Harps and missed tracks



Met up with Pedro last week was very useful. He reminded me that perhaps there is not so much left to do in terms of experimentation in music but there is still much space to play with context...

He is working on a really interesting piece for harp, which I have always been drawn to. I think it just seems so un rock 'n roll that its kind of punk rock.... if you understand what I mean

Been well into it since I saw a scene in the film "The Haunting" (Dir. Robert Wise 1963)
where a harp plays itself periodically alluding to the ghosts in the film and aeolian harps, structures that resonate in the wind to make a kind of music...



Have really been interested in the harp since seeing Joanna Newsom at the Green Man Festival in Wales in UK. There was an amazing natural reverb caused by the hills behind the site. Was amazing to here harp and voice with 2000 people in total silence...

The Harp here is from the music of the plains so not native of Bogata but Im still into an idea of using it with PD and in 8 channels somehow. I was reminded of it watching TV in Bogata where there are Harp classes on TV!



I am thinking to use the recordings of the city as material that informs the finished work rather than using them directly or a combination perhaps. The gallery part of the final work could be a more musical thing or using specific sounds seperated from the city sound field.

I am thinking of distributing 'clean' recordings of instrumentation or voice back into the city (using cars, trucks and pedestrians) and then recording them again as part of the documentation of the event.

Also had fun trying to record music with Daniel Prieto. He has something in a show called BZZZZZZZ at Fundación Cuarto Nivel Arte Contemporáneo on Jueves at 7PM.

music in bars

Have been experimenting with PD and using random number generators with a panning patch of Daniel's. Am starting to understand PD more than SuperCollider. Its almost identical to MAX/MSP so doesnt take long to start making noises.

Helped out with Andrés at BOGOTRAX where he was showing some Open Source Software. I briefly showed some examples of SuperCollider and PD but forgot to mention Audacity which is a brilliant and useful sound editor. My main example on Supercollider failed however which made me rush through everything...

Were some great lectures there really enjoyed it, a very creative atmosphere.
Unfortunately missed the end of the festival on Sabado. Was ill all weekend, something I ate I think, so missed the final party...sounded fantastic with 60 tents of music outside the city...

Lecture tonight, everything ready. Showing past work and how it has led to the work I am doing here. In some respects my work with the city seems more abstracted... It may be to do with me not using the moving image much anymore? Just sound abstracts things almost immeadiately. I want to try and have a really abstracted part of my work combined with something very human and interactive in some way... maybe the TV channel with Harps could be incorporated in some way.

This relates to what my friend Inti Guerrero is working on at the moment with the idea of radio waves being another topology of the city in addition to political, sonic, physical and social topographies that make up a landscape urban or otherwise...

Mo' money
mo' problems











Something I liked last night:
Harmonica by Pedro Gomez-Egana at the Watts show, Centro Colomba Americano

Had an interesting chat with someone last night at Centro Colomba Americano about the problems of artists working with the city.

I think he was talking about how certain approaches enforce a kind of imperialism or authority by an artist making a statement about some aspect of a city, or indeed trying to "help" or "improve" something they perceive as bad in a city.

I am trying to avoid this kind of approach and certainly avoid references to what Colombia is infamous for. I am interested in something that is more like using the city as a conduit or machine or organism for generating work and in my case sound. This sounds overly abstracted but I mean it in a more warm human way.

In the process of learning about the city machine or organism through meeting and working with people who have their own relationships with the city then there is potential for discovering and exploring the city and not making statements about it.

This project is a research residency so it is about me learning something and developing some work...

I wonder how my idea of literally using the city as an instrument with cars buses and trucks re distributing sound really works in the sense of this relationship between artist and city...

I dont want to say hey this is what the sound of Bogota is... so what? Everyone has ears to hear the sounds unmediated by an artist... I want to make the work be a byproduct of making some exploration of place...process, process I guess.

It is also not meant to be a statement on street art, the idea is by no means "street" nor does it represent "a street culture"...It is of course an old idea but then I want the idea just to be the tool to explore the city in some way...





Very useful meeting with Daniel Prieto here. He is using the Murray Shaefer
book Tuning of the World in his teaching at los Andes (not to be confused with Pierre Schaeffer of Musique Concrete fame).

Next week we will go out recording to some new places. Very interesting guy. Does work with sensors and sound and mutimedia. Am getting into some PD

Supercollider is proving pretty hard for someone new to OOP (Object Orientated Programming). Will keep at it but PD may prove to be faster to get the installation to work in time for April.

Supercollider VS Flat bed truck

On thursday 9th met some good people outside Galeria Valenzuela & Klenner
where i saw a show by Phil Niblock and Katherine Liberovskaya.

Hola Javier Navarro, Juan C Guerrero, Leonadrdo Castellanos and Julio (?my poor spanish and memory I have forgotten your name amigo!). Hope to maybe work with Javier in some way while Im here.

They took me to their artist spaces at MapaTeatro Cr.7 #23-08. Interesting show there on Friday 17th and an amazing space to work in.

