The Numbers At The Threshold

And bang! Just like that Degree Show 2012 starts to encroach like a gigantic stressy spectre.

I expect I’ll have quite a lot of chat on this in the coming months but here’s the latest piece that’s nearing some sort of completion (although there are still quite a few physical details to work out).

I’ve been looking for an excuse to tinker with what is (to me at least) one of the most aesthetically pleasing mysteries of the 20th century, the Numbers Station. Given the opportunity to write some obscure prose, make an approximation of a one-time Vernam Cipher, transcode it and then use modular synthesis to build a homage to the beautiful world of shortwave radio, I was pretty much as close to being in my element as I’ve been in a long time.

The Numbers At The Threshold exists as a liminal piece, a manifest of the ‘bridge of light’ that’s been troubling me for some time – a means of passage between external and internal space, the collision of different realities. The piece will be installed near the entrance of my degree show as a mark of the subconscious crossing over point between the realms of internal and external space and will play on a constant loop.

The full text will also appear alongside the transmission with a view to highlighting the temporal disparity between message and receipt, a willful obscuration of content.

The Numbers At The Threshold by D.Fyans

Just as a little nod to both the mental and geographical relevance, the melody at the start is a version of  The Associates – Party Fears Two.

Special thanks to the wonderful and talented Uschi for generously offering her voice for me to put words (or numbers) into. Go and check out her soundcloud, she good.

More to come soon I’d imagine.

D

The Shape Of Things To Come

Friday 20th January will see the premiere performance of my new piece ‘Marconi’s Shipwreck’ at Brighton’s The Outer Church alongside a live sets by fellow Broken20 luminaries TVO and John Cohen with the inimitable Production Unit undertaking DJ duties. There’s even a nasty rumour flying around that me and TVO might embark on a little bit of live collaborative improv [citation needed] although I suspect that will be largely reliant on how severely we’ve fallen out on the epic drive down to brighton. There will also be a special ultra limited edition 3″ CD given away to the first 25 people through the door featuring exclusive tracks by the artists present so completists might want to get down early (although we’ll also be giving everyone that attends a download code).

Here’s a little taster of what to expect. The visuals were created using an old B&W TV (thanks Clark), a projector and video camera setup in a variety of recursive feedback loops. There’s a bit more conjecture around it but I’ll save that for another day.

Marconi’s Shipwreck will be released later in Q1 on DVD and digitally on Broken20. More details once they are firmed up but in the meantime, The Outer Church seems like the only way to get in early.

Hope to see you there.

D