Monday, February 22, 2010

Sound of the day

...whilst on the treadmill at the gym i happened to catch live transmission of the landing of the shuttle...it's a distant memory now...but beautiful night footage - the appearance of a shape in the sky...the cockpit views of the approaching runway lights as touchdown immanent...why is it our ears can't retain memory the same way our eyes can - i can recall many versions of the visual - the graphite-type black and white sketch of night vision, the high definition lights against black, the glowing fire from off the tail...all i can now remember from the sound was the invigorating sense of a powerful drone and a flanging type affect of the sound...maybe i can find it on youtube to help me remember. i remember more the feeling the sound gave me than the sound itself...aaah yes here it is.




humans are so clever - sending mass machinery out into the nether regions of space and then guiding it back to a specific line of lights with pinpoint accuracy.

as i marveled at this i accidently hit the emergency stop button on the treadmill and cut short my run.

oh well.

Monday, February 15, 2010

you can believe in the sky




this is an intuitive composition made by Vaitoa Mallon (7yrs). i love working with spontaneous, immediate composition - everything here was done on the fly...appearing for the first time in the course of the recording.

while listening back to this i made the drawing above using my non-dominant hand and with my eyes closed - a companion piece.

thank you Vaitoa for this wonderful piece and for your permission to share it here.




Monday, February 8, 2010

on finding the play in the everyday...

i must admit - apart from serious delusional episondes of grandeur, i have always been drawn to the idea of play - of making games, adventures, tasks...finding beauty and opportunity to combine, connect, and create using the experiences, discoverings and happenings of the everyday.

my how this impulse can be flattened or worse, damaged - through the need to 'get a real life, a real job, a real *fill in the blank here*.

and yet somewhere down deep - this impulse has been calling...right now...having finished my honours year in sonic arts composition, and needing to regroup from the awesome input from that - as well as needing to earn a crust...i am finding once again these impulses surfacing as if a call to undertake a simple discipline - that of engaging with my everyday - no matter how repetitive or mundane it seems...

this impulse is definitely being fuelled by three blogs i have been following closely - the domestic soundscape, treasure hiding, and airform archives.

i am sure that as i engage with the little ideas that come to me...as i listen to these resonances and allow them to surface, i will find my own playful and creative voice and a place in the world as these above have done for me. thanks to them and the many others who inhabit the world in this way.


i was given a timely unlined book for my birthday - with pen in hand i drew this the next day...have recently been to the yayoi kusama exhibition in wellington so this may have informed the style - she was amazing!


Wednesday, February 3, 2010

baaaaaaa!



this is raw field recording footage from our trip to banks peninsula last year. we visited the okains bay maori and colonial museum - a fascinating place which contained a vast array of maori and pakeha artifacts from colonial times...masses of items gathered in several rooms - arranged curiously in a cross between a museum and a crazed collector's shed. the wonderful array was spiced up by the fact that we felt as though we were miles from anywhere...near the sea... with a welcoming young host who played guitar at various points around the place...accompanied by the sheep who were hanging around in the field just near the back door of one of the gallery rooms....love rural new zealand.

the baa recordings are a gift for felicity of the domestic soundscape fame as she has a penchant for sheep.





Tuesday, February 2, 2010

musical cats

aaah....the sing-song of hungry cats dueting with a swinging door - i have to say, i love the sounds of swinging gates and doors and so do, obviously, these cats. accompanied by jellicle-swing-thing pic because i can.