I've long been drawn to the idea of spatiality in my work. In 2004 I created a piece called 'Simultaneity' which featured recordings of clocks, announcements, etc marking the hour, made simultaneously in countries around the world.
An early influence for me was the experience of listening to the dawn chorus: instead of a principal voice supported by carefully woven accompaniment, each voice was equal, separate, valid and, to my ear, beautiful. Yet when we tried such a principle with musicians I found the result (free jazz/improvisation is the closest relative) the results were chaotic - I could hear wonderful elements but in combination the result was cacophanous.
I came up with the concept of a 'time structured map'- a map that could give instructions for performers - whether improvising musicians or playing from a written score - the map was typically divided into 30 second segments - musicians had times to play and times to be silent and they had instructions for ways in which to play when they did play. The results were pleasing: I made works such as Four Bridges that used an entire orchestra improvising simultaneously while other performers in other countries played from the same score, without hearing each other - the driving idea being that each part had an equal voice - it drew from the same material but it wasn't referencing the other parts.
You can hear a little of Four Bridges and read more about it here (you need to hit 'play' half way down the page - the orchestra are in England the piano in Germany, neither hears the other): http://pmwmusic.com/cocert-and-orchestra/four-bridges/
I revised the idea - 'time structured mapping' has now been used for a wide range of projects - I have used it on stage with dance (Miro Dance Theatre) for the poetry-music work Insomnia Poems for BBC Radio 3 (nominated for 'Best of 2009') and for educational projects with organisations such as Welsh National Opera.
I had already looked at the notion of the iForest, the idea of a hidden web of speakers across a wooded area - it would feature human sounds that moved around the wood - including singing and a range of other sounds - through the web of sound (which used multiple independent speakers) it would be possible to move the voices overhead as you walked, or past you - it could be beautiful, disturbing, magical, haunting and so on.
So when I saw Megan's sculptures I really felt a bell ringing - I felt almost like looking at images in a dream - the way that you know something has meaning but you don't know what that meaning is.
As our idea of the microcosmos has begun to evolve so the picture has become clearer. The previous posting "Standing Like A Tree' was a genuine breakthrough for me - I felt a sudden clarity - the 'emotional weather' Megan had talked about was of course internal, suddenly the relationship of sound with light and static object had a natural path of exploration to follow.
There were other things too: I liked the idea that the sounds of the microcosmos are partly derived from these materials. I liked Megan's inclusion of 'prosaic' objects - maybe I should say 'everyday' objects - objects we'd normally overlook at any rate. Cups, spoons, broken glass - this is not simply a miniaturised world, it hints at deeper connections and associations, life in neglected, unnoticed and undiscovered corners emergent, thriving, colonising, diversifying.
The moment I really got excited by sound was when we had 'canyon' in front of us and added to it the sound of a howling wind - it seemed to completely change the way we 'read' the sculpture. And if you can 'read' the sculpture one way by adding sound then you can surely read it other ways by changing that sound.
So, one of the places I'm eager to start exploring is the adding of sound to static images - trying to imagine how it might feel in a space. If each object is a world unto itself, even if it is also in relation to other worlds, how does that manifest itself.
My image is that, when we enter the space we feel we truly have entered a different physical environment - something that extends beyond the perceived physical bounds of the room we might happen to be in. Within the space, which we both feel is dark are numerous sculptures - each one lit and likely with that light shifting over a given time period, maybe an hour.
Each sculpture has a hidden iPod or equivalent sound device - in other words, each sculpture has an individual sound-source - an individual sound world. The big question is, how do the sounds relate to each other?
I have lots of possibilities. As our ideas about 'emotional weather' develop so it becomes easier to find ideas that work. Currently I think that there is a map for the entire microcosmos - the map covers both time and space - it maps the trajectories of the weather throughout the time period - so it will show how the 'weather' passes around the microcosmos, defining migrations of that weather. Perhaps certain sounds will be associated with certain emotions or perhaps specific musical ideas will have that function (in the same way that, say, Beethoven, used motives as identifiers within symphonies, that evolved, integrated and reintegrated as the music developed).
In short. It's complicated, but exciting.
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