26/09/2019 1.30-6.30pm
Performance Studio (Room 225)
University of Brighton
Grand Parade Campus
We are very happy to have Colombian Sound Artist and researcher David Velez. David is the co-initiator of the very successful online resource Sonic Field and owner of the online imprint Impulsive Habitat. David is currently based in Huddersfield conducting PhD research. David’s body of work includes numerous releases, installations, sculptures, performances and community engagement workshops, encompassing sound as a textural, social, embodied and political material.
David has designed a workshop to coincide with our welcome week. The workshop is open to all students. The workshop primarily focuses on collaborative work and low tech and DIY techniques in Public Space Sound Art Performance, and also in the familiarisation with the sound phenomena through graphic means. This workshop is perfect for people who are not necessarily familiar or engaged with the aesthetic sound practice
and aims to create a bonding experience with key aspects of this line of work.
More specifically, Public spaces and can work as blank canvases for collaborative Sound Art performances where low tech elements and basic objects can be of great use. The immersive and expansive nature of sound phenomena are key factors in the way we experience our surroundings and visualizing it could help to have a better understanding of its physical and emotional characteristics.
The students will be exploring the above themes through different methodologies including:
– Sine Wave Flash Mob
Using mobile phones and tone generating apps, the participants will intervene the library by quietly projecting sine waves and moving around the building. This performance aims to question the boundaries of what is perceived as silence and as disturbance, and exploring the spatial possibilities of working with independent and portable acoustic sources.The performance is set for 15 minutes.
-Drawing Field Recordings
The workshop participants will draw a sequence of sound waves in a paper roll using a charcoal pen and a stencil based on the intensity of sound stimuli.
Initially the group records the sounds of passing cars near the university, and the doppler effect they produce will be used as cues for drawing. The blindfolded participant listens to the sound of passing cars on headphones and responds to its intensity drawing zigzag patterns with the help of a guiding stencil. The zigzag movements are more dramatic when the car approaches the subject and more subtle when disappears. The paper roll rotate with a simple mechanism similar to a cassette or reel to reel tape. The participant will also be fully isolated from any visual stimuli in order to focus his attention on sounds and on his tactile interaction with the pencil. This session aims to analyze the acoustic perception of movement
and intensity in an acousmatic context and in isolation conditions.
-The Environment is the Performer
The participants will outline a basic structure to be performed by a group of collaborators to be recruited in campus. The collaborators will perform by rubbing two sheets of sandpaper in circles and increasing and decreasing the speed depending on the cue. The subtle sound product of the sandpaper friction builds up when performed by a group and becomes louder and louder as the piece progresses until it disappears.
This three minute performance looks to strengthen the empathy and convening power of the group and their ability to engage others in the discourse and practice of Public Space Sonic Art performance.
The workshop will run from 1.30pm – 6.30pm in the Performance Studio (Room 225).
Places are limited. Please contact m.e.papadomanolaki@brighton.ac.uk to reserve a place.
