Having finally reached a stage of absolute frustration and annoyance at the Situationists from somewhere in the midst of my dissertation, I decided to make use of the whole ‘know thy enemy’ chat and throw myself in head first. I guess I’m more used to the derive when it comes to psychogeography so I decided to set myself up a little game of chance.
I decided on a duration of 1 hour to start things off. Entertainingly, within about 4 coin tosses, I’d found myself very close to my house, being directed up what I can only describe as an arcade that I’ve never noticed before. The part of my brain that’s recently been obsessed with Benjamin’s Arcades Project found this amusing.
Here are the results, it dawns on me that I didn’t record a few instances where chance dictated that I go straight ahead instead of turning so the figures are slightly off I guess. More to think about for the next game.
I plotted out the route I’d been led down (above) and put together a little flash film of the journey (below). There were a few interesting discoveries along the way that I may write about at some point and there are a few possible pieces of work that may or may not arise from the game. You can take a look at a few more bits (more to follow) on flickr. I’d say it was quite enjoyable but I think it could be improved with more time to poke around, I felt a little against the clock having set myself a limit of one hour. Time permitting I’ll hopefully give it another go with some modifiers thrown in.
I’m really pleased to announce that my epic 2 and a bit hour tape process piece “The Persistence of Decay” has been selected for inclusion in radioCona’s Radio Art Space. A Slovenian exhibition of audio work which will be presented both in gallery spaces and as an FM broadcast from the 7th to the 15th of December. More information on the event is here if you can’t wait and want your very own copy of The Persistence of Decay, well, you can get the whole thing, along with a bit of chat about the process here.
And now, a trio of pieces made in the last week across some quite different projects.
First up is Heavy listing, the first proper sketch for what I think will for the basis for a live performance in Brighton in January next year and may beccome a new album (possibly titled Marconi’s Shipwreck but I’m not entirely sure yet). Heavy Listing by Erstlaub
Next is a recording of a practice for one of my occasional and fairly chaotic trumpet and pedal improvisations. I’ll be doing something along the lines of this live at Drouthy’s in Dundee on the 17th of November. It should be a pretty interesting night, I’ll probably post about it again nearer the time. 131011 by Erstlaub
Finally, a very personal audio treatment piece I made today. There’s an allusion towards what it’s about in the following description
“Song and music imprint themselves on our intrinsic sense of identity. This piece explores the idea of a song with very personal connection becoming trapped in the liminal space where memory and self start to break down. The underlying structure remains but nuance and texture are lost.”
A few short works of concrete poetry derived (dérived?) from psychogeographic ponderings based on local sites of resonance for me. The first echoes the profile of the Law Hill, the second, a strut of the Tay Road Bridge, the third traces the banks of the Tay Estuary.
Ghosts
CCTV and surveillance culture have become an underlying trope of the 21st Century. With this increased level of observation, we somehow become more annonymous. Blurred faces get lost in the crowd, actions stripped of context, the observer imparts their own narratives on the cast of the endless, unedited stream.
Caught on tape, our actions repeat, purpose forgotten, in an endless cry to the gods of the 21st Century
Then moving even closer to techno, I produced my first remix in years and years. It’s based on a forthcoming Broken20 release by Nanorhytmn, it’ll probably appear in the BrokenZero free remix release that we’re putting out to partner the full thing.
Finally, a total departure, a little visual haiku. I’d recently been to an artist talk by Ken Cockburn about he and Alec Finlay’s The Road North project which helped me tie together a few loose ends that had been floating around in my head for a few weeks. Mirroring the profile of the Law with content relating to explorations recently undertaken.
Lots coming up in the next few weeks from Broken20.
Also, I just saw Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia at the DCA. Amazing! Possibly the best contemporary film I’ve seen since his Antichrist which had a similarly profound impact. Can’t recommend enough.
Cheers also to all the people at the Shared Imagination Symposium this week for some interesting talks and ideas and for at least pretending to enjoy Gair and I’s Atom Town themed ‘performance lecture’.
This coming Thursday, I’ll be taking part in the Shared Imagination symposium at the DCA, Dundee, providing sonic accompaniment in what’s been dubbed a ‘performative lecture’ alongside Gair Dunlop (who was recently referenced in an NTC piece by Alexander) who will be talking enigmatically about some of his experiences around Atom Town (which will be screened in the evening, full details at the shared imagination link).
I’m particularly looking forward to the keynote by Dr. Rob La Frenais, Senior Curator at Arts Catalyst , London an ever interesting and exciting organisation which I had the pleasure to perform at in the summer.
Places are very limited but you can attend by emailing exhibitions@dundee.ac.uk to enquire about spaces. The evening performance by Pernille Spence and the screening of Atom Town are open to all 6pm – 8.30pm, Thursday October 6th at Centrespace, DCA, Dundee.
In the name of drawing a line under a series of investigations and extrapolations during July/August, I’ve put together a 39 minute track/album of textural soundwork which is available as a free download.
