(in) (ex) terior: stages of development

(in) (ex) terior is a sculptural installation I've been developing since August with the assistance of my mentor Robin Minard. With the concept worked out upon returning to Australia, the challenging aspect of constructing the sculpture faithfully got underway a couple of weeks ago.
Now with the speakers, pigment and preliminary audio in place it's nearly finished - a good thing too considering it's also the final creative installment of my Masters project.

Consultation & Peppercorns

My mentor Robin Minard is back in town for brief spell before he takes a 4WD up north into the wilderness for three months. We've caught up a couple of times over the past week and it's having some very positive outcomes in terms of research and my associated practice. The peppercorns are dancing on illuminated resonant surfaces and I think I might have something special on my hands. I'll be constructing the frames over the weekend.

Dysfunction

Speaking to sound artist Robin Minard on a rainy evening in February this year, he explained to me that writing a Masters thesis is one of the most gut wrenching and difficult experiences you can ever put yourself through from an intellectual perspective. Writing an Honours thesis was hard enough in that surreal final month of October 05 - it felt at times like a bad one night stand that kept happening over and over again. Writing a Masters thesis for the past two years has felt more like a drawn out dysfunctional relationship - you love each other, the sex is alright, but more often than not there are disagreements and you feel the necessity to start throwing things at each other.

Analogies aside, it's a question of commitment and dysfunction when it comes to the masters thingo.

The good news is that thing are beginning to work themselves out, the amended research paper is progressing and should be in front of my supervisors before weeks end. Robin's been back in town for a couple of days after his extensive research tour of the north country and finally has some gaps in his schedule to discuss the mentorship. Confidence is gradually coming back after a frustrating period of indecisiveness and non-activity, a couple of meetings/brain picking sessions over the next couple of days with Robin should prove vital.

The amended research paper will be posted here soon, all things mentorship-centric will be posted as per usual.

Exciting times ahead.

Mentorship with Robin Minard commences proper

After a few months of e-mail correspondance, my Helpmann Academy/Optus sponsored mentorship with German/Canadian sound artist Robin Minard is about to commence. Robin arrives in Australia today to start work on a radio commision project in Adelaide for the next month. I have half a notebook of research-centric concepts to flight with him as well as a few ideas relating to the eventual project that I will develop under his guidance throughout the year.

Meanwhile I'm a slave to the wage processing government rebates, slowly building a pile of gold to fuel a flight to Europe in September. With that in mind, posting on the blog will a bit sporadic for the next couple of weeks I think.

Exploration of purpose and form

Over the past week I've been playing around with various way to present and formailse ideas which revolve around the fusion of visual and sound aesthetics. The following examples are ideas that have been largely influenced by the work of sound artists Felix Hess, Rolf julius and Robin Minard.


Music for a stone: an ink stone weighing down a piezo transducer with cardboard resonator.

This is essentially an idea I've borrowed in part from sound artist Felix Hess where he uses a stone to weigh down a piezo transducer on a thin cardboard or balsa wood resonator. The contact between the transducer and resonator causes a signal to be amplified. By elevativing the resonator with a matchstick - creating a tiny pocket of air - this causes the signal to be amplified a bit more. I've had some inky stones lying about for a month or so, and I thought it would be interesting to incorporate this into Hess' idea as it adds another element of detail.


Music for a garden: position loudspeakers in a plum tree

This is relatively self-explanetory I suppose in that it is a cute sound sculpture for a garden environment, in this case my backyard. Rolf Julius' work in this field examines the relationship between constructed sound objects and natural surrounding sound objects, in many cases the constructed sounds mimic the natural sounds so they are barely perceptible from each other. A lopsided plum tree seemed liked an appropriate and visually attractive place to position some baby loudspeakers.


Music for a room: loudspeakers attached to a door

This serves a similar functional purpose to that of Music for a garden. Borrowing from Robin Minard's aesthetic of sound to condition and articulate spaces, I played a recent piece Music For Tidy Spaces at a low volume to explore this idea. The loudspeaker arrangement on the door also mirrors Minard's work strongly.

I've also posted this entry at the research blog.