Spring is nearly here- its been a long hard winter.
The March equinox is approaching – a great time for new ideas.
Author: fionacandy
LOST in frost
Found a new project developing in Preston city centre, at Market Street West.
Autumn is in the air…
An airborne seed seems to be chasing its own shadow
Revisiting the project archive…
…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.
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
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
In the trees…
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.
Please click to enlarge.
A related, smaller image ‘NOW’ – was prototyped during lockdown. (see below)
Kingdom of Bryophyta
Continuing my exploration of the-more-than-human-world.
From new work (begun during lockdown 2020) journeying through a micro, mossy land, almost visible to the naked eye …
Project under development.
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.
Phases of the Moon
A series of digitally created images, referencing the subtly communicative social practice of showing and hiding the female face.
For International Women’s Day, 8th March 2021.
Growing Up: translating geometries of light
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.
I 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.
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:
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.
