Landscape Resounds was my MA show contribution at Ultimate Dart – The Dartington College of Arts MA show for 2010. The installation featured 11 four foot square paintings of Totnes and Dartington. Each painting also had a ‘soundscape’ that was playing from speakers behind the canvases. These soundscapes were composed of sounds recorded at the sites depicted in the paintings. That’s the sound you hear in the video…
I am performing in a choreographed piece by Marina Smoulevits at the Ultimate dART Dartington Ma show. “It’s what they don’t say,” utilizes two human sized piles of clothes to explore, through movement, the complexities and banalities of a relationship between two individuals.
Marina writes,
A duet performance.
A man A woman A mountain A struggle A dance A smile A skirt Around A life Two lives A mirror A sound A route Two routes Side by side, Hand in hand, Shoulder to shoulder Together Oneself
A shirt A jacket A coat A burden A worry A drop A loss A gain A game Your jacket my shirt
Becoming fully aware of
Together Oneself
A woman A man
It’s whAt they don’t sAy
I am very excited about this piece. We have been rehearsing rather regularly for about six months now. It’s given me the time and space to think about the role of improvisation, structure and movement and how these aspects relate to painting. Movement and performance have been the unexpected yet fertile areas of study this year at Dartington, especially in considering it in social/environmental contexts.
This photo is from the end of April. As part of my Ultimate dART exhibit this July, I’ve continued to paint 4 foot square canvases of places I find in and around Totnes. I will post occasional progress photos when I can. I am planning to exhibit 11 of these canvases, with sounds recorded from the sites depicted playing from small speakers behind the paintings.
Aller Park is a location on the Dartington Estate that was originally used by the Dartington Hall School and has not been used for the past 10 years, apparently because of an asbestos problem in the building. The pool is in close proximity and has been the site of some interesting projects. Such sites are fascinating to me. The pool is obviously no longer a pool, but it isn’t important or valuable enough to transition into something else. Will Dartington Trust repair the pool? or will they bury it?
Dartington Estate is transition rapidly, and is not without controversy. Dartington College of Arts is closing—”moving” to University College Falmouth this summer, but, it has become clear that you cannot “move” a college. It is a closing. A particular land use ends. What value systems inform the new land use?
A bunch of the MA students are making short videos to advertise the upcoming MA show at Dartington College of Arts this July 20-22nd.
I took a time lapse video of the beginnings of a painting at 30 second intervals. I believe there are 24 frames per second, translating to roughly 12 minutes represented by every second. 5 Seconds an hour? I used the ambient noises recorded in the studio to construct the background track (except for the piano at the end).
I will be exhibiting this painting, along with many others. I’m also planning to put some of my original music behind the paintings. It could be quite cool.