Mechanical
Timothy Cooper
Studio 1, Lower Ground Floor
Take a bike for a spin. Listen and respond as the landscape whizzes past. Play all of the beautiful, rhythmic clunks, ticks and whirrs the chain makes as it skips, slips or slides over the sprockets. Or listen to the hub of the wheel as the bearings rub, rasp or grind against the inside of the wheel as you travel through this world of bicycle sound. Linger and appreciate the sight and the sound of this world of bicycles before moving on and perhaps taking another journey, with another bike to another place.
The Winter Stars
Rachel Beetz
Studio 2, Lower Ground Floor
The Winter Stars is a large-scale sound installation by Rachel Beetz, created during the darkest time of year in Ólafsfjörður, Iceland and sponsored by the Skammdegi Air Award.
For each evening of the darkest 30-day lunar cycle, Beetz recorded a 1-hour time-lapse photograph of the Icelandic sky and a 1-hour field recording. Throughout the lunar cycle, Beetz’s photography captured auroras, clouds, snow, and the path of stars – “star trails” – across the night sky, and her field recordings documented the sounds of the nearby ocean. These 30 photographs and recordings became the scores and source material for Beetz’s 30-hour installation, with each day of recordings translating into a unique hour of sound.
In addition to her night-time recordings, Beetz collaborated with local knitters to create the visual component of her installation. With the help of the Hornbrekka Retirement Home, the Ólafsfjörður Public Library, and others, Beetz created over 200 balls knitted from Icelandic yarn. These balls will create a glowing mobile suspended throughout the installation, lighting the space and mimicking the star trail photographs.
Visitors are encouraged to choose the days from this lunar cycle they would like to experience, stay for awhile or come and go according to their own schedule. It is especially recommended to experience one day evolving into another, so make sure to come a quarter before the hour to hear the transition from one day into the next!
More information, including the score photographs, can be found at: thewinterstars.com video trailer is available at: https://vimeo.com/164908011
“Please Save Me”
Winston Yeung, Various Locations
“Please save me” is a live installation. It aims to explore the idea of trying to take away mind-body relationship by controlling body movement with the computer. It involves some devices that send electrical impulses to the body. The rhythms are determined by the environment.
If Walls Could Sing
Tony Morton
Level 2, near 220
If the walls could sing, is an interactive installation, which enables participants to personify an individual within a close harmony ensemble. The more participants involved, the larger the ensemble becomes, allowing collaborative interaction of a normally linear musical piece. Inspired by the scrubbing of analogue tape machines, movement is used to control the position of the song much like moving tape over a playhead. In stripping back the composition into it’s individual voices and musical phrases, new explorations of the piece can be made, creating new permutations of pitch and rhythm.
Empedokles
Minchang Han
Tutorial Room, Level 2
Empedokles is an interactive projection mapping installation that embodies the classical elements – earth, wind, fire and water in the view of sound transformation and morphology.
With simplifed, cartoonish visuals and motion sensors, it enables the audience to engage actively in experiencing the interaction with each of the elements.
Kelp Road
Anne Parouty & Scott Wilson
Bramall Foyer
Kelp Road is the culmination of a collaboration between sound artist Scott Wilson and visual artist Anne Parouty. Enter the heart of the Bramall Music Building and submerge yourself in a bubble of sea sound. Look up and admire a kelp forest, created from a series of suspended cyanotypes.