Photos from a sound-walk, Whitechapel, London

The day I was in London exploring various galleries showing John Latham’s work, I stumbled across a wonderful sound-walk. Janet Cardiff’s (1999) The missing voice (case study B) was something I was aware of, both because of an exhibition of her work (with partner George Bures Miller) at Modern Art Oxford (The House Of Books Has No Windows), and a paper by the geographer David Pinder, ‘Ghostly Footsteps: Voices, Memories and Walks in the City‘:

This paper is concerned with urban walking and the work of contemporary artists and writers who take to the streets in order to explore, excavate and map hidden spaces and paths in the city. The focus is on an audio-walk by the Canadian artist Janet Cardiff entitled The missing voice (case study B), which is set in east London. Connections are also drawn with other recent projects in the same area by Rachel Lichtenstein and Iain Sinclair. The paper discusses how these artists raise important issues about the cultural geographies of the city relating to subjectivity, representation and memory. Cardiff’s audio-walk in particular works with connections between the self and the city, between the conscious and unconscious, and between multiple selves and urban footsteps. In so doing, she directs attention to the significance of dreams and ghostly matters for thinking about the real and imagined spaces of the city.

It was just a sign on the wall, and so I went to the reception to enquire. I was asked to fill in some paperwork and required to leave my credit card at the desk. In return, I was handed an iPod Nano with a set of audio files pre-loaded on it, pointed in the right direction and politely told that the first seven minutes or so would not make sense as they were recorded before Whitechapel Gallery was renovated. With this in mind, I stood to one side and got my notebook and camera out. I am not entirely sure how to write about the walk, but I would encourage anyone to do it if they can. The sign said it would take 50 minutes, a fairly decent approximation, and is well worth your time. I took photos as I walked, and jotted down notes and thoughts in my notebook. The binauraul recording is disorienting at first but leads you through the city as if it were holding you by the hand (perhaps it’s by the ear instead). For more information on the piece, see Cardiff’s own site, or Artangel’s, who funded the work (and also host the audio files, if you wish to take your own MP3 and headphones).

Rather than write about the walk, I’ve instead included a collage of snapshots of my journeying (above) and transcribed my (at times nonsensical) notes for posterity.

Shop, KFC | ambulance? Siren | Dogs barking | rhythm of steps | [unreadable] | uncanny timing | Brick Lane – sound and smell | unexpected details – “I ate here” | pause at crossing | find myself turning my head, taking headphones off, wondering if people like me… | mapping different paths – details | no average sign (Eat + Drink) | go past station | fancy men’s clothes – smart suit (uncanny) | church shut – sit on benches at the site | I ready myself, but she comes over, sits down | no tulips or smell… | story is composed of little snippets | took a wrong turn – Bathhouse | McD, weird lights | watching people from railings

Even tstructu re and other works, Lisson Gallery, London

While I was preparing the paper I presented at Aarhus, my research touched upon the work of John Latham (1921-2006), as he is a great inspiration for the work done by the Office of Experiments.

Latham had a visionary outlook that questioned scientific thought. An important contributor to the Destruction in Art Symposium, 1966, and a founder member of the Artist Placement Group, 1966-89, he created performances, paintings, assemblages, sculptures and films. This apparently eclectic practice was united by his concept of Event Structures and Flat Time Theory. Through his experimental and radical work he linked science and art, proving influential in both fields.¹

By some strange chance - coincidence? – it transpired that there was not one but four exhibitions of Latham’s work in London at the time I was writing about him! I took the chance to go to London the weekend before travelling to Denmark and visited both the Lisson Gallery and Whitechapel Gallery. I was unable to explore the collected works at Karsten Schubert as they were shut at the week-end, and Flat Time Ho, Latham’s former house, was too far away for me to manage it. As I was searching for the details (see below), I also found that there had been an exhibition of some of Latham’s art in New York, curated by the same person who had co-curated the archive at Whitechapel.

