Studio report

I spent the best part of the morning and the early afternoon finishing up some tracks which will make up a new release entitled Tiefurt. It's a project that was thought up shortly before going overseas back in August. I won't go into great detail about the concept right now, I'll save that for an imminent upload and release in the next couple of days.

(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.

Wheatsheaf show video

I've uploaded a video of last Monday's performance at the Wheatsheaf. Thanks to my Lauren for the capture.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=-mXYDSjzIqY

Viva Mexicana!

My good cousin Ben gifted me some kitsch vinyl on Friday afternoon after work. Viva Mexicana! is a delightfully camp set of traditional Mexican tunes set to a Go-Go flavour - lots of horns and some nice marimba spots. I did a spontaneous bit of spinning on my turntable (with ipod synth) this afternoon and came up with this little tune: it's Mexicana A-Go Go! (1.7 MB)

Perfect for tequila binges, mild acid trips and commencing revolutions with bucksome chiquitas.

How ironic I should start working under my new stage name (redrobin) and come up with something completely inconsistent with my previous output.

redrobin

For the sake of clarity, I have now assigned myself the psuedonym of redrobin for the area of my output associated with turntables, electro acoustic wanderings and similar activities. I'll be retaining my name proper for my more acoustic song based meanderings.

Wheatsheaf

Last night I played a turntable/ipod set at COMA's Hipnote Spring Sessions. At nearly an hour, it was the longest set that I've played in this guise and I had been concerned whether I could sustain it for an extended period. It went reasonably well I think.

The selection of vinyl included the La Boheme 78, some 'Mantovani Ole!' (good for castanets), Trumpet A Go Go (more like marimba a go go), excerpts of Bowie's Low and Heroes as well as a dash of Blondie. The ipod touch featured for the first time, including some synth textures over vinyl crackles early on and the generative Eno/Chiver's Bloom application which got chopped and diced towards the end of the set.

Someone thought that the set worked really well, dividing it into two sections - First Half: foreboding, Second half: EROTIC. Nice to see I finished off on a good note.

Setlist (excluding segues):

The Drop
Farewell Mimi
Slow Light
Preceding Dust
Lounge Scare
Hansa
Musk
A Room For Departure

Arousing Bloom

A couple of weeks ago I invested in a new iPod. My mk1 Shuffle bit the dust whilst overseas so I figured it was time to upgrade. The nice thing about the Touch model (aside from the WIFI and iCal sync) is the hours of procrastination that can be spent fooling around with the many applications floating around on the net aether. Of particular note are the music making apps including a wonderful generative music making program by none other than Brian Eno and software developer Peter Chivers (read about it here.) As nice as it is on its own, I decided it was time to add my own bit of flavour to it by running it through the trusty Arouser. The results are so-so, but interesting nonetheless.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=EX69xnqJJjk

Upcoming show: 17th November 08

Performing with turntable, ipod and tape. Appearing as part of COMA's Spring Hipnote sessions, Daniel Clohesy (contemporary jazz) also performs.

When: Monday 17th November 08, doors open 8pm
Where: Wheatsheaf International Hotel, 39 George Street Thebarton
Cost: $5 (COMA members), $8 (non-)

OBAMA

What a great historic day.

What a nerve wracking morning, I got barely any writing done.

Faceless: Shoegazer

I have contributed a video/sound work for Jason Sweeney's Faceless project. Entitled 'Shoegazer' it examines concepts of self-examination, narcissism and loneliness. Cheerful themes we can all associate with an attempted (and failed) life on the Internet. The work is also an intentional stab at the 'nothing' videos that one comes across on YouTube (see: 'My Life As An Emo', 'Leave Britney Alone!!!', etc.) The video is taken from a walk by a river in Munich. The audio is an amalgam of the original audio capture, a bit of processing and mobile phone audio.

Teapot Work, Sumi and Interior/Exterior updates

For the past week on bus trips to work my blackbook has been periodically filled with notes and diagrams for the creative works portfolio of the research project. It's common knowledge that when you spend an extended amount of time on a couple of works, they'll inevitably evolve, suiting a new idea or repair themselves after a stunning failure. Both the Teapot Work and Sumi_ have been in this situation for awhile.

Teapot Work:



In the case of the Teapot Work the main issue was presentation - the original idea was for a performance/installation situation that closely resembled the work that inspired it, Alvin Lucier's I Am Sitting In A Room. And that was the problem really. On Saturday morning I recorded a handful of iterations for both the red and white teapots, capturing the sound of teapot and playing the recording back into the teapot four times. As an experiment I left the window open as I recorded the first and successive captures. The sound of street traffic and birdcalls found their way into the teapot, which in turn subtly articulated the resonances at play. The drone of a vacuum cleaner in the room next door created an interesting effect whilst I was recording the white teapot.

During the week when I was thinking of ways I could define this work better, I reminded myself of the association between the teapot and its cultural connotations - as a ceremonial and domestic object. I thought about its domestic meaning and decided it should be better incorporated into this context. After listening to the recordings I made on Saturday morning the action of leaving the window open to the world outside seemed like a good idea. Along with this and other sounds of the house (vacuum cleaner, conversations, radio, music) the teapot is posited in a domestic and identifiable context. I'm still to make recordings of the green (big) teapot and Lauren's heavy metal teapot, further updates soon.

Sumi:



This work has been troublesome for most of the year. Since exhibiting it in an early form about a year ago, I immediately identified some problems with it shortly after seeing it in the gallery context. The main issue was the fact that the two elements in operation (sound and image) were physically distant to each other and thus didn't make the intended perceptual relationship between the two convincing. During a discussion with Robin Minard back in April, he suggested some ways of bringing these elements closer together, but nothing seemed to stick.

In Germany last month, whilst exploring a sprawling exhibition in the Hamburger Bahnhof I settled on the best way of presenting this work. Where in the early version of the work, the loudspeaker would sit on the ground facing up towards the observer, the loudspeaker would instead be suspended and brought up to face the observer at waist height. A second loudspeaker of a smaller size would be suspended at eye level, albeit behind the print. As the work is observed the sound element would oscillate slowly between the two speakers, from the visible loudspeaker the upper hidden one. This would in the first instance, direct the observers attention to the source of the sound and a visible symbol for listening (i.e. the loudspeaker), then as the sound moved to the hidden loudspeaker, this would assimilate the sound with the detail of the print. I tested this a couple of nights ago and despite some niggles it seems to be on the right track.

Interior/Exterior:

The idea for the third and final work came rather belatedly whilst I was in Europe. Expanding on some ink drawings I've had sitting around for awhile, I decided I would use this image as a blueprint for a sculptural sound object that operates on two independent and unified states. It's difficult to explain succinctly at the moment (it is 3AM after all) but I will say it's similar to the process of Sumi_, the exception being that it's more ambitious.

Breaking the blog silencio

Since I got back from Melbourne last Saturday I've had barely any time to sit still, let alone post something here. The week has been consumed with work drudgery and my evenings have been spent with mental recovery. No matter though, today has been a nice change of pace allowing me to work on the research project, revisiting the tpot work of yore and contemplating the adding some final touches to sumi_. Since I've got a family thing to run off to shortly the details on this morning's activities will be posted shortly.