Dream

I’ve found what I’m looking for – a brilliant version of John Cage’s “Dream” performed by Percussionist Justin Stolarik ( now Dr Stolarik ) . I found it on youtube http://www.youtube.com/datimpster after searching the web ( and other places ) and almost immediately recognised something familiar and long lost and perfect for "There is a Tide". It is everything I wanted and more - The music is rhythmic and melodic that will find a good place with the rhythms and movements within the sculptures - it has the undisturbed quality and sweet tone that should sit low beneath the sound of the wind in the masts - and it has its own energy and sense of experiment. I approach Justin to check that he is happy for me to use the performance and he is very generous in his reponse. See http://www.justinstolarik.com/ for more information about this wonderful Conductor, Percussionist and Music Educator . I can't stop smiling - how strange that a musical piece of work by another artist should bring about the same sense that I am more familiar with when I deliver a colour or a shape or a stroke that becomes the key to a visual piece that I am working on. I am so happy too that John Cage should revisit the process having been a main source of inspiration when I first considered sound as part of the exhibition. Now, for my part, all I need to do is to get a good recording of the wind in the masts - some early mornings ahead.


Clare McNiven

Rethinking Sound

I've been thinking a lot about the aspect of sound in the exhibition. I'm not sure that reproducing the sound of the waves crashing, or trickling, on to a beach is really what I'm after - even if I could achive it with my limited recording experience and equipment. Yes, I want to invoke the particular feelings of space and air and optimism that can be experienced near the sea but I'm not sure of the value of reproducing an atmospheric that may be better suited to a yoga studio or a reike room. I think if the sound is to be part of the exhbition it needs to bear the hallmark of art - or at least experiment. With the string sculptures almost complete, I allow my self some time to experiment - digitally manipulate the beach sounds and layer significant sound that I find around me. I stay close to home, this time, for my sound inspiration My daughter has a natural musicality - like many children she sings with nonsense words - language is abandoned and only the notes and herself and their relationship with each other take on value.On the other hand, on the sea loch outside my house the yachts rest in the natural harbour - early in the morning the wind drives up the loch and howls through the masks rattling the halliards and the mainsails. The sound it makes is random and musical and full of the air it carries with it. This is my sound of the sea. This is where I will look to for the base of my exhibition soundscape. But still something is missing - something beautiful - I know I will recognise it when I hear it.

Sound

Working on the soundscape for the exhibition. I want to have a piece that is musical in nature but not instrument-oriented. I hope that by incorporating the sound of the sea that I can give a feeling of dimension rather than oppression to to the gallery visitor - to let them breath a little in the windowless gallery space. When confronted by the string in its new form, the spectator may need to to re-evaluate its meaning and re-align the relationship with the material. I think the sounds provided at this time may provide a key to that activity. So, I am trying to remove the oppressive dull whirring type noise that I have picked up onto my recordings of the sea. This recording was made at Port-no-Ba on Mull. I have found two ways, using audacity software to remove them. On way is by carrying out 'noise removal' which strips a particular selected noise from the track - I can select what I think is the bad sound and try to remove it . This leaves a nice tingling sound that I think is quite melodic - if just a little bit digital sounding Another technique I am exploring is to minimise the gain and restrict to only left hand sounds. This gives a dull, peaceful rhythmic sound that I thinks of as the base line. I think I'm moving in the right direction

Today, down past Kilberry, we hunt down a tiny beach because we think that its bound to have string on it. We scramble through the rain and the tall,wet bracken down the cliff side. When we get there we find one piece of string. This is a bad harvest, but at least it is a nice piece - about a foot long and an unusual mossy shade of green. The sea, on the other hand, is being very bountiful but when I try to record it, I find it almost impossible to cutout the wind and get any definition. I think to record a wild sea I would need better equipment. I don't mind coming back with next to nothing because sometimes the process is enough and I hope that today will be present somewhere, if only subliminally, in the piece. the way back up to the road is easier and less treacherous because Katie leads the way.

Visit to Mull

This weekend, I get the chance to visit Mull again. At An Tobar, I meet Lee and we lay out the sand-tray templates on the floor. Two visitors to the gallery join us and Maggie, Louie and Lee, and these two beautiful women, all take their poses on the templates. I am amazed, as always, at how wonderfully poetic women are and how fluid. Clad in walking boots and rain jackets they manage to conjure up their magic and I am satisfied that the five string figures, standing just so, in the gallery will work. I hope my string women will live up to these life models.
Again, the staff at AnTobar are very supportive and encouraging and generous in their advice and direction.
Next day I have a go at recording the sea, at Port na Ba. Of all the beaches on Mull, I think I love this one the most. I use a mini disk and have borrowed an extension lead from AnTober keep my little mic away from the disk mechanism. I baffle the wind with a sponge and my Donegal tweed cap. I stay close to the waters edge down where the rocks and the sea meet the sand. Its not a wild sea atall the kind of tide full of little giggles at the end of its story. In the distance I can hear the soft rumble of the wider sea but I know this will just pick up as a rumble on my recording.
back home, i use Audacity to try capture the sound and I try to remove some of the ugly background noise - I'll work more on it tomorrow.

Making A Plan

With the string figures made, I place them in their relative positions to plan how they will feel together. I mark out a rectangle in the garden the same size as AnTobars exhibition space and arrange the figures. I make paper templates on the ground to be used for making the sand trays later. John Reevie, a friend, passes by with his camera and takes a couple of photos to use as a reference when we set it up for real.

September - I take stock

Early September
With the figures almost ready and the beaches increasingly mean with their string, I decide to turn my focus to the other aspects of the exhibition. I want to create a sense of place, a context in which the figures and the visitors meet and understand each other. I imagine an installation rather than an exhibition. I decide to spread sand on areas of the floor space around the figures. This will cover the bases on which they stand and allow the figures to stand in sand but, more importantly, it will protect the visitor from any overcrowding of the figures. It will keep a sense of calm. Also, I will start to prepare a soundscape. Initially, I plan that the sound of the sea on the shore will form the base and that additional layers will form what could be a sound sculpture or at least the hint of a sculpture. The last thing I want to do is to take the sea shore and manipulate it. Sculpture is often about transformation – taking one thing and creating another and this is the case with the string. But I don’t want to create another thing from the sea sounds or from the sand. I think that to attempt to sculpt the sea is stupid and to sculpt the sand is silly. The sand can lie as it is. As for the soundscape, I think that I have two choices: either I record the sea and present it as is - as good a recording as I can get with my equipment - but at least honest. Or, I take elements of sound that may or may not be extracted from a recording of the sea and I transform these into something that references the sea and aims to invoke the feeling of being near the sea.
Gordon frm AnTobar emails to offer equipment for the soundscape – I will take up his offer when I spend a weekend on Mull later this month. In the meantime, I will explore the potential of soundscapes further.

Taking Photographs

Mid August
We organise an expedition to the shore at the end of Craignish Peninsula. I want to photograph the figures. I live right beside the sea but it is a sea Loch It seems to me that it would be best to take them to the open sea. We ferry them there and then photograph them. Gordon Thomson, a photographer friend brings along a camera – I bring along a picnc and the art. The string figures look great and I get some good images to work with.