Experimental presentation using photos of a contested local remnant site as song lines style background to initial contextualisation of the essential ubiquity of habituation and addictions.

1. Life is Necessarily Addictive
a Kororoit exploration 29 October 2020
Tony Smith
Melbourne Emergence Meetup
12 November 2020

2. This NAIDOC week we acknowledge our
indebtedness to recent learnings from our
local encounters with the oldest living human
culture, particularly on lands of the Wurundjeri
through which Kororoit Creek runs.
always was, always will be
We also thank Lynne
Kelly for her inspired
recognition of the
patterns of orality and
transitions towards
literacy which turn
received wisdom from
childhood on its head.
Songlines: The
Power and Promise
This presentation is a rushed experiment with
pairing a single day photowalk across
landscape with a series of one line expressions
of the thinking supporting our observation
that Life is Necessarily Addictive.
Six months preparation of our
Ecosystems Decline submission has
been a deep dive into many things
long known more widely but ignored
or suppressed by colonial regimes.
Together with an accelerating flood
of recent work exposing the complex
interconnections of the Life world to
scientific scrutiny and on social
media, these are making the big
picture more coherent.
Rather than narrowing discussion
too early in such explorations, we
are presenting against background
from recent first visit to the section
of the vast former ICI Deer Park site
cut off by Brimbank Freeway where
Kororoit Creek meanders the
northeast corner while commercial
imperatives obstruct environmental
and community aspirations.
Ardeer Green Activity Hub 2015 draft

3. Been attending Orica Deer Park site community
meetings for a decade but not looked at eastern
strip cut off by Brimbank Freeway construction
late last millennium, not even when the Ardeer
Green Activity Hub proposal came to light.
Ecological assessment at that time had identified
a significant NTGVVP remnant in the SE corner,
so when LXRA proposed to elevate and extend
Fitzgerald Road right through the remnant, the
locals needed support and time to take a look.

5. Order, chaos and innovation in the overlap, fluidity, connectedness
Looking back at arrival route from Ardeer station

6. ICI hazardous industry–suburban housing buffer planting
Life is condensed
matter chemistry is
electromagnetism

7. Life is pattern replication, developmental and evolutionary processes
274 Forrest Street frontage of proposed Ardeer Green Activity Hub

8. Diurnal, annual and other planetary cycles facilitate gradient flows
EVC 132_61: Heavier-soils Plains Grassland

9. The extravagant reproductive output of one is food for another
Approach to grade-separated Fitzgerald Road over rail bridge planned to descend through here

10. Pattern replication adaptable to variation with tolerance limits requires feedback loops
Level crossing on stem of T intersection at lights on busy corridor in shadow of Brimbank Freeway

11. Action “choice” has
external impact which
feeds back to state of actor
Inner double row of trees gains goat track

12. Returning as close as possible to a
recognised “happy” state/place/time
Western Ring Road Trail turning away from freeway to use Kororoit Creek Trail bridge

13. “Helical causality” seeking to
repeat yesterday, last week,
last year, last generation
Unusual diversity of adjacent thistles amongst diversity of grasses

14. Waterways and wildfire increasingly seen as living because they have similar attributes
Invasive artichoke thistles thrive in disturbed and neglected areas

15. Inflorescence/fruiting of plants and fungi can appear exuberant
A rich variety of grasses still dominate less disturbed industrial buffer zones

16. Roles of pattern matching and dopamine in better studied animals
Caring locals are attracted to plant near freeway runoff wetlands

17. Feeling good/better is the start of habituation/addiction
Lomandra occupies wetland space, more varied trees near creek

18. Food and reproduction
are primary drivers which
spawn secondary drivers
Loose basalt left on surface as Kororoit Creek cut into the basalt plain

19. It's oxygen that burns,
its separation from
biomass fuelling a
planetary energy store
This thistle seems to disperse more widely/less densely than others,

20. Oxygen started as toxic
waste, long consumed
to precipitate iron ions
Frog spawning pond where freeway run off is naturally filtered.

21. Eukaryotic mitochondria step down slow combustion to the adenosine phosphate cycle
Looking the other way, service track comes to dead end above Kororoit Creek

22. Critical chemistry is inseparable from the Life system with repurposing of components
Guarding planted trees from rabbits also requires some maintenance responsibility.

23. No detectable reward threshold in the assemblage of the components of cellular life
Seasonally skeletal remnant of widespread toxic Datura that seeds in the autumn.

24. Affirmative feedback essential to keeping basic life processes going
Both sides of goat track experience same vegetation succession regime.

25. Annual grasses share tall trees’ imperative to reach vertically for first access to sunlight.
Diversification of mechanisms to reflect divergent timetables of food and reproduction

26. Moments before a largish flock of starlings had emerged from this patch of grassland.
Increasing complexity creates internal tensions needing resource arbitration

27. Other birds in the trees and on the creek but not the day’s primary focus.
Practice makes perfect: habit formation, localised knowledge, flexibility, adaptation

28. Kororoit Creek more truly demonstrates Chain of Ponds model than others than claim it.
Seasonal variation and life cycle stages, home establishment, parenting and fledging

29. Bridge connects Ring Road Trail and local active transport links to Kororoit Creek Trail.
Populations, how to make a living, intra-group competition resolution

30. Kororoit Creek continues downstream through Ardeer and Sunshine.
Companionship to comfort foods, whatever helps get you through the day/night

31. Combined trails continue through colonised More Park, 749 Ballarat Road.
Attachments, variably reciprocated, which become dependencies

32. But look the other way and more natural grasses are thriving.
Extending Roberto Unger's ideas to see natural law as co-emergent with its targets

33. From across the creek, the retention of some chain mesh fencing makes more sense.
Seductive appeal of privileged and disproportionate access to desirables

34. Upstream, the creek flows out of its corner of Orica beneath freeway and ramp.
Statist/colonial obsessions with mediated representations and monetary circulation

35. The scale and heritage of the ICI/Orica explosives business has been largely lost to remediation.
We are each a consolidating accumulation
of our histories, genetic and dynamic

36. Gate 1 has lost its significance, but a creek crossing here is slated on redevelopment plans.
Stable base platforms from
which risk taking can be
more safely explored

37. I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
Deer Park Hotel with fortunately well serviced bus stop.
Fire and Rain
James Taylor

38. Hey Mom, since we’re talkin’
What was it like when you were young?
Has the world changed or is still the same?
A man can kill and still be the sweetest fun
Hey Mom, why didn’t you warn me?
’Cause about boys there’s something I should have known
They’re like chocolate cake, like cigarettes
I know they’re bad for me but I just can’t leave ’em alone
Hey Mom, why didn’t you tell me?
Why didn’t you teach me a thing or two?
You just let me go, out into the world
You never thought to share what you knew
So I walked under a bus
I got hit by a train
Keep fallin’ in love
Which is kind of the same
I’ve sunk out at sea, crashed my car, gone insane
And it felt so good, I wanna do it again
Orica decontamination and redevelopment end from hotel bus stop.
Buses and Trains
James Roche
Bachelor Girl

39. Reflections!
Questions?
Train Reading