Revisiting the project archive…

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…to celebrate the launch of the Footwear Research Network by Dr Alexandra Sherlock, who is based at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. See more about the Network here.

And the video below shows an example of some of my own footwear research: recording the sounds of footfall during the development process of ‘Making Presence Felt’, back in 2015. A commission by Northampton Museums and Art Gallery.

Many thanks to  Fitchett Proll Dance in Preston, Lancashire, for giving access to the dance sessions and allowing me to make these recordings.

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Above: the typewriter piece I made, was inspired by the audio recording of the dance session. I heard the rhythmic tapping combinations of left and right as 0’s and 1’s: an acoustic form of binary communication…

 

A young visitor to the exhibition in the Northampton gallery is fascinated by the old, analogue typewriter.

 

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Views of the Northampton gallery showing some of the other exhibits.

To extend the reach and impact of the gallery presentation a short, experimental film was created: a collaboration with director Mark Gill and The Chase Films

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Mark and his team filming in the gallery.

You can watch the film here.

Earphones are recommended for dynamic, immersive sound.

And some visitor comments about the gallery experience can be found here

Grays ear

 

ONE DAY: a project proposal by MIL for Lancashire City of Culture 2025

This project’s title takes advantage of double meanings: referring to a measurement of time, and also hopeful ambition for the future.

MIL are a creative collective based in Lancashire. More here

Our project aimed to stimulate a surge of creativity across Lancashire, by encouraging imaginative, future facing approaches. It was devised to bring together a diverse range of creative activity across the physical and virtual City of Culture,and which would take place during a single day. Midsummer’s Day was identified as ideal, from dawn till dusk.

A digital component was designed to act as both delivery mechanism and synchronistic ‘time capsule’ record.

48 participating projects would be assigned pre-prepared outline templates to direct the visual content of each square. Squares to be selected/designed by participants to represent their activity, and make up the collaborative composite to be viewable online.

The second image shows how images would be added to the collaborative grid.

Squares would be clickable to access the creative activities: in real time and also later, to view recordings of what took place.

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Please click to enlarge.

A related, smaller image ‘NOW’ – was prototyped during lockdown. (see below)

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Mr Blackbird’s Poem

Listening to the birds: recorded on a balmy evening at the end of May.

These six lines of Mr Blackbird’s poem seem to evidence what linguists call prosody: variations in pitch, loudness, tempo, and rhythm.

Many believe that birdsong may be one of the precursors of human language.

Growing Up: translating geometries of light

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In April 2020, during lockdown, I made a photographic record of the growth patterns of 20 oak saplings, just as they began to burst into leaf. All the saplings were grown from acorns planted in October 2015, and had reached between approximately 50 cms and 200 cms in height.

IMG_2735I photographed each one from directly overhead, using a mask of white card to block out unwanted details, and isolate each sapling’s spatial form. I aimed to capture a range of radiating growth structures.

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The process allowed me to document some of the infinite permutations of branch patterns produced as young trees grow, reach up and out, positioning their leaves to capture the light. I saw how each individual sapling’s sensate nature, caused them to respond to their situation/environment, and  grow completely unique structures.

Examples below:

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Reduced to two-dimensions, the sapling growth patterns appeared poised, animate, energised and characterful. I began to see their geometry as an expressive, nonverbal ‘script’.

Later, I began a process of translation by marking connections and geometries that I perceived, using simple digital technique. I responded intuitively, without preconception, to the saplings’ communicative aesthetic, allowing the branching structures to direct the compositions.

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