Ripsticks, Telecentres and Graffiti Artists in Remote Western Australia

The past DAY has been brilliant.

Shakthi and I departed Newman and drove for about 3.5 hours to Marble Bar - which is the hottest town on the planet (it never went below 100 degrees for 160 days in the summer of 1923-24).  It's not too hot now.  On the way, we stopped in Nullagine to pick up Dan and Brody, two graffiti artist who get paid to do 'public' (a style of 'graf' that's usually commissioned by a local government, public or private agency.)

I drove nearly 2 hours to the middle of Western Australia (Nullagine) to see these pieces.

A 'mob' is like tribe here in Western Australia.

Brody outside a piece he and Dan finished outside the Conglomerate Hotel Motel Bar (they've got excellent burgers).

They had some great work up on the local...bathroom stall.  But it's a large building (relative to the rest of the town/village).  They also did some great work at the local bar and of course, with the local kids. 

After some antics with local kids, we took off for Marble Bar.  It took about 4 minutes to drive the entire length of the town. 

We went out to see if we could find some kids.  None.  Zero.  So Shakthi and I went to go and check out the local telecentre - which is the Oz version of a community technology center (in the U.S.) and see what tools we had to work with:

• 4 computers running Windows XP
• Windows Movie Maker on all of them
• all configured competely differntly with Internet Explorer as their main browser

Soon enough, kids descended on the telecentre.  All on 'Ripsticks' - flexible, twisting, 2-wheeled boards that are ridden by twisting and wiggling your body.  We gave them a camera and my iPod (video) Nano to shoot some video and now have some great footage which we'll be able to use throughout the week.

We also had a great time hanging out with Dan and Brody, filming them and documenting them at work teaching the kids graffiti.

So far, this trip is rockin.  More pictures from the adventure so far can be found here: