A studio sketch of the proposed installation at Plas Bodfa, Anglesey for Unus Multurum 2020 using collected audio and studio materials.
This is a new video, based on audio material collected on-site at the remarkable Plas Bodfa manor house near Beaumaris, Wales for their 2nd visual arts festival. The piece in its final form was unable to be realised due to the pandemic, but I have now been able to reconstruct it in my Liverpool studio, at a smaller scale.
At its heart is a sound file I recorded of Storm Ciara on the 8th February 2020 during our site visit as artists of the Material Matters collective.
The audio recording is overlaid on video footage in the studio of a 100W industrial fan illuminated in an unearthly pink glow, reminiscent of that distant sky over the Menai Straits.
Like a storm in a teacup – wind and sound were recreated, contained and re-combined, but from two otherwise remote original sources.
For background on the project and further reading on this realisation check out the article from Material Matters.
POSTSCRIPT: in a satisfying circular narrative this work has since been brought back into the spaces for which it was intended. In Dec 2020 artist Julie Upmeyer played the piece live within the upper rooms at Plas Bodfa and so re-introduced the sound of the storm back into the environment in which it was originally captured. A wonderful gesture, akin I thought to releasing a captive animal back into the wild.
>Watch Storm (In-Situ) on the Plas Bodfa website.