etherealnoisehelpstounderstandgod

Another truly wonderful faster than sound mash-up event with the collaboration bringing new understanding to each of the pieces - EXAUDI’s ethereal voices singing from the renaissance period celebrating the heavenly force of God was recontextualised by the apocalypse brought on by Russell Haswell’s noise music and in turn his random earthly noises bringing a heightened clarity to Antoine Brumel’s Earthquake Mass – just most excellent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Brumel

snapbeesanticipatingloudmusic

Back from having spent the day at SNAP I still have the work by Lily Hunter Green in collaboration with bees in my mind http://www.snapaldeburgh.co.uk/2014/art_green.html - at Snape Maltings, there are some of the same large scale photographs that are on the Island at Orford – which is always an extraordinary space to visit http://www.snapaldeburgh.co.uk/2014/exhibition2014.html The highlight will be Earthquake Mass especially after the following email....Russell Haswell’s additions to the performance of Antoine Brumel’s Earthquake Mass will include strobe, smoke and noise levels frequently reaching more than 95 db. We will be handing out earplugs for audience members who wish to use them. https://tickets.aldeburgh.co.uk/Online/default.asp?doWork::WScontent::loadArticle=Load&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::article_id=B9ED09BB-8E7B-4E71-8065-6EFB44D22EA3&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::context_id=9AC70B74-E3F9-4530-ADDE-8F0319644F92

qualityexhibitionopportunities

Working towards 3 exhibitions in different states - The upcoming show in Bristol is now on the Bristol book arts web site http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/les-bicknell.htm and the work is packaged up – apart from, as ever, the new books I am making specially for the space....

Now working on the proposed show in August/September for imprints in France http://www.imprints-galerie.com/ - at the moment I think that it’s an opportunity to show some of the more appropriate pieces from the unpicking and rebinding body of work.

The proposal for cley14 is evolving – I have a meeting with Polly Binns in a couple of weeks as carrying out my initial idea is proving to be not so straight forward.

The latest faster than sound was quite sublime – an example of really solid high quality - what Aldeburgh music does well – https://tickets.aldeburgh.co.uk/Online/richardskelton Richard Skelton has an interesting hybrid practice which involves text, sound, image making and the book – all published from some intriguing web sites - http://richardskelton.wordpress.com/  the first piece called EA was like listening to the sound of a painting of a river by an artist from the Norwich School – someone like Crome or Cotman.

Finally the true detective series is remarkable – from the thoughtfully disturbing opening credits to the final comforting conclusion via the brutal but elegant episode 4 raid and episode 8 set dressing - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Detective_(TV_series)

1981tonow

I’ve been playing a lot of vinyl from the collection this week – as well as wallowing in Talking Heads I’ve been reappraising Yello – was it really 1981....

Managed to see the wonderful film – Jesus Henry Christ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1393742/ and spent most of it beautifully distressed – a gorgeous looking film exploring the idea of childhood – you will weep.

Caught the latest faster than sound event at Snape Maltings is a site specific installation called nocturnal. http://www.aldeburgh.co.uk/events/britten-centenary-weekend-faster-sound-nocturnal  It’s a very beautiful piece using a camera obscura to show a film twice. It’s on till next week if you’re passing it’s worth a look/listen.

Already bought tickets for the next faster than sound event in February Place: Occupation. http://www.aldeburgh.co.uk/events/place-occupation and am already looking forward to it, especially the new commissions.

The New Wolsey Studio is showing the latest work by Robin Brooks Britten’s Got Talent http://www.wolseytheatre.co.uk/shows/brittens-got-talent/ its very funny and has an irreverent tone that picks up some of the interesting lesser known traits of Benjamin Britten I saw the read through so am intrigued to see how the music and songs have been integrated.

techofolkconnectingthepasttothefuturefromnow

one of the tightest, most professional faster than sound events so far – a game of two parts with the seemingly very 'famous' working together and the ‘young ones’ going all experimental and off-piste. The focus of the evening and their residency was rethinking/reimagining the Britten folk songs. http://www.fasterthansound.com/  I have always felt that he had hijacked and in some way ‘un-folked’ them. The discussion held before the event and chaired by Jonathan Reekie was an affirmation that the folk songs are not overtly loved by all. For me the evening re-established and re-contextualised them within a folk tradition, even or specifically that there was a large electronic presence - techno-folk.  Highlights were a drumming duel/duet with South London Ordinance, Alex Thomas and Sam Wilson – a reinterpretation of Widow.  Although less dangerously experimental and closer to the original, Alexis Taylor and Green Gartside gave a very intimate performance although quite mournful it was as if they were in your living room – quite beautiful, Lemady was truly sublime? Listening to Green Gartsides voice took me straight back to 1983 and got me thinking how Scritti-Politti was a folk band for the 80s.

Meanwhile – some film recommendations – for a brainlessly stupid film experience I recommend a double bill of Pacific Rim http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1663662/  (large robots crashing with larger monsters – the script not troubling a sheet of A4 paper and white house down http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2334879/ (just unnecessary but it will be all okay). 

