The Derwent Project
The morning-after complaint of a Currawong pierces the pre-dawn silence as we drift soundlessly through a thick fog blanketing the glassy waters of Lake King William. Our own voices have been silenced since the video take began; slow measured breaths merge in puffs of steam with the icy fog, congealing in a crystalline icing on every surface of the boat and our recording equipment. The blinking red recording lights of the four video cameras are the only chromatic punctuation in the dim monochrome ether we float through. Slowly, the soft darkness grows brighter from a magenta glimmer to the east, gradually suffusing a warm tint through the grey soup of our world. The ruined skeletons of the drowned forests of the Derwent gradually emerge from the mist as the pink light grows in intensity and the fog transforms into a brilliant white cloud around us.