#aa sca yr 3 sem 2 week 2

[aangussca]

Art Studio 2 Experimentation: Adding to last semester's Ableton soundbank PART 2 (9.8.24)

NOTES

Based on the feedback, more Ableton sounds and field audio recordings are needed to further explore the potential for sound/soundscapes (perhaps to create a more cohesive/refined, reflective narrative).

In light of certain ideas and feedback (e.g. further exploration of sound, and potential inclusion of "interactive/acoustic" sculptures - see previous post), perhaps I could give a calmer, more drawn-out "echoing" to the soundscape.

I used Ableton (program) synced to a MIDI keyboard controller (model = A-88MKII).

Reflection: Compared to last week's soundtracks, these ones did not evoke the listening experience I saw as suitable for this project (too shrill, too erratic, faster pace, not mediative, etc.). This is especially a problem in the "Freudian Pad" and "Dunkel Pad". Will definitely do another Ableton experiment next week.

AUDIO FILES

[aangussca]

Art Studio 2 Research: MOMA podcast - Emeka Ogoboh's 'On Active Listening' (9.8.24 - 10.8.24)

Link to podcast and transcript:

Notes:

The Nigerian-born artist Emeka Ogoboh explains the role of soundscapes in his experiences of living in different cities (Lagos vs. Berlin), and the importance of listening.

"[ Listening is] a transportive experience. It transports you to these places."

"I see the city as a composer. And what I mean by that is, the city decides what it puts out. I’m just documenting the city. And for every city it’s different."

Lagos: "...you will hear different layers of sound at any time of the day."

Berlin: "...where you have the government monopoly on what sound you hear. ...where you are forced to listen... But then you, yourself are not allowed to be part of that composition..."

"I do not take what I hear for granted. You know, I’m curious to listen to the city and you can tell so much about a place from the sound generated in this place. So, my approach to cities is what is called deep listening, paying more attention. Also, like, you do this willingly. It’s not like bumping into sound or passing through sound. This is active listening to hear stuff, to experience stuff. So I do that and it changed my life, not just my practice. It made me pay more attention. So I’m creating compositions. Because there’s so many layers of sound."

"I think we should unplug their headphones more, pay more attention to our space and know what’s going on. It changes you as a person. It makes you pay more attention. We spend our time, our energy, really letting the visual guide us. But I think we should all develop our senses of hearing further."

Reference (Chicago 17th)

Ogboh. "Ten Minutes with Emeka Ogboh: On Active Listening." In MoMA (Museum of Modern Art), July 14, 2023. Podcast, website, 9:37. https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/923.

[aangussca]

Art Studio 2 Research: Potential inspiration for the additional sculptures

Jane Gavan and Jacky Redgate's feedback on Organic Space: "Well done, superb sound work! The visual imagery was poetic - theoretical underpinnings tremendous and outstanding commitment. A great research project and methodology around the subject of soundscape ecology and engaging with fieldwork and trips. The final chosen looped 3 sequences are still being realised but can be refined in Semester 2. The direction is for shorter experiential 'narrative sequence'. The sounds of the body is the last one yet unrealised. There is a lot to explore and develop how you will install your work for Semester 2, including sculptural possibilities, which wasn't realised yet in Semester 1. Push the sculptural and installation potential of your work. All the best for Semester 2! Jacky and Jane"

My thoughts from the feedback:

What about sculptures that can be interacted with to 'make sound'? (Perhaps leading the audience into the main exhibition room) - This will be addressed in this post and in future documentation.

Colours and shapes could mirror some of the animated forms/textures in the short film (and maybe other things in nature). - This will also be addressed in this post and in future documentation.

The soundscape in the 'terrestrial segment' of the short film needs to be explored/refined further, as does the overall installation and narrative sequence. - This will be addressed in future documentation.

Huaco Silbador (the Peruvian whistling vessel)

Created by various cultural groups in Peru from 500BCE to the 1500s.

The vessels were modelled after birds, other animals, or people.

Two different types: one that is single-chambered and another that is double-chambered.

You could either blow into it (both single-chambered and double-chambered) or fill it with water and tilt it back and forth (double-chambered). Both actions are demonstrated in the videos and diagrams below.