The Lisson Gallery, not far from Edgware Road underground station, was incredibly quiet; somewhat surprising given that it was the last day of the exhibition. One of Latham’s pieces which had particularly interested me, ‘even tstructu re’ (1966-67), was on display. A large collage, it has the words MAKE EVENT and SPECTATOR EVENT, which are linked by string according to different sets of conditions, illustrating the entanglement of artist, artwork and viewer. I asked the Gallery if I would be able to document the exhibition and they were happy for me to do so, as long as it was for my research. I assured them that if anything were to come of my trip and my materials, I would be sure to acknowledge them. So, my sincere thanks to the Lisson Gallery for enabling me to make a collage of some of Latham’s works. They also offered to provide copies of any publications that I might need, which was very generous.

The ‘Anarchive’ at Whitechapel Gallery was a lot smaller than I had anticipated, and was limited to one of the smaller galleries (#4). There were only a few of Latham’s works on display but interestingly, there were many of his publications, in particular exhibition catalogues, out on the tables of the adjacent room. This turned out to be the main archive room. I asked if I was able to take photos of these documents but was unfortunately unable to. Instead, I sat down and read through them, jotting down the publication details.

Here are the details for the exhibitions but please note that only Anarchive is still on:

Whitechapel Gallery | Anarchive | 02.04 – 05.09 | Tue – Sun, 11:00-18:00 | Aldgate East

Lisson Gallery | The Lisson Gallery Does Not Exist for 100 Years | 05.05 – 05.06 | Mon – Fri, 10:00-18:00; Sun, 11:00-17:00 | Edgware Road

Karsten Schubert / Richard Saltoun | Works 1958(61?) – 1995 | 05.05 – 11.06 | Mon – Fri, 10:00-18:00 | Piccadillly Circus

Flat Time Ho | The Story of the RIO | 06.05 – 06.06 | Thu – Sun, 12:00-18:00 | Peckham Rye Rail

apexart | The Incidental Person | 06.01 – 20.02 | Tue – Sat, 11:00-18:00 | New York (!)

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'Signal, Event, Affect' conference/colloquium, Aarhus University

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be invited to, and attend, a conference-colloquium in Aarhus, Denmark, entitled ‘Event, Signal, Affect‘. There was a deliberate attempt at trying to create a different sort of space in which to share our work, and there was as much time for discussion as there was to present. Coupled with a small number of participants, a session of conceptual speed-dating, plenty of meals together and spread out over three days, it made for a really pleasant gathering (see also Christoph’s comments on the conference-colloquium facilitating lures for friendship). The sessions – Site and City, Crowded Events and (H)ac(k)tivism, The Signaletic Event,  Event Culture and Affective Interactions – provided some sort of loose structure and the keynotes were inspiring. Unfortunately, Nigel Thrift was unable to attend but this meant that Brian and Erin had more time to talk about their work and forthcoming project, Generating the Impossible. I’m really very grateful to Bodil Marie Stavning Thomsen and to Jonas Fritsch, not only for their invitation but also for organising and pulling off such a great conference-colloquium. It was great to catch up with the group from  the SenseLab, and also to meet the likes of Leila Dawney (a fellow geographer), Merete Carlson (who I have since met in Berlin, at IfREX) and Christian Borch (whose papers I have since been reading).

My paper, Experimental aesthetics: The Office of Experiments, was a chance for me to start thinking and experimenting the Office of Experiments. Not experimenting with, “which would induce the idea of a separation between the experimenter and what she is experimenting on or with … [but] a practice of active, open, demanding attention paid to the experience as we experience it” (Stengers, 2008: 109). Here, there is no clear distinction, as in French, between the terms ‘experience’ and ‘experiment’. Whether or not it was a success is unsure, but it did at least generate a discussion and a set of questions. These have enabled me to re-think writing the Office as a temporary and distributed space. The short paper is embedded below with the help of issuu.

Reference

Stengers, I. (2008) A Constructivist Reading of Process and Reality. Theory Culture & Society, 25(4): 91-109

Hertford College, Oxford

Earlier on in the month, I received a reminder email asking me to renew my hosting arrangement for this website. It was only then that I realised that it had been a year since I set up and started this blog! I have found it really quite useful for a number of reasons. Firstly, it serves as a record of my research and how the process is developing. It is not quite my research diary but as a friend put it, a form of public note-taking. Secondly, it is a space for me to engage with different kinds of topics as well as experiment styles of writing. Thirdly, it has allowed for a sharing of my work with both those who may search for me online and/or stumble on my site after searching for a certain collection of key words. Unfortunately, this sharing has been rather hampered by on-going problems connecting to other sites through the use of trackbacks and pingbacks (apologies for the recent ‘test’ posts). I have asked for help from both those on the wordpress fora and my internet host but have had no luck as yet.

There are a set of posts which are in draft form at the moment but that I shall try to finish off during the course of this week. Here’s hoping! As ever, please feel free to leave comments or get in touch with me directly,

t

Brussels: fieldsite / collaboration?

I spoke with Maja Kuzmanovic last Friday over Skype, following several emails over the past few months, about the possibility of spending time with f0.am in Brussels. When I was in Montreal in the Autumn, Sha Xin Wei mentioned the group, and Maja, to me as they had worked together on a project. The fo.am website looks amazing and is really interesting; I’m intrigued by their committment to

growing inclusive, resilient and abundant worlds.¹

Although we did not speak for very long, I was able to explain my research interests, provide a flavour of my work and hear a little about their research group. Maja explained that they had had experience of ethnographers and anthropologists spending time with the lab; many of them had gone on to became actively involved in the group. When we tried to deal with practicalities, dates were problematic. Whilst f0.am are planning a workshop (or gathering) at the end of July, I was told it would not make sense for me to arrive beforehand unless it was for a few weeks. I would be very welcome to do so, and be involved in the organisation of the gathering, but shall be in Berlin at that time. Therefore, Maja suggested that I apply to present at the gathering; although if selected, I would be a participant and not a collaborator with f0.am. There would then be the chance to meet at a later date; perhaps in September as the lab will be very quiet after the July gathering. I’ve sent over a short bio as requested and am keeping my fingers crossed to be involved in some way. Here’s hoping!

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Ethnographic research: a workshop with Georgina Born, Oxford

On Friday 16 May there was a half-day workshop on ethnographic research in my department run by Prof. Georgina Born:

Ethnographic research is one of the most fashionable, and perhaps most misunderstood, methods in the social sciences today. What does it mean to carry out ethnographic research, and how can it be defended against accusations that it is utterly unrigorous, or an entirely subjective engagement with the object of research, whatever that is? Is reflexivity a panacea for such criticisms? In this workshop, we look at a number of central issues in ethnographic research, from theoretical and epistemological questions to very practical challenges to do with how to go about ethnographic fieldwork.¹

I had attended the same workshop two years earlier, while I was studying for my MSc. This time around, with some experience of ethnographic attempts, it was even more interesting. Drawing on her own ethnographies of major cultural institutions (such as IRCAM and the BBC, to name but two), she held to two methodological (Foucauldian and Bourdieuian) injunctions: (1) attend to the historical specificity of each field and its coherence and differentiation; and (2) in analysing causality, trace the multiplicity of causes and the contingency of their conjunction. Put differently, the second is a counter-reductive injunction where you have to multiply the causes, to keep adding to the richness of a case. Georgina argued that ethnography is an analysis of the disjunctures, contradictions and discrepancies between discourse (what is said) and practice (what is done). Ethnography, she contended, can be both rigorous and robust and can approach (or aspire to) objectivity. Interpretation does not mean merely subjective. The workshop (perhaps more of a lecture than a workshop?) was fantastic and I found myself taking a lot of notes. Comments on: preparing and doing fieldwork, the concept of problematisation, post-positivist empiricism, Tarde and (neo-)Spinozist ontologies, difference as a methodological principle and operationalising multi-site ethnography, were all thought-provoking. Although I would normally like to work against having some sort of list, I think that these themes are really important and would like to explore them further here (there is however, no order).

