Mixed Grille

Myself and a group of spirited individuals will be doing some experimental sound performances on this Friday, 4th June, at Whitespace in Dundee.  It’s a chance for all those who missed previous performances of Exercise Magic!! and the new and improved Lumierophone to check them out, as well as enjoying work by Sean Williams and Noise Club.

  

 

Mixed Grille – 4th June 7pm White Space, University of Abertay Join us for a steaming hot greasy plate of experimental sound cooked up just for you. Packed full of calories and oozing with cholesterol this event is guaranteed to raise your blood pressure. Feast on performances and installations by Yann Seznec, Kristina Johansen, and Sean Williams followed by a generous helping of Noise Club. This is a meal not to be missed. 

What’s on the menu? 

Lumièrophone - Named after pioneers of cinema Auguste and Louis Lumière, the Lumièrophone is a screen which uses light to instantly create a generative soundtrack, functioning as a robotic foley system and exploring the relationship between motion, sound, and light. 

Exercise Magic!! - A performance based on “Real Results With Coronation Street’s Beverley Callard”, an aerobics video from the mid nineties. Yann Seznec will wear a custom-made outfit and exercise along with Beverley and friends…but who is controlling whom? Yann’s movements will disintegrate, remix, and re-invent the video in real-time, all whilst he’s getting fit and enjoying it too! 

The (Sound Of Music)’ – Sean Williams will present this subtle sonic picture of the unique listening history embodied in a vinyl recording of the famous musical soundtrack. 

Noise Club at Work - Noise Club will work to produce sound at their work stations. Throughout the performance we may have meetings or tea breaks. We will dress appropriately for the office environment. We will improvise using home-made regalia and other instrumentation. 

All is full of gLove!

Last weekend I collaborated with artist Yann Seznec (aka the Amazing Rolo) on a UV glove which allows the wearer to draw on a wall that has been covered in UV paint.  This was a development on some work created by Yann for the exhibition Rough Cut Nation at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery (check out Yann’s blog!).  Here’s a video showing a bit of the glove being made and then some shots of it in action at the exhibition:

The glove is made from an ordinary Thinsulate black fleece glove from a second hand shop.  In between the lining and the outer layer I connected the battery and then externally attached the resistor and two UV LEDs on the index finger.  The LEDs are activated by touching the thumb and middle finger together.  Initially we created a glove using a reclaimed switch, but this wasn’t really suitable for use with fabric and after a few two many demos at a gig and then some time languishing in my handbag on Saturday night it very quickly broke.

We resolved the problem by creating a fabric switch using some embroidered (very badly, what would my old school teacher say?!) conductive thread.  The two X points can be touched together to create a circuit.  This is much more durable because there aren’t any moving parts which can be broken.  Obviously the glove itself although functional is not very asthetically pleasing, I can imagine creating a much nicer effect with some better embroidary and homemade gloves (watch this space).

You can try the glove for the rest of this week at the Portrait Gallery and find out more about the exhibition on the gallery blog. Thanks to Patrick Hickey at Nipht Technologies for the UV LEDs.  As with lots of projects like this the glove was made with the sage advice of the book Fashioning Technology which is a must read title!