Massive congratulations are due to Jodi Rose, proprietor of Singing Bridges, which today was announced as the winner of a $10,000 prize for the blog judged Australia’s best.
Jodi is an artist who records the sounds bridges make in the wind. Here’s a little something from her very first post, way back in 2002:
Wondering if it really is that important that I record bridge cables – I mean, how f#*%ing ridiculous. Who came up with this lunacy??? And I guess the answer is, well it’s important to me, so it IS valid and relevant as an occupation. A calling. I could go off on my anti-useful rave here, about how we need to create gaps in the fabric of cultural production, that doing something incredibly useless and silly (apparently), actually serves a really important purpose in society and culture, as it allows us to be human. Take time off from being utilitarian cogs in the wheels of capital and industry, play, imagine, be curious and let that curiosity and sense of fun guide you.
I didn’t know about her before this, but Singing Bridges looks like a terrific site, and the more I think about it, the more I’m delighted that the judging panel saw fit to recognise something so sui generis (not to mention a blog authored by a woman) instead of the tiresome kind of blog I thought would win.
The judging panel included such luminaries as Adrian Miles, Charles Wright, Melinda Rackham, and Peter Blasina. The list of finalists can be seen here. A few very familiar names there: how many of them did you know about before?
Is that a pylon from the Anzac Bridge featuring on her homepage?
And:
>the tiresome kind of blog I thought would win.
Care to elaborate on that theme?
I don’t know Sydney well, but yes, it does look like Anzac Bridge.
As for tiresome blogs, I had in mind the “entrepreneurial” ones that exist only to sell ad space.
I hope I haven’t pre-emptively derailed my own thread with that remark, however. I’m viewing this result as a very big cause for celebration!
Looks like it is. (I love the Anzac Bridge.)
Looks like the Glebe Island Bridge/ANZAC bridge to me, El. It’s one of the best looking bridges in Sydney for my bridge-watching money, far simpler than the dated Harbour Bridge, not so self-important as the Gladesville bridge and I can confirm from walking and riding across it—it hums really loudly in the wind.
David Moore photographed it best.
Yes I agree the Anzac bridge is the best to look at, although I think the Gladesville bridge is the best to look from.
I can honestly say Ive never heard of any of the finalists (though Lowenstein at least rings a bell….)
LP would be the best blog if it brings back EP.
Gladesville is much better as ti has a much better view
Lefty E, you had to self nominate to enter and write 25 words about why you had the best blog.
Oddly enough, I know one of the judges quite well but if I reveal which one my secret identity will be blown out of the water. I had no idea this person was involved in this otherwise I’d have used my influence for nefarious purposes for LP’s benefit. No, I wouldn’t, actually, but $10 000 would definitely fix LP’s server problems.
Of the blogs, I knew of Antony Lowenstein’s blog, I regularly read Loobylu (in my secret life as a craft blog lurker), Karen Cheng (who I’ve met briefly as she’s a Perth blogger), Jess from Ausculture… and that’s it.
Yes, agree that the Anzac Bridge is v beautiful as I used to ride/catch a bus across it to work. I just wasn’t sure if it was the same bridge as I didn’t recognise the cross-hatching in the middle of the pylon.
Btw, I say ‘go girl’ to the winner!
El, the photograph at singing bridges would most likely have been taken during construction, before the facing was put on.
What does the view from the bridge have to do with anything? Just because you can see a lot from the top doesn’t mean the bridge itself isn’t fugly. The Gladesville bridge comes pretty close to that category, I’d say, big, blocky, arrogant and too tall for its own good.
you had to be there when it was opned liam.
a lot better than that dreadful mess it succeeded
wow! $10K!
Hmm, this comp would be a good example for someone who wanted to trace a genealogy of ‘creativity’ in the curent era of the cultural industry…
The winner, and other top ten, is confirmation that there is no accounting for taste.
From Mt Hay in the Blue Mountains the Anzac Bridge looks like a skyscraper with a very bad tilt to it. BTW Congratulations to this “website”.
I take it you’re not the bloke who writes the “Razor” blog for Fairfax who was one of the judges then?
Without wishing to detract from the merits of the winner and the finalist (particularly the super sexy and always fabulous Ausculture Jess!), I’m more convinced by awards which are generated internally to the ‘sphere, and which rely on blog readers’ votes and nominations. Keks who’s run a fabulous Oz Blog Awards with a great range of categories (and PR voting!) for a few years, makes a relevant point:
I was happy to see Jess there as well!
