supervision (still in note form)
It was useful to re stage - as in parts it made me more aware of what had worked and been interesting when it was set up in the basement.
Being ‘at the desk’ of the sort of protagonist had given a performative (but performa / viewer) element which had worked well with the discussion groups nd people coming in and out and having a look as it changed. All the other objects, book with diagram, pencil, mug etc.had been part of that as had being able to see the tracks in reaper. The other thing that had worked well in the basement was that ‘you’ sat with the city and the traffic behind you and then the desk in front and the sounds and images sort of around in a semi circle and to your side; it was a moment between both of these flows of stuff - caught in a moment and a space…..
Up stair it lost that slippage between feeling - it was more singular and separated (I had decided not to set it up in the same configuration as there were not pces for the visuals - but that was to the detriment of the whole piece… also in the basement the visuals had been softer, larger and not so hard edge - in F12 the seemed more solid - there is eater more light or less - the light balance in the space is different - and its not as big a space - so agin its a different thing - an other iteration or incarnation - made up of the same elements but different
The position was different - so the traffic was not behind you - you were no longer between the tow flows - the flow in front in the basement of the water - and the flow behind of the traffic.
Notes from supervision / transcription:
Simon suggests that he really like the sense of space that it sets up - bu that with different / better speakers could play more with directionality - what they were bouncing off what they didn’t, also maybe move them ‘virtually’ away from the image with delays etc… so delaying teh sounds slightly so that the audio comes to you ‘later’ so adds distance… (possibly not relevant with this content….)
I speak about wanting to work with different areas where sound comes from
But also that one of the probs I have is having spaces where I can test things out
Lisa suggests that her L6 might invite MA / PhD ’s to use bits of there spaces to test things out…..
Lisa asked how I think the pieces would work in a bigger space
I say that the space I tested it in basement was bigger - and that I think it worked better there - but that it was also positioned differently and the videos were bigger and softer edged. But that one of the huge differences was that when it was positioned in the basement along the side wall (and along the side wall of the building) then when you sat in the desk seat - you herd the traffic ‘flow’ behind you and the water flow coming to you from in front….. So much more of a relationship to the space and the city and the sounds coming into the building
Simon says - a nice juxtaposition…
I say that I tried it set up in this space in a similar position - but it didn’t work, the traffic was below (when in the basement slightly above) and the sounds bounced oddly and there were not places for the projections that would replicate b21 - so I had set it up this way around….
Lisa - I think there is something interesting about not pretending the ‘white tube’ is the whole of the space - but that there is something outside
I say yes - that permeability of spaces the things that move between
5:40
This is the Carnegorms 3 page it will mainly cover the RBC shee water events and the tracks
This is the link back to teh Cairngorms first Collecting page
BETWEEN: Inter-disciplinarity and the expanded field
A one-day research conference
University of Wolverhampton, Faculty of Arts
8th October 2018
Call for Papers:
This was my proposal:
BETWEEN: Inter-disciplinarity and the expanded field. August 2018
Ana Rutter. showing praxis: doing thinking
Part of my current research is exploring experiential and performative means to investigate links between philosophical ideas and art practice, as ways of unpicking thinking through practice, to explicate and expound the common methods across my research practices.
More widely, I am exploring the brining together of ‘small’ elements to create an active ‘space’. I am considering Deleuze and Leibniz, thinking about ‘smooth spaces’ and ‘petite perceptions’. Practically, I am working with gathered sounds and images to create embodies installations; with particular concern to affect and the making of affecting atmospheres, investigating the setting up of elements, the relationships created when they are brought together and between these and the viewer; so exploring what is potentially needed to activate a space.
Ana Rutter is practicing artist and part time PhD student at Birmingham School of Art. Her research centres around affect, embodied installation and our everyday landscapes. She is concerned with potentials of affecting experience created using re-mediated gathered material. Ana is currently developing a new piece that will be show in October alongside Stan’s Café’s devising of a new theatre piece; she is putting a new piece in to Birmingham Royal Conservatoire in November and is involved in a two-year research residency at Dyffryn House and Gardens, a national trust property, which will culminate in an exhibition in early 2020.
Ana holds an MA in fine Art; has shown locally and nationally, working both individually and collaboratively. She has a background in devising and delivering education programs and worked in artist run initiative.
