While heading to Harakka Island last Thursday with Marika and Pira to take the boat up for the winter, I decided to try to revisit the next site of Animal Years, to have some material to work with for the next research day to be organized by the HTDTWP (How to do things with performance) project. I brought my camera and tripod and planned to sit on the rusty buoy on the hill, because that was the main image of the Year of the Ox, I thought. But then I realized that the day and night of the ox was actually recorded circling the rusty ring on the cliff in the southeastern part of the island, so I had better choose that spot for my revisit.
The full-length version Year of the Ox – Walking in Circles is 1 hour 30 minutes, while Year of the Ox – Walking in Circles (short) is 19 min 16 sec and Day and Night of the Ox is only 14 min 15 sec. That year I visited several places each week, so there are other works (and sites) I could have chosen, such as Year of the Ox – Riding a Buoy, Year of the Ox – Sitting in the Wall or Year of the Ox – In a Yoke.
 
After finally succeeding in getting the boat up – Marika and Pira were incredibly strong, in willpower, I would say – I looked for the rusty iron chain that I used to attach to the rusty ring on the cliff, but could not find it. There was no time to lose, we would get a lift back to the mainland with Saara in an hour, so I grabbed the rope that I had just removed from the boat and decided that would have to do. The site was easy to find, and the approximate spot for the tripod as well; unfortunately I did not take the time to make a test image, but jumped right into action. And that meant the framing was slightly off, or perhaps the rope was a little bit too long (and I did not have a belt to tie it to). In any case, the circle I drew by walking around the rusty ring was too big, so I disappeared outside the frame on both sides. This I noticed only later, at home. I knew about 25 minutes of material would be needed to be able to insert the 20 minute year and the almost 15 minute day and night into the new image, so I left the camera on to record the view and moved further a way to keep warm. When I returned I noticed the camera had stopped at 21 minutes (I remembered the limit was 29 minutes) and I had to restart it. But of course the clouds had moved, and the light had changed; I should have been there standing next to the camera to restart it immediately in order to minimize the ‘jump’.
 
My plan was to edit the material during the Christmas holiday, but when I began to do that I noticed, to my chagrin, that I had forgotten to bring with me the original videos of the Year of the Ox (2009-2010). Technically this image is not actually needed as a background, because year of the ox was the first year that I used 16:9 format and HD (or HD ready) quality. But the point of revisiting the site and the action had to be recorded, of course. So I only edited the basic image, and the compilation, inserting the old works into this new background, remains to be done later this winter. After all, the research day is only on the 20th of March.