I’d never been to The Spire and I really liked it. I always enjoy things that happen in non-traditional venues; they always seem a bit special somehow. On this occasion we’d come to see New Blood, a concert by three modern classical musicians and composers, pianist Dmitry Evgrafov, pianist-composer Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch, and Polish cellist Karolina Rec (aka Resina). I don’t know much about music but I enjoyed the performances, liked the visual accompaniments and the atmosphere, and also rather liked my first experience of Whitstable Bay Ale. http://brightonfestival.org/event/8213/new_blood_130701/
Our visit to The Spire came at the end of a day during which we’d also experienced out first “Reflections” session. A key part of the Collidescope programme, Reflections is an opportunity for all eight artists taking part in the programme to get together with one of our facilitators, not only to talk about what we’ve experienced during the past few days, but also to learn more about each other’s practices and, as facilitator Lou Cope says, “open up opportunities to think on behalf of each other… get other great minds responding to particular issues of practice…”
At each of the first few sessions two or three of us are given the opportunity to talk about an aspect of our practice that we’d like people to think about, and introduce ourselves more thoroughly so that others can be “thinking on our behalf” during this intense period when we are experiencing so much creative stimulus. Yesterday it was fascinating to hear about Paul Hodson’s current theatre project, Still. Still is a work in progress based around the character of photographer Vivian Maier with a contemporary twist which explores ideas about photography, social media sharing, data protection and surveillance.
http://www.the-future-is-unwritten.co.uk/portfolio/englandaway/
We were also introduced to the work of another member of the group, Johanna Bramli who told us about her practice as a sound designer and composer and shared some of her diverse work with us. I find it really interesting to think about the physical effects of sound on the body, and I was intrigued to hear about the sensations which Johanna experiences in response to certain sounds, and the physical effects she attempts to generate through her own work. Johanna also talked about the relationship between soundscape and visual image, something which Johanna wants to explore for future performances and something which I’m interested in too. I’m going to send her links to some of my images to see if they might work together. It was good to carry these thoughts with us to the performance at The Spire in the evening and think creatively about ways in which performances are enhanced or complimented by visual elements.