Going back to the Galeria V & K, some nice footage used but the subtleties of the sound were lost in the totally reflective space. Had great power though; the sound would bounce around everywhere. Definately worth a look.

That place and the MAPA space would be great sites for the multichannel installation I am working on.

Also met up with Miller Lagos who has a show on Jueves at 12, his work is great. He did a brilliant piece (I think a long time ago now) in the Place Bolivar where he made a pre Colombian image out of bread and rice and seeds and then slowly the pidgeons of the square ate the image away. Recent work are sculptures of balloons made of concrete...Thanks for being my tour guide Miller!



At the moment I am trying to use Supercollider to distribute sound (originating from city field recordings) across a number of channels with some sort of chaotic system to parallel the way the sounds of a city are distributed in reality:

This would make up an installation at a few sites in the city and would be the "gallery" environment.

Then another physical system would distribute processed sound back into the city; a number of cars or taxis with stereos on loud would play sound on CD or Tape BACK into the city while on the move. A flat bed truck could navigate paths relating to the recordings and soundmaps made during my residency; it could also host other artists to collaborate with me and have a soundsystem I could use in a live mix. All this physical distribution would be documented and presented in some of the static locations with the Supercollider based system

Here is a mockup of a soundmap, with some recent recordings I made with Jaime Iregui.

soundmap1

Its a bit slow at the moment. Click on the little buttons which represent recording locations and wait for the audio to stream while the mouse flashes; can take 1 minute or more before you hear anything. Then click a few times on another button to get that working. You need broadband internet and stereo headphones help.

Had an interesting talk with Juan Fernando Herrán today. We talked about me presenting some work to link with the site specific part of his installation programme.

He borrowed "The Conversation" a film by Coppola and Walter Murch from 1974.
Alot of my work has been influenced by film in a way; I am an unusual watcher of films. I hardly go to the cinema but accumulate films that become an obsession... then of course pick up bad films from tv along the way



Films like Gummo (Harmony Korine, 1997), Solaris (Tarkovsky,1972) The Conversation ( Coppola/Murch 1974), The Blow Up (Antonioni, 1966), Barry Lyndon (Kubrick 1975) seem to have got stuck in my brain and filter into my work.

Tarkovsky´s Solaris, seeped into my exhibition Cheapjack! (Artist residency about Chemical Factories in Widnes my home town in the UK) its exploration of humanity and memory really resonated with the exhibition subject... the soundtrack was sampled in video and sound works with one sequence from the film referenced and reconstructed with local people....

The Conversation is the latest to have got stuck in my memory; a surveillance expert pieces together a couples private conversation in a busy park in the city.

It is interesting in that it is the first film to really explore the concept of digital audio (although in a way that gives it a super-nerd glamour which has kind of stuck). At the time digital encoding was a research project and far from its domestic invasion we are so used to today. Editor Walter Murch used an ARP synthesiser (now a vintage instrument like anything by the late Bob Moog) to scramble voices into what he imagined a digital encoding might sound like...

It is always fascinating to see the present from the imagination of the past... I see the film as about the construction of meanings through sound and space and relevant to my work here.

Juan and I talked a bit about the nature of site specific work and found sounds/objects... I showed him a film about Gelatin I found in the chemical factory where I was artist in residence and placed it in the present day factory... that when you use film or soundtracks as found objects then you are released from the burden of recording or constructing them. They are there as readymades. From then on the rest is contextual play and representation perhaps...

I am interested in using sound in some way that does not necessarily involve recording and constructing things digitally; these things of course can be part of the work and process but perhaps not the whole thing... perhaps the tools to lead somewhere else...

The other day Inti pointed out a building that was part modernist part hybrid fake terracotta referencing colonial styles and selling paella... The way the building could sit anywhere but would affect the context of its place...

It is tricky to find something that then interacts with different contexts... I am unsure if the video does that... or how to use The Conversation in some way... obviously there are some resonances with the independent security culture of Colombia but perhaps these are too certain... I have always been attracted to recreating the opening scene of The Conversation to actually do some audio surveillance on other actors in a square in a city though I am not sure how it would work as an artwork or unclear of what kind of contexts it could work in.

Its an intuition thing.... whether it should work in Bogota and in Liverpool who knows. It is tricky as I do not want to make a film but recreate the scenes process and then what to do...

On Friday night I went to a show by Wilson Diaz with Inti & Maya Guerrero and Danillo Valpato. I had seen Wilson´s work at the last Liverpool Bienniale in the Independant. Weirdly the work was about the problems English/Liverpool galleries had with his work and how he ate cocoa plant seeds in order to bring them over..¡ Anyone who could describe the show better and more accurately please add a comment. This description doesnt do his work justice so apologies!

Was a great show and like his work alot. He performed with a group of musicians which you can see and hear below: the lyrics were about his work and gallery systems I think.

Wilson Diaz Song Video (lofi)
Wilson Disz Song Audio (lofi)

Monday had lunch with Liliana from Ministerio di Cultura and went in search of a memory card...Was useful to discuss my work and others before I do a lecture on my work at the Universidad.

