An exercise in reduction

I thought I'd post this as it's something a bit different from the usual sound-orientated stuff that dominates this blog. The series of photos detail the process of an extra-curricular activity from the Milkcrate session over the weekend. A tactile distraction of sorts for a long 24 hours.

I had brought along a metal sheet as a means of generating some interesting sounds for the session, though after awhile (and several coffees) it became its own autonomous art object. Earlier I had scratched it with rocks and pencils to get certain sounds and marked out interesting harmonic regions with whiteboard markers. By the early hours of the morning it had been scribbled with random nonsense, and by dawn only traces of chaotic gestures were visible in the scratch marks and the barely visible pencil scrapings.

I like the idea of reductionism, it is an approach that I apply to my work ethic during a Milkcrate session: building up detail and stripping it away. A visual parallel to sonic gestures.


1) Some scratches, pencil markings and whiteboard marker shapes


2) Nonsensical rhetoric and additional details


3a) Whiteboard marker markings scrubbed away: final result


3b) Close-up of final result

Tyndall Assembly Concert 4: POSTPHONED AND RESCHEDULED

Due to unforseen circumstances Tyndall Assembly concert 4 has been postphoned and re-scheduled for Thursday 11th October. Please go to www.tyndallassemblyblog.blogspot.com for further details.

Milkcrate 18

I am currently engaged in the 18th Milkcrate session. You can monitor progress and results here.

Tyndall Assembly on JJJ JArts Crew

Lachlan Tetlow-Stuart of Triple J's J Arts Crew has written a great article on the Tyndall Assembly which you can check out here.

http://www.theprogram.net.au/featuresSub.asp?id=5295&state=1.

Good Evening Song

Good Evening Song
Sept 2 - Gallery Delacatessen

Johannes.S.Sistermanns, James Geurts, Linda Marie Walker

Last night I attended a performance at Gallery Delacatessen that I thought would be worth mentioning.

Good Evening Song was a combination of sound (Sistermanns), words (Marie Walker) and images (Geurts.) The performance was already underway in a sense as myself and few other people arrived at the venue ten minutes prior to the designated start time. The atmosphere seemed quite casual and informal as James Geurts worked by a projection, Linda Marie Walker sat at a table cutting up text and pasting it into an empty book and Sistermanns greeted people at the door discreetly. Geurts projection showed a sequence of somebody (him I assume) peeling and fixing transparent tape to a surface, shot from the top with only his hands and arms in view. This sequence was occasionally intercut with pixelated mattes of colour. Geurts was working at a nearby table carefully measuring lengths of transparent tape and fixing them to the wall over the projection. Marie Walker sat on a chair elevated with blocks of cork as she pasted fragments of text into her empty book and stood up to read them (quietly.) Each time she did this she would purposely dislodge the chair from the cork blocks and once she had finished speaking, refix the chair to these blocks before sitting down and continuing her process. Sistermanns activated a series of sound devices around the space which emitted a variety of soft and metallic attacks and sustained sounds. He then proceeded to move to the piano, striking a note then fixing sellotape to the key and dragging out the length of tape (through the audience in some cases) to a section of the space. This process continued until there were several lengths of tape creating a transparent web across the space. As Geurts and Marie Walker continued their respective tasks, Sistermanns stood over the piano emitting a sustained singing tone, turning slowly as to articulate the resonant frequency of the space. Notes were occasionally struck and trilled on the piano and later he would proceed to play a contact mic on objects around the space, including the tape network and Marie Walker's table.

This was definitely the most conceptually broad performance I've been privvy to in some time, though then again this may suggest a lack of diversity in performance art activity around Adelaide. I had short discussions with the artists and some audience members afterwards and we agreed that the key to this performance lay in its consistent pace and respective discipline of its performers, wherein it never accelerated or slowed down - everything had a natural flow to it. This was essentially mixed media theatre reminiscent of Fluxus and Happening performances of the 1960s, though I wouldn't wish to consign it to this approximation alone. Good Evening Song overall was a highly enjoyable, curious and playful experience.

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 (27.8.07 Day 2)

Refreshed after a weekend's worth of recuperation and reflection, today's activity involved some general roundtable discussion amongst Calin and the participants regarding our proposed projects for the workshop. We were also treated to a presentation by Calin of some of his observations and works influenced by his experiences. A majority of ideas for projects are circulating around ideas of conflict, voyerism and identity in public spaces.

