ocean process (2004-2006)
A multi-part installation which deals with the processes at work within the earth's oceans. This was part of a joint project with three other artists, in which we spent a week working along a section of the North Devon coast, gathering materials for a subsequent exhibition at Broomhill Art, Barnstaple.
Water, wind, sun and lunar power. Erosion, deposition, incorporation. Life & death. The ocean: 80% of the earth's surface.
process 1 - agitation
This water filled acrylic tank contains two transducers mounted on the underside of the lid. These serve both to create ripples/waves on the water surface and to radiate audible sound waves into the air. A beam of light is reflected from the water's surface, projecting an image of the waves onto an adjacent screen. I also experimented with laser projectors. Many other variations are possible, including the use of pure-tone sound sources which result in various geometric patterns as the two waveforms interact.
The transducers are driven by a 30 minute looped soundtrack containing a mix of raw and processed sound all of which originated along a short section of the North Devon coastline. The sound sources include the voices of the artists and some of the people whom we met during the course of the week, plus ambient coastal sounds and the results of various arcane undertakings...
The mix of sounds is divided into two channels, each creating their own waves which are seen to interact in the projected image.
sound samples
I composed a series of humorous "anecdotal" pieces relating to our activities during the project. The excerpts below have been edited and re-mixed to make them slightly more listener-friendly.
aeolian harp
Original sound recorded at Rockham bay, Lee Bay and on the cliffs nearby. My Aeolian harp was simply a 25m length of fishing line stretched taut between two rocks. One end was attached to a plastic lid from a peanut butter jar. On this I mounted a piezo-electric sensor which served as a contact microphone. At certain moments when the wind is at a particular strength and direction it causes the line to vibrate, producing the strange, eerie sounds which can be heard on this track. There is no post-processing applied to the aeolian harp sounds other than basic filtering to remove some of the gusty wind
noise.
The voices (which were picked up directly by the contact microphone arrangement) are those of a couple of unsuspecting members of the public who happened to wander by. I passed my headphones to them to listen while I explained what was going on. Unfortunately I missed the bit where one of them said "that sounds like something out of Dr Who"! In the second section, a fragment of the voice was looped and overlaid with a slightly slowed down version of itself to produce the repeating and increasingly phase shifted vocal pattern, reminiscent of the early work of Steve Reich.
how bizarre is that veiw?
The main sound is that of dripping water from a tiny overflowing rock pool. I've taken a 9 second sample, looped it & then transposed it down 4 octaves in 1 octave steps. The lowest sounds result from a playback speed of about 6%. The 5 voices are then introduced one at a time in a form of canon, each entering after a single cycle of the previous one (that's 9, 18, 36 & 72 seconds after each other).
Dialogue is between Brenda & myself. Quite what was bizarre about the view I don't remember, although I do say on an unused bit of the recording, "it's all distorted & compressed", which sounds like an audio analogy if ever there was one. But it might have been the sea air, our frame of mind at the time or, more likely, whatever we had to drink the night before...
gluggy sea
Original sound recorded at Down End (this is just outside the official AOR area, I have to admit!) When the tide reaches a certain point in the outlying rock the waves start to enter a tiny cave which produces these strange sounds. All of the sea sounds were sampled here over a period of about an hour. The vocal part is that of my esteemed colleague, Brenda Jet. I've used a technique known as sound granulation to process the voice. This cuts up the original into short samples of different lengths, then re-combines them in random order, grinding down and regurgitating the voice.
frank & jack
AKA turkey montage. Brenda & I were walking along the shore near Pensport Rock discussing the fact that I hadn't yet recorded the Lee Bay turkey. We couldn't remember his name, although we were convinced that it was either Frank or Jack. Actually, he's Tom. Sorry Tom. The montage is simply a collection of samples of Tom & his cockerel friend looped and overlaid, plus some nice splashy sea sounds from nearby. Thanks to Penny in whose garden Tom & friend live.
duncan's adventure
The clip starts with big, dramatic waves from Rockham as the tide came in on a windy day, plus some "static" from a VLF receiver which I made a while back. The latter was recorded in May at sea level near Pensport rock (and was surprisingly free from 50Hz hum as anyone who's ever tried to receive VLF signals will notice).
Beamed in from afar is Duncan's phone message to Claire as he was left stranded on the cliff face! Fortunately, he was ok in the end, but it just goes to show that even the most experienced seafarer can be surprised by the turn of the tide… The "bleep", incidentally, is part of the phone message & I've looped it to add to the drama - a signal lost at sea.
Apologies to fellow artist Duncan Cameron, for the schadenfreude;-)