So, this time next week I think it’s pretty safe to say, I will be feeling more than a little worse for wear following copious amounts of wine at the preview for my MFA grad show. This delightful thought (and having a couple of days off afterwards) is keeping me going as we enter The Final Week.
I’ve (hopefully) finished the audio work and laid my hands on some fancy speakers for the show. I say hopefully, as unfortunately I couldn’t hear a massive amount of it when I was adding an additional recording to it this morning, due to the pneumatic drill be used outside the edit suite. Will have another listen tomorrow (fingers crossed) after I’ve finished making the panels to construct a dividing wall in the gallery.
After a couple of conversations, I realised I was being a bit slow with my idea for the audio work – instead of recording movement, it made much more sense to record the sounds of an empty house. The work is therefore very subtle – there are sounds of passing traffic on the street outside, the sound of the refrigerator and a toilet dripping. All very slight. I don’t want it to feel like there’s a lot of sound going on, just small moments that give the feeling of domestic indoors-ness, transplanted into this gallery location. Originally I was going to put the speakers up on the mezzanine floor around my exhibition space, but decided against this for three reasons: firstly, as the piece is so quiet, there should be an indicator for the audience that there is an audio piece there; secondly, as I’m being so blatant with the carpet, it seemed kind of daft to then disguise the speakers; and thirdly, surprisingly enough, speakers work best at ear level. It was recommended that I read David Toop’s Haunted Weather – a really interesting book about sound, space and memory. I love it when you read stuff with litters the text with references you’ve already come across, or ideas that you’ve been thinking around, perhaps in different contexts – Austerlitz is mentioned a few times, and he also describes how “sounds are woven with memory”. Lovely stuff.
On a different, but irritatingly hilarious note, I managed to completely trash the transparency I was going to project, and have been spending the last week hoping that we’ll get some sunshine at around 10am so that I can re-take the photograph. I’ve had a wee bit of success, but the camera is still set up as in theory there should still be enough time to get another film developed if necessary.
I’m not quite panicing yet.
