Hanging thread, Black Box

Patrick Harrop and his group of students from the University of Manitoba have recently left Montreal, having spent just over a week here visiting various studios and working on a couple of projects down in the Black Box. I was able to join them on a few of their trips, including a visit to Chris Salter’s studio, and was made to feel welcome in the basement. The students had been working on recordings, comprised of of eight different channels, and were able to experiment with the high-quality speakers provided by Hexagram. Projects included recordings of: the vibrations of a window, water pipes (using an ultrasonic recorder!), an underground intersection and a moving car. These compositions were presented to Patrick, Shannon (a PhD student at Concordia), Gerard (an improvisational musician) and myself. We would listen to the arrangements, then hear how it had been done (and why!), before listening to it once more. What I found most interesting was the way in which these architecture students were thinking about sound and space through resonance. They were looking at how buildings move, vibrate, change.

A different kind of scaffolding? Black Box

Patrick also had a project he was working on in the Black Box with Annie Lebel, an architect herself, also with an interest in resonance. We set up a kind of scaffolding, hanging wiring from the ‘grid’ (the patchwork of cables just below the ceiling, fom which you can attach things). We did this by filling ballons with marbles (four or five small ones) and then throwing them so that they would go through, and back down, the grid. The wiring was a translucent green and very hard to see; most of us ambled into some of the suspended wires and pulled them right out. It was very much a hit-and-miss exercise, with several attempts needed to throw a balloon hard (and high) enough to reach the grid and then go through it, but it made for an elegant randomness. From this simple infrastrucutre, other (yellow and orange) wires were attached to run across the green wires and were connected to small motors. These motors would then give life to the transversal wires, creating oscillations and a flurry of movement.

These experiments are very exploratory and were not set up with a hope to ‘find out’ something, other than to play with wiring and see what might happen. Patrick hopes to continue this project, on a smaller scale, within the TML when he returns in mid-November. I’ll be interested to see whether he looks to re-create what he has already done (a miniature replica?) or whether he continues to experiment and push what is possible with just wires, balloons and marbles.

As for myself, I’ve been experimenting with visual methods and include a short video shot in the Black Box. I would recommend you watch it in HD, available if you move your mouse over to the top right-hand corner of the video; the music is from Murumari’s Pathscrubber EP (which, incidentally, is free). Let me know what you think – I’m still learning how to operate my camera (Kodak Zi8) and software (Adobe Premiere Elements 8), as well as the vast array of possible video formats you can produce… I feel that it has taken up quite a lot of time and I’m not too sure what it ‘adds’ to my work. Still, if I’m not prepared to fail then I’m probably not being (becoming?) experimental. Please let me know what you think.

I also include some other photos, which were kindly shared by Justin – one of the architecture students – who has a lovely SLR camera. He climbed a ladder to take a photo of the tables in the centre of the room, and later on, photographed me getting in on the action, throwing a (marble-filled) balloon up to the grid.

The hub from above, Black Box

Throwing and hoping, Black Box

Frankenstein installation, Black Box

I spent several hours on Friday and again today down in the Black Box. The work being done is very interesting and seems to evolve rapidly. There are several installations and so much is going in the space that you are almost forced to interact. There are five projectors and at least six cameras, not to mention lights, cables, cardboard boxes and a smoke machine.

Work-in-progress, Black Box

Face-morph, Black Box

Climbing cardboard boxes, Black Box

Re-constituted body, Black Box

In the evening a large group of students came to visit the Black Box, as part of their course on theatrical spaces with Mark Sussman. Michael Montanaro gave a compelling account of the work that is done and, in particular, how he sees the Frankenstein project within the context of Hexagram. I was keen to see how the students would respond to the work-in-progress: there was a sense of awe, soon followed by a desire to interact with, to respond to, and to play with, the installations.

An audience in the evening, Black Box

Documentation, Black Box

Black Box, Concordia, Montreal

It was an early-ish start at the lab today, meeting Xin Wei around 10:00-ish. We were to help Michael Montanaro move equipment down to the Black Box, in the basement of the EV building. It’s an enormous space which is often used for Hexagram events. The project that Micheal and others in the building (including the TML) are working on is called ‘Frankenstein’s Ghosts‘:

a collective creation-research project to build a hybrid critical discussion and performance work based on the substantive issues raised in Mary Shelley’s seminal novel, Frankenstein.

I’m hoping to spend some time with Michael and Jerome (who’s interested in responsive environments) in the Black Box over the next week or so. I’m wondering if the name is literal (it is a black box-like room) or a play on the Latourian notion (he uses the term to describe when something’s inner workings are no longer open to scrutiny)!

Panorama of the Black Box