Fallen (The Seasonal Sound of Senescence)

Well the exhibition is fast approaching, with a mass of things to complete and organise over this Easter bank holiday. Currently my main focus is the construction work, building large wooden boxes (total of 11m in length) to act as housing for projections and large plinths to display other video, audio and literature.

Fallen (The Seasonal Sound of Senescence),
May 6th – June 10th
Mon-Fri 11am-4pm

Writtle College
Chelmsford, CM1 3RR

www.cade.writtle.ac.uk

Well much has happen with the project over the past few months. Firstly in December a two hour exhibition for staff and students to view the work so far. Arriving at a natural end to the first part, before I start to deconstruct and abstract the video.

Fallen, Part One

The original aim to exhibit the work outdoors was dashed by the weather, so the piece was brought indoors.

Projecting onto the four octagonal shaped drums were the video documentation over the previous months:- two time lapse videos, one thermal imagery camera, and one standard video recording of senescence. before I start to abstract the video work. Every so often the sound of a leaf, or conker hitting a drum would echo round the room.

I was very happy to see the way my work is starting to have a three dimensional element, a Tony Oursler without the one-liners. The downside to this piece I really needed to view them outside, the work to me felt claustrophobic, needed more space.

A small break away from the project saw me return in late January, initially organising exhibition locations, so I met up with Michaela Freeman to discuss exhibiting the work at Coexist/TAP in Southend.

Date of the final exhibition May 6th
In TAP hopefully in June and should be the location of a talk Ron, Margaret and I will be doing, supported by firstsite.

February

After spending most of the first part of the project building up a variety of audio and visual documentation, I was eager to sit down with Ron and Margaret to discuss the science behind senescence, and relate that to my own visual practice. Sadly Margaret couldn’t make the meeting.

Friday 4th February,
Meeting with Ron, The Tea Rooms, Writtle College

After ordering a straight forward builders tea for myself, Ron started to discuss botanical science. Whilst Ron was talking my visual mind was working overload. In a meeting that lasted a couple of hours, I soon had a greater understanding of the various complex processes taking place within a leaf during senescence.
The main crux of the discussion centred around the five main growth regulators (Indoleacetic acid, Gibberellins, Cytokinin, Abscisic acid and Ethene.) found within all leaves, these are the key to senescence. Repetition is starting to play a major role within my current work, so I started to discuss with Ron ways in which I could link the work with the five growth regulators, perhaps animating each one individually.

Same day meeting with Jill Raggert and Janie Townshend – CADE

This meeting was spent mainly walking around the college exploring best sites for the final exhibition, one which will have easy access for the public. A very productive meeting and I now have a better understanding of how the works will be exhibited, to me crucially there will be a piece shown over in the science block, which is away from the main campus.

Monday 7th March
Meeting with both Ron and Margaret.

This gave me the chance to show Ron and Margaret how the work had progressed after the initial meeting with Ron.
Also allowed Margaret the chance to discuss in-depth the chemical make up of all five growth regulators. Bringing a new set of numbers, which I’m adding to the video work.

I’m not doing a good job with keeping this blog updated, this blog might be like the buses, Wait along time for one…’ etc.

Probably the most frustrating part at the start of the project was waiting for the CRB check to come through, though I had a valid one from a project with Essex County Council (Why can’t each individual have a universal form which is voided once a criminal offence is committed.).

The project is going very well, over the past two months the staff and students have made me feel very welcome.

Managed to get along too two practical science lessons with the horticultural students, which I found really interesting. Some of the science terminology went way over my head (memories of A-level Geology) but what I did enjoy was recognizing the amount of looking involved within this field of science. This helped to realise better the importance of the work I’m doing, engaging them with visuals, encouraging looking.
Last week I held a talk with a small group of Writtle Colleges digital art students, which revolved around the project and my own practice, tutored by Ruth Catlow and Michael Szpakowski.

Lucky! this years Autumn fall was one over the longest and most colourful witnessed for a long time. This gave me ample to time to compile a varied array of audio and visual recordings. Though luck still played a huge part when recording drum sounds.

Material generated so far; two time lapse videos, 4 different thermal imagery video footage’s (wasn’t aware of how hot branches are compared to external temperatures.), some straight forward video recordings (nice audio of wind rustling the leaves), plus many hours of sound (most of which is silent but every-so-often you a ‘boing’.

Constructed a total of four octagonal drums which decrease in size (the largest roughly 1.3m), acting like Russian dolls, one fits inside the other for easy storage. Quite like the notion of – get your drums out when the Autumn fall arrives.

I’m currently preparing for an interim screening of my video work this Thursday, give the staff and students a chance to view where the work is at.Also it gives me the chance to have a play with the early formation of the final installation.

After Thursdays exhibit the next steps will be to work closely with Ron and Margret so I can fully understand the processes occurring internally within the leaves during senescence. So when I go about deconstructing my video work I can try to interpret or animate the natural processes.

A recent evolution within my work has been exploring the visuals generated through projecting my video imagery onto the tools which were constructed to create the work. With a previous residency ‘footfall’, I constructed a 6m catwalk which was used to record visually and audios generated from footfall, the catwalk was then incorporated within the final installation, turned 90 degrees and projected onto. The drums used created for this project will also be turned upright to be used as the screens.

I Have been maintaining a visual diary throughout the project on my own website
www.timskinner.co.uk

October 27th 2010

It feels a real privilege to be working with Writle College/CADE a diverse, brilliant educational institution, where I can feel there is a true focus in the work they are doing. So I have to first thank the arts council for giving me the opportunity to not only progress my professional practice become part of the colleges fabric.

I have spent roughly four days at the college, a mixture of full days and half days. In between which I been fabricating the first of my drum structures in my studio @ Cuckoo Farm Studios in Colchester (completed 12 days ago). The work relies on the Autumn fall to create the visuals and sounds, a variety of drum-like structures will be used to collect the sounds but also act as an sculptural element. With the fall upon us, it was important to get the visual experimental work started.

Within my first days spent at the college;

– Met the CADE staff and some Writtle College.

– Firstly I set up a time-lapse camera to monitor a single tree’ process during the fall, this is progressing very well, with the majority of leaves fallen we are now eyeing up other trees to maintain the recording of this important natural event,

– Had a play with a thermal imaging camera which looks remarkably like a police speed gun (many visual possibilities await),

– Looked at many different of native and non-native trees,

– Taught how to use a complicated GIS mapping software,

– Sat in on Ruth Catlow’s discussion about digital web art networks and climate change (Bizarrely dovetailed with conversions emerging from an artist crit-group I’m apart off for firstsite (discussions on artists such has Heath Bunting etc)).

– Set up a large octagonal drum at the base of a conker tree,

– Helped to create boards illustrating the project (currently on display near the foyer).

There is almost an organic nature emerging within the residency itself, echoing the visuals. Hopefully throughout the project I hope to see a variety of connections between my own new media practice and plant science.

With the need to get the experiments underway, I’ve yet to truly engage with the students, so looking forward to that over the coming weeks.

All the visuals generated through-out the project can be viewed on my website www.timskinner.co.uk