“Running Time: 38′54″
A collated series of pieces written and produced in July/August 2011, thematically constructed as a series of textural sound sculptures portrayed by a fictional broken tape machine focussing on ideas of surface noise, mechanical friction and failing media. The pieces were written and performed using a Nord G2 Modular Synthesizer and recorded/collated in Reaper with no additional processing, effects or editing.”
You can get it entirely free from my site here. A little video taster of one of the movements is available below.
Just a short note to say that my entheogenic audio sculpture, Climbing The Peacock’s Tail has been selected for exhibition at the upcoming Uncanny Sound group show opening in Cork this week.
There are also a couple of recent posts by NTC operatives over at the website including my own ‘Modular Synthesis As Psychic Weaponry”. Read them here. There will be a reprise of sorts of my sonic interventions centred on Gair Dunlop’s ‘Atom Town’ coming up at the start of October at the DCA, Dundee. I shall post more information once details are finalised.
Another couple of entries from the last few days in the, not entirely effective, canon of trying to focus energies into something other than mental self-consumption.
An entheogenic audio sculpture built around the concept of liminal spaces and superimposed visual and aural repetition of subconscious patterns within the listener.
Inspired by personal subconscious excavations, chaos theory/self similarity across different scales, the essay “The Cult of The Peacock Angel” by Erik Davis and Crowley’s poem Liber CCXLII:
“Ah, could I tell thee of
These infinite things of Light and Love!
There is the Peacock; in his fan
Innumerable plumes of Pan!
Oh! every plume hath countless eyes;
–Crown of created mysteries!—
Each holds a Peacock like the First.”
And from somewhere entirely unexpected, I suddenly had the inclination to try out a little idea I’d been toying with which then spiraled out into becoming a visualisation for my last release on Broken20, The Last Few Seconds Before Sleep.
I’ve recently been working through a series of movements concerned with building organic audio fail systems within modular synthesis focussing primarily the idea of surface and mechanical noise which I’ve compiled as a 30ish minute set titled “Unfolding Inwards”.
It’s been a while since I last posted so figured I should do a little round up of things.
Just before London, I had a little walk across the Tay Road Bridge, I think I might have a bit of writing to do about bridges but before I get around to that I made this little kinetic piece titled OooOooOoo:
“The circle, a representation of unity, an endless cycle, a continuous line with no start or end point. Ouroboros, the snake eating it’s own tail, the suit of Disks in the Tarot representing earth, a depiction of consciousness, the internal and external. Rings bind, Pi fails to resolve itself to infinity. Matter cannot be created or destroyed, it simply changes state and position. The world turns, loops and repeats. Loops repeat. Repeat.”
The Atom Town screening on June 23rd went down well although I’m not entirely convinced that I’d recommend getting an overnight bus from Dundee to London if ; A. You are completely unable to sleep on busses, and B. You don’t want to slip into some surreal performance based mental wormhole. But still. My piece was received well, the inclusion of repetitious rhythmical elements (lets not call them beats eh?) came as a bit of a surprise to some, it was genuinely humbling to meet and have a little chat with Ken Hollings and of course it was really nice to see Gair’s film presented in such a lovely space as Arts Catalyst. Afterwards I hung out with Thor and Keung up Dalston way and had a good catch up with the HPLL old guard. You can read some transport based rambling here.
On my return, I started manifesting an idea which had been rattling around for a little while regarding mark making as an audio impulse. Early sketches (if you’ll pardon the expression) using pencil and charcoal on cartridge paper can be heard below.
Other than that, I’ve managed to get a few quite important proposals in for potential works next year (fingers crossed on those) which I’ll hopefully be able to have a bit of chat about soon and also got involved in really short notice in a performance as part of Dundee Live which as synchronicity would have it tied in quite closely with the Marks of Delay pieces.
“A live audio treatment of Joss Allen and Joanna Foster’s piece ‘A Slip Of The Other’s Tongue’.The piece uses two typewriters connected by a moebius strip and explores the relationship between text, physicality and audio. This treatment is for four piezo contacts, mixer, a 20 second delay loop, effects processor and control interface. I purposefully restricted the effects to only a few in order to try to focus on restraint and flexibility within a reductive context.
The performance took place as part of the Dundee Live festival in the Central Library in the Wellgate Centre, Dundee on Friday the 8th of July 2011.”
There are a few other irons in the fire but let’s see what happens there. In the meantime, I’m all about Edwin Abbott’s absolutely stunning 1884 published satire/exposition of extradimensional space/time – Flatland (which you can read online here although I got a nice new copy for about £4 off amazon) and this morning I took delivery of the mighty Grant Morrison’s Supergods: Our World In The Age Of The Superhero which is part memoir, part academic close reading of comics and part magical conjecture and pantheonic comparisons which make frightening sense of an awful lot of things. I really can’t recommend either highly enough.
