Circular Economies Residency: Loren Kronemyer in Esperance #2

Sep 20

Loren Kronemyer is currently working with the community of Esperance and hosted by Cannery Arts Centre. This residency forms part of one of SPACED’s current programs, Circular Economies.

During the first fortnight of September, Loren and her meta-technician visited many places. Beaches 1-11; Pink Lake (now blue); 2/4 of the local shooting clubs; the ceramics studio; the library; a French restaurant; and the Esperance Museum.

In the book Competitive Pistol Shooting by Dr. Laslo Antal, he recommends the following exercises to develop concentration:

“Think of an object, such as a button or badge, or a part of the gun, for two or three seconds, excluding all other thoughts. Do not think of its shape, colour, or purpose; just concentrate on the object itself. Week by week, increase the time you spend on this exercise until you can concentrate for up to ten seconds at a time with no disturbing thoughts.”

BUY BACK

The West Australian gun buyback scheme has now concluded. A man shows us a video from the local news of guns in a dump truck, guns being crushed, and guns being blown up.

“The biggest gun buyback in WA since the Port Arthur massacre has come to an explosive end! Blown to bits in a remote bush location …almost 40,000 guns collected in the last six months.” -7News broadcast¹

New ownership laws are coming into force, causing a change in the ecosystem of who owns firearms and how.

PISTOL CLUB

I visit the Esperance Pistol Club on a day where they are practicing a style of shooting called Mandar. The club members have built an elaborate target machine out of hulking hardwood beams, plywood, and welded metal. The target machine is wide, holding fifteen target faces in a row. It sits on railroad tracks that allow the men to push it closer or farther. It is hooked up to an electrical box, and what I assume to be an air compressor. With one hand, the range officer can trigger the target machine to turn its fifteen faces towards the shooters, or away from the shooters. When the target faces you, quick draw: a simulation of a duel. It’s a primitive robotic gunslinger, an ancestor of Yul Brynner in the original Westworld film (1973).

This week, they practice a regimented style of shooting called Mandar, which combines several timed rounds that test shooting quickly and accurately, using semi automatic guns. This style of shooting is loud and fast. The members come here fortnightly, shooting across different styles and tracking their scores through the year. Everyone shoots at a different skill level, and it seems like most are in competition with themselves.

After each quick round, the men walk up to the target machine. The plywood boards frequently need replacing, as the centres become hollowed out from bullet holes. Black paper target faces with concentric rings are hung on the plywood boards, and the men use yellow chalk to mark their points on these faces before healing the holes with black stickers. The black targets reflect the sun, and healing them like this helps make it easier to count the fresh holes with each round. The machine lives in a little valley with tall earth all around, where the grass and wildflowers are starting to bloom.

I return to this club for another event, 10m Air Pistol, which takes place indoors at night. The clubhouse has a room,where people can hang out, chat, and prepare their gear, and a shooting gallery. Through a heavy door, the shooting gallery is as silent as a chapel, with lighting so beautiful I am stunned into reverence. In this event, the shooters silently hang their hand-sized paper targets at eye level. Then, with the push of a button, a graceful system of pulleys whisks the target back to 10 metres distance, allowing it to be slowly penetrated by air driven pellets. This form of shooting is introspective, slow, and methodical.

OBJECTS THAT FALL OUT OF THE SKY

We visit with the famous debris of the Skylab spacecraft, an American machine that shattered in the sky and fell to earth in Esperance. In the collection is also a bottle of “Lynn’s Skylab Port” a local wine made to commemorate the occasion of Skylab’s return. It reads: “Unlike Skylab which deteriorated with age this fine Old Port will improve.” Some circular economies are as big as interstellar orbits.

Near this display, we find a piece of paper printed with instructions that governed submissions to the Esperance Meat Exporters Time Capsule, which was made in 1973 and opened last year. I fall in love with this document, which acts as its own sort of unintentional bureaucratic time capsule.

I have yet to successfully heal the shattered clay targets I have collected, but I am getting better at making them from scratch. At this point, I have hand-built three out of clay, and made twelve on the pottery wheel. Antoinette from the pottery club hosts me at her studio, where we make a mold out of plaster, to allow shaping larger numbers of targets more efficiently.

*Ceramic clay target in progress. Photo Courtesy of The Artist.*

At this point in our journey, we have bought books on ballet and history, t-shirts, skylab merchandise, stickers printed with blue eyes that a man invented to keep sharks away, and a stone carving of eel. We start to send home things we are worried about transporting in our luggage. At one second hand shop, we find a set of electronic toy lazer tag guns that we intend to dissect. The clerk is afraid to sell them to us because there is a phone charger in the box with them. Op shops are not allowed to sell 240 volt powered electronics without tagging and testing them, because malfunction may cause injury. Metatechnician hosting persuasively unpacks the guns to reveal they are only battery powered, and after a long negotiation, we are able to take them home.

More information about the Circular Economies artists, host communities and projects as they unfold can be found by subscribing to SPACED’s monthly email newsletter, and following SPACED on Facebook and Instagram.

To learn more about Loren Kronemyer, please join her mailing list at www.lorenkronemyer.com and explore her other notes @lorenrubicana.

Circular Economies is produced as a joint partnership by PICA - Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts and SPACED.

¹ 7News digital team, Guns blown up as WA government trumpets buyback scheme success [web video], https://7news.com.au/video/news/perth/guns-blown-up-as-wa-government-trumpets-buyback-scheme-success-bc-6361830446112, (accessed 19 September 2024).