Conversation with dying Starfish: ideas & references

Project design idea

It's a dialogue

Where are we going?

A dialogue with the Starfish and me through sounds

Travelling through the sand and out into the cosmos

A conversation with a dying Starfish

A multi-channel sound installation. Place the listener inside the sound spatially – speakers like that used in Susan Hiller's work 'Witness', hanging from the ceiling. Translucent speakers, delicate.

Is this a video work? Is it just sound?

I will use the voice and edited field recordings for this work. Why the voice? There is an intimacy with the voice that can be achieved better than other instruments, it comes from the person, it's sensual, it's unique to the person it comes from. Whispering, chilling.

Residency at The Burnished, Bamff Eco-tourism in Mid March with George Finlay Ramsay

I've recorded sounds whilst away on residency that will make up the sound performance. I've started editing these sounds.

Some sounds in development:

Could be one of the 'voices of a Starfish' (click to listen)

Travelling through down into the beach? Dialogue with dying starfish (click to listen)

Playing with communication - voice work (click to listen)

Writing is a part of the process of this work, it also is feeding into my audio essay about ecological intimacy and meandering. Updated writing from Fieldnotes

Read here

References for the sound performance

'Technological Phantasmagorias I, II, III' at Tramway Glasgow in 2009 (can't find the image)

Samuel Beckett 'No I' 1973 staging

Bjork's keening track 'Ancestors'

Susan Hiller's sound installation 'Witness'

Which I saw/experienced at the Tate in 2011

susanhiller.org/installations/witness_video.html

Paulina Anna Strom's track 'Marking Time'

Notes & Questions-post group tutorial

What do I want the audience to experience?

What questions do I want to pose?

How can I display/show sound?

What kind of event can happen?

Where is my concept? Do I need one? I've mostly worked with a strong concept at the beginning, now where am I at?

Could I make a sculpture of a score, placed in front of a sculpture

I am making gestures with drawings, sound making, writing, performing

Immediacy of gesture

Subjective social science

I am making scores for ecological engagement, ecological intimacy, vocal and physical performance. Could I make a book of scores with the sound drawings?

MURKY HORIZONS - written text & recorded

Listen to a rough recording of text read aloud here:

https://static.wixstatic.com/mp3/d4db6f_56ab5aa0d09b4b7c933a3bcdf247bdf8.wav

All there is

Lean in

The tide exposes

When I sing to the seaweed my vibrations remain in the atmosphere as an energy form.

We cannot see the slow-moving tidal sea rise with human eyes, maybe that’s why we are not prepared.

The Turnstones survive in the intertidal space

A drowning out

We are already underwater

I bottle the eeriness of sea haar

In the haar

It’s like everyone has been put to sleep

Hazy, humming, murky horizons

Its dripping and close

Is there a moment where the haar hits my face?

I am walking through the mist

When am I not walking through the mist?

When am I passed it?

Mist is magical

I am walking through an altered time zone

The seaweed sways slowly

hhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmm hhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmm

Chck chck, chck, chck chck chck

Inside the mist I do not feel alone

I forget where I am

It’s a blanket, a cold blanket, I am covered in cold

My senses are heightened

I am hyper-aware

The mist is revealing

The moisture brings to light things that I do not normally see

The lowering of the sky creates a darker reflection

My eyes and nose are leaking

The mist draws out my liquid

This weather is comforting and dark

It’s something in between

Half dead, half alive

The salt is saltier

The seaweed looks like floating dead bodies preserved, salinated

My spatial awareness is misty

I am at the surface of the water

slightly drowning

bobbing at the edge

gasping for air

the heat pulses around my body

my skin colour changes

a clump of seaweed floats by and brushes my leg

I shiver

I’m in the sea and it’s raining

the feeling is like nothing I’ve ever felt before

I feel alive

I feel connected

I feel like I am where I am supposed to be

As the sea levels rise the crevices diminish

No longer allowed to be vulnerable

A saltiness

A heavy saltiness in the bay

Heavy salt

I am covered in salt

I am made of salt

The rocks

My body

The air is salt