The show is over. The exhibition has happened. Here are some (dark) images. (video in previous post)
As the sun sets and its lustre glows and then fades, a moth emerges from its leafy home seeking a new source of light in the gloom. Approaching a light bulb it hesitates, ponders and absorbs this new source of brightness. Suddenly it dives directly at the bulb, crashing headlong into the hot white glow then without allowing any time for recovery it gets up and dives again and again.
“The glittering light may have dazzled you, and the gold of the lamp may be beautiful but there are many things in this world that look bright, pretty moth but they only dazzle to lead us astray!”
I have been awarded the Fargo Space Programme residency at Unit 4 on Far Gosford Street in Coventry for September. I am developing a lovely new installation about moths, light bulbs, dusk and awakening. I am going to end the residency with a hour and a half exhibition on the 29th September which will feature a beautiful film by Diana Hobson:
The Beacon Light Requiem by Cormac Faulkner
Light bulbs, audio, video. Approx. 20min duration
“Genius will burn lower and a good bit cooler. The world will be dimmer.”
Ann Wroe: obituaries editor, The Economist
As the sun sets and its lustre glows and then fades, a moth emerges from its leafy home seeking a new source of light in the gloom. Approaching a light bulb it hesitates, ponders and absorbs this new source of brightness. Suddenly it dives directly at the bulb, crashing headlong into the hot white glow then without allowing any time for recovery it gets up and dives again and again.
“The glittering light may have dazzled you, and the gold of the lamp may be beautiful but there are many things in this world that look bright, pretty moth but they only dazzle to lead us astray!”
The requiem is in three movements to represent the sunset, twilight and dusk and features a light and sound installation by sound artist Cormac Faulkner and visuals by artist Diana Hobson.
A light in the dark times, a beacon of inspiration and innovation, the incandescent light bulb is due to be phased out at the end of 2011 in the UK. The incandescent light bulb has a very particular light and is a thing of beauty in its design.
This was the starting point for an exhibition that explores how an acquisitive, consumerist outlook may prevent us from addressing more important issues.
Below is a stereo mix of the quadraphonic installation audio (all three movements):
13 exploratory tracks produced by 13 sound artists (Francisco Lopez / Peter Cusack / Mark Harris / Bobby Bird / Peter Batchelor / Cormac Faulkner / Martin Clarke / Annie Mahtani / Nic Bullen / Iain Armstrong / Chris Tarren / Richard Whitelaw /Shelly Knotts / Julien Guillamat) and mixed and diffused over the 66 (!) channels of the BEAST sound system by Annie Mahtani.
My piece is a recording of I made of me playing a shruti box and melodica in Edgbaston canal tunnel while annoying people walking and cycling past (the path is very narrow and I was making a racket). Here is the track which I mixed and mastered on headphones on a train to Manchester:
I will be running a Sonic Workshop at Leamington Art Gallery and Museum (The Pump Rooms) on two consecutive Saturdays, the 5th and 12th March.
The workshops will combine a number areas of specific interest to me: photo montage, field recording, mapping and sound collage. I will give brief talks on ‘The semiotics of sound’, ‘deep listening’ and ‘sonic mapping and psycho-geography’. There will be some listening sessions, films to watch and instructional training. I will take the participants on a soundwalk in Leamington and I will introduce them to the use of simple field recording equipment. We will create a ‘map portrait’ using photographs and processed field recordings – this will be created as document of one particular space or a journey. The final piece will be displayed as a photo montage with the soundtrack playing on a portable cassette player. The magnetic tape will weave in and out of the photographs and the cassette player itself will be part of the final work.
The workshops will be suitable for people with previous experience of working with sound as well as those with none.
£20 per person, for two workshops Places are limited Please call 01926 742700 Payment required to confirm booking
More details here: http://tinyurl.com/6f2w5kk
(the photos at the top show a tape loop map and below is the sample that plays)
Artspace (where I have my studio) have an open studio event tonight from 6pm to 8:30pm. I have hung my ‘if these walls …’ piece for the event. There will also be an opportunity to see some of my gum bichromate prints and I have an installation of ‘Residing Air’ in my studio space.
