late night live art at kraak 2

Ooh look, it's my 750th post here.

Enough backslapping, yesterday was second in the first series of three Late Night Live Art at Kraak events. The line-up of performers was the same but most of the performances were different.

The number of people attending was different too. Last week one person turned up. This week I'm told around twenty people came. This seems to have been because the event was on more lists this time.

Graham Dunning used the larger of the two rooms off the main space for a pair of installation pieces:

The first consisted of a work bench, hammer, and set of 12" vinyl records. The object was simply to smash the records. It proved very popular, and really unleashed some aggression in people. Although in a harmless kind of a way - a bit like the Lightning Bolt gig really. The sound of it was surprisingly loud. And of course now the broken bits of record can be used for another piece of work.

The second was quite a lot more disquieting and people were more wary of it. But at the same time it was funny to use. A microphone was set up in a corner of the room. Next to the mic was a table with a couple of children's books and a set of headphones. You put the headphones on and read from one of the books. Except it wasn't quite that simple. A delay was introduced in the signal meaning you heard your words a fraction of a second late. Enough at least for there to be a noticable gap between you speaking the word and hearing it fed through to you. Readers found themselves slowing down and reading in really exaggerated ways. The experience was like the aftermath of a heavy blow to the head. You felt slow confused and thrown off balance.

What I also found was that the delay was just small enough that you could adjust to it. After the initial confusion you found your brain would for a short period take account of the delay and it was possible to read out loud but delay your expectation of the auditory signal so that it felt normal. But you then became aware of this illusory effect of synchronisation of speaking and hearing and lost track of where you were again.

The installations were recorded and I'd imagine will see the light of day at some point. The readings are especially suited to listening back again. Although perhaps they'd be best placed as accompanying items with a repeat of the same installation. And it is something that's amendable to repetition. Especially as texts that are challenging in a range of different ways could be used.

I was first of the performers on the night. It started by playing out a recording taken in Manchester city centre on cassette at the weekend and looping a section via my pedal. Next I added in one of the considerably less noisy digital recordings taken a couple of weeks ago. This featured various buskers passed on the way through town - notably a violinist at the beginning. This recording was left to play for around six minutes. Various short snippets mainly from microcassette recorder but also from mobile phone were introduced - some of them looped. In both cases a microphone had to be held against the speaker to pick up the sound.

Gradually the sound thickened and got louder. The digital recording was changed and two tracks were allowed to play out that were taken some time ago. One was a recording walking along the canal towards Deansgate Locks, the other walking to my flat along the road. There were some nice wind noises on both and some of that got looped. In the meantime the cassette had stopped and had to be restarted. The microcassette was turned over in order to play some of the conversation audible on that side. The overall sound was quite a dense pulsating roar by now. I attempted to loop in the sound of the handbuilt mic being scraped on the floor but it didn't make a lot of noise.

The microcassette got turned back over to the street sounds without conversation and the digital player changed to a similar recording taken around town. The loops were cut and the volume turned up on the three live inputs - cassette, microcassette held against mic, and digital recording. The microcassette was first to have its volume reduced until it was taken out of the mix. The digital player was returned to the first recording used and its volume was dropped as the violin receded. That only left the slightly distorted and hissy input from the cassette to play on for a little before also being faded out ending the performance. In all I think it took about 25 minutes. It was recorded on my Zoom but I haven't had a chance to listen back yet. The performance seemed to be pretty well received though.

Gary Fisher was next. He'd attached a number of contact mics to a coat. The wires from the mics ran through a loop pedal and mixer to a mini PA. This meant that while the piece was essentially a physical performance Gary was more or less fixed to a relatively small area.

He rubbed and tapped the coat, put items in pockets and took them out again. He stuck gaffer tape to his coat and pulled it off. He used sandpaper against the coat. At times there was a lot of sound punctuated by moments when it dropped right down to the smallest gestures. The physical impression of the performance was, as someone said, like someone fidgeting in a bus queue. Only with hysterically amplified sound. There are huge possibilities for applying this to other situations, other items of clothing, for filming such a performance. Later on Gary also talked about building more into the coat to allow him to manipulate the sound. Which seems to be edging towards Kraftwerk's 1970's claim that soon they would get rid of instruments on stage and just play their lapels.

To close the performance Gary unzipped his coat and he was done. Just over six minutes from memory. Again audio was recorded and some snippets of film along with several photos. I think some of this will be available from the Kraak site at some point. In the way that Graham's installation with the delay on the voice made you appreciate the complexity and fragility of something as everyday and invisible as simply talking - and perhaps gave a tiny insight into the frustrations of seriously disordered speech - Gary's piece made you refocus on the tiny unconsidered sounds of your own clothing and body usually easily ignored.

After a short gap Louise Woodcock reprised her piece from last week with some modifications. Some adjustment was made to the set up of the table and the colours Lou wore to more closely reflect historical representations of the Last Supper. The angle of the camera was changed so that more of the plate was visible on the back projection. A slightly different selection of books were used. A smaller edition of the Bible, a large format girl's illustrated storybook from mid-twentieth century England, and a paperback of Camus' The Outsider [You may also know it as L'Etranger or The Stranger].

Leviticus featured heavily again, with its obssessional fear of women's bodies and emphasis on 'cleanliness' that seems more moralist than physical. The girl's stories tend to concentrate on friendship, duty and how to be 'good'. The Camus I can't comment on having never read it, I don't enjoy his work and have a suspicion of him generally. Again the performance was very well sustained. Given its duration - and the duration is very much an aspect of the piece - the performance element will have been more challenging to carry out than Gary's. From past experience where physical action is involved it can be difficult to sustain your attention and actually execute actions convincingly, or at least avoid movements lacking in energy and interest. But Lou sustained her concentration throughout.

The performance was very well received, and again an audio document made of the performance, although that will be a wholly different piece of work. I'm not sure if any filming was done but I know some photos were taken. It was also a really good reflective piece to finish on having worked through the louder performances including the hands-on fun of Graham's installations.

If you've been thinking about it but haven't come along yet then please come next week, Thursday 17 December. Doors 10-11pm, event to 1am. £2 donation on the door. From memory Graham and Gary will be working together on something, Lou I think is performing, and Helen Shanahan will do a piece. I think Danny Saul should be performing on the night too. I'll be there in the audience barring accidents. More details about the night when they're available. Although next week will be the last in this series the intention is to take a month off, have another three or four nights, take another three or four weeks break, and so on. So if you miss it there will be more events. But on the other hand if you miss it you'll miss something that won't be repeated.

As with last week photos will be uploaded once I manage to get the technology to play ball. However it seems like my new phone (LG Cookie) can't sync with my Mac. Although I could save sounds etc. to a micro SD I have nothing else that will read it. The other options (such as Blogger Mobile) I haven't been able to get working. For instance I can't currently even send a message to Blogger to register with the mobile service. But I'll send the audio recorded to my Zoom to the artists in question once I get the chance, and probably post my set here in the next week.

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