Preparing and doing fieldwork is closely related to choosing a site; this quite literally situates the whole research, focusing or condensing a research problem and framing it in terms of a larger question which it can speak to. Ethnography is neither purely, nor primarily, inductive, yet neither is the ‘empirical’ subsumed by the ‘theoretical’. There are two kinds of background knowledge pre-fieldwork: substantive (about the object) and theoretical / conceptual (kinds of analysis and questions). Thus ethnography is both deductive, using background theoretical and substantive knowledge) and inductive (deriving concepts and analysis from empirical fieldwork): an oscillation between the two which is productive, making it possible for empirical research to amend and/or develop theory.

The concept of problematisation was considered through:

Rabinow’s idea of ethnography as a response to Foucault’s ‘problematisation’; and as a way of implementing what, after Deleuze, might be called a ‘post-positivist empiricism’ – an empiricism with inventive conceptual effects.

For Foucault, problematisation is an introduction of uncertainty, or a loss of familiarity, a rendering difficult of a previous way of understanding. For Rabinow, this is a particular style of inquiry, a shift from unseeing a situation not only as a given but as question. Georgina explained that her driving motive for her ethnographies was emphatically historical: to respond to, and problematise, a critical cultural historical moment (e.g. crisis in the musical avant-garde). She also asserted that instead of a ‘master-slave’ model of social theory in which theory (abstraction and reduction) presides over the empirical (complexity, subtlety, mess…), empirical research can have theoretical effects and serves a basis for conceptual invention. She quoted Deleuze, himself drawing on Whitehead’s notion of empiricism, to argue that the abstract does not explain but must itself be explained. Here, ethnography works towards a post-positivist empiricism.

Counterposing the work of Gabriel Tarde and Spinoza to that of Emile Durkheim and his explanatory tropes – a re-thinking of the Durkheimina settlement – Georgina argued against employing reified and deterministic notions of society, culture, area or region. This questioning of common-sense notions (and the superior truth associated with it) was challenged by her productive provocation: how could ontological hierarchies be possible, if you assume that the cause does not precede its effects; the whole, its parts; or unity, division? Ethnography, she argued, can suspend these judgements, or ontological hierarchies / assumptions, and be concerned with precisely the articulation of the relationship between the collective and individual.²

Drawing on Foucault’s ‘Questions of method’³, Georgina teased out three modalities of difference as a methodological principle: synchronic (differentiation of formation, coherence, dispersion), diachonic (dynamics, different temporalities) and analytical (a multiplication or pluralization of causes). She also drew attention to a part of the text which I rather liked:

Clearly, viewed from the standpoint of this style of analysis, what I am proposing is at once too much and too little. There are too many diverse kinds of relations, too many lines of analysis, yet at the same time there is too little necessary unity. A plethora of intelligibilities, a deficit of necessities. But for me this is precisely the point at issue, both in historical analysis and in political critique.

Later on in the afternoon, we discussed recent developments in ethnography, and in particular multi-site ethnography. Whilst highlighting some of the advantages of this approach, there was  a sense that it was onerous in terms of access, a trade off for depth in one site and thus might lose some of the benefits of ethnography (such as trust, empathy in relations, perhaps unable to build a subtle or complex picture). She suggested that multi-site ethnography might be worthwhile if you were hoping to: (1) follow the object, (2) explore abstract connections, (3) develop a comparativist study, capturing heterogeneity / multiplicity, (4) study difference over time, or (5) engage with non-linear, cross-scalar relations. When asked where my work would fall, I’m not sure it fits easily within any of the categories. Whilst it is comparative, it is not strictly a comparison of ‘experimental space A’ with ‘experimental space B’ and I would not hope to capture heterogeneity but perhaps evoke it, or provide glimpses of it. In another sense, I am following an object, although this would require an expanded notion of object which would include not only the space but also the materials, people and ideas: an enriched ethnographic object. I shall have to think more about this and why I have chosen particular sites to explore the relationship between geography, art and method.

