The above videos are two that I have come across during my lazier moments of "research" for the project I'm working on. I have no other comment on either one.
Below is the link to another sound piece... more than likely there will be more little ideas like this along shortly, which I won't bother to publish but which will become part of a larger composition incorporating the sound piece from the previous post also.
Below that, we find some screen shots from a model in Google SketchUp - I've made models of the Hebrew letters in of Gen11:7 and stacked them on top of one another... like a tower. Not my most inspired work but, you know, learning by doing.
Following the initial research talked about in the previous post, I have made these pieces. This virst piece is something of an aside to the brief of the project but relevant to it none the less. It is an homage to Baldesari's "I will not make anymore boring art" but informed by the content of my project of the moment. It's extremely sketchy and not really of any use without being projected on a larger scale. It is shown here in much abreviated form. Before I'm done with the project, I may go to the trouble of making a better version. I may not.
This second, more sophisticated piece is a sound piece, which I have written some notes on for the benifit of my tutors in college and which follow the link in this post.
Building of a "tower" of sound. A somewhat literal deconstruction / reconstruction of Genesis 11:7.
- Found audio of Hebrew text Gen 11 online. - Isolated 11:7 by analysing key points of my phonetic interpretation of the original text as well as the verse's relative position within the chapter.
- Using Audacity and Paul's Extreme Strech, produced variations of the verse, manipulating the tempo at various sample rates while maintaining the pitch.
- Imported the slowest rendering at a fairly low sample rate into 8 tracks on Ableton Live; 2 tracks transposed to -24 (semitones); 2 to -12; 2 to -7; 2 left at original pitch. - Added reverb of various parameters to remove harsh extremes and fill the gaps between sylables - a solid foundation of sound.
- Added next slowest verse with the same variations of pitch and reverb into another 8 tracks. - Repeated process with next slowest sample. * Overclocked processer. * Decided to render smaller chunks at a time, as I would normally do with video.
- Spread 16 tracks over the stereo field, recorded, rendered. - Repeating this process to create a big sound which can, over the course of the composition, be broken down and the meaning confounded.
-Thus, the first three tracks in the final project / Live Set are actually comprised of forty tracks - forty variations of Genesis 11:7, differing in pitch and tempo, as well as treated with a simple set of reverb effects and spread about the stereo field.
From Here... it all gets pretty intuitive. I add more tracks of the verse read without manipulation to the start of the composition - then treat the whole as a live set - adding new samples by keyboard triggers and practicing / editing / re-editing and repeat - until I record a final live mix. This format lends itself also to performance of the piece as a set of live electronics - coming quite close to downbeat electronica.
Key Composition Points (and how they are achieved)
- "Tower" of sound : As illustrated above. - "Period Three": All the samples used so far have been slowed down by multiples of 2 - as variables in a stable dynamic system will tend to rotate inside this parameter. - "Period Three Implies Chaos" - - After the introduction of the "Period Three" sample, I use grain delay to create the chaos implied by period three. -Later in the composition, I use midi controlled instruments to break down the passage from legible Hebrew into sylables and phrases and using those sounds as content for regemented beats. * There is something of a fall when a piece of durational art moves from the transendant to the banal during it's composition.
Last week, we recieved a brief for a four week project where we need to select an object, image or process to disassemble and reassemble by formal means, focusing on the tangible rather than the personal.
During the first week, we have been asked to select our object of focus and present a short statement of intent along with some the research and work we've done so far. Below is a slideshow of some of the work I've been doing with my chosen object, which is Genesis 11:7, as well as the proposal itself. I've ommited my research images since they are all under copyright.
"Having first considered taking the theorised strings of theoretical physics' String Theory as the object of focus for this project, further thought led me to look at the idea of disassembling God as an idea/object. This being an enourmous undertaking, I narrowed my view of God as object to simply taking the name of God as the object. Given the belief of certain Jewish mystics that the name of God is, in fact, the entire text of the Koran, practicality eventually led me to take a single line from the book of Genesis as my object for disassembly and reassembly during the coming weeks. This line is Genesis 11 – 7
"Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech."
To the end of meeting the brief for this project, I have undertaken to familiarise myself with the Hebrew characters that represent the original form of this line of text as well as the context in which it occurs in the book (it is a passage related to the story of the Tower of Babel – more or less the final part of the creation myth of Judaism, Islam and Christianity).
In the coming week, I will continue to break down the text, not only in caligraphy form, as I have been doing, but also using audio and video to examine the text as annunciated. In the final two weeks of the project, I envisage a reassembly and reinterpretation of the text moving from the written word to a finished piece in video and audio."
Below is a link to stream or download (right click, save target as) a quick experiment in breaking up the individual sounds of the passage as read phonetically by the PDF "read aloud" function on Adobe Acrobat Reader and remixing them into beats and noises. 11 7 PDF Beats.mp3
On the 25th of September, Culture Night, I was lucky enough to take part in Mamuska Dublin at the Back Loft, where I read portions of The Last Days Of Icarus Crane and, later, at Reptile Cabaret at The Shed, where I performed an adaptation of The Forger Of The String by Icarus Crane. Both events seemed to go well and my thanks are due to curators Brigit McCone and Phil Lee as well as the respective crews at both venues.
I do believe that documentation exists from both events but I don't have it as of yet... I'd really like to see it though.
Since then I've been in funk of minor creativity and also been sporadically attending college. Here is some of the stuff I've done lately... as rough and unready as it is
A further verse in the ongoing epic of the Guitar Player's Heart, continuing on from the work of Icarus Crane.
A roughly thrown together video to the improvisations of Oliver Kirwan over some simple loops
And a bit of loopy wierdness put together with images from my older video work
In other news, I will be curating a night a month of ephemeral art with an ending in mind from Thursday, January 28th at The Shed, entitled The Howl Into The Hole or THITH for short. Detail, right here
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