current fragments
I've created this new page as a place to put some experimental and uncategorized stuff. Although it's not a "blog" as such, I'm aiming for an informal style & the latest entries will always be on top. Things will get weeded out from time to time as they fall off the bottom or evolve into separate projects in their own right.
Please note that my latest nature sound recordings can be found on the soundscapes of nature page.
2024-04-28 around town on pinhole day
I spent this afternoon (pinhole day) wandering around my local town with a pinhole camera. Much of the architecture of Llandrindod Wells dates from the Victorian era when the town became popular as a spa resort, and I thought that I would try to capture something of the essence of the town for my entry to this year's pinholeday.org online exhibition.
I've recently modified an old roll-film camera from the 1950s, a "Baldax Badixette" for pinhole use, by dismantling and cutting down the lens holder and replacing this with a pinhole. In my usual fashion, this was made from thin aluminium sheet which came in the form of a beer can. Actually, in this case the can originally contained Thatcher's Gold cider, and I carefully arranged for the pinhole to be central to the logo when cutting the disc. On pressing a button, the front section of the camera pops out, giving a focal length of 70mm, and a fairly standard angle of view for a 60x60mm format film image.
Here is a selection of the photographs made, all of which are double exposures. This involves making two consecutive photos on each frame without winding on the film. It adds a random element to the composition because it's not always easy to remember the last photo, or imagine how the resulting composite will look...
For the pinhole day website, I actually chose the photo of the bandstand, overlaid with a second photo of its railings, but then I realised that I'd forgotten to scan some of my other photos including that of the Victorian mannequin "imagining a new hat", which is actually my favourite of them all!
2022-09-11 sounds of dereliction
Along the coast path at Nabor Point in Hartland, Devon, is an old experimental radio station. Since last operational, around 20 years ago, the installation has slowly succumbed to the ravages of time and the site is now completely derelict. I recall someone saying that the station was called "Radio Neptune", but little else was known. A large antenna array, still partially intact, beamed signals directly at the sea. I'm not sure whether the aim was to reflect the signal, or to penetrate the water, and it would be interesting to find out more. It's just a pity that the people responsible couldn't clear away the mess when the project ended!
In any case, the installation remains a curiosity and a potential source of interesting sounds. I clipped my fence mics to the perimeter fence, gates and part of an old steel shipping container, layered up the recordings, and here is the result:
2022-09-10 otherworldly resonances
I've been making recordings of wire fences for many years. Excited only by the wind, their inner sound world is generally audible only by placing one's ear tightly against a convenient post; even then, it's not always possible to hear much. So I made a pair of clip-on contact mics, and these allow me to record or amplify the sound in situ for others to hear.
I'm amassing a collection of coastal fence recordings made in Devon & Cornwall under the working title "Atlantic Fence". Here's a recently recorded example near St Gennys, Cornwall. A steady wind sweeps up from the sea to produce this gentle but rather monotonous drone:
This next fence, although on a cliff-top, does not strictly qualify for the project because it forms a field to field boundary rather than being a boundary between land and sea. I'm posting it here because it's probably the tightest fence I've ever encountered; or at least it was three years ago when I first discovered it. Back then it was possible to hear the humming wires unaided by technology, but it's still pretty impressive and just a gentle breeze is all that's required to set up compex resonances which ebb & flow to create a most hypnotic experience. The various beating sounds and gradual crescendo & diminuendo are entirely due to the changing resonances in the fence itself: no layering or post-processing has been applied. The gentle tapping and gong-like sounds add an extra dimension, and are due to all manner of unpredictable events: vegetation blowing against the fence strands, insects flying into the wires, etc. This fence is so good, I could listen to it all day:)
Apologies to composer George Crumb (RIP) for stealing the title of one of his pieces for this entry. I like to think that he would have approved: his own "otherworldly resonances" was written for two amplified pianos with plucked and strummed strings.
2022-07-16 a presence in the garden
While creating the series of anthotype prints of garden plants, I had been thinking about ways in which I could include some mark of my own presence as the gardener, essential to the concept of garden itself. But the anthotype process requires a long exposure, and 8 hours lying motionless in the sun is too much even for me! I wanted to make a photogram using sunlight, but without the requirement for such a long exposure. So I decided to experiment & here is the result:
I struck what I felt was an active, standing pose, with my hands and feet (the parts of me which engage directly with the garden) clearly shown. I was aiming for an enigmatic profile and a facial silhouette in the form often seen in ancient Egyptian art.
To create this image I used conventional silver halide photographic paper (Ilford MGIV) but with a variation to the usual process. When printed out with a 10 minute exposure in sunlight, a clear latent image is formed, though this is unstable and will quickly darken in ordinary room light. Developing the print in the usual manner would cause complete blackening of the paper, and using sodium thiosulphate to fix the latent image would completely erase it! So I adopted a compromise: I partially developed the image in very weak developer solution (1%) which converted only the most over-exposed silver bromide to metallic silver, but was quickly exhausted before the image became too dark. I was then able to remove the remainder of the bromide with conventional fixer.
The whole process seemed of alchemical significance, all completed under a red safelight in my barn at midnight. Creating a make-shift bund with lengths of timber and polyethylene sheeting, then swabbing the image with developer, wash and fixer over a period of nearly an hour, is not an activity I'd care to repeat. But the alchemical magic revealed itself, and when I took the processed print into my bathroom shower to wash away the remaining fixer, it was if I had created, perhaps not an homunculus, but a life-sized, other-worldly replica of myself!