Had an idea yesterday about how and where to exhibit work...

Making little interactive sound maps will be a starting point but thought it might be interesting to exhibit a sound work on the back of a truck and drive it round the routes made on the maps... Maybe even a mini carnival with people following the truck through the streets. Was thinking about compositions like Beach Singularity by Trevor Wishart, a composition for on the beach

A short day for me

Had un poco clasa dÉspagnôl mañana then a long lunch so not much work today.
Only some admin for projects en Inglès. Also some practice with Flash for the interacitve mapa I will make with Jaime Iregui.

I think I am very lucky to have some time with Jaime here and all the other artists Ive met so far...



Saw a temporary video work, a tribute to the late Nam June Paik. Very nice to see some video arte a reference to Nam´s ¨Good Morning Mr Orwell¨ By Inti Guerrero and Maya Guerrero

Apologies for the poor image of their work I am using a mobile phone camera! Inti will post me a video clip which I will link to here soon...



Later I will see some more work at the Universidad... mucho arte!

Preperations for Recording
Have been testing my audio file recorder: works pretty well, but had some problems with the flash card. Have recorded basic walking sound of my route to the university.

There is a nice point away from noise of students near the Music Labs overlooking the city Ive rocorded it at 11.30 and then I will record later: it is especially good at dusk when the building work stops and the city begins to change into night...

Day Recording overlooking builing site



Just getting ready to do some recording of the city next week with Jaime Iregui. Perhaps we should both take recorders and mics of different kinds. Will check with Suzannah who is in charge of equipment.



Went to a gig with Maria and Andreas at Mauricios EJE Records/Shop/Bar
Only watched the local support band and had to get back...Sorry Mauricio, missed the main band from Venezuala. My first introduction to the music scene of Bogota. Like Liverpool there is a reaction to electronic/house music Bogota is known for and so EJE have many new Live bands... Great place and very nice people

Looking forward to BOGOTRAX 2006 though: much good exciting stuff. Reminds me of the Hive Collective in Liverpool. Could imagine a music cultural exchange similar to what I am doing here but more in a festival type context. Know people in Liverpool like SoundNetwork, Globalgoon and HIVE that Im sure would be into this city...something to think about...

Was amazing to see the city at night from the hills, with a tower block covered with changing(?)coloured lights... like a giant graphic equalizer!

Artists, Designers and the City: Awareness of Sound Background

The Urban Design Group had their annual conference at CUBE gallery in Manchester
in November 2004

Artist Daniel Barrett (aka Nunatak) organised an event where conference delegates on guided architectural and urban design led tours of Manchester recorded sound with lofi dictaphones as a way of exploring the various sites. These recordings were given to 5 sound artists working locally including myself. That night these recordings were transformed into new sound works on the theme of exploring urban space and played back to the conference. Finally a day later the 5 artists completed an improvised performance at ARUP UK Gallery in Manchester

This became the first event for Awareness of Sound, Ross Dalziel and Daniel Barrett's research group to find dialogue and collaboration between sound based art practice and acoustics, architecture and design.

Ross' work at Universidad de Los Andes will add to this research substantially before the next AOS event, Carbon Sink Workshops in Berlin in May (to be confirmed).

Heres the audio from my processing of delegates sounds from the first Awareness of Sound event.

I placed the delegate recording within a recording of the ambience of an Urban Splash development in Manchester between a canal and distant railtrack at 6pm


http://www.cheapjack.org.uk/Back Splash.mp3

Welcome to the Blog for artist Ross Dalziel's residency at Universidad de los Andes







I have now been here for a week and am finally settling in I think and slowly getting to know the University and the City.

My Residency aims to find ways for sound based art practice to interact, collaborate and cross with Acoustics, Architecture and Urban Design.

Bogota is turning out to be a fascinating site when thinking about the dynamics and design of a city. I have been reading some books on Constant Nieuwenhuys work and the Situationist idea of drift via a lecturer here Andreas Burbano.







In many ways its almost as if Constant's drift and urban design is already made real in Bogata. Indeed many cities may follow this. You could think of all the overlayered drifting changing structures of Constant as not just physical structures, but economical, sociological and historical: many of these structures change overlap and shift in a contemporary city.

This is how I am approaching architecture, but using sound as some kind of modelling or thinking tool instead of drawings or physical models
I intend not to just record and process sound in a anthropological way or to say this is the sound of the city, or to simply map
sound locations. I hope to work out how sound can be used to understand a city or a place.




I met yesterday with Jaime Iregui a fascinating well known Bogota artist and talked about this and showed him some recent work, particularly my Awareness of Sound work. He's taking me on a tour round some sites in Bogota and I will record 'slices' of sound and produce some kind of interactive sound map. This will be a starting point for my work here and a way of introducing myself to students and lecturers at the University.

Jaime talked of thinking about sites in the city as contrasting clusters. I was reminded of the use of tonal or microtonal clusters in composition: a way of approaching whatever sound works I will make at the end of the residency.



Possible style of interactive map.


Universidad de Los Andes