IDEA 1: Sculptures resembling the appearance of the environments/creatures making the sounds.

IDEA 2: Hollow interior to produce the sound?

Row 1: Ceramic whistling bottle - Muscovy (date unknown, AMNH Collection), Whistling bottle depicting maize deity (900-1400CE, National Museum of the American Indian)

Row 2: Double whistling bottle with jaguar figure (100-700CE, National Museum of the American Indian), Double-chambered ceramic whistling vessel - camelid/llama (date unknown, Smithonian National Museum of Natural History)

Row 3: Double-chambered ceramic whistling vessel - macaw with fruit (200BCE-600CE, Museo Larco)

Row 4: Monkey ceramic whistling bottle (200BCE-600CE, Museo Larco)

Row 5: Jaguar Whistling Jar (500-900CE, The Met Collection)

Row 6: Whistling Jar (200BCE-600CE, The Met Collection), Double-bodied ceramic whistling bottle - bat and spondylus shell (date unknown, AMNH Collection)

Artist Archive: Healing sound baths in Guadalupe Maravilla's body-of-work exhibition Luz y fuerza (2021)

Exhibition descriptions (from MOMA's website): ""I create new mythologies that take the form of real and fictionalised rituals based on my own lived experiences," says Guadalupe Maravilla. Two events from the artist’s life animate his work most of all: emigrating from his native El Salvador to the United States as an unaccompanied, undocumented eight-year-old and, later, surviving cancer. From this personal history grows a multidisciplinary practice that addresses trauma, contagion, rehabilitation, and rebirth.

This gallery—whose Spanish title translates as "hope and strength"—features works inspired by Mesoamerican myths and Salvadoran traditions. The sculptures are made from natural materials and ready-made objects selected for their therapeutic, historical, symbolic, and aesthetic properties. Maravilla sees them as healing instruments he can activate—and often does, especially for people experiencing illness and other hardships.

Disease Thrower #5 is a sculpture, a shrine, a wearable headdress, and an acoustic instrument. Like all works in the Disease Thrower series, it is, according to the artist, a "healing machine," which can be activated to create a sound bath with curative potential. It is made from both natural materials, such as straw and loofah, and man-made objects that Maravilla collected while retracing parts of the migratory route from El Salvador to the United States he took as a child. The work also includes anatomical models: one of a breast, another of a malignant tumour.

While undergoing treatment for cancer, Maravilla was introduced to sound therapy, a healing practice that uses vibrations produced by instruments. According to the artist, this practice “cleanse[s] the water in our bodies, which can carry stress, impurities, and, in some cases, diseases.” Now a trained sound healer, Maravilla regularly holds therapeutic sound baths for undocumented immigrants, cancer patients, and others in need. The gongs are tuned to specific frequencies intended to resonate with the moon and other planets in our solar system. Over the course of this exhibition, the artist will be regularly activating the sculptures in immersive sound bath sessions that visitors can sign up to attend."

Sound as healing/mediative?

Interaction to produce sound may not be limited to blowing air into hollow objects.

Luz y fuerza (multiple dates, sculptural body of work installation with performance)

Disease Thrower #5 (2019, sculpture - Gong, glass, steel, wood, glue mixture, cotton, wood, plastic, loofah, paint, straw, Florida Water, and objects collected from a ritual retracing the artist's original migration route)

[aangussca]

Art Week Workshop: Nature prints with Keg de Souza (12.9.24)

Description of session

"Plants have always moved over and between land masses, transported both intentionally and inadvertently from their native lands to new ones. This spread of plants has accelerated over the past few hundred years through colonial expansion, massively altering ecosystems.

We will begin by wandering the university gardens to gather weeds. These specimens will serve as a starting point to return to the printmedia room to print, research and discuss how the movement of plants has left lasting impacts, many of which have propelled us towards climate crisis."

