"THE PEN IS A RECORDING DEVICE" LONDON 19/10/13

During the Sluice Art Fair in London - where I was invited by The Penthouse who I did a residency with early in 2013- I was loaned a pen which contained a secret MP3 recorder and left the it in different locations around the venue to record whatever was going on. Some people did wonder why I was photographing a pen. I am not yet in possession of the recordings but have been told they contain mainly inaudible noise though no doubt interesting noise. These photos were taken with my mobile phone.

Pen MP3 recorder on location. Sluice Art Fair, London, 19/10/13.

Objects on The Windowsill

A couple of card record sleeves and a Polaroid photo of the record sleeve cymbal drawings arranged on the windowsill. One of the sleeves has a verse of poetry from The Wasteland by T.S Eliott typed onto it. Part of my practice is about simply arranging or grouping objects instinctively.

Objects On Paper Sleeves

Some objects placed on paper record sleeves. They are kind of like drawings and have a lot on common with my own drawing style though these are temporary and the objects are not stuck down and can be re-arranged. The photograph is a document of a spontaneous idea and is now a new part of the work itself. All the documentation of my work immediately becomes part of the work.

Amplified Cymbals and Objects

Some broken cymbals, hand-made contact mic's, objects and electronic bits for noise making. Been sporadically and casually making sounds with these for few days. Soon I will be recording some more structured approaches and recording a collection of sounds for an online release. Also I will be performing with these at the Open House event on 1st of March.

At last some decent pictures with a proper digital camera rather than a phone. The rest of the photos from the residency will be like this.

Room Reflected in Window

Phone picture of some of my work in the the residency suite reflected on the window.

Polaroids and Tapes 10/2/13

First two in a Series of Polaroid photos both of windows in The Penthouse- one of the same window it is sitting on- and a tape recorder to capture the sounds of various actions in the space. The plan is for a series of recordings from the space to use in an improvised performance.

Photos from The Penthouse

A few phone pictures from some spaces around The Penthouse. There will be plenty of these taken during the residency. A really interesting building.

The Penthouse Residency 7/2/13 - 7/3/13

Just started a residency at The Penthouse- a new not for profit artists' space in Manchester's Northern Quarter. I am taking over a room reserved for residencies by invited artists who's work has methods and values in common to the vision for The Penthouse of it's creators and curators- artists Rosanne Robertson and Debbie Sharp.

From my initial proposal:
"Sounds will be recorded, drawings made, photographs taken, experiments performed, texts written. The residency space will become a working studio: a place to collate and organize research, a place to plan, a place to bring objects, sounds, and images together. The space, the Penthouse, the building and its surroundings will provide a basis to create new works as as response to that environment and context."

More phone pictures of the residency space before work began, taken 6/2/12:

 

Working at home: "Skip Studios"

The state of the table in the living room of my flat in Whalley Range, Manchester since I don't have a studio. I've called it Skip Studios. I've recently got back into recording and making things and finding things after a difficult couple of years. This current set up is a 10 channel mixer with digital loops and delays recording the usual mix of mini keyboards -which despite being a regular fixture in my live performances are yet to feature on a 'studio' recording- tapes, objects, home made electronics, amplified cymbals, Buddha Machines etc onto 4-track tape recorder allowing for a kind of half composed, half improvised approach which can be mixed in real time while transferring from 4-track to MP3. So it's still pretty much all improv but I can kind a kind of live edit. As well as the sound art stuff that I will be doing forever I'm working on a more self-contained project with the provisional name "Eardrums" involving electronic beats from an app on my mobile phone, percussion and guitars with lots of noise but more conventional structure (well, as much as I can manage). Would be great to get people to collaborate on that.

Sounds coming soon.

photos from ...menu for murmur. Salford, June 2010

^Vibrating cymbal exhibit at ...menu for murmur. Sharing a suspended plinth with work by Chopshop. Chapman Gallery, Salford, June 2010. Photographed on out-of-date 35m film.

^The small cymbal on top of the speaker with the amp built into a plastic box.
Photographed by Ben Gwilliam.

More on ... menu for murmur: http://thosesoundsbetween.co.uk/projects/-menu-for-murmur/

Amplified Floorboard exhibit at Kraak Gallery, Manchester.


"A site-specific installation that explores sound through the amplification of surfaces, textures and surroundings in the gallery space. Part of the gallery floor is amplified to draw attention to the vibrations and sounds created when visitors walk across a specific part of the space. The sound is relayed to a speaker placed away from the source meaning the result is dislocated from it's origin." (from statement in exhibition catalogue)



In appearance this is my most minimal exhibition work to date: an amplifier at one side of the room and a speaker on the other. Underneath a contact mic attached to the underside of the wooden floor with the wire going underneath to an amplifier sat on the floor with avery long wire going along the gaps in the floorboards to the other side of the room. The hand-built contact mic was quite sensitive and picked up sound from other floorboards around the one with the mic attached meaning more quiet sounds could be heard by not stepping directly onto that specific floorboard. It was not obvious to most visitors which was the amplified floorboard and some didn't realise where the sound from the speaker originated or what it was. Some fun was had on the opening night watching people interact with the work noticing that when they stepped on a certain part of the floor it made a noise, some people started dancing to create rhythmic sounds while others traced the wire back from the speaker to the amplifier to try to discover the source of the sound.