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Philosophical anthropology with Bruno Latour, Maison Francaise, Oxford

Bruno Latour was in the country last week and, more importantly, in Oxford for a few days. Although I missed his ‘A Compositionist Manifesto’ on the Wednesday (as I was over at Royal Holloway), I was able to attend both the session of ‘Mapping Controversies’ at the School of Geography on Thursday morning, and the launch of his newly translated book on law, at the Maison Francaise the same afternoon. A recent addition to the MSc in ‘Nature, Society and Environmental Policy’ (NSEP), Mapping Controversies is a:

course developed from an EU project MACOSPOL (MApping COntroversies on Science for POLitics) and a course on mapping controversies first taught by Bruno Latour to students at the École des Mines in Paris. The online version of the course has been developed jointly by Sciences Po, MIT and the École des Mines (http://www.demoscience.org/). As well as Oxford, the University of Manchester (Department of Architecture), the École Polytechnique Féderale de Lausanne and the University of Amsterdam (Department of Media Studies) are also part of the Mapping Controversies programme.

The session began with a series of presentations of group projects and their particular controversies, followed by a conversation between Andrew Barry and Bruno Latour. Taking matters of concern rather than matters of fact as his point of departure¹, Latour explained that through MACOSPOL he was trying to create a platform for mapping, an opportunity to orient yourself both in a map and in a controversy. Arguing that the web has not been exploited well so far, Latour contended that if a website can be printed, it’s a bad one (as an aside, this one can be printed but it doesn’t look the same so perhaps it’s not all bad). Demoscience, part of the larger MACOSPOL project, is an attempt at developing a handbook of good practice as there are no standards for websites, as well as differently visualising the micro and the macro. But there is much more to be done, in particular in terms of being able to navigate from one controversy to another, and how you might enter a controversy (a particular style of front-page), to navigate a matter of concern. Indeed, the very notion of controversy is itself controversial, Latour noted, as it is is positivist but he claimed it had become a technical term.  What he was most interested in talking about was what is the effect of a well-designed web-site, and how it  might encourage intervention in a debate (or even transform the debate). Latour seemed to be advocating a particular approach when he argued that the general public does not exist (and that there are many intermediary steps in the fabrication of any public), privileging smaller cases as they (1) are easier, as there are fewer scientific paper to read and (2) enable you to see how an issue becomes public. The talk ended with a few comments on Geography, as we were told that it is ideally placed as the only discipline to have maintained the connection between the physical and human:

(AB) The connection is sometimes tenuous… and actually, I think that, one of the importances of this kind of work is precisely to re-think what these connections are.

(BL) It’s tenuous, it’s disputed, in many Geography departments… But it’s there!

The talk in the afternoon was titled: ‘Law as a special type of social link: a field study of a French Supreme Court’.

After a long period of fieldwork on one of the French supreme Courts, [Latour] has published a monograph La Fabrique du droit. Une ethnographie du Conseil d’Etat. The English translation, The Making of Law: An Ethnography of the Conseil d’Etat (Polity Press, Cambridge) has just been published.²

Latour’s philosophical anthropology, as it was called by one the panelists, sought to engage with the question: if the social is made of associations, how can these associations connect? Law, for Latour, is one of these ‘connectors’, rather than a domain as such. The paper was accompanied by a PowerPoint slideshow, displaying a few key themes – such as A place of justice, A paper technology, A world of files, A strange institution – and plenty of photos (although none of him, as has been noted before by Sarah Whatmore³). The talk was recorded and can be streamed (as well as downloaded) here.