Short summary of Keg de Souza's practice (with link to portfolio)

Goan heritage (from the Goa state in India)

Politics of space (architecture, colonialism, displacement, culture, etc.) - e.g. Abundance: Fruit of the Sea, Bounty of the Mountain (2016) and Impossible Utopia (2011)

Botany/landscapes in relation to global/colonial histories (documented in herbariums and other botanical archives), as well as the impacts these histories have (e.g. "trauma of the landscape") - e.g. If a coconut falls (2024) and Monumental as Anything (2023)

EDIT (OCTOBER 2024) - Here's a link to more detail on her practice and her works:

Process and research (with images)

We collected a number of plants (mostly weeds) in a hidden garden on campus.

After choosing the ones we liked to use for our print, we rolled ink onto the plants and printed them onto paper to create a monoprint (NOTE: I WILL DEFINITELY CONSIDER THIS PROCESS FOR A FUTURE WORK).

Some of the plants I found that I could identify: Euphorbia peplus (Petty Spurge), Nandina domestica (Heavenly Bamboo), Cyclospermum Leptophyllum (Marsh Parlsey), Youngia japonica (Oriental False Hawksbeard), Epilobium ciliatum (Fringed Willow-herb)

Interestingly, after some research, I learnt that all of these plants either have been used or are being researched for their medicinal properties.

Petty Spurge: Has been historically used to treat warts and other skin conditions, and has recently been researched for its cytotoxic (toxic to cells) properties in treating non-melanoma skin cancers.

Marsh Parsley: Has been researched for antibacterial and antimicrobial properties.

Heavenly Bamboo: Antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties for treating colds, asthma and other respiratory conditions in traditional Chinese and Japanese medicine.

Oriental False Hawksbeard: Used for treating fever, snakebites, coughs and colds, shingles, sore throat and diarrhoea in traditional Chinese medicine (and for treating wounds, and preventing the formation of kidney stones in traditional Bangladeshi medicine) - recent research has also found antiviral properties in treating respiratory conditions like RSV.

Fringed Willow-herb (not used in monoprints out of fear that the flowers would get damaged in their already delicate state - perhaps I could try a technique not too dissimilar to the Japanese printing technique gyotaku): Used to treat infected skin sores, hip and back pain, and diarrhoea and other gastrointestinal problems by some Indigenous American groups.

Final prints

Row 1-2: Ghosts of a Herbarium: Euphorbia peplus (Petty Spurge) and Cyclospermum Leptophyllum (Marsh Parsley)

Row 3-5: Ghosts of a Herbarium: Sprig of Nandina domestica (Heavenly Bamboo) embraced by Cyclospermum Leptophyllum (Marsh Parlsey) and Youngia japonica (Oriental False Hawksbeard)

Row 6: Both monoprints alongside each other

[aangussca]

Art Studio 2 Full Film Editing - Aquatic Segment (28.10.24-31.10.24)

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT CURRENTLY FINALISED, AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

[aangussca]

Art Studio 2 Animation Elements - Terrestrial PART 6 (26.10.24)

Paired with which sound: Bird calls and other animal calls

Frame rate: 21 fps

(11 fps: https://www.tumblr.com/aangussca/765375577410633728/art-studio-2-animation-elements-terrestrial-part)

(15 fps: https://www.tumblr.com/aangussca/765375740615278592/art-studio-2-animation-elements-terrestrial-part)

Procreate brush: Burnt Tree

[aangussca]

Art Studio 2 Animation Elements - Terrestrial PART 6 (26.10.24)

Paired with which sound: Bird calls and other animal calls

Frame rate: 15 fps

(11 fps: https://www.tumblr.com/aangussca/765375577410633728/art-studio-2-animation-elements-terrestrial-part)

(21 fps: https://www.tumblr.com/aangussca/765375766558113792/art-studio-2-animation-elements-terrestrial-part)

Procreate brush: Burnt Tree

[aangussca]

Art Studio 2 Animation Elements - Terrestrial PART 6 (26.10.24)

Paired with which sound: Bird calls and other animal calls

Frame rate: 11 fps

(15 fps: https://www.tumblr.com/aangussca/765375740615278592/art-studio-2-animation-elements-terrestrial-part)

(21 fps: https://www.tumblr.com/aangussca/765375766558113792/art-studio-2-animation-elements-terrestrial-part)