My grandfather owned a radio repair and sales shop in Cookstown, Co. Tyrone, Ireland in the 1940s through to the 60s. As well as repairing radios, my grandfather charged batteries for his customers (until electricity became more widespread). The wet batteries were picked up from customers by bread delivery men, and returned when charged. He built and adapted radios for people in the town and in 1956, when my father went to boarding school, he built a radio for him, using parts from a Pye Q4 transistor radio.
My grandmother gave me the radio after my grandfather died, and this piece was created and performed using the radio as a single sound source. I decided not to use any instrumentation and to work wholly with the radio. The composition is structured in waves and is inspired by the “music” of tuning a radio.
The piece embodies the changing technology of my grandfather’s life; from large wooden radios to small transistors, long wave/medium wave to FM (which may soon be phased out in preference for a digital signal). This sound collage emphasises the space left by all this passing, as well as the “dead air” in between broadcast signals – the air which is of course the conducting material for radio waves.
The title of the work, and the piece I quote in the recording, come from a poem, written by Nick Laird, which was written for my grandfather’s funeral. The quote is:
And though now there is a hollow space,
an eternal emptiness where you once were,
It is not filled, nor the empty place
occupied by anything but the residing air
Here, this work is submitted as a completed composition, created using a combination of three live takes. However, it can also be performed live, and will of course be different every time it is performed as it relies on local radio transmissions. The performance of the piece uses one prerecorded track and live manipulation of the radio with effects.
Over the last few months I have been working with Ian Kinsella exploring old folk songs and rearranging them. Our arrangements were inspired by the the lyrics and without us hearing any previously recorded versions of the songs we chose.
We have recorded five of these songs and have arranged another twenty five or so. We have plans for a project which I can’t tell you about just now. If you would like to hear some of these head over to our Myspace page or Facebook Page and become a fan to find out where we will be gigging and our future plans. Here are a couple of tracks:
Here’s a stereo mix of the audio for ‘Sirens‘, my recent 8 channel sound installation. This mix was created by Michael Copeland who also engineered the recordings.
The track features live cello, shruti box, guitar, trumpet, voice, percussion and field recordings. It is very, very loosely based on a folk song called The Mermaid (here is a decent version of it performed by Martin Carthy – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77SMjuiJGy0).
Sirens is piece of sonic wall art, that is imbued with the artifacts of a fictional space that could be the place where the work is being experienced. The work creates a sense of tension and impeding catastrophe through the use of sound and music.
This work began with an exploration of “the wall”. The wall is the one elemental structure that unites much of humankind’s architectural development. They mark boundaries and borders, they provide protection from the weather and hostile invaders, they insulate and they segregate. Walls create and define space both visually and sonically. The size of space created by walls and the distance, angle and height of that space’s occupant relative to them affect the occupants perception of the acoustic and feel of that space.
“at the most basic level walls are the framework of a dwelling, the boundaries of a space, the guardians of an individual’s privacy. But beyond that delimitating function language enters in , at however a simple level: walls make a powerful decorative statement … the wall becomes a site for discourse whether consciously or unconsciously”
Odile Nouvel-Kammerer
Our species has seen fit to adorn it’s walls; to draw on them, to paint them, to hang artworks on them, to write on them, to score them and to paper them. The phrase “sonic wallpaper” that is used to describe the blandness of certain music actually implies a lack of understanding of the history and purpose of wall decoration. Wallpaper and other wall art more often than not provide focus and narrative for a space rather than being something you don’t notice.
I decided that this first piece (there will be two further sculptures) will explore the idea of protection. The narrative is based on the a re-imagining of Odysseus’ confrontation with the sirens. The idea here is that the Odysseus character is trying to warn his shipmates of the impeding catastrophe but they have bound him to the mast and blocked their ears. Why have they blocked their ears? what has he foretold? is he speaking the truth?
Field recordings, cello, trumpet, guitar, shruti box, organ and percussion.
Here is a field recording from November, 2009. There is a chestnut festival in the tiny medieval village of Filetto in Northern Tuscany where they roast chestnuts on huge open fires. The roasting trays are held up by chains on large A-frames and swung using long sticks. The fires are set up in a row in the beautiful little piazza in the centre of the village. Clearly the chestnut roaster is very prestigious position and they and the fires are marshalled by an incredibly fit and muscled old man in shorts and a t-shirt. By the way, the chainsaw at the start was used to cut the wood for the fire.
