Bonjour Paris

  

I arrived in Paris a few days ago and have been trying to cram in as much of the city's priceless culture and the arts as possible (within three days). My backpackers is a half hour walking distance from the louvre and say an hour from centre Paris so I'm travelling on foot - the best way to begin learning about a city! 

You will find me quietly watching foot traffic from a laneway cafe, or standing on a street corner with my small map in hand figuring out my next move. The city itself - it's infrastructure, buildings, developed lifestyles is nothing like what we are have in Australia. The general height of buildings is greater - often creating the feeling of narrower roads and meandering labyrinth's. 

Their use of height gives me a feeling of more space. It opens up the world around me. The signs of life positioned high in the sky (trees on balconies, overgrown vines and flower pots, beautiful ornate outdoor parisian chairs) creates a feeling of being surrounded by humanity as opposed to the stark walls of Melbourne's inner city high rises. The French seemed to have mastered the art of combining hectic inner city living without compromising the joys of everyday pleasures.

Just because there are limitations - does not mean that it must be stripped of the signs of humanity and of life's small luxuries.

Other points of interest include: The butter patties are MUCH bigger, French women really are thin and beautiful (generally speaking), junk and cheap inner city antiquities are relatively common, 'Sound Artist' is not a term that leads to confusion - it is common knowledge and taken with all due seriousness.

Je'aime Paris

FBI Radio

This Sunday evening I'll be having a chat with Scarlett Di Maio and Brooke Olsen on FBI Radio's experimental sound hour Sunday Night at the Movies. Tune in for an assortment of my sounds and to hear me quite possibly stutter and lisp - live - on air. 

With the perfect excuse to head over to Sydney I'm able to attend brilliant gigs such as Chihei Hatakeyama and others. - I am not familiar with his sounds but I will enjoy something new and am looking forward to being a stranger in NSW.

The release that never was

I am confronting the unborn release. He/She is pretty pissed - I should have done this years ago but in the words of a tutor I once considered a friend,

'It's frightening putting something out there - for others to criticise and pick at but you have to do it.'

I know I know, but none of it quite makes the grade.
So I will put it out there anyway.
What choice do I have?
I know that a number of artists I admire, have a first album or ep that is obviously an embryo - not yet fully formed with it's potential lost in layers of unformed technique and meandering direction.
So with this excuse, I will allow it to come into being. While I am not able to exist - this is.

Samadhi Mechanism - Quadraphonic Install

Earlier this year I was invited to present my work at the launch of the Kew Arts Centre. The timing could not have been better to exhibit and install 'Samadhi Mechanism' and the setting was near ideal as I had the use of an old gaol cell (sounds familiar). The size restraint of the cell meant I had to minimize speakers so my setup for the piece was down scaled from 7.1 to Quadraphonic with no Sub. This worked surprisingly well in the space due to how 'live' it was. Natural resonances appeared quickly and with little effort of volume, meaning that the addition of a Sub would only have muddied up the sounds and impacted negatively on the mix.

As the only artist working with Sound at the Arts Centre launch I enjoyed the discovery and experiences of others who were not too familiar with works in the medium. I am use to being surrounded and critiqued by people who are as obsessive and knowledgable of the styles and works created with sound as myself (or even moreso). Being placed as 'The Odd One Out' provided me with the gift of observing extremely honest responses and opinions that can become clouded by the impinging judgments of an art scene.

Many thanks to Caroline Carruthers from Boroondara Artists Travelling Show (BATS) for co ordinating the artists on the day and congratulations on your beginning! 

Kew Arts Centre Launch

 

: Quadraphonic install of Samadhi Mechanism :

Machine Recordings

           

:: Sound gathering for 'Samadhi Mechanism' ::

-Have been spending nights hunting and collecting sonic identities relevant to 'Samadhi Mechanism'. The final work will be a 'Frankenstein's Monster' in that it will be a new creation, coming into being by the severing and suturing together of other audio bodies. The above images are of two of these bodies, the first, is beneath a train-line that bridges above a main road. The second, is a floor level that plays host to a number of air conditioning vents and general airflow within an inner city convention centre. Surround recordings were taken from the floor level and MS was used underneath the bridge. Other samples I have gathered include an old electrical printer (2 x contact microphones in stereo), A scissor lift (1 x stereo Rode NT4) and discarded metal sheeting. I would very much like to record the sounds of an old printing press that is operated by hand. Unfortunately I am not having much luck at tracking one down........

