12/4/2002: Sheep poetry

[Undertoad]

Shown here is poet Valerie Laws. She is writing.

Well sorta. What she's doing is painting words on the backs of 15 sheep. After she's done, she'll climb to the top of a platform to see what poems the sheep create by milling around.

No, it's art. It's called the "Quantum Sheep project", had a $4000 (L2000) grant given to it by charity.

The ananova story

But apparently this picture is of a trial run or something, because the actual project is supposed to take place later. I'm not sure why they have to wait, or why it would cost money to paint words on the back of sheep and look at them from a platform. Frankly I think I could do it cheaper through technology, having taken a course on random number generation, but there is something interesting about having the process be organic.

And that's what the artist says too: "I feel this is an exciting project in which the landscape of the countryside connects with the inhabitants and creates organic poetry."