Although I didn’t recongise many of the blogs, and was forced to confront the fact that I’m a politics geek…
I sort of like that I’d never heard of half the finalists. It shows there’s more to the local blog landscape than meets the eye. Of course i was terribly pissed off that I didn’t win it myself, especially it takes me exactly five months to earn ten thou, but looking at some of the blogs in that list, I can completely see where most nominees were outclassed.
I know what you’re saying about voting Mark – and I agree. I were the person who runs Keks I’d be hopping mad that this outfit came steaming in and in effect helped themselves to the right to confer a title which the blogosphere itself has been taking care of administering perfectly well for some time now – but I think there’s probably enough blogs around now for there to be room for other kinds of recognition.
Are we talking about Keks in the past tense? Say it ain’t so.
No, don’t worry David, it still there and running the Oz Blog Awards again this year – but getting Collective Apathy to actually host it for him due to bandwidth issues…
David, via Cristy, the post is here. Looks like you have to register to comment. I’m just doing so now.
Ten grand for taping the wind on bridges. What a wonderful scam for Jodi Rose. Of course, the ABC Acoustic Arts Unit is a principal sponsor of the “singingbridges.net” web & blog site which, in turn, is owned and administered by no other than….
Jodi Rose
Acoustic Arts Unit GPO Box 9994
ABC Radio, SYDNEY 2001, AU
Phone: 61 2 9333 1308
So it appears possible that public funds being used by a member of the ABC to ‘sponsor’ the site of an employee of the ABC, which then wins $10K. It is difficult to regard this as not being close to fraudulent behaviour. At the least, there appears to be a potential conflict of interest. Wonder who authorises the money that supports Jodi’s website? If it is Jodi, she may have a case to answer.
MarkL
Canberra
ooops
I looked at the the about page for signing bridges and it contains a line that MarkL seems to have left out. Look:
Jodi Rose
Artist In Residence
ABC Radio National
Acoustic Arts Unit
GPO Box 9994
Sydney NSW 2001
AUSTRALIA
So the ABC is sponsoring an artist in residence. Only on MarkL’s planet is this a scandal.
MarkL – it’s a contest with money put up by private organisation who can do what they want with it. Jodi seems to be a postgraduate at Melbourne Uni, actually.
Leaving aside MarkL’s attempted stitch-up (presumably he’s now an anti-Costello partisan), I’d prefer to take issue with the idea of “Ten grand for taping the wind on bridges. What a wonderful scam…” As Laura implies, actually there’s something wonderful from an artistic perspective about someone being rewarded for pressing the envelope (even if, or even more so, if they are complicit). From this perspective, MarkL’s objection is a necessary handbag.
Singing bridges beats Piss Christ for artistic merit.
UPGRADE!
It doesn’t do much for my confidence either in the awards or in the virtues of SmartyBlogs as a host that they have not worked out how to hyperlink to sites. I’d use the list of nominated blogs to have a stickybeak around http://www.smartyblog.com.au/category/blogging
but am I going to sit here and bleedin’ cut and paste all day? Probably not. Geez.
Also, Singing Bridges has no comments. Therefore, doesn’t count.
What might one say about a singing bridge?
I heard her on JJJ last year (I think?), she, or was it the host?, had some typical things to say about the Futurists. I think it was the host, and it pissed me off. They always jump on the ‘war as purifying’ business without understanding how much our culture is presmised on such beliefs! Oh no, but we can’t talk about it or study the Futurists because they were fascists…
Lefty E, you had to self nominate to enter and write 25 words about why you had the best blog.
Which does indeed sound like an awfully egotistical thing to do.
But if it comforts anyone who remotely cares, I was pressed upon by my ex to enter and thought “Ah well, ten grand, why not?” and didn’t think about it again until I got a call from them.
In fact, my 25 words or less as to why ausculture.com should be considered the “best blog” was a pisstake, and if I recall correctly, consisted of “I have a GSOH, am a social drinker and like long walks on the beach… hey! This isn’t RSVP.COM?!”
Or something along those lines. Either way, it was pleasant but definitely a surprise to be considered a finalist.
Sorry. There are a couple of good blogs in the top 10. But Antony Loewenstein? Says it all really.
As one of the finalists, I have to say I’m very happy for Jodi. I’d never heard of her blog but at least she it doing something weird and wonderful with the medium.
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