Performance Platform~ Inhabiting Space....

As part of the Performance Platform, last Wednesday we went out into the city and inhabited space. Individually, we were asked to explore our relationships to the city as well as to each another. The workshop was created to make us more aware of our movement and interaction with the sites we inhabit. The workshop was lead by the lovely Beth Savage and Morgan Cahn and I really enjoyed it. It was a great way to explore our physical relationship to the spaces we inhabit, and especially how we relate to our surrounding habitat. For the workshop I chose to inhabit a small green shrubbery, which became a sort of bathing spa, covered in fresh leafs to clean your face. It was a wonderful and refreshing experience and I really enjoyed this time out from all the other stresses...It is lovely to just be able to completely immerse yourself in your environment and become a 'being', where you can just 'be'.....

My Arduino...

This week I finally managed to set up my arduino to the pir sensor. With the wonderful help from my friend Peter, who is an Interactive Design Student, we spent an afternoon connecting the two together and  managed to successfully get the pir sensor working. We also tried to connect the arduino to max msp, which proved to be more difficult. I am hoping to give it another try next week, but so far I am very happy with how its going.

This week...

This whole week has felt extremely slow. I think having a three week holiday right before the assessment is ludicrous. I am finding it very hard to stay focused and motivated in a space that is abandoned and where there are very few faces to find. I have to say that my work feels as though it has come to a stand still,  and I am currently in a limbo waiting for things to come and yet I have so much to do...

It is starting to make me nervous, because it just means that the the last two weeks of semester are going to be hell. I know the minute the holidays finish and the college opens, everyone will crawl back in all at once and there will an eruption, and there is still another week to go, but on the positive side, I have done some productive things. Now with my plans in and the materials ordered, I am hoping that my wood will arrive next week! This means that I will be able to begin constructing my space and that will help me feel a big leap and step forwards to the show. In some ways it still feels like a long way away, but soon it will all be there, in the space and becoming something; the show that I have been envisioning for so long.

Its not all been bad, I have done quite a lot of small yet vital things, they are just more invisible and less easy to merit. I have finally set up my arduino, with the help of my great friend Peter, who sat with me for an afternoon setting up the pir sensor to the arduino and then trying to connect it to max msp. We still haven't quite managed to link it up to max msp yet, but I am hoping that Sean might know how to, so I have emailed him to arrange a meeting for when he gets back next week.  I have also managed to get my order into Graeme for my metal tubes. I have ordered 5 more 13cm wide, 1 metre hight tubes. I got one this week and its huge, I think it is going to pretty overwhelming having 6 in the space. I now also know that I definitely have the 6 powered speakers for the show, which is a relief! So technologically, everything is going pretty well.

During the break I have also been working on two books to go with my supporting material and that will also perhaps be on display for the degree show. I am making one called 'Human Resonance', which follows my journeys through Orkney, the Hamilton Mausoleum and Rosslyn Chapel and specifically tells my experiences of spiritual and sacred spaces. I am then also making a smaller one with a collection of all my performances, mostly exploring spaces around in Dundee. Things are moving slowly, but I still have so much to do, including probably the most important of all the different aspects of my final show, to create the sound experience. I am going to focus on that over the next few days, and try and work with all my different recordings to create something magical. The experience inside the space has to be wonderful and completely overwhelming, as it will be the sculpting of the experience that will define my show. It needs a lot of time to do, so I think one that is finally finalised I will be able to feel more relaxed...

DEGREE SHOW SPACE PLANS....

At the end of last week, I finalised my degree show space plans. After a week of marking the floor with masking tape, I decided exactly how I wanted my space to look and where all the different pipes would be placed. I then spent a day in the wood workshop with Alan, working out how much wood we are going to need to support the earth that will be suspended on top of the structure. It looks like I will be using a lot of wood, and it will take a week to construct. All the materials have now been ordered and I am expecting to begin constructing at the beginning of week 14, on Monday 16th April. This is where everything beings to get exciting, finally being able to see something form after months of drawing it,  I will finally have a structure!

Performance Space?....

A few weeks ago I did some experimental sound walks around the college, searching for reverberant spaces. One of them was a stairwell in the Crawford building that is actually situated just outside my space and leads up to it. The space is heigh and flows right down to the ground floor, allowing the voice to travel and echo through out the entire school. Whilst exploring, I did some recordings and I feel they hold similar qualities to the other sites I visited. The naked voice is amplified through the space and he reverberation is extremely natural. I actually had a few students saying that they really enjoyed my singing, so it made me think about perhaps doing a live performance on the evening of degree show. The wonderful thing about the space is that because it is connected to all the floors in the building, you are able to hear my voice wherever you are in the college, but not see me...This could be an interesting space to project and do a performance.

DEGREE SHOW SPACE.

This week I finally gained access to my degree show space and moved everything up from the shed. It has been a very exciting beginning to the week and I got straight into clearing it out and working with the space. The studio was not in the best of states when I got it, it was full of paper and rubbish left all over the floor, so the first thing I did was to do a big clear up. I threw out a lot of rubbish, and dusted and swept the whole space. I think it was an important process and allowed me to see the space with its full potential, as a blank canvas.

After clearing the space I started to draw out my plans on the floor with masking tape. This has been really useful and has helped me to begin visualizing how the structure is going to take shape. The first few days in the space I started to experiment with all the different dimensions. First I drew two different circle diametres in the cnetre of the room and also tape on the wall marking out how tall the structure is going to be. I also have been thinking about the placement of the pipes in the space and how they are going to curve around the centre. So far, I have decided that the circle is going to be 2.5 metres wide, allowing a good space for the public to pace in. The height of the structure will be 1.10 metres, so just above waist height. I had originally thought of making it taller, but I think thinking about the structure in relation to the sound coming out of the pipes, it is crucial that the pipes are levelled just bellow your ears, giving you a better sonic experience. I want the space to feel welcoming and immersive, but in no way restraining or clostraphobic, it should be like entering a small world of reflection.

Here are some documentation photos of developing my plan for the space....

Moving out of the Shed...

This is my last week in the shed. On Monday (tomorrow) I officially move into my degree show space, room 601 on Level 6. I have really enjoyed living in the shed. Both Tim and Katie have been great people to share with and I have learnt a lot from both of them. It definitely has helped me this year to be immersed in a very productive environment and to share a studio with different practitioners. Its the end of a chapter in away, as now moving into my degree show space means serious business. I am now working with a 5 week deadline to have everything completely ready for the internal assessments. It is a count down to the end and I hope it is proves to be worth it. The shed has been where all my thinking has happened, it has been my concept hub and my base over the whole process of this project and year. Now moving into my degree space, finally I will be able to let my thoughts take shape. I am really looking forward to working with the space and seeing something shape from my mind into a real thing, which is something that I can only imagine will be extremely rewarding, yet challenging!