Tag: sound art

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Hold Your Breath

Hold Your Breath 5Hold Your Breath was a large-scale visual/sound art project set up to improve the entrances/exits to the Clyde Tunnel, with the participation of the Whiteinch and Linthouse communities at each end of the tunnel.

I composed the various contributions of source sound and music into one large 40-minute work, which was to be projected by radio into the cars traveling through the Clyde Tunnel.


 

 

 

 

Various groups were involved in creating sound/music source materials for the soundscape: Paragon Ensemble working with St Jerome’s and Whiteinch Primary Schools; Art Form with Bryan Tolland; Tigerstyle and Dhol Infusion drummers; and the MacAlpine Family all contributed. I worked with Paragon Ensemble in the schools, gathering up sounds/songs from the children, the playground and surrounding streets, and recorded songs at the MacAlpine’s (four generation) family party

(photos courtesy of Kathy Friend)

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Sustenance


Sustenance is a studio composition (14’37) that explores human interaction with objects and processes that make up our daily existence. The sound materials progress through sections, each defined by a specific sonic/material character drawn from the objects and processes used in cooking. At a higher level of structure, the work traces a general transformation from dry to wet, reflecting decay. Selected for various international broadcasts, SONUS online listening library and for NAISA Deep Wireless 7CD, produced in Toronto, Canada.

 

 

 

 

 

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GLEAM concert University of Glasgow

I am delighted to have organised the first GLEAM electroacoustic concert in the University of Glasgow Concert Hall. A call for works drew of 60 submissions. The event includes fixed medium works by:

Christian Banasik, Géraud Bec, Iain Campbell, Timothy Cooper, Jonas Foerster, Annelie Nederberg, Felipe Otondo, Dale Perkins, Calum Scott, Pei-Yu Shi, Graeme Truslove, Matt Walch.

Date and time: Saturday 20th March 2010 at 6 pm.

Free entry.

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The Dwelling Series

The Dwelling Series - Nichola Scrutton

The Dwelling Series (2010) is a triptych of vocal works. Multiple concepts arising from the notion of the title Dwelling gave rise to an interactive process of improvising and recording with MAXMSP, through which I sought to explore a sense of ‘inhabiting’ the work. As inspiration for generating improvised material under this complex umbrella concept of ‘dwelling’ I used three general metaphors to articulate events or states: dust (nature), cycle (flow/journey) and echo (memory).

The compositional process consisted of creating successive  vocal improvisations, which were merged together, fully intact, after each improvisation was captured. Manipulation of the captured improvisations was strictly limited to the editing of gestures and textures in time and space to enhance or magnify relationships/conflicts that emerged by chance as each layer was added.

(i) Dwelling/In Dialogue: studio composition (17′). Listen

(ii) Dwelling/Encounters: pre-composed sound and live performance, in which two live performers merged and improvised with a pre-composed soundtrack projected through multiple loud speakers.  Swiss vocalist Céline Hänni and I undertook a short intensive residency to explore extended technique vocal improvisation that culminated in the final performance. (12’30). Listen

(iii) Dwelling/In Reflection: live interactive solo performance (18′). Listen

 

 

 

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Academic Awards

Academic Awards and Qualifications

PhD in Electroacoustic Composition – portfolio ‘Hearing Voices’  – University of Glasgow (graduation Nov 2009)
Funded by an Arts and Humanities Research Council Award – selected from open competition (2005 – 08)

MMus in Composition – University of Glasgow (2004 – 05)
Supported by a Bellahouston Scholarship and a Broomhill Scholarship 

BMus (Hons) First Class –University of Glasgow (2004)
The Goudie Prize ‘Most Distinguished BMus Hons Graduate’.

 

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Hooks + Bites | Glow Co-Create

Sound artist and facilitator in the creative team of Plan B Collective, who were awarded £30,000 for a Glow Co-Create project  Hooks + Bites for the Curriculum for Excellence (2010-2011). The project worked in partnership with Perth Concert Hall, Perth and Kinross Council, Learning and Teaching Scotland and Creative Scotland. Hooks + Bites was one of ten education projects across Scotland commissioned to take artists into schools to work with pupils to generate creative content for the national schools intranet, Glow.  

The Hooks + Bites project culminated in an exhibition in Perth Concert Hall’s unique media art space Threshold and included a digital audio-visual artwork on its soundbox, bank of screens and sound/audio unit in the public toilets. Plan B Collective was later selected to present a seminar on the ‘Hooks + Bites’ project at the 2010 Scottish Learning Festival.

Creative Team: Fiona Fleming, Nichola Scrutton, Erin Scrutton and Barbara Chalmers.

Watch a film about Hooks + Bites

 

More on Glow Co-Create

The Co-Create project has been set up through a partnership between the Scottish Arts Council (Creative Scotland) and Learning and Teaching Scotland.  GLOW Co-Create recognises the important role the arts can play in learning, in supporting and enhancing the Curriculum for Excellence, and in developing innovative new approaches to learning and teaching through Glow.

Managed by Learning and Teaching Scotland on behalf of the Scottish Government, Glow is the world’s first national intranet for education.  It provides a platform for online collaboration and sharing and allows Scotland’s 54,000 teachers and 750,000 pupils to work and learn in ways that have not been possible before.  Glow is breaking down barriers and making learning experiences and opportunities