Audio narratives

When I mentioned to bhYael about doing an audio piece for the Documentation Practices' end of term project.  She suggested that I should look into directional speakers.

http://mycitylab.eu/blog/2011/04/locustream-promenade
http://www.explainthatstuff.com/directional-loudspeakers.html

This set up only allows the person who is standing under this system to hear the audio, people who are standing outside the range can not hear it.  I talked to numerous people and couldn't find a place where I can rent the system.  At the same time, I was still thinking about using motion sensor to activate the audio piece.  Symon Oliver was going to show me the program that he used.  When I mentioned to Symon that I would like to have voices coming out from different speakers, he said I could do a 2 channel audio in any audio editing program.  Since the narratives are more important to me, I really should spend time on the "contents", rather than presentation.

Another leaning curve.  I bought the Sound Studio program and started learning it.  Because the voices were overlapping so I needed to bring in more audio clips/files.  It took me many hours to put together a 5 minutes piece.  But I am happy with it.  The stories are still there, but they are told in a different manner.  This is more like Glen Gould's radio documentaries The Solitude Trilogy that inspired my to do audio work in the first place, it has taken a round about way for me to get there. I am very excited about this.

"A Sense of Place"

Got my "book" finished!

Book is a traditional form of communication.  If the installation is an audio piece, what if there is another document that provides images and text to allow the viewers to connect, to reinforce the audio narratives.

Using the online publishing program Blurb, I compiled the book "A Sense of Place".  This book is a selected document juxtaposing text and photographs to communicate to the readers the relationships between place and its people.  It contains transcripts extracted from the interviews, photographs of people, surrounding landscape, archival photos and copies of geographical fishing grounds.  The book is organized around three themes:  landscape, fishing and community.  The size of the book is 7"x 7" with 30 pages.

I am not sure how I am going to use this.  Question that I am asking myself is:  would it make a different if I actually make the book myself (from printing to binding etc.)???

Fishing flake sculpture

I wanted to test out the idea of a minature fishing flake (shrinking memories and disappearing culture) so I made a small wood flake (3.5" x 4.5" x 7").  I took it to Skara and asked Steve to cast this in aluminum. Well, Steve talked me out of spending money on casting.  He said he could do them in small pieces and welded them back together.  If I only wanted to see what it looks like in aluminum or in bronze, I should just paint it and see if this is the material that I wanted to have at the end.

Mexico City - Conference

Storytelling, Memories and Identity Constructions:  November 4 – 9, 2011

It was quite an experience in spite of the confusion.  There were 15 of us.  5 from the States, 2 from Turkey, 1 from Taiwan, 2 from UK, 1 from Italy, 1 from Bulgaria, 1 from Mexico, 1 from Denmark, and myself.  They are mostly from Department of Literature, they are professors and PHD students.  I am the only artist and a MFA student.  The colloquium really helped my presentation here in Mexico.  I wasn’t nervous.  I got some good comments and questions.

What is the difference between site specific art and place specific art

What is my position on art