Track submited and then part of, mummurations, field recording online album. July 2018 (still in note form)
Jez RF had said that he was going to put together an online album of tracks from Cairngorms field trip - called Murmurations. I had not previously made pieces to solve be listed to with no image as a down load like this. S I decided to give a try and to make a pieces that was about track length - 31/2 mins - from the Shee Water material I had been doing some work with. My general premise being to make something that felt like you were sitting by the side of a fast flowing street…..
I also thought it would be a nice thing to share with DC…
So I spent a number of hours making this short piece. Shee Water 2018 #2
So the initial thought was to make a short pieces, from an area of the multiple tracks used in the ‘piece’ at the PhD take over.
I was thinking about making a pieces for headphones or stereo speakers and more specifically something that gave some of the spacial qualities of the installation.
I worked on it at my desk with a pair of monitor speakers. I tried to think about positioning in terms of a ‘field’ of sound in front of me. I dint want things to shift in the space - to pan across it say, but I wanted things to fade through and back - come to the fore and recede…… thinking about how water shifts and moves, that it does not run a consistent course in a stream, but is always moving…
What was really useful was having to think about the ‘space’ in the pieces - the other versions were speaker with mono tracks - and where things were were decided by the speaker position - this is thinking about how the ‘sound’ in positioned digitally - in the mix; so maying a more ‘controlled’ version or a more set system of how the space is
So set - but also it means I have had to think about where and why….
Re staging Shee water; Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Dates: Tuesday 13th - Thursday 15th November 2018
In the July supervision, Simon Hall suggested I re-set up the piece at the Conservatior in the autumn. Lisa Metherall agreed that trying it in such a different space would be beneficial.
I visited the space in august, Simon and I located an area in the ground floor public cafe which seemed workable. My initial thoughts were to re stage the pieces, much as it had been set up at the School of Art and invite people to engage with it in a similar way, sitting at ‘my’ desk in the centre of the elements brought together.
The arrangement was that I would have a day to set up and test the piece in the space and then it would be ‘open’ for 2 days; I would need to re set out the piece each day and would spend the 3 days with it. I would make notes and record responses and changes to the pieces made through the process.
Tuesday 13th first day testing out:
Initial thoughts as I set up:
- The space is very noisy and very bright, when I cam in August it was out of term time, I had not considered quite how loud and busy it would be.
- Maybe this space I am setting up becomes then a moment of quiet and space amongst all this activity. (and the ‘doing as performance’, more the setting up and being here - so roles have switched, I am performing now, not the viewer)
My plan for the day is writing and thinking through the set up and observing responses.
(diagram in book?)
- At SofA the audience – responded well to the notion of taking part / being part. In this public space the responses seem to be either to ask what I am doing or ignore.
- I think I need to open it out so its not behind a table – but on top and in front.
I re set it up so its all on the tables with speakers towards the space of the room, towards the audience – its odder for me as I am now not in the middle, but more on the edge so an observer.
Possibilities for tomorrow:
- it all being on the floor? closer to where the sounds are from. Or maybe projector / screen on square table and one speaker on each, the ones looking up / down stream, the sounds from above the water and then the other sounds from lower on floor?
- it will open up the window allowing space through. It will give a bigger projection and screen slightly further back (filling the space between the sofa and the wall more with the whole thing)
- Its getting a bit darker and quieter now and the pieces begins to come to life a bit more; the images are stronger and the audio more obvious.
- Whats wrong with it?...... the space? The layout? Currently much to linear, how to make a space for / from it so its not just a series of things in a line?
- The canteen person has just put the chairs back around the tables…maybe I position them tomorrow as they would be (tables lined up with others in area) with the chairs around, so like this thing has just occupied part of the space? And a speaker on a chair? And me out of the set up – but the cables part of the flow and movement?
Re setting up on Wednesday (thinking about what occurred yesterday)
Set up:
2 cafe tables and no chairs
3 speakers on ground
2 speakers on table each with tv or projector
other kit along under window, also lap top there with smaller ground film on.
Cables ‘formed’ - as a flow of…. Sound / water / data / links
Additionally:
I re:edited the visuals – the projection dimmed and brightend due to the light – so I made all 3 films dim and brighten – as a part of the shifting and moving of point of view and concentration…. Everything shifting in light / sound intensity as well as the environment.
Notes:
Interesting response to the space being more open. People ‘looked’ more and asked questions and at the end of day someone sat with it for 45mins or more….
Tomorrow will be the day that the most people come, due to link with afternoon event. I will add in the cafe chairs.
Its felt much more open to the spaces today, need to build on that; so its part of the space and open to it.
Happy with the look and feel of ‘flow’ more through the space.
Equipment used:
Reaper DAW / mac laptop
Avid 003 rack
GenLec speakers
Medi8or media players
Optoma Projector
LEG screen
Mac laptop as second smaller screen
Tracks to speakers :
1 rock binaural under bridge
2 tellinger surface in front
3 hydrophone
4 contacts
5 up stream
(diagram in book)
Greg (Dunn) visiting:
He talks about Walter Benjamin – technology.
We discuss:
- That it is all pulled apart, split into different ‘channels’ (channels of sound, of water….) that you can see the guts of its workings, its channels of communication,
- its taken apart, broken down and then the elements re built
- That there are elements, you focus on one and then shift – focus to another; focusing on one and led to another (and the cables etc.) draw links with other elements in the space.
- With the tables from the canteen – it might be more ‘part of the furniture’ and the ‘kit’ is part of the installation - so it might be more like at S0fA initially
- ‘Me’ as a ‘block’ (element) in it – in both (hinderance as well) ways maybe?
Reset up Thursday:
2 tables + 2 chairs from cafe
3 speakers floor – 2 on chairs.
TV and projector on tables.
The layering feels better:
- Some students came and sat in it and talked about home, getting away from Birmingham, that
- there isn’t much of a rive here.
- I think the set up presently, is more of a little point of being ‘there’; not an experience of hearing ‘here’ through the awakening of sound through listening to there, which was more how it felt in the basement at SofA
- It has been an interesting experiment ‘in relation’ to the canteen / café environment, different and difficult; but it has made me think about ways to set it up and what might be happening in the space.
Sophie (Hederwick) came; we discussed it as a ‘space’ to get away from it in; an experience of ‘there’ not ‘here’.
Thoughts:
- Its more how I had thought it might be before I did the test at SofA, a space to walk through, in some ways explore – but I think the staging @ SofA where you / the viewer had to go and sit in it was interesting, you saw the notes, the control systems etc made the viewer ‘at the hart of it’; the performer / performing / being looked at.
- But when people dragged a chair over, or sat on the floor, they were ‘putting themselves in it’, centre stage, this is something that wouldn’t of happened in ‘the gallery’ the cafe spaced allowed for this interaction and altering of position, it gave the space for people to do this.
- I moved myself to the edge, an observer, some smiled, some spoke to me others ignored my presence, I felt quite uncomfortable a lotto the time (a man from the café thanked me for it having been there)
What was useful / where this takes me
The space in the cafe at the conservatoire was very different than the space that I had originally set the pieces up in at the school of Art. There was a lot of other noise to deal with and the ‘audience’ felt very different. But it allowed me the chance to re think what it ‘should be like’ and think through what had worked in its previous set up. It also gave me an opportunity to, to some extent, make it more as a ‘walk through / around’ piece which; is what I had envisaged prior to setting up at SofA.
The first days testing opened up the remove ‘myself’ more from the set up and made me consider how to use the space and to think about the layering of the sounds again and explore how the whole think could be set up in relation to a different space.
In both versions the cables and kit was all on show as were the audio tracks running through reaper; but with this set up the viewer was less ‘about to take control’ or change it - more an observer of its guts and systems. At the SofA it was more clearly an assembled collection of elements, reinforced by the desk set up, the note books etc.
Talking with people about it was very useful; Gregs interest in how I was showing the technology, the guts of it ; Sophies in how it made a space sort of separate to the rest of the cafe, that you could step into, this especially was the case as the sun got lower and the space darker and quieter, there was a visual ‘glow’ from the films and an audio ‘pool’
I think the previous incarnation encouraged a waking up of listening, and so listening to other things around the space, a seepage between that made one more aware of the other sounds around of the footpath, road and wider city; this was more of a straining to here and so then trying to tune out other sounds.