Machine Music – Sat 19th July

Machine Music – Sat 19th July,
Cookes Studios, Abbey Rd, Barrow-in-Furness, LA14 5QR.
19:00 – 21:00
Tickets £4 from eventbrite.co.uk

The second in a series of events leading into FON 2015, each exploring a particular theme, idea or bodies of work. Machine Music looks at two artists that create music from the kinds of environmental sensing technology and robotics more commonly associated with Barrow’s local industries:

Talk and performance from John Eacott’s Floodtide project: Floodtide by John Eacott makes music from the movement of tidal water. A submerged sensor gathers information from the tidal flow that is converted into musical notation read from screens or mobile phones by musicians. The piece has been performed 12 times at venues including Royal Observatory Greenwich, Thames Festival, Southbank Centre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Ensembles have included classical musicians, taiko drummers, and members of groups such as Tomorrow’s Warriors and Voice Lab. A full performance of Floodtide lasts around 6 hours, starting at low water and ending at high water, although shorter versions have been staged. The piece is a kind of ambient work in which the audience may drift in and out of the music, returning later to see how it has changed. No performance of Floodtide is the same, with the music being constantly affected by environmental factors such as wind, air pressure, rain, and even passing boats. Floodtide is a sonification of tidal flow. *A longer performance of Floodtide will also run at Barrow Dock Museum, earlier in the day from 14:00.

Floodtide Open at the National Maritime Museum from Floodtide on Vimeo.

*Please note that due to unforeseen circumstances, the advertised talk and demonstration by Karl Heinz Jeron and Sim Gishel has been postponed. In it’s place, we are pleased to present a talk from SoundFjord founder and current Octopus curator in residence Helen Frosi.

SoundFjord was founded in late 2009 owing to the vision of artist, Helen Frosi, and the expertise of sound designer, Andrew Riley. As a gallery and research unit it ran its operations from Tottenham, North London, until the summer of 2013 when its activities shifted focus to nomadic activity. As an itinerant space dedicated to the curation, exhibition and promotion of exceptional sound art to a broad audience, SoundFjord fosters research and critical listening practices, and encourages a deeper understanding – and wider knowledge – of the sonic arts through new experiences, cultural knowledge and skills exchange, education and play.

You will find its activities online, on air and in situ – unburdened by a single space or a defined architecture. SoundFjord invites collaborative and curatorial propositions as well as consultation work and is available to curate independently.

www.soundfjord.org

Plus an Introductory talk from Octopus.