Abbaye Noirlac will be a welcome relief after this piece - I have been in Melbourne city for too long - working to acquire microphones and equipment. It's an isolating and soulless experience that I hope to alleviate soon. As a (primarily) sound artist I record and portray what is within my environment and the hard walls of urban landscape have dominated that space for quite a while. Balance needs to be restored I think......... 

Samadhi Mechanism

::'Samadhi Mechanism' Still 2011::

“Such a state is ineffable by definition, but those who have known it, and the traditions that have cultivated it, maintain that it is the ultimate reality.”

Robert Jahn and Brenda Dune, “Sensors, Filters, and the Source of Reality” 2004

I am Quite excited by my next major piece of work, 'Samadhi Mechanism' - a further exploration into the individual’s experience and sensory perceptions of ‘space’ - the results by which, they form their impressions of their own unique, reality. It will be my first venture into combining the mediums sound and vision and I am already feeling a shift in my everyday sensory perspectives. While I often listen to the sounds of my environment as though they are part of a grand composition, I have never allowed everyday scenery such attention. I actually find vision almost too strong as a sense, to allow myself the freedom of subjective viewing. Sound however, (for myself) is a beautiful sensory stimulation to lose yourself in via multi-dimentional realities. 

In research of these ideas, I am reading, 'Filters and Reflections. Perspectives On Reality', edited by Zachary Jones, Brenda Dune, Elissa Hoeger and Robert Jahn. I am only 1/3 in at the moment so cannot make any sweeping conclusions but will say that although it's incredibly dense and scientific text is at first... unexpected and undesired, it brings to light exceptional information re: differing possible and cultural perceptions of our reality. This is how I was made aware of the state referred to by Zen masters as, 'Samadhi' - a state of pure experience,

"It is the visceral feeling that shifts the filters of consciousness from those of passive, objective observation to ones of proactive, subjective participation, and this participatory immersion in the experience modifies it's perceived reality."  pg 22

At the risk of sounding self-important I would tentatively suggest that through documentation of a space my work attempts to act as a catalyst for this state within the observer. The process of documenting a selected space, at a certain time through the eyes and ears of another individual (myself) allows it's (the space) existence to be born anew, in the reality of the observer (their perception of!). This process and experience enables them to participate in the creation of an alternate reality. Overtime I hope to become more skilled and/or successful at stimulating this reaction within each individual. 

For the piece, "Samadhi Mechanism', I have chosen to indulge my inner Futurist (omitting the war glorifying/feminism despising aspects) and document a space that is filled with the body of a machine. It’s giant pumping arms and rotating spindles remind me of what I imagine futurist and pioneer of noise music, Luigi Russolo’s ‘Intonarumori’ to look like. (I have to imagine as the machines were destroyed with only limited photo documentation)

      

Like Russolo’s machines, this device also emits what would traditionally be considered non-musical sounds. These sounds include clunking of gears, grinding of spinning axis and the abrasive humm of energy as generated by the main motor as it powers each movement the machine makes.

As an inorganic object, I perceive it as exhibiting strikingly human behaviour. It is this subjective ‘identity’ existing within its surrounding environment that I wish to translate via sight and sound.

The moving image in my work will be used minimally meaning, that I do not want to use post-editing effects to dramatically manipulate what I have successfully captured but more so, crop, cull and arrange, The unique aesthetic of the machine and the habitat in which it resides will provide me with enough inspiration and source material to work with. The setting is capable of provoking an ‘other world’ feeling from it’s observer on it’s own. My meddling with this connection between space (place) and person would only sabotage the identity I wish to portray.

Sound will be treated with less purist ideals in comparison to the visuals. Not only will I be recording audio from the space with no concern as to matching it to it’s original visual event, but I will also be collecting other sounds I feel fit the nature of the machine. These sounds will be recorded from anywhere and everywhere that I hear what I imagine the sound of this machine to be. The working mechanisms of a printer, rumbles of a train from beneath the bridge it is travelling over, the clicks and clangs of latches, locks or pots and pans – it will all be considered. Post editing of the sounds will create a surround composition that completes the piece, working with the visuals in bringing to life the reality of the machine in each individual observer.

to be cont'd.........