Exposing the print. This was the easy bit: notice how the paper has been darkened by the sun.
2022-07-14 mixed media in the garden
Having produced a series of sun prints using only plants which I grow in my garden, I decided to add more visual elements, but again limiting my choice to things found within my perimeter fence. I've not made any frottage drawings since last summer in Cornwall, so I thought I'd combine that process with the sun prints.
Left: "Arco Drain" frottage drawing,
Right: "Ark VIII" blackcurrant juice sun print of sycamore leaf, combined with frottage on kraft paper. (It needs a bit more work...)
The two prints below were made on cheap office paper which has changed the dye colour quite considerably!
Left: "Blackcurrant 144". Found objects frottage, with blackcurrant juice sun print of blackcurrant leaves.
Right: "Oak III". Pressed oak leaf frottage, with blackcurrant juice sun print of the same leaf carefully overlaid.
These are quite fun to produce, and more variations will follow shortly. Here's a photo of some of them "cooking" in the sun:
2022-07-10 sun print photograms using natural flower dyes
I've been thinking about the possibilities of using photosensitive natural materials for a while. Then, a few months ago, I stumbled across some artists who were extracting dye from flowers and making photograpic prints by bleaching the dye in sunlight. It turns out that the process has become so popular that it even has an official name: "Anthotype" (from Greek "anthos" - flower). Having a garden full of flowers, and even some occasional sunshine, I thought I'd give it a go.
To give the project a more solid conceptual foundation, I limited my scope by printing images only of plants found in my garden and using the dye extracted from their own flowers. These are some of the results so far:
Colours can be quite random. The two below are good examples. Salvia officinalis (common sage) has lovely blue flowers which, when mashed, turn a rather miserable grey-brown. Digitalis purpurea (foxglove) has bright pink/purple flowers, but the resuting dye is yellow.
The method is simple: gather the flower petals, mash them using a pestle & mortar with a drop of water (or sometimes some cheap vodka!) Strain out & discard the fibrous material then paint the dye onto watercolour paper. Sometimes a couple of coats are needed. Dry in subdued light then expose to sunlight with the chosen plant material placed on top & held down with a sheet of glass. The process is complete when the exposed areas are sufficiently bleached to give good contrast. Here in the UK the exposure needs to be at least a day in full sun. Some of these have had a week or more...
The use of flower dyes for printing, as with a lot of other home-based crafting, really took off during the COVID lockdowns, as it's something which can be done at home for no cost, and with no special materials required. Even the use of watercolour paper isn't strictly necessary; anything will work, although thin office paper tends to disintegrate when wet & sometimes the chemicals used affect the image colour.
I've tended to dry & press the plants / leaves first to ensure they're flat and make good contact with the coated paper. This also prevents them from shrinking too much during the exposure, although that can add an interesting effect, too. There's a lot of potential for creative input in this simple process: experimentation is the key!
Of course, because these prints are made using the bleaching power of the sun, the image will continue to fade when complete. The resultant prints are best stored in an opaque box or placed in a sketchbook/album with black pages. Being natural, the dyes will also slowly decompose and lose their vibrant colours over time, but the ephemeral nature of the prints is part of their appeal. They will last long enough, and next year we can make some more...
2021-09-19 intervention by the river
Another day during my week in Cornwall we walked down to the River Kensey, near Egloskerry. This time I decided to gather some sounds, some of natural origin, others being the result of my own intervention. (Well, you could say that recording itself is an intervention...) This is part of an ongoing "Art on the Path" series of creation-performance works on public paths, although at this particular moment we weren't actually on a path...
Oak-Reed-Twig-Stay-River was recorded using clip-on contact mics attached to: oak tree bark, a twig floating in the water, a reed blowing in the wind, the wire stay of a nearby electricity pole, together with a direct recording of the river itself. I "played" the oak tree as shown in the video below. Everything was re-worked later into this 6 minute audio collage. (Note: there's quite a lot of low frequency sound here which laptop/phone speakers won't reproduce!)
I was too preoccupied with the recording to take any photos of the process, but Claire grabbed her phone and made a short video of me "playing an oak tree":
2021-09-21 frottage / collage
I've been meaning to have a go at this for a while, and a visit to North Cornwall provided an ideal opportunity to leave behind my sound recording equipment for a couple of days and take along a graphite stick and a few sheets of plain paper instead.
One day we walked across the fields to St Clether's chapel. It's tucked away in the countryside and accessible only via a footpath. I made a few quick studies using compositional elements from the church, its contents and the surrounding graveyard, each evolving from the last. The two below seem to work the best:
A few days later I used the same process to capture something of the essence of the 12th century church of St Michael de Rupe, Brent Tor on the edge of Dartmoor. This is a fascinating old church, perched high on a rocky outcrop. Wandering around the churchyard, I found the gravestone for Ingaret van der Post whose family lived in the area. This was an amazing coincidence, since I'm currently reading the autobiography of her husband, Laurens van der Post!
These four pieces (each made on a square section of A4 office paper) work quite well as a vertical banner:
On returning home, I decided to rework some of the gathered material, so I photocopied one of the frottage pieces & combined it with a few black & white photos which I made the same day. Trying not to be precious about the medium, I tore up fragments and rearranged them into this collage:
