The week started with a tutorial, it is true I wasn’t linked with the project I had simply attmepted. I had struggled to get out and ride with the go – pro, a mixture of general fitness and the awful weather. I wasn’t sure where I was with my project and the direction it was going to take. I was defintley thinking about my project and considering what the next steps were but I wasn’t happy with it and I was unsure of what it was. The tutorial helped me have direction. The work seemed to personal and cliche. The photographs I had worked on just didn’t seem to work at all and were not what I was after. There wasn’t anything for the audiecnece to get out of it. We disccused most of what I had been working on.
It wasn’t until towards the end of the session until we listened to my audio recordings I had briefly taken at the end of a work shift. The simple sounds capture something. The presence of a bicylce something familiar to myself. The bike as a machine comes accross, a working piece that we have to rely upon. It has to be dependable just like a home. I have to put love and sweat to create these machines to look after myself and take me to places that feel like home.
Isaac
Tutorial 2
Monday 21st February
Where are you at with HOME?
Went home, worked with photographs and overlays, nothing really caught your attention or sparked enthusiasm, all feels a bit cliché at this point
Made a list of albums that were the family soundtrack
Struggled to connect the bike ride, with the music, with the photos…
The tutorial took a turn when you played the audio recordings you have made from the Summit Cycle workshop
Fabulous recordings..
Ideas:
Recording the workshop all day as a baseline
Recording each piece of the bike separately as ‘notes’
Recording voices
Recording your body – breathing
Using a better mic and or binaural earphones
Making an audio – scape, audio composition
Maybe to be an independently played by mp3 players/phones, or as an ambient soundscape or as performative piece or as a sound installation in the AC
The Ac could become the bike – fragments of the bike dispersed throughout the space, we have 5 small portable speakers or 4 x pairs of speakers, the AC has a tannoy!
We discussed the workshop as the hub, the heart, the furnace of the shop
We discussed the mechanics of the bike in connection to trust, reliance, familiarity, essential – just like a home, we don’t know what it is until we lose it!
The workshop is an exclusive space
The mechanics of a bike are a mystery to most people
We just get on a bike and take it for granted
To improve on the progress of your project I advise:
Do all and any recordings
Document the recording process
Obviously ask for permission where and when needed
Get into audio software – audacity and start playing with the recordings
Keep the AC in mind as you work, so it is integral to the development of the project and not an after thought
Talk to Tim
Feedback for week 3:
Entered the room lacking energy but left the room energised again..I think this will be a good week. Well done for catching up with the notebook – but please fix the problem that you caused if you can!!
Class Workshop – Human Flow
It has to be said I struggled to engage with this session. A mixture of things but life was distracting, partially illness, partially the world going to war there was something just off about that day. We spent part of the class discussing the current state of affairs before moving onto the body of the class which was looking at displacement.
The first section I found interesting and engaged with, including the documentation and facts about current regugees, followed by the podcast following the life of one refugee living in the uk. It is harrowing to see how people can never feel at home as a refugee. Even in thier country of refuge.
The next part I really struggled with. Creating character for me is always hard, I had to put myself in someone elses shoes and create a fictional life for them. I think I perhaps like looking from the outside. This is something I need to work on, perhaps it is the reluctance of wanting to try something new. But then I don’t mind trying and embarassing myself so perhaps this is something more specific – unsure.
Perhaps not the best week, I also stuggled to get onboard with audio recordings. There is difficulty in recording customers in the shop, although colleagues are ok and onboard with supporting my project it is difficult to practically do.
Still to do – Source professional equipment