Interviews

Two more great and very interesting interviews this week.
Many thanks to Robin Rimbaud and David Toop.

Interviews

Two more successful interviews conducted today. Huge thanks to DJ Sugar Lips and The Right Honourable Mercedes Sutherland-Nash.

Totorial

My tutorial went well this week. Heading in the right direction it seems and with the support of JW. He gave me a few tips and ideas.
It is still a mess regarding the final show with nobody actually committing to a definitive answer about where and what we can actually do it, but that's to be expected from LCC.
I'm not waiting for the bureaucracy to lumber into gear and tell me at the last minute, and as Mark Jackson said my archive would not fit into the gallery anyway, I'm trying to find a small space where I can exhibit it off campus.

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

Poetry Library

What a wonderful place this is. Spent a happy few hours there yesterday investigating Sound Poetry.
Really helpful staff and an amazing collection of books.

They had quite a number of Bob Cobbing books and texts there which were very useful as well as a number of pointers to other poets from the staff.

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.

The Albion Accord

There were just too many bands, clubs, bars, hotels etc called The Albions, so, I think this new addendum adds a difference and confirms the notion of a group of equal participants. Promotes the notion in one's mind of a left-wing agenda, too.

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.

Environment

Further to The Bruce Lacy Experience and ideas from Happenings and in particular Alan Kaprow and his ideas and thoughts about the everyday, an idea has come to me for the presentation of the final work and its presentation.
I will create an environment in which aspects of the final work (at this stage, a documentary film) will be the progress and workings of it's construction. I will include maps, drawings, designs and ideas for it's presentation. I will complement it with a video version of myself and further add to the involvement of the audience by offering a small library and ways for them to participate and be involved in the work.

Bruce Lacey 2

The Bruce Lacey Experience at the Camden Arts Centre in Finchley was my destination yesterday, and what a productive day it turned out to be.
In the same way as I cam to get the Pilgrims' Way project sorted in a day, so too did this exhibition prove to be the catalyst for cementing many disparate ideas I have had for the past couple of months.
This exhibition, through the reasonably eclectic strands of Lacey's career, helped point me to place where my various ideas could work together rather than be the father fragmented things I hitherto saw them as.

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.

Soiree / Public reaction

I was interested in seeing the film again last week in front of the public.
As with all things, once the piece is out of one's control, you just have to let it be and see how people react. Luckily, on the whole, positively.
I have decided that a replication of the Lo-Fi aesthetic will be wrong for the next project. It is so obvious that I would have trouble maintaining the idea without it becoming predictable or lame.
A similar attention to costumes will be important and the maintenance of the slightly opinionated character is desirable and gives the film some momentum.
I am questioning a performed version for the final show.