Abstract

Morrad + McArthur - DesignHOP - Beijing Design Week
A two-day workshop on improvisation, sound mapping and performance

Title: ReSounding Beijing

Day One (2-3 hours): This is a presentation (morning or afternoon) on telematic methods of working with sound, including examples from Pauline Oliverous book Deep Listening (2005), that provides examples of a variety of training exercises in listening, recording and playing. Morrad + McArthur will discuss and demonstrate their use of digital online software to create sound non-idiomatic improvised pieces; both live and recorded. The intention is to include invited speakers from artistic practice in sound and moving image.

This session gives particular emphasis on digital appliances in recording and producing sound together with improvisation and ‘liveness’, based on Phillip Auslander’s discussion on digital inclusion Liveness (1999). The workshop also looks at the philosophic ideas of 'time' with Bachelard (the instant) and Bergson (durational) in Time and the Instant (2000). This views the past as a construct based on one’s own understanding, together with engaging with the flow from past to present. The ethos of the event placing these concepts together with Lefebvre's input on the rhythm of cities and how this informs patterns in societies, rhythmanalysis (1992).

The workshop offers participants the opportunity to use simple audio tools to map the urban environment in Dashilar in/through time. To achieve this the participants will engage in fieldwork to record sound on a variety of digital devices.

Day Two (2-3 hours): The second session (evening) realises these found sounds and field recordings in a different modality then, through improvisation by re constituting the time based on a pre-conceived structure. This can be facilitated using methods such as, each participant being allocated a number/colour/word/letter. For example, the 'conductor' calls out one of these cues at a time, and at the point of hearing 'your' number/colour/word/letter you play or trigger your sound/s.

What this achieves is the re-ordering, from a set of conditions, an understanding of an initial idea, for example, 24 hours in a city. By re-ordering this, new understandings emerge together and new languages are formed. This re-visitation asks both the participants and audience to reassess what they are observing, thus we find newness.
Day one:
All meet at the workshop site. Time TBD.
A presentation of methods that use 'sound' as a platform for improvisation; including short talks from various practitioners from China, UK and Australia.
Participants are invited to then go into the city to collect sound/s.
Day two:
All meet at the workshop site. Time to be agreed.
Discuss the sound findings.
Organise the types of sound and the spaces.
Discuss the various methods of improvisation that can be utilised with the content.
Conduct the sound scape.

The participants are ask to supply the following information:
Where is the recording is taken?
What time this is recorded?
How long is this recording?
Why did you choose to record this?

This information will enable a Geo Map to be produced; this will become a part of the final presentation.