scattering of statements about how this is or that was the belief of that or this group, all without reaching any resolution. The text sometimes read like a shopping list. The thoughts and statements just tumbled on and on, and on again, from one author to the next.

One could understand and accept that various stories held special spiritual characteristics that meant that they could only be told by certain groups or individuals, but this statement became a little frustrating for one attempting to understand exactly what the point of the book might be other than that Aboriginals knew the sky intimately, and used it in various ways, differently, with their own stories and context.

The book seemed to ramble on, sometimes tackling interesting threads that were allowed to fade out, to morph into other interesting distracting thoughts and ideas that did likewise without any resolution. Even the summing ups at the end of the book - each author had his own - seemed indefinite. It looked as though the authors might not have agreed on a common strategy, making this schizophrenic approach something of an editorial compromise. The book would have benefited from the determination displayed in Dark Emu, that sustained a casual rigour, for the subject of Big Sky is just as potentially intriguing and enlightening.

One is left with a hazy understanding that needs clarification in a better organised publication that has a singular intent. The dual approach turns the publication into a tangle that needs sorting out. It is a strategy that is complicated by the personal approach each brings to the texts, that further divides the writing. One is left confirming the first thought, that this book is a potboiler - an interesting potboiler, but a potboiler none the less: a broad, introductory sketch of an engaging subject potentially as transformative as the previous thesis; an outline for a good book yet to come.

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Ray Norris is an astrophysicist and science communicator, based at the CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility, and Western Sydney University, and conducts research in astrophysics and Aboriginal Astronomy. He co-wrote Emu Dreaming: An Introduction to Aboriginal Astronomy, (published July, 2009), with Cilla Norris. There was no ‘professor’ title used on this book. At the time of its publication, he was serving as an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Indigenous Studies (Warawara) at Macquarie University.

WAYS OF SEEING THE GLASSHOUSE

The critique of architectural presentations is often that the photographic image is so carefully managed to present only the preferred vision with cleverly framed, arty details that exclude all references to context, (see: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-architectural-image.html); that one is given a bespoke impression of a project that bears little relationship to the everyday encounter, best documented in Google’s Street View: see - https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-need-for-street-view-in-architecture.html. The new theatre at QPAC, The Glasshouse, has been promoted in such a manner as to suggest possibilities that just do not exist outside of such presentations – see: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2026/09/the-glasshouse-theatre.html. The camera is able to fabricate images that have their own reality divorced from ordinary experience, creating an idealistic grandeur, a spectacle with its own remote identity: such is photography. The pattern of understanding seems to be that one frequently comes to know a place through the eyes of the camera lens before it is actually experienced, leaving one with the strange sensing of the expectation that one might, when visiting the work, actually see what the camera has revealed; to go looking for this in an effort to recreate the expected identity – to see it as originally understood, as if the confirming of 'facts' was necessary. This indulgence might even go as far as one using one’s own camera to capture the same concept of pictured identity that one has seen published. “Ah! There it is!” – snap; as if one might be able to regain meaning in memory as recalled in this 'seeing as.' Architectural renderings can be just as persuasive and misleading too.

This drawing of the interior has a sense of the spatial experience using a technique not unlike 

that expression of space in William Robinson's paintings of Springbrook.

Alas, what actually frequently occurs is that one experiences something totally remote, a circumstance removed from the idealism of the glossy presentation when seen in the real surroundings – in the context of the immediate siting and that of the location in the broader experience of place, be this a town, city, or countryside. There are adjacencies, spaces, textures, smells, sounds, solid mass, people, and imperfections that are all revealed insitu in a different, varying light. Even getting there has an impact on perceptions never revealed in the defined photographs that are usually viewed when one is isolated in a safe, relaxed, and comfortable world conducive to feeling good about deliciously positive, ‘dreamy’ outcomes assembled from the isolated perfection of the published glossy images.

Might some sketches be inspired by the photographs?

See - https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2014/10/drawing-belfast-command-character.html 

These ways of seeing are highlighted by the contrast in the sketches of the exterior and interior of The Glasshouse.  The artist’s eye is rigorous in its raw delineation – using unforgiving lines as marks on paper to indicate place. One might protest, claiming that there are no lines in nature, so the sketches are an irrelevance.# With these drawings, one notes how the awkward stair below the dramatically waving wall that usually attracts the lens, is highlighted just as it is seen to be there by the passersby. It is an unfortunate vision that the camera cleverly seems to want to avoid with shadows, reflections, selected angles, and various distractions. The artists are less canny with their readings, revealing just what is seen, an approach which has much the same native rigour as the Street View camera, recording deliberately and with a certain determined innocence, which, in drawings, also has something to do with the skill and intent of the renderer, for even artists can manipulate visions to suit their eye, talent, or ambitions.

'Curved panels in the greenhouse theatre' -

the translation from Spanish seems to confuse Glasshouse with greenhouse.

What we see in the published drawings is the harsh reality of the form of The Glasshouse, free from the guile of the manipulated lens and the artifice of the architectural rendering. What these drawings reveal is the elegance and sophistication of the selective, preferred presentations that have been published, suave images that contrast with the harsh reality of the awkward bulk of the sketched forms. One might think that one could choose how one might look at a place, but here, with this collection of photographs and line drawings, it is clear how persuasive the camera can be in setting the stage for ways of remembering that manage our ways of seeing. These visual memories are so powerful that when we see the sketches, we are somewhat repulsed, and seek out excuses for the apparent awkwardness in this expression that we are happy to put down to a lack of skill; perhaps the work of an amateur; or might it be the expression of some intimate, personal vision, maybe a special, different feeling for place, when what we have before us is really what one sees everyday, put down on paper in what might be described as the equivalent of handwriting.

The difference is that between the coffee table image and Street View. The latter is always challenged by the former which forcefully determines the identity with its latent demands. We have to decide which world we might choose to live in: the fanciful world of bespoke maybes, or the harsh world of being there, with the raw experience that develops a resonance with its own inner richness and integral, lived meaning? In one sense, to use a current piece of jargon, the prior world is simply ‘fake’ in a real way. If we are to anchor our understanding in substance and reality, something solid, firm, and certain, rather than in things ephemeral, fanciful, and flimsy, then we have to do away with our intoxication with and enthusiasm for the slick games of camera and computer artistry, and deal honestly with ordinary matters. If we do not do this, we leave ourselves in danger of forever searching for impossibilities, and enduring the disappointments of never achieving these, or the delusion that we have, as we continue to fool ourselves with the innate, unchallenged brilliance of ME, the Starchitect defining MY way of seeing as we slide off into the lies of a fantasy world where hope is always failing; a world of smoke and mirrors sufficient to test the sanity and contentment of all.

On reflection, (no pun intended), considering the proposition that architecture embodies the spirit of its time, might this latter circumstance be the true expression of our overly confident, clever ‘AI era’ that is full of hallucinations and slop? But who knows what the future might hold? Perhaps the wisdom of time and the rigour of raw experience could eventually reveal the essential significance of the intimacy of references in the reference of intimacies held integrally in true meaning in our lives and its living as a simple necessity for contentment in satisfaction.

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Édouard Manet: The French painter famously stated, "There are no lines in nature, only areas of colour, one against another".

Street View.