EAF : City Tags (31.8.07 Day 6)

There's been a bit of a delay on the post for the final day of the City Tags workshop on Friday due to time constraints and being generally worn out. The session on Friday morning comprised of presentations of the participants projects and some general (and lighthearted) discussion to wrap up a weeks worth of activity. The projects were by no means finished works, but rather explorations of art practice in public space. I've included some brief overviews of some of the participants projects that I was impressed by.

Adele: Adele showed us excerpts of her French New Wave/Goddard-esque film. The film focuses on three characters at various locations around Adelaide, where messages are written on walls by each of the characters as a means of communication (i.e. "meet me in the city at 3.") The direction of the film is playful and deliberately abstracted by the quirkyness of the characters, use of both colour and black and white, as well as camera techniques (handheld/fixed) and media (ISight, Mini DV, mobile phone.) I was impressed Adele's film. It examines the city of Adelaide in a curious and cheeky fashion with three main inhabitants, seemingly out of synch with each other whilst attempting to locate themselves and each other.

Yasamin: Yasamin showed us some by a local art collective that she is affiliated with. One striking example was a series of boxes which they had painted and decorated with various material at installed on Union Street in the East End of Adelaide. Each of the boxes makes up a piece of the finished mural, and was (suprisingly) left relatively untouched by the City Council. I found this work to be a creative and original approach to urban art.

Luigi: Luigi showed us a film that he had made with frames video captures of solitary trees around the CBD. With the title of 'Lonely', he explained that he wanted to explore the idea of lonliness in the urban environment and chose trees as his central subject. I felt the idea could have been developed a little better from just focusing on actual trees, Calin suggested (in all seriousness) that he should have perhaps dressed a person up as a tree as this would add a bit more gravitas to the project.




Logan: Logan examined his assault (see previous posts) by looking at the role of authority figures in public spaces. A foam-board stencil of a security person was situated in locations around the Uni SA City West campus to explore the relationship between the object and its surroundings as well as the reactions of the general public in outdoor areas. The choice of such a location is because Logan's assault occurred close the campus and resulted in a dramatic overhauls of security on campus and its surrounding areas.



Marget: Marget showed us a film which she had made of her performing against a backdrop of the ocean (near the grain silos, Outer Harbour.) She made slow movements and gestures within the single frame as she draw on herself. The clothing she draw onto (like a white cloth poncho) was put on display in our room for us to examine up close. The conceptual background behind the work was complicated, though put simply Marget's intention was to explore one's own presence 'drawing onto' the atmosphere and environment by movement, positions and gestures as well as physically drawing onto one's self.




Bianca: Bianca couldn't make it to our final session, though the conception, materials and proposed location(s) of her project were very interesting. Mid-week she showed us some stickies she had made using an Aquadere composite and coloured dyes. Resembling ooze-like drips, these would be stuck onto cracks and divisions of corporate buildings around the city. Her intention is to examine the austerity and corrupt nature of these buildings, reflected in their impersonal appearance and what they represent.

Which brings me to my project which I unfortunately hadn't had time to develop beyond the examples I showed in the previous post. The idea itself - audio tagging within an urban context - was received relatively well with some good feedback regarding the nature of the work and further developments.

Conclusions and reflections on City Tags:

Overall, the workshop provided me with a good opportunity to work amongst a group of likeminded participants as well as meet Calin Dan, whom I regard as a consumate artist in many respects. Although I didn't come out of the workshop with a completed work, I am satisfied that I have come out of this experience with some fresh new avenues for my post-graduate research as well as my own art practice beyond the ivory tower.

Calin Dan's exhibition is now showing at the EAF until the 6th of October 07.

EAF : City Tags (30.8.07 Day 5)

Well, the plan was to start audio tagging some more populated areas of the city, but due to some time constraints and other priorities (such as tonight's Tyndall Assembly concert) I've been unable to get around to doing it. However, I managed to upload the video I made of my activities yesterday afternoon. You can watch it here.

From here on, there's the opening tonight of Calin's exhibition at 6pm, I've got a concert to conduct at 8.30-ish pm and tomorrow we'll be presenting our projects and wrapping everything up. (Hopefully I'll be able to do a bit of quick tagging before the concert tonight.)

EAF : City Tags (29.8.07 Day 4)

Yesterday was dedicated to doing some fieldwork and developing our projects conceptually and practically. Aside from finding appropriate locations to 'audio tag' I spent some time designing a 'sonic identity'/'sonic signature' for the project as well as putting together a short soundscape which one of the participants had requested for her work.