Discussion of projects:

A couple of examples. Participant Logan proposed a project based around his experience of being the victim of a group assault nearly a year ago just around the corner from the EAF. He explained he would use video capture and map out the site (using chalk lines, postering) of the assault to recreate the experience in an abstract fashion. Amy wanted to use the experience of the bus tour (see previous post) as a basis for exploring atmospheres of places and juxtaposing them against each other - such as the grain silo location juxtaposed with the warehouses of Port Adelaide. Such an idea comes from her motivation to engage with atmospheres which evoke contrasting subjective feelings and present these using video and photo media.

My project (such as it is at present):

As for me as the sole sound-based participant, I've decided to explore the role of auditory culture in public spaces by examining Walkman/iPod culture in a soundwalk for a city block in the CBD (possibly the Hindley St. circuit.) I will make a recording of the walk whilst mapping and timing it out accordingly. This recording will be used as the guide track that the participant will use (with Walkman/iPod) to navigate their way along the walk. Specific points along the walk will be chosen as designated 'observation points' where the Walkman/iPod is either paused or left running as a means to draw the participants perception towards their surroundings. Foreign sounds also will be added to the guide track in pre-production as a means to enhance/contradict/obscure the participants perception towards their surroundings.



This isn't an original idea by any stretch, it has its roots in the work of Canadian sound artist Janet Cardiff who in the 1990's put together these sort of soundwalks for Walkmans to tour the city. What I'm specifically interested in is combining this idea with the phenomena of Walkman/iPod culture in public/urban spaces. In an essay for The Auditory Culture Reader entitled "The Sonic Composition of the City", Jean-Paul Thibaud examines this phenomena by highlighting the dominance of the visual over the auditory in urban spaces and the common tendency to use the Walkman or iPod as a 'sonic bridge' to 'flatten their perception'[1] as the person moves from one location (such as their home) to another (such as work.) Thibaud uses 'the knots of the urban environment'[2] to describe intermittent and loud sounds which interrupt this state of flattened perception, and in turn draw the persons attention back to their surroundings and situation.

From this perspective, the construction of my soundwalk would take advantage of this state of flattened perception and (in a sense) turn it on itself by superimposing a prior recording of the walk onto the same walk in real-time. A temporal shift (or schizophrenia) of sorts, methods of lowering/raising volume, pausing the guide track and introducing foreign sounds could serve as a means of drawing the participants attention to their surroundings.

This is obviously still an idea in a state of rough conception, so I'll stop here before I start repeating myself and summarise Calin's presentation instead.

Calin's presentation:

Calin delivered a great presentation on what he describes as 'Emotional Architecture' using the capital cities of Bucharest (Romania) and Tallinn (Estonia) as examples. By 'Emotional Architecture', Calin approached the architecture of these cities to evaluate the relationship they have with their citizens.

Bucharest - where Calin spent most of the 1970s and 80s under Communist rule - was presented with a peculiar brutality in its decrepit Bauhaus-style high rise apartments juxtaposed with 19th century facades decaying under years of neglect. Calin alluded to Bucharest as a city with a history of ruptures, instability and 'a brutal activity of reshaping'. He identified this motivation towards reshaping as a cultural dissatisfaction with the way things are, which was pushed to proverbial extremes under the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceauşescu with the construction of the enormous 'People's Palace' at the expense of surrounding neighborhoods and the construction of the said high rise apartments. This architectural activity and its relationship to Romanian society was used by Calin to explore the subject of public ownership of public space - a persistent topic of discussion in this workshop and a concurrent theme of our bus tour on Friday.

The analysis of Tallinn focused on the strange monolithic structure which is known Linnahall, an enormous building built for the 1980 Olympic Games. Essentially a proposed 'representation of the people' under Soviet rule, the structure became a site for events and demonstrations leading up the fall of Communism. Post-Communism, the structure has fallen into neglect and has (unsettlingly) been adopted by the Russian population of Estonia as a monument of the Motherland.

The ideas of identity in public space in Bucharest and Tallinn were then described respectively in the conception of two films by Calin, Sample City and Trip, which will be shown as part of the EAF exhibition of Calin's work opening this Friday.

(Whew...that's almost a couple of wiki entries right there.)

Overall, a good day. Calin is an absolute pleasure to work with as well as the fellow workshop participants.

[1] Thibaud, Jean-Paul. "The Sonic Composition of the City", The Auditory Culture Reader. (Berg: Oxford) pp. 329
[2] pp. 333