reflectingandlookingforward

A day at Camberwell yesterday – as is becoming more usual the trains were a disaster – ‘only’ 2 hours and 3 minutes LATE getting into London! so a long frustrating day but it was the first crit and a chance to see what people are making – some thoughtful starting points and ways of approaching both the world/life in general and making in particular. This led to some exciting work and considered conversations – i look forward to the rest of the year.  Met Matthew Tyson for lunch at the South London Gallery – he has a show at Gogoyoga - London E2  7RG http://imprints-galerie.com/newslist (see work above) the new year at NUA has started in earnest  - day 1 – the first presentation for year 3 textile students started with the slide above – yes there are only 228 days left till they leave. Looking forward to the upcoming faster than sound at Snape Maltings at the weekend - http://www.fasterthansound.com/ it has to be a good one with Alexis Taylor from Hot Chip and Green Gartside of Scritti Politti in the mix. Meanwhile enjoying 

foldingsound

A busy week - 3 days at nua including unit briefings, a session on how to run interviews, which are starting next week and individual tutorials. Tuesday was a solid day of assessments at Camberwell - interesting, as ever to see a wide range of approaches to the idea of the book within the submissions. It was a pleasure to spend the day looking at good work and engaging with the creative thinking embedded within the practices which will culminate in the part-time element of what should be an interesting show come the end of the year.
Popped into the National Gallery to check out depictions of cloth within paintings - looking specifically for the fold got me to Veronese and Van Dyck esp portrait of a Flemish Lady
Another faster than sound - in brittens footsteps - a sound piece by chris watson with accompanying cello by oliver coats - based on walks taken by Britten. It was at its most interesting when accompanied but the clarity of sound was excellent.
I think that I may be the only person left who has attended every one of the faster than sound events as my partner is away and up till today she had also seen them all. 

fasterthantoys

faster than sound focused on sounds created around the idea of game - curated by the wonderfully smiling brian duffy from the modified toy orchestra. From the initial electronic sounding noises emanating from the bass clarinet on here be monsters through to gaming, conducted by richard baker with prepared piano (mainly adding paper to the strings) the first half was full of ideas and collaboration. Finally game a piece where 4 speak and spell machines appeared to be generating the first language and teaching or copying the physical instruments. The second half - an excellent set by the modified toy orchestra with huge projections - starting with black star - possibly my favourite track - the projection of a distorted evolving threat by christopher plant was most excellent. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyGYfxPq7B0 All topped up by a lovely impromptu discussion about circuit bending with the band over their instruments when they were packing up. Got me thinking - who are the modified toy orchestra's audience - having seen them three times as part of faster than sound - one a gig (people dancing), one as part of an electronica session (chin stroking) and last night sort of a bit of both. 

metalnoh

another faster than sound triumph and another new genre created – metal-noh (as in death metal and Japanese noh play) the evening had the wonderfully restrained voice of Hungarian death metal vocalist Attila Csihar - this was combined with wind sounds by saxophonist Cathal Roche, accordionist Clive Bell who also had an exceptional range of wind instruments and electro-acoustic improviser David Toop. it also featured a kind of primordial-natural-beat-box sound created by Phil Minton - poor visuals - more visceral mud was needed – the walk back to the car across the marshes was most excellent and i managed to add to the collection of landscapes at night images. next week at snape malting as part of taking the waters we’ve got tickets to Swandown by Andrew Kötting and Iain Sinclair. looking forward to it already.

http://www.aldeburgh.co.uk/events/place-swandown

satanicmathsmadeboring

so try to imagine what would happen if your ‘groovy’ maths teacher had tried a little too hard to make maths ‘interesting’ – then arm them with a disfunctional yet ‘wacky’ pressi presentation – combine that with the idea of them then laying out satanic symbols on the floor in masking tape – of course missing the point and taking far too much time getting the angles right – sad - that was my evening with Marcus de Sautoy at snape as part of faster than sound – the only note of hope was the wondrous but far too short sound and visuals by Russell Haswell http://haswellstudio.com/

workworkworkandsomeendings

it was good to show a group of teachers the plan for the big book for firstsite at a learning to look presentation last night. the presentation included some sample pages from the contents of the 10 books which go to make up one large bookwork. the images range from a collection of mind bending optical illusions to a collection of images from my ongoing archive juxtaposed with each other - all an attempt to generate a range of possible narratives.
the feedback after the presentation that focused on the idea of a book as a tool was positive – i now have to finish the designs, get it printed and then bind it – so still a fair bit to go.
meanwhile I have finished the bookwork for journey to the podium. the folder has two sections sewn into it - one a colophon and the other a text piece written by Dan and typeset by myself that gives a real flavour of Boccia.
and finally I have in my hand a copy of the firstsite berryfield leaflet with the perforations – i am really pleased with the feel of the print and it really has gone down well.

brassbandcollaborationwithsound

faster than sound – quite possibly the most complete combination of sound and visuals so far with the wonderful Christian Marclay creating a film sound collage piece that was responded to by live musicians including a brass band. I was first taken with his work when I saw telephone – a collaged film of people answering the phone amassed from various films and then mesmerised by a huge projection of Video Quartet at Tate modern – Iooking forward to seeing the clock when we go to the Biennale in a month’s time – can’t wait.
before that we were treated to Ephemera – a piano piece with a graphic score of torn printed matter with pieceds of both actual and invented musical notation which was performed by Steve Beresford and Manga Scroll – sound effects collected from manga comics and graphically written into long text piece a interpreted by vocalist Elaine Mitchener in the intimate space upstairs at snape.

lessreallyismore

the latest faster than sound at snape has three parts – Variable 4 a sound piece that is determined by atmospheric conditions – soundtrap V a piece in a wonderful building in iken and Soundfields - Fixing Point a countryside walk, devised by Blast Theory and Clark that uses gps tracking to set off fragments of a narrative that you listen to on headphones whilst walking in a wood – it was an interesting experience – the content of which made sense in terms the action of walking in the woods whilst having a fractured narrative about the missing in Ireland in one’s head.
meanwhile the visual art experience at snape has been improved - work has been taken away leaving evidence of a recent presence - it provides an interesting intellectual and aesthetic experience that talks about potential and possibility.