Today's activity consisted of discussion amongst the group and reporting on how our projects were coming along. A couple of examples (too many to list here.) Marget's investigation into the atmospheres of spaces is very interesting as she presented a video capture she made yesterday (at the wheat silo location of the bus tour - see Day 1) of her performing very slow gestures against a static backdrop - drawing onto the atmosphere with her movements and gestures. Sarah examined the public use of public space for artistic purposes in a video capture of a site off King William Street. The site used to be a warehouse which has since been demolished and in now an empty lot strewn with rubble and e-trash which local street artists have used for shooting films and urban art (incl. some very creative graffiti.) Adele is currently working on a short film in (as she put it) the style of Luc-Goddard and the French New Wave. The film comprises of three characters meeting at various locations around the city. Logan is developing his idea (summarised in the Day 2 post) by postering and stenciling around the site of his assault. Calin provided some very thoughtful comments as well as proposing some new ideas for the projects in terms of examining the role of 'presence' and 'tension' in public space.

As for my own project, the 'audio tag' premise remains intact and this afternoon I picked out some convenient locations to hit. They are listed below.


Madley Lawns - University of Adelaide


Next to Oliphant Building - University of Adelaide


Next to South Australian Art Gallery/Museum - off North Terrace

I'll upload the YouTube video of these activities sometime tomorrow as the server isn't capable of handling large files at the moment.

I'm a bit too mentally tired to encapsulate some of the conceptual ideas underpinning this project, so I'll leave that for tomorrow as we've got a free day to spend some time firming up our works. Tomorrow I'll be striking Rundle Mall and locations with more human and sonic density.

EAF : City Tags (28.8.07 Day 3)

A 'free day' today of fieldwork and developing our projects. Since my post last night, my project has changed its course somewhat. Instead of creating a soundwalk with a conceptual (and perceptual twist), I've decided to simplify my approach somewhat and focus more on the overarching idea which has dominated this workshop: identity in public space. To do this I've decided to create a 'sonic identity' as a virtual audio tag and situate it around designated locations in the city. As I've only got a couple of days left to realise this idea, I can't spend a great deal of time designing some elaborate sound generating device (which I intended to do leading up to the workshop.) Instead, I'll rely on my trusty combo of an iPod Shuffle and my portable speakers with built in amplification. It's a relatively inconspicuous set-up with a reasonable sound projection, so it shouldn't draw attention to itself too much visibly. The sonic identity will be a short looping audio track with a reasonable dynamic range as to articulate its surroundings to varying degrees. So overall at this stage the 'sonic identity' will be used to explore the relationship between an audible tag and its surrounding environment. Hopefully it will make a bit more sense once it's put into action tomorrow morning.

EAF City Tags Workshop

Starting tomorrow I will be involved in a week-long workshop facilitated by Adelaide's EAF (Experimental Art Foundation) and led by visiting new media artist Calin Dan. Operting under the moniker of City Tags, the workshop will involve participants exploring the phenomenon of public/urban art and its socio-cultural associations through various media. I am very excited about it and will be posting periodically over the next week.

EAF: City Tags Workshop

I will be participating in a workshop called City Tags to take place later this month at the invitation of the EAF (Experimental Arts Foundation). The workshop is part of a visit by the (new) media artist Calin Dan and will focus specifically on the phenomenon of tagging in urban spaces. I will be participating as a sound artist and developing an aesthetic of 'audio tagging'.

More can be read here: http://eaf.asn.au/2007/dan.html

[21.1.07] Making Sound Work: Sound art workshop

On the weekend I checked out Jason Sweeney's "Making Sound Work" sound art workshop at Headquarters Studio in Richmond, invited by Jason to drop by and talk about sound art and myself for a bit.

The workshop attracted just under a dozen participants from broad artistic backgrounds, including two guys who came all the way from Melbourne for the event! The workshop kicked off on Saturday, and I dropped by on Sunday afternoon to see how things were coming along. The sessions involved participants creating works (as individuals or small groups) with whatever materials were around, this included vintage synths, guitars, tape machines, record players, samplers, effects pedals and microphones. The works performed were more or less improvised, with a compositional and performative structure worked out beforehand (which included loose instructions by Jason.) The results were varied though mostly enjoyable with plenty of creativity, spontaneity and invention from the participants. In fact, some of the best works I heard were from the participants who were either unfamiliar or had some trepidation about using a particular instrument or device. As a result, there was refreshingly little ego in sight.

I talked briefly about how sound art is regarded as an artistic practice, giving examples of my own work as well as commenting on some the performances I had heard that afternoon. I mentioned that the predominant nature of the works (which were conceptual and process driven) had a strong tie to the aesthetic of sound art, and how the absence of a formal language (i.e. musical) dictated the works in terms of being inter-mediatory, spontaneous and in some cases, specific to particular space or object. I also mentioned how pleasing it was to not see a single laptop in sight!

I did contribute one work later in the afternoon - walking very slowly from one end of the gallery space to the other using an egg-shaker to articulate the resonances of each room.

Jason's Website

Here are some pictures I took: