Wind-Up
‘Wind-Up’ involves performing with wind-up gramophone turntables and re-appropriated 78rpm records. Using gramophones as DJ turntables gives them a new function, one that postdates their intended use. I developed this performance when I did MA Fine Art in 2005. For me, the performance is drawing: drawing out sound. It is a tactile process and my background in drawing and painting are imbued within the way that I approach this performance. I now use a contraption that I invented, the gramoscope, a stethoscope and ear trumpet combo that I use as gramophone headphones whilst Djing with amplified wind-up gramophones that enable me to beat match.
I performed in the acoustically bewildering rotundical Great Hall in Manchester Central Library in November 2009, in what is usually a silent space. The performance involved improvising/drawing/sketching using wind-up gramophone turntables and re-appropriated 78rpm records (using electrical tape to create a disruptive and rhythmic percussive layer) to create repetitive, unexpected discordances and harmonies. The sonorous resonances and echoes were accentuated and further distorted by the astonishing acoustics of the rotunda. The audience were sonically pounced upon as they immersed, conversed and traversed.
This performance was a provocative and inclusionary intervention into public space and everyday life. It attracted an intergenerational audience of artists, musicians, lecturers in acoustics, sound artists, architects, composers, librarians, people staying late to read/study/write/muse, families and people who were generally intrigued and curious. I have performed ‘Wind-Up’ at Victoria Baths (Manchester), Barbican (London), Kazimier (Liverpool), Iniva (London) and Whitworth Art Gallery (Manchester)
I place strips of electrical vinyl tape onto the shellac records to create an additional tactile layer that is visually and sonically disruptive. This creates unexpected repetitive and percussive discordances, harmonies and locked grooves.
The physical process of drawing the sound is incredibly destructive because the steel needle rapidly wears down the record and becomes increasingly more blunt, as it staggers or glides across the discreetly undulating strips of electrical tape. The records are drawings and embody the sonic, visual and performative aspects of drawing. I’m always wonderfully bewildered by the extraordinary inherent sounds, riffs and sequences within these 80 year old records, that I reveal when I play the reappropriated records. It is an intuitive and experimental process, as I don’t know how it is going to sound, but that is all part of the process; putting structures in place to allow chance to occur.
I have around 200 shellac records, ranging from jazz to classical and I’m fascinated by the potential sounds within the record that can be excoriated through playful re-appropriation. The performance embraces the beauty of ephemerality that is intrinsic to Japanese philosophy.
Due to the mechanical nature of the technology, the gramophone has to be wound up in order to maintain the correct tempo. The constant ritualistic maintenance and tactile involvement in playing the records reveals the attention, maintenance and mindfulness that is required. The sound that the gramophone produced, has a surprisingly rich and clear resonance, bespeckled with wonderful dusty grooves.
I performed in the acoustically bewildering rotundical Great Hall in Manchester Central Library in November 2009, in what is usually a silent space. The performance involved improvising/drawing/sketching using wind-up gramophone turntables and re-appropriated 78rpm records (using electrical tape to create a disruptive and rhythmic percussive layer) to create repetitive, unexpected discordances and harmonies. The sonorous resonances and echoes were accentuated and further distorted by the astonishing acoustics of the rotunda. The audience were sonically pounced upon as they immersed, conversed and traversed.
This performance was a provocative and inclusionary intervention into public space and everyday life. It attracted an intergenerational audience of artists, musicians, lecturers in acoustics, sound artists, architects, composers, librarians, people staying late to read/study/write/muse, families and people who were generally intrigued and curious. I have performed ‘Wind-Up’ at Victoria Baths (Manchester), Barbican (London), Kazimier (Liverpool), Iniva (London) and Whitworth Art Gallery (Manchester)
I place strips of electrical vinyl tape onto the shellac records to create an additional tactile layer that is visually and sonically disruptive. This creates unexpected repetitive and percussive discordances, harmonies and locked grooves.
The physical process of drawing the sound is incredibly destructive because the steel needle rapidly wears down the record and becomes increasingly more blunt, as it staggers or glides across the discreetly undulating strips of electrical tape. The records are drawings and embody the sonic, visual and performative aspects of drawing. I’m always wonderfully bewildered by the extraordinary inherent sounds, riffs and sequences within these 80 year old records, that I reveal when I play the reappropriated records. It is an intuitive and experimental process, as I don’t know how it is going to sound, but that is all part of the process; putting structures in place to allow chance to occur.
I have around 200 shellac records, ranging from jazz to classical and I’m fascinated by the potential sounds within the record that can be excoriated through playful re-appropriation. The performance embraces the beauty of ephemerality that is intrinsic to Japanese philosophy.
Due to the mechanical nature of the technology, the gramophone has to be wound up in order to maintain the correct tempo. The constant ritualistic maintenance and tactile involvement in playing the records reveals the attention, maintenance and mindfulness that is required. The sound that the gramophone produced, has a surprisingly rich and clear resonance, bespeckled with wonderful dusty grooves.
