I ended spending more time on the talk “German Romantics, Minimalism and the Sublime” than I had anticipated and continued to edit it until the Wednesday night before the talk. Some of the editing became quite vicious as a result of re-thinking how to best get the story over. The talk was well received at Bangor U3A with good questions being fielded by the group (~ 140 people) plus a lot of very positive feedback after the talk. I like the ‘questions’ part of presenting where you have nothing to draw upon but your wits… it gives me a buzz. The next outing for the talk was to Beaumaris, Probus on the following Monday. This was a smaller group (~30) and again they produced some good questions, including one which stimulated an idea for a piece of work.
I started the build of “Stone in a Sea of Fog” just over a week ago on November 14 and today I have completed the first-fit of the lead sheathing and it now has its 4 corners clad. The use of a sub-frame covered in ply was definitely the way to go. As well as being lighter than MDF, it resulted in a symmetrical structure which made the sheathing operation a lot more straightforward. I prepared paper patterns first and then used these to cut the lead sheet. Unfortunately I have to go back to the builder’s merchant tomorrow to get more lead, as the rolls were under the specified width…something to check in future. The remaining fit should be simpler as I only need to cut the lead to the width of the four remaining gaps.
Finished. This last week I have been preparing the presentation for the talk to Bangor U3A next week, “German Romanticism, Minimalism and the Sublime” and it is now done. I plan to leave it until Monday or Tuesday, then have another look at it. I find a break helps in the polishing process…fresh eyes and all that. I am going to include a transcription I made a couple of years ago called ‘Homage to Friedrich’ – a response to ‘Monk by the Sea’. The presentation has been put together in PowerPoint and I enjoy the process…I guess it is a bit like film making. I find that the story-line evolves as I work and the ability to see the evolving story as a set of frames I find helpful. The research and materials will also go some way in supporting the Presentation and Dissertation for my Critical Studies module.
This morning, my musician friend Warren dropped-off a two octave keyboard which he wasn’t currently using. After setting it up on my laptop, he then took a sample of a concrete block sliding across a floor (which I had got from freesound.org) and after patching through the ProTools sampler, I can now mix concrete with a keyboard. I love technology.
Homage to Friedrich
As so often happens in building a piece, when you put your hands onto the intended materials your brain starts to go somewhere else. The container for ‘stone in the fog’ was to have been made with 10mm MDF but the intended material had warped. I considered using some 18mm stuff which I had, but the weight of the piece would have really started to creep-up, since the container is also to be sheathed with lead. So, I decided to build a sub-frame which will be clad in 5mm plywood. Suddenly this became the best way to do this (with an associated flood of endorphins) and this morning I collected the frame materials along with the lead sheathing (code 3 – 1.3mm thick and heavy). It’s tape-measure and saw time…
Tonight should be fun; my lap-top is to be configured to work with ProTools by a musician friend, Warren Greveson. I have had the software/hardware for a while and my initial attempt at set-up did not get very far, as much because I wasn’t clear in my own mind how I intended to use the software. My “fuzzy” intention was to use it to make soundscapes for my videos but I think it needs to be a “bit more defined” than that. I am also making a series of videos to accompany the orchestral premiere of ‘Voyager’ by Warren Greveson at Beaumaris Festival, 2012. It is a musical interpretation of the NASA missions of Voyager 1 and 2 [http://www.warrengreveson.com/.html.] and the incredible thing is that these two craft are still flying and transmitting-back and are now at the edge of the solar system. I first worked with Warren at the end of my first year, where using his studio and ProTools we produced sounds to accompany a video/installation called Flow.
I have just uploaded the video stone in the fog to YouTube and then embedded it into my website, [http://www.mauricelockart.co.uk/]
I will probably do some more work on it before the piece is finished but it will be something like this.
Tomorrow I have a meeting with one of the Psychologists at Bangor University who researches into emotion. The purpose of the meeting is to explore the emotional basis of the sublime experience…should such a thing exist. This is based upon the frequently described experience of the sublime as being “delightful terror”. I am interested to know if this is a compound experience involving fear generated in the “old brain” (amygdala) being moderated by the pleasure centres of the brain…we’ll see!
stone in the fog 1.0
I am at the point with my dissertation research (working title: The nature and representation of the sublime) where ideas are starting to gel. It is a pleasant point, where half-formed ideas, associations etc. are swimming around in the head and all things are possible. I have decided to do the option of a shorter dissertation with a 30 minute presentation. This fits with a talk I am giving in early November on “German Romantics, Minimalism and the Sublime” to Bangor U3A and Probus. There is nothing like a deadline to focus the mind.
