Interviews

David Toop and Scanner confirmed for recording their interviews next Wednesday, the 26th.

Spike Wilson's feedback experiments

Spike Wilson's feedback was the area that seemed to generate a lot of interest aroung 1970. Here is one of the first recordings I have cleaned up from his cassette collection. Feedback Experiments 1 by spikewilson

Lacey's Machines in action

I had permission this week to record audio and visuals at the Camden Arts Centre for this project. The sonic side of Lacey's work was not really to the fore in this show, however the sound is a really important part and I wanted to record it for my research.
Here is a quick sample...

Lacey Machimes by Russell Callow

Replica Wind Guitar

I have begun reconstructing one of Gizelle Fortune's Wind Guitars in my workshop. Plans are pretty vague and I'm trying to be faithful to them as much as possible.

Spike Wilson Archive 2

This cleaned up cassette tape recording of Spike from about 1970 also has a vocal from Spike which is very unusual. Summerlove Pitched by spikewilson

Jennifer Walshe and Grupat

Following her lecture to us earlier this year, I realize now that the inspiration I took at the time from her Grupat project has manifested itself in the Albion Accord.

Brakewell Runnerby

Amongst the sound poetry, photographs and paintings of this reclusive man I found a photograph of his studio that he called The Hut.

Spike Wilson archive

One of the first parts of the archive I worked on was digitising some of the scores of cassette tapes of the work of Spike wilson. Here are a couple from the SoundCloud page I set up for his work.

Striped Air (Cleaned Up) by spikewilson

The Albions

A week of thinking about this whole project and I realized why it was a bit like walking through treacle... I have no real passion for what I have discovered so far. Certainly, it is interesting and would not bore me, but where will the passion come from?
Thinking about the way in which His Video was received, and the pleasure I got from constructing it, I must get back to that situation again.
Four or five days thinking about this, and an 11 hour drive to Germany gave me new ideas and perspectives.
The project now has arrived. It is The Albions.
A documentary-based environment that I will set up at the final show. The documentary will investigate the little-known artist group called The Albions.
With access to previously unknown archive material, I will report on this group and their work, and in the show, create an environment to contextualise their work and offer an insight into their ways of working.

Mapping

Looking at some Google maps of the Canning Town area, I find there are some interestingly diverse locations there. Having recorded for two days there this week, I am thinking that there might be some way to work within a restricted, or at least defined area. Perhaps look more deeply into the diversity of on area, comparing and contrasting the sonic and filmic qualities.

Isle Of Dogs Skip Hire

Had a great day today at the Isle Of Dogs Skip Hire depot in East London.
I was given permission to record and film for a couple of hours. It is amazing the amount of rubbish they receive and distribute from there every day. Hundreds of tons of Tower Hamlets' rubbish was there today as the borough cannot cope with all the extra pressure from the Olympics.
A wonderfully noisy, hectic and stinky day indeed.

Project

Began filming and recording for some experimental pieces this week around industrial parks, scrap yards and edgelands.

Bruce Lacey

 A retrospective of Lacey's work was at the BFI last night.
Mostly supported, thinly, by an audience with grey hair and a couple of well informed 30 somrthings.
Bizarre, English surrealistic fun and games abounded with some wonderfully awful sound design and highly inspiring ideas of hand-held camera work and the realization that technology must not get in the way of a good idea.
Bravo Bruce.

BFI

BFI membership is proving to be a wise investment. Not just getting me off my arse and out into the real world, but more importantly, the amount of documentary/independent/artist films is proving to be quite a stimulating affair for my work.

Filming

With the arrival of the camera, lens and tripod, I began some filming this week. Really just to get my experience of the kit up to scratch, but once out there, ideas begin to form of what is right and what is not.
I'll keep this experimentation with audio and video recording going this week, and start to compile some short experiments.

New tech books

Getting some background technical help from a couple of books I bought over the weekend.

Of Time and The City

Got some great ideas from watching Of Time and The City by Terence Davies yesterday.
It's amazing when one gets into something, how there is already an established practice.

Topic Idea 3: The Edgelands

This book and its ideas were very useful to me for the BA project. It looks at the strange areas at the edges of urban sprawls.

Swandown

Looking forward to this exhibition at Dilston Grove next week.
Another case of crazy coincidences; I was put on to Andrew Koetting by my tutor, John Wynne and have been exploring Sinclair's work just this past week, and now they have a joint exhibition in South London.

Non-Place 2

An example of what I do not want to do.
I like the fact that the topic interests them, but this is pretty superficial and tabloid in its use of banal questions and a non-conclusion. I'm sure they could have made something of this if they'd narrowed down the focus a bit and worried at that for an answer. I hope they continue with their work.