The following day, Latour was involved in the ‘Beyond the Academy: Research as Exhibition‘ conference over at the Tate Britain in London. Although I was unable to attend there is a report by a geographer from the Open University over at her blog.

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Jane Bennett: reading group and talk, Royal Holloway, University of London

Last week I was lucky enough to attend a couple of events at Royal Holloway where Prof. Jane Bennett was visiting for the day (thanks to Sebastian for letting me know). The first was a reading group:

The Contemporary Political Theory Research Group and the Humanities and Arts Research Centre at Royal Holloway, University of London, are pleased to be hosting Prof. Jane Bennett of Johns Hopkins University.  Prof. Bennett will be attending our Contemporary Political Theory Reading Group from 12-1:30 pm, to discuss two chapters of her recently published Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (Duke University Press, 2010).¹

Jane introduced her book, which draws on alternative traditions of materialism, as both trying to to do away with the idea of inert matter, and attempt to move discourse away from moral responsibility towards a political pragmatism more concerned with problem-solving than with evaluating responsibility. The questions posed at the reading group were not straightforward and, at times, perhaps a little aggressive but Jane did well to respond to claims that (1) the work was reactionary and that (2) there was no argument. The first point, that her work was reactionary, was prompted by a reading of a particular paragraph in Chapter 2 (‘the agency of assemblages’, p.37-38) of Vibrant Matter:

Perhaps the ethical responsibility of an individual human now resides in one’s response to the assemblages in which one finds oneself participating: Do I attempt to extricate myself from assemblages whose trajectory is likely to do harm? Do I enter into the proximity of assemblages who conglomerate effectivity tends toward the enactment of nobler ends? Agency is, I believe, distributed across a mosaic, but it is also possible to say something about the kind of striving that may be exercised by a human within the assemblage.

Arguing that perhaps she is not as radical (as some of the people who were sitting round the table?), Jane explained that she was developing an incrementalist political imaginary. There are always lines of flight and dysfunctional elements that you can accentuate, and you never know what the political implications are, or might be, in advance. Indeed, she compares the exertion we might possess as being analogous to that of riding a bicycle on gravel: whilst you can move yourself in different direction to inflect the bike’s path, you are but one actant operative in a moving whole. The second point, concerning the style of the book, was acknowledged by Jane, who noted that there was not a log of antagonism in the book. However, the book was written as a narrative of experience, as a story and not an argument. The relation between politics and ontology is not direct, she contended, and the book was pitched on a micropolitical register, where sensibilities are formed or altered. Although unable to guarantee the effects of a book , there is definitely a mood to the book which Jane hoped was infectious. Perhaps the book itself is another example of thing-power (developed, in part from Spinoza’s notion of power: the capacity to affect and be affected), which encourages, or fosters, a susceptibility to being altered by encounters. My question, at the end of the discussion, concerned a particular passage in the text: if affiliations in an assemblage require a certain proximity, and if so, is that a spatial proximity? Recognising it was controversial among Deleuzeans, she argued that affiliations did require a spatial proximity as her materialism is very literally physicalist. The most potent affiliations have a physical proximity, she argued, and added that she was moving towards an image of politics that is very much at the city-level. I was rather taken aback, and was unable to press her on this. Perhaps another time!

Later on in the day, Jane presented some of her work-in-progress:

Provisional title: “Michel Serres, A Topography of Becoming, and the Practice of History”²

Abstract: There is a group of political theorists today who affirm one of the various ontologies of “becoming” that philosophers such as Nietzsche, Bergson, Whitehead, Deleuze and Guattari, and Michel Serres have articulated.  For these thinkers, the cosmos is best characterized not as a fixed order but as a flow, generative process, creative evolution, or ontological ruckus.  While a focus on the fragility and changeability of orders has received much attention, it is also important, I contend, for political theorists of becoming to try to characterize, to give some specificity to, the strange systematicity proper to a mobile and protean world.  My essay draws upon Michel Serres to address the question of how it is that forms manage to appear amidst the general hustle and flow of life.  Serres, I contend, offers a rich conceptual and metaphorical repertoire for thinking about the formativity of becoming and for mapping the course of its congealments.  I first consider Serres’ metaphysics of “noise,” I then turn to the distinctive phases he discerns with it, and I conclude by drawing out some implications of his topography of becoming for the practice of doing history and political theory.