Procreate brush: Burnt Tree

[aangussca]

Art Studio 2 Animation Elements - Terrestrial PART 2.5 (25.10.24-26.10.24)

Paired with which sound: Bird calls

Frame rate: 12 fps

(15 fps: https://www.tumblr.com/aangussca/765373563364589569/art-studio-2-full-film-editing-terrestrial)

(18 fps: https://www.tumblr.com/aangussca/765373672553840640/art-studio-2-animation-elements-terrestrial-part)

(21 fps: https://www.tumblr.com/aangussca/765373640011284480/art-studio-2-animation-elements-terrestrial-part)

Procreate brush: Campagnia brush

[aangussca]

Art Studio 2 Animation Elements - Terrestrial PART 2.5 (25.10.24-26.10.24)

Paired with which sound: Bird calls

Frame rate: 18 fps

(15 fps: https://www.tumblr.com/aangussca/765373563364589569/art-studio-2-full-film-editing-terrestrial)

(12 fps: https://www.tumblr.com/aangussca/765373968057319425/art-studio-2-animation-elements-terrestrial-part)

(21 fps: https://www.tumblr.com/aangussca/765373640011284480/art-studio-2-animation-elements-terrestrial-part)

Procreate brush: Campagnia brush

[aangussca]

Art Studio 2 Animation Elements - Terrestrial PART 2.5 (25.10.24-26.10.24)

Paired with which sound: Bird calls

Frame rate: 21 fps

(15 fps: https://www.tumblr.com/aangussca/765373563364589569/art-studio-2-full-film-editing-terrestrial)

(18 fps: https://www.tumblr.com/aangussca/765373672553840640/art-studio-2-animation-elements-terrestrial-part)

(12 fps: https://www.tumblr.com/aangussca/765373968057319425/art-studio-2-animation-elements-terrestrial-part)

Procreate brush: Campagnia brush

[aangussca]

Art Studio 2 Animation Elements - Terrestrial PART 2.5 (25.10.24-26.10.24)

Paired with which sound: Bird calls

Frame rate: 15 fps

(12 fps: https://www.tumblr.com/aangussca/765373968057319425/art-studio-2-animation-elements-terrestrial-part)

(18 fps: https://www.tumblr.com/aangussca/765373672553840640/art-studio-2-animation-elements-terrestrial-part)

(21 fps: https://www.tumblr.com/aangussca/765373640011284480/art-studio-2-animation-elements-terrestrial-part)

Procreate brush: Campagnia brush

[aangussca]

Art Studio 2 Animation Elements - Terrestrial PART 2.4 (14.10.24-25.10.24)

Paired with which sound: Bird calls

Frame rate: 22 fps

(15 fps: https://www.tumblr.com/aangussca/765283074305097728/art-studio-2-animation-elements-terrestrial-part)

(19 fps: https://www.tumblr.com/aangussca/765283189825683456/art-studio-2-animation-elements-terrestrial-part)

Procreate brush: Campagnia brush

[aangussca]

Art Studio 2 Animation Elements - Terrestrial PART 2.4 (14.10.24-25.10.24)

Paired with which sound: Bird calls

Frame rate: 19 fps

(15 fps: https://www.tumblr.com/aangussca/765283074305097728/art-studio-2-animation-elements-terrestrial-part)

(22 fps: https://www.tumblr.com/aangussca/765283196235612160/art-studio-2-animation-elements-terrestrial-part)

Procreate brush: Campagnia brush

[aangussca]

Art Studio 2 Animation Elements - Terrestrial PART 2.4 (14.10.24-25.10.24)

Paired with which sound: Bird calls

Frame rate: 15 fps

(19 fps: https://www.tumblr.com/aangussca/765283189825683456/art-studio-2-animation-elements-terrestrial-part)

(22 fps: https://www.tumblr.com/aangussca/765283196235612160/art-studio-2-animation-elements-terrestrial-part)

Procreate brush: Campagnia brush

[aangussca]

Art Studio 2 Full Film Editing - Aquatic Segment (19.10.24-22.10.24)

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT CURRENTLY FINALISED, AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE.