The Red Thread
The things that keep reappearing in my work and research are Sound, Movement and Space.
This can be seen in early compositions and research papers from my studies.
Below are some projects that I’m still working on or trying to find time and funding to develop further.
Humming in the Dark, came about after I sustained a head injury and had to spend (actual) years sitting in a dark room wearing sunglasses. During this prolonged period, I became more aware of how I moved, how I used my hearing and voice to maneuver around spaces and how I interacted with people.
The score is made for any dark space, for professionals and non professionals alike. It explores the audience as performers, group interaction and temporality - there are no exact times to change from one section to the next, it should be agreed upon as a group - and the performers relationship with the architecture of the performance space.
The Noise Floor
Researching an interactive floor that vibrated when people moved and interacted with each other and the performance space.
This project was part of my Masters research into enabling ludic behaviour between strangers using sound and movement.
The final stage of this project used a Kinect depth camera and a Transducer (Butt Kicker) to immerse the participants in sound as they interacted with each other - a little like standing on a huge speaker!
Dansebryggeriet
I have worked with Copenhagen based youth dance company Dansebryggeriet on multiple occasions. My roles moving between performer and workshop facilitator with a focus on Movement and Composition.
The workshops focused on exploring semi-improvisational compositional and choreographic techniques with the dancers.
They concluded with the dancers improvising with their voices in different areas of the building they rehearse in; I wanted them to explore the physicality of the building and interact with their space in a different way than they are used to.
I then recorded the sounds and the resulting audio was used as content for the composition used for their black box performances.
Performing improvised scores are always fun, especially when they are site specific and have to take the sound, movement, space and passive or active public into account. It is also an opportunity to introduce different aspects of the dance and music scenes to each other and build bridges for future collaborations.
Lege-Dar
This research project was carried out whilst I studied at Aalborg University. It explored the room as both a performance space and as a New Instruments for Musical Expression (NIME) and the audience as performers.
The instrument comprises a LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) sensor, a speaker and Max/MSP software and can be placed in the centre of any space.
The goal was to create a cooperative music performance through movement, using the spatial characteristics of the performance space to form the qualities of the instrument and to leverage existing skills and means of expression from the performers as to aid inclusivity.
When creating computer based art, the compositional aspect of the end experience overlaps with the iterative process of the software development. In this overlap, the software becomes the score or notation system, as it determines the possible structure of performance.
The paper written during the initial process can be found here.
Gadens Galleri
This installation was a culmination of a four week residency at Kommunal Kunst og Teknik in Copenhagen and is a collaboration between Nikolaj Kynde, Tue Sander Barfred and myself.
This research investigates how we experience and perceive sound by visualising the physicality of sound; low frequency sine waves activate the speakers which transfer their movement through the various attached media.
CHIKON
After nerve damage in my arms cut short my career as a drummer, I looked at other possible ways of physical and sonic expression.
This took the form of making software instruments in the computer programme Max/MSP. To keep performance continuity, the software was created to process previous audio recordings of myself playing the drums and then manipulate them in real time in an improvisational setting.
CHIKON consisted of Double Bass player Andy Champion and myself and toured the UK’s improvisation scene as well as performing regularly with movement artists.
An album documenting the project was released on the NIMO/JazzAction label in 2008 and can be found here.