The paper could be seen as a development from her last two books and was modest in its aims. She opened with a discussion of ‘Thing-theory’, mainly discussing the work of Graham Harman who she started reading after finishing Vibrant Matter. An object-oriented philosopher, Harman is critical of two ‘camps’ (process / product) of philosophers who have theorised things. He argues against the grandeur of Duration or Becoming (Bergson, Deleuze), whilst claiming that there is more to the object than its relations (Latour, Whitehead). The task of Jane’s paper was to try to bring these groups together again by seeking to understand how objects withstand the flow of becoming – what she called a ‘strange structuralism’ – through the (perhaps) less well-known metaphysics of Michel Serres, who offers a rich conceptual and metaphorical repertoire for thinking the forms and structures of becoming. Instead of becoming, Serres talks of noise, a hum or buzz, a background of life. So how might shapes take form in this noise?

The aleatory quality of formativity – it could happen, but maybe not – is described using Serres’ vocabulary of surge, fluctuation, rhythm / cadence, vortex, turbulence, and invariance. These phases do not follow a linear progression but are instead contemporaneous, both multi-temporal and poly-chronic. What then, would a political theory alert to the crumpled or unfolded nature of space-time look like? Perhaps (and Jane was not entirely happy with this) theorists might make experimental connections between events or bodies which resemble one another;  Serres endorses this experimentalism. Social scientists should be like Hermes: experimental messengers, exporting and importing, traversing, inventing, working through analogies. The social scientist as maker of analogies: we know no other route to invention, we have to proceed by way of analogy. There is a lot of play in analogies, and they are not founded on a causal relationship but rather a co-shimmering. This does not however, sit comfortably with Deleuze’s preference for examples rather than analogies (preferring an exemplary rather than an analogical philosophy) and when asked, Jane explained that she was most interested in thinking about echoes and sympathies (or lines of affective connection) which perhaps have more to do with webs of resemblance and similitude.

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Where next for EwG?

The last day of the workshop finished at lunch but we still managed to fit in several presentations, the two designed soundwalks from the day before and a short session discussing feedback and the future of Experimenting with Geography (EwG), the documentation of this event and possible sources of funding for another ocassion. There was a sense of sadness that the event was coming to an end, and there was much talk of forming a new experimental department (or hijacking another one)… Even if that does not come to pass, I really hope that the workshop in Edinburgh was just the beginning of some sort of experimental network, with the potential for future collaborations. There was a lot of swapping of email addresses and my impression was that everyone was keen to share materials from the week. I’m not sure that here is the best place for the audio recordings but if you’d like a copy (and I haven’t linked to their location in the comments soon), then please get in touch.

Following the end of the workshop, now two weeks ago already, there have been an incredible number of emails going round, and an outpouring of thanks to the organisers. If I might, I would like to add my thanks to those who organised, presented and participted at EwG – it was a lot fun. Eric perhaps best summed up the week when he wrote:

Can you come again next week? This one has lacked crackly birdsong, vibrating balloons, soldering irons, city symphonies, anechoic chambers, autumn salmon roe, centrifuges, quarry hammers, avian corpses, men on scaffolding (well it hasn’t, but has in that storyboard way), violin-voices in the foyer, cycle rides to the Wild West and most importantly, the music of your enthusiasm.

t

]]> http://www.spacesofexperimentation.net/conference/see-hear-make-do-future-collaborations/feed/ 3 http://www.spacesofexperimentation.net/conference/public-art-sound-walks-and-experimental-music/ http://www.spacesofexperimentation.net/conference/public-art-sound-walks-and-experimental-music/#comments Thu, 20 May 2010 23:32:34 +0000 Thomas http://www.spacesofexperimentation.net/?p=1325

Double act: Sans façon

Day 4. Thursday morning got underway with an overview of the work being done by Sans façon:

…an investigation between French architect Charles Blanc and British artist Tristan Surtees, [which] has developed into an ongoing collaboration through an art practice.

We undertake diverse projects, both temporary and permanent, predominantly exploring the complex relationship between people and place. We like to see the role of the artist and art as a catalyst in a process of raising questions and inviting one to look and think differently about a place, hoping to create an opportunity rather than an inanimate object.

They do not have a particular medium and instead have attempted all sorts of varied projects. Emphasising that they try to avoid collaboration where it involves incorporating technicians into a project, they work hard to ensure that everybody is on-board from the start of a project. What drives them are the hidden aspects of place; they understand place as having a range of different layers (or operating on a variety of registers?). An interest in micro-geographies (or micro-histories?¹) and telling small stories went hand-in-hand with an appreciation of the richness of working-together, with each other, with locals, with academics, with all kinds of people. Both Tristan and Charles explained how they looked for comissions that encouraged the development of an idea, rather than knowing in advance what a project might be and/or look like.

What really got them thinking differently, they told us, was a get-together (or “inter-disciplinary creative development programme”) called ‘Rough Mix‘:

…an opportunity for theatre makers to collaborate with other practitioners, try out new ideas and introduce them to an audience. We bring together a small group of practitioners from different disciplines and give them time to start developing new projects in a supportive and collaborative atmosphere. The practitioners work together with a group of performers over a two week period before making a work in progress showing at the end. We believe that this project offers a unique opportunity for both established and emerging artists.

To me, having spent time at the SenseLab, it sounded like a particular platform for experimentation. From this meeting, or series of encounters, Charles and Tristan became involved in set design for a piece of theatre, which went on to do rather well. I wondered just how important it was to have a person operate or act as a node for holding the group together and also knowing how to direct it, albeit gently.

Their practical session, following a coffee break, asked us to design an alternative audio-guide to the city. Drawing on one of their previous projects, Sans façon explained that they wanted us to make people move by following footfall rather than a set of descriptions, to compose an experience rather individual sounds. The group split into two (those who knew the city well, and those who didn’t) and then went off in pairs to listen to the city and help compose, back in our groups, some sort of sonic experience where we would walk a score.

I took the afternoon off to explore the city (and read the newspaper), which made for a welcome break from a rather intense week. However, I rather regretted not going along on a tour of anechoic and reverberation chambers, which some of the others had managed… At around 16:00, we reconvened for a series of short presentations by anyone who felt like they had something to show and share. The time allocated for pesentations was an opportunity to do something different, to show a rough-cut of something, to be explicitly experimental, to present unfinished or on-going work. The projects were not as much of a focus of the week as I had imagined prior to arriving at the workshop, and instead served as a soft-focus for the practical sessions. The work presented was really great, especially considering how little time we had had during the week but raised the question (again) of how to respond to work which is creative. This is certainly a struggle for social scientists. Victoria suggested that we might respond by saying all that we had thought of while engaging with a particular piece, rather than critique it. This would not preclude questions but they would be of a different kind (e.g. how would you like to present this piece? how did you score it? how much direction was there with the project?).

The evening featured experimental music performances by Michael’s band, Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo,

making music that explores detail and difference through repetition and layering

and Matt Rogalsky, whose pieces focused on exploration of abject, invisible/inaudible, or ignored streams of information, over at Inspace and part of the Dialogues  Festival. It was quite a strange experience and I found myself unsure of how to respond, or what to think of the evening. I like to think that I am generous, and I certainly did not leave (as a fair few in the audience did); but nor did I find myself really moved (some were whooping at the end of the night). Perhaps I just had my mind on the election. Excuses, excuses!

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