Melancholia
Melancholia is a work for projected video, electronics and live contrabass flute. While a work in its own right, it might also be considered as an extension of the audio-visual compositions included in the Orphans series in that it makes use of found materials and recontextualises them in order to create something new. Ultimately, the work is a study in themes of melancholia, incompleteness and impermanence.
Video of a live performance can be viewed below:
Melancholia #2:
The official Melancholia site can be found here.
Heritage
Heritage is a composition that came about as a result of my work on the ongoing Three Cities Project. The project was designed by Suk-Jun Kim, Pete Stollery and myself and was developed to encourage engagement with aural culture in Aberdeen, Bergen and St Petersburg. In each city we gathered a huge collection of audio recordings. Several of these eventually became musical compositions. Heritage is one such example.
The original recording was made with binaural microphones during a visit to St Petersburg’sState Hermitage Museum on Thursday 23rd February 2012. I later applied some manipulations to the recording in order to convey the sense of overwhelming immensity that I encountered on that visit.
Heritage is available to download here.
Listeners are encouraged to play the piece through headphones while walking…
The official Heritage site can be found here.
Memorial
Memorial is a site-specific audio work for headphones which uses ambient recordings from Aberdeen’s Cowdray Hall Memorial Court and archival recordings of war testimonials. For further information and directions to Cowdray Hall and Aberdeen Art Gallery, please click here.
An mp3 version of Memorial can be downloaded below. Listeners are encouraged to transfer the file to their mp3 players and visit the Memorial Court:
The official Memorial site can be accessed here.
Fog
The lifespan of any idea is greatly shortened by its inability to be realised in the physical world – or in the words of Ravel’s neurologist, “To conceive is nothing, to express is all.”[1] Fog attempts to place the listener in the role of the artist – one who is unable to reconcile their art as a result of a breakdown in communication somewhere between head and hand.
Fog, had its debut at Left Bank Contemporary Art Gallery on 13 November 2009, as part of the 2009 SOUND Festival.
The official Fog site can be accessed here.
A Private Space
A Private Space is a web-based sound-art project by Ross Whyte and Shenpen Chokyi. It is designed to allow visitors to ‘journey’ to various imagined locations on a map and experience surreal sonic environments. Each location’s soundscape is specifically designed to be listened to through headphones and juxtaposes binaural recordings of existing environments with composed ambient material. It is concerned with creating a subjective virtual ‘journey’ via an interactive graphic environment.
Reproductions
Reproductions is a work for solo male dancer (Jack Webb) with experimental music and projected film.
Inspired by Magritte’s painting, La reproduction interdite, the performance is an exploration in abstractions of memory and identity.
The official site for Reproductions can be found here.
Three Cities Project
This project involves the contribution, participation and experience from the three centres (Aberdeen, Bergen and St Petersburg) and will take place over a period of months, involving different communities from each country. The project was designed by Pete Stollery, Suk-Jun Kim and Ross Whyte in association with the Sound Festival.
The official site can be found here.
Orphans
[The official Orphans site can be accessed here]
Orphans is a series of short works which incorporate early silent movies, daguerreotype portraits and “orphan” films and re-contextualises them as audio-video intermedia shorts.
