Tag Archives for critical writing

This article originally appeared in RealTime Edition 81, Oct/Nov 2007 and is reproduced here with the permission of the writer and RealTime http://www.realtimearts.net

A Cultural Travelogue of the big shows in Europa 2007.

Read More →

It’s all around you ~ so read all about it! AudioNomadism or a description in plain English of how to do very complicated things with location sensitive spatial audio The download is a bit slow ~ but it’s worth the wait!

This article originally appeared in RealTime Edition 70, Dec/Jan 2005 and is reproduced here with the permission of the writer and RealTime http://www.realtimearts.net

Imagine starkness;
“A late evening in the future ~ Krapp’s den.
Front centre a small table, the two drawers of which open towards audience.  Sitting at the table, facing front, i.e. across from the drawers, a wearish old man: Krapp.
Rusty black narrow trousers too short for him. Rust black sleeveless waistcoat, four capacious pockets. Heavy silver watch and chain. Grimy white shirt open at neck, no collar. Surprising pair of dirty white boots, size ten at least, very narrow and pointed.  White face. Purple nose. Disordered grey hair. Unshaven.
Very near-sighted (but unspectacled). Hard of hearing. Cracked voice. Distinctive intonation. Laborious walk.
On the table a tape-recorder with microphone and a number of cardboard boxes containing reels of recorded tapes.
Table and immediately adjacent area in strong white light. Rest of stage in darkness……..”.

Imagine a child of the ‘jet-age’ living in an unobtrusive coastal village, mid-way between the dwelling of Blake, the artist, poet and visionary and that of his friend, the scientist and astronomer Halley.  The child proceeds with eyes wide open to technics and ears tuned to poetics ……

2 + 2 =….. was delivered as part of the “SoundCulture96” conference to parallel the “Silent Forest” installation and “A Silent Forest” radio broadcast. As such the paper provides a brief overview of some of my general interests as a sound sculptor in a confluence of morphology, spatiality and technology. The text, which follows remains in its original presentation form (bad jokes included).

“Are the sounds issuing from (the instrumentation connected to) Stelarc’s body real, or not?”

The small Sussex fishing village in which I spent my childhood contained two significant buildings, significant not for their formal qualities, they were both simple cottages, but because one had been the home of Halley, the astronomer and the other the home of William Blake the poet. Without being conscious of the fact, I grew up in a cosmos in which the arts and science were intertwined, it has marked my endeavours ever since.
Nigel Helyer.