Tag Archives: Wales

Whistle Quietly

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Absent but not Forgotten: ‘Who is this who is coming?’
(Technical processes)

The installation for Oriel Davies consists of 2 main elements; A video presented on the vintage television and a 4 channel sound work allied to the table setting.  Derived from the incidental audio within the breakfast scene, the sound emanating from the table is presented as 2 separate stereo works. A number of techniques and ideas were used in its production.

First of all the scene was examined to identify all of the sounds that contain no dialogue – the silences between words; cutlery on crockery; sounds of the professor eating etc. were extracted and placed in a time-line. While the volume was increased, the durations and relative positions of these clips were maintained to keep the random rhythmic structure of silences within the scene.

The very short, sharp sounds of cutlery and crockery were extracted and condensed to remove the gaps in between and create a single sample. This was then treated using software dedicated to time-stretching, changing the 4 second sample into 4 minutes. This element in the overall sound is the more musical, orchestral, composed sounding piece. The musical tonal qualities coming from the ringing sound of the original samples.

The clip of condensed sounds of the cutlery and crockery was added a second time and time-stretched to 15 seconds, this time allowing the samples to pitch shift with the duration change. Finally the unprocessed, individual cutlery and crockery samples were reintroduced to the time-line and scattered randomly throughout the time-line, repeating to spread them across the entire duration.

These 3 elements were then combined into 2 stereo files, each containing the more musical element in both channels and the silences or cutlery placed in only the left or right channel. Playing together as separate sources allows small variations in the timing which when combined with the sound on the television create a complex, subtly changing work.

The use of recorded silences has been important within Absent but not Forgotten since it’s inception in 2010. It’s use is derived from ideas surrounding paranormal investigation and EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon), and in particular the studies undertaken by my grandfather who used to attend spiritualist meetings, record the medium and analyse the silences within the recordings to try and find evidence of the voices. We have adopted this technique and used it as a starting point within a number of our video and installation works.

The video is a simple corruption of footage from ‘Whistle and I’ll come to you’ using filters which emulate analogue detuning and static interference. The breakfast scene emerges from the distorted, detuned footage roughly once every 10 minutes. The white noise soundtrack within the video is created by processing silences extracted from the breakfast scene, with the volume modulated randomly, the scene itself has it’s soundtrack left intact.
JW

(The video below uses a stereo version of the same audio described above)

Who is this who is coming?

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Yesterday we travelled to Oriel Davies in Newtown to install our work for the forthcoming show, Be our guest, opening on Saturday 29th June.  The gallery is transforming into a guest house for the exhibition which runs until September 4th.

Who is this who is coming?

Our work ‘Who is this who is coming?’ is situated in the breakfast room of the imagined B&B and is based upon a pivotal scene in the 1968 film ‘Whistle and I’ll Come to You’.  Additional elements can be seen here and on our website www.absent-but-not-forgotten.co.uk

The Witching Hour

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THE WITCHING HOUR
Sara Annwyl, Kathryn Campbell Dodd & Jacob Whittaker, Matt Cook, Michael Cousin, Paul Emmanuel, Tom Goddard, Heloise Godfrey, Mark Houghton, Leona Jones and Richard Huw Morgan.

curated by Richard Higlett

As part of Cardiff Contemporary, Goat Major Projects will presenting its 7th Project: The Witching Hour. This will feature the creation of a sonique lounge in the Canton based project space. The lounge will be a space to hear a programme of sound art by artists based in Wales in the form of an edited hour of works played as a loop. Spoken word pieces and soundscapes, imaginary places and scenarios are formed through sound, transporting the listener to other realms. The project explores the key themes in contemporary sound art, an artform that exists outside of music and poetry, which could be described as a theatre of frequencies. The title ‘The Witching Hour’ is influenced by the writings of David Toop whose book ‘Haunted Weather’ refers to sound as being uncanny and other worldly.
Opening times:
18.00-20.30 Monday – Friday 10.00 -16.00 Weekends. 26/10 to 11/11.Exhibition continues to 11/11/12

Day one in Conwy

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Absent but not Forgotten is having a great time in Conwy! Our work is installed in the courtyard of Plas Mawr – a beautiful Tudor town house in the centre of the town. We’ve been visiting the other artists involved in the festival and enjoying their work too. Blinc Digital Arts Festival is sharing the event with Conwy Food Festival, so the town has been buzzing with people. Come along and visit us if you’re in the area today.

The Tynllidiart Arms

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As part of our project in Aberystwyth – The Seventh Room, we have been interviewing people in and around the town who have had experiences of ghosts or the paranormal. On Friday we visited Stuart Evans who works at Ceredigion Museum – the old Colosseum Theatre and cinema in Terrace Road.

We then went on to visit The Tynllidiart Arms in Capel Bangor just outside of Aberystwyth. There have been a number of strange incidents at the pub, including a photograph taken in 2004 in which a strange figure is captured sitting next to a customer at one of the tables.

Landlord Andy kindly suggested that we speak to barmaid Georgie who has had a few encounters with the resident ghost. Georgie told us some fantastic stories which were corroborated by both Andy and one of the pub visitors.

Apparently the ghost began to make its presence known when a pair of old baby shoes were discovered hidden inside a wall – when the shoes were moved the activity began. It is a very old custom to conceal shoes inside chimneys and walls, and considered very unlucky to remove them.

I took these images whilst we were setting up – I have had my camera since 2007 and I have taken thousands of images with it; I have to say I have never captured anything like these ‘orb’ like shapes before…the afternoon sun was strong and filtering in through the windows in shafts, but this misty effect was a surprise when I uploaded the pictures…

We want your Conwy ghost stories!

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As part of our project with blinc Digital Arts Festival we are looking for stories about paranormal and spooky experiences you might have had or heard about in Conwy. We are interested to hear about the traditional ghost stories of the town, but we’d particularly like to hear about what has happened to you, your friends and family.

Have you seen or heard a ghost? Experienced any strange phenomena such as things moving on their own, untraceable noises, the feeling of an unexplainable presence? Do you know any anecdotal stories about ghosts or hauntings in Conwy?

You can email us with your stories and images abnf@hotmail.co.uk or by leaving us a comment on the stories page.

If you are available during the weekend of blinc Digital Arts Festival 22 & 23 October, we’d like to be able to conduct some interviews for our archive, so please let us know.