Some pictures of the recording site;
and here's some other experiments;
For information on various artists informing this practise go HERE
and go HERE for a copy of my written proposal submitted 30/05/11
Some journal scans for your visual pleasures;
30/05/11
Here's some extra bits and pieces of writing that were cut from my written proposal which was submitted today.
The majority of the recording process has so far been conducted in a large, mostly unused building in the Gasworks Village. It's a two-story building with large rooms and very high ceilings. I chose this space for its age, height and uniqueness, it's a space I have access to and it's due to be renovated into a functioning business space within the next year or so. The experimentation that has taken place within this space has investigated certain sites that have a particular resonance, placing microphones in different rooms or on different levels to the source of the sound and recording through instruments which react to vibrations by adding their own resonant qualities. The sounds this space has produced are rewarding. I feel that these sounds have potential for development beyond relocation.
The new layer I'd like to incorporate into my installation is the idea of ceremony or worship - to present sound as a sacred entity. It seems to fit a logical progression in the evolution of a sound based practice. First, to have an awareness of sound in the spaces we occupy, then re-contextualise them into subjects of appreciation, develop that appreciation into an understanding of the expressive capabilities that exist within the content - its language - and learn to acknowledge these possibilities with reverence.
In the planning stage, it's important for me to take measures to overcome problems pre-emptively. So with that in mind, let's talk gear; the aural element will be a stereo mix played through two large audio monitors and powered by a stereo amplifier - all sourced from the E-Media department. The amplifier will give additional equalisation control to adjust for the space.
The black cloth will be cuts of linen sourced from Spotlight, I've used a similar configuration for an earlier work and it's very cheap material and is also very light which makes it easy to hang. I'm sourcing a projector from a friend which I've used before and has a much bigger throw than the librarys'. In order to split the projection onto the three bits of fabric I'll used a 'splitter' - these are available very cheaply online, however the bits of fabric themselves aren't going to be spread that far apart so this may not be neccessary. The stills themselves will be directed by me, but captured by a friend of mine who has much greater photographical skills. The interactive element came about from talks of a collaborative effort with co-student Matt Daniels. Sourcing a computer to control everything from shouldn't be an issue, but just incase I've got a spare computer of my own which can be used to house the sound-bed, display the visuals and run the mini-program which guides the interactivity. The idea is to be as self-sufficient as possible.
17/05/2011
Currently testing the waters of a theory. The foundations of an artistic exploration of aural space/s seem to be mostly based around re-contextualisation. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it does seem a tried process, I want to do more than just insert sound into a space that's from somewhere else.
The theory I'm playing with at the moment is what I'm hoping seems reads as a logical progression to others as well as myself. So, looking at intentions of Sound-based practices as a continuum; first you have a heightened awareness of the sounds around us, acknowledging activity in aural space which is otherwise overlooked. Secondly, you have a re-contextualisation of those sounds, relocating them into a gallery space for consideration as objects of beauty - trying to see the mundane sounds of our urban environment as a 'chance' symphony. Thirdly - this is where I'm at - it seems reasonable that the next step is to develop an understand of these sounds, not just as sounds but as a language. To understand the 'story' they tell and how they inform our engagement with the world. Then, fourthly, to honour this higher form of language as a sacred entity. Not within a religious context, or anything like 'bowing at the altar of sound' but just something to be observed with quiet contemplation.
These last two steps are what seem to be informing my direction at the moment. The 'sacred entity' type aspect seems quite suited to an installation - one that is more engaging than simply putting some speakers in a room. To push the engaging aspect of the installation further I'm tee-ing up collaborative efforts with Matt Daniels who can hopefully help me develop the space into one that is interactive, further details on how I plan to implement this are soon to follow.
04/05/2011
Recently I presented a range of my experiments to the class which were received with mixed results. These were delivered as Sound Collages, just to try and show some of the ideas I'm currently toying with. It seemed like the majority of these collages were not particularly engaging and that my strengths lay in some of the more ambient/Sound-Bed type arrangements I've been putting together. To create these I worked within a large and mostly unused building in the gasworks village - on the corner of macquarie and evens street - to experiment with recording sounds in a large environment.
This building has a lot of wide open rooms with lots of old timber floors and very high ceilings. It has quite a nice acoustic and I wanted to experiment within this space to see what kind of results it would produce. I experimented with placing microphones on the upper level and the source of the sound on the lower, recording from long distances, through different rooms and at certain points in the space that had a particular resonance or character.
The predominant source of sound was an electric guitar fed through an amplifier on a clean channel, the varying recording methods mostly captured a large and 'washed out' sound which had very little trace of the attack of the strings being addressed or any signs of an instrument being played. The effect is a rather organic sounding entity that wavers and resonates - the multi-level idea gave a particularly good sense of height.
Listening back to the raw recordings, I imagine them to be like the bottom of an ocean, not the floor, but just above it; where sand is occasionally kicked up and slowly settles back down again. It is a very dense atmosphere.
I feel as though this direction is giving the best results in terms of reaction and expression, not just recordings from this particular building but this ambient/organic direction in general. I don't think these sounds recorded in this building are strong enough to stand alone as a work in themselves, but they are starting to seem like a good foundation to be built upon.
29/04/2011
Developing this website has been taking up a dis-proportionate amount of time. There has been some good news in the study ethic side of things though, Deus Ex 3, a game I've pre-ordered and am childishly excited about has had it's release date delayed until late August, so my Uni work load is no longer in such serious jeopardy.
I'm continuing to develop my database of definitions of particular sounds in terms of what they mean or 'say' to me. This is helping me to establish an arsenal of specific ideas that can then be extracted and added to a mix to create a more concise communication and also concrete a more efficient process.
My plan for the final installation is set in stone - in my head - which as we at UTAS know, counts for very little, but my aim is to have mock up installations working in the last couple of weeks of the semester, because nobody likes nasty surprises. Additionally I don't believe it's still acceptable by third year to be running around like a headless chook moments before opening trying to find some unusual adapter upon which the functioning of your work depends.
I might try and hop on a scanner later and get some pages of my journal into electronic form, when/if I do, they'll appear below.
11/03/2011
Scavenging around various web-spaces, there seems to be minimal information relating to Sound Art and those involved in such a practise. The only common ground that the few resources available seem to share is the thought that it's often hard to define where Experimental Music ends and Sound Art begins.
Certainly, this grey area is where I (and my work) exist. I've never really encountered this as a problem before though, as far as the work I do goes, it is what I say it is. If it's something else to whoever's listening to it, then that's what it is to them. Ultimately I prefer working in this sort of grey area between experimental/abstract music and sound art because undefinable things are more interesting. Classification becomes the end of a thought train, if I hand you a CD and say "Hey, check out this death metal song I wrote" you'd already have "heard" half of it through your own pre-conceived ideas about that particular genre or classification, in this example, death metal. When you're not sure how to describe something, you have to communicate it in your own round-about way, singling out particular parts like "Oh, I really like that part where the drums slowly distort into a total mess" or "This part sounds like..." etc. To me, that's more interesting, classification encourages dismissal.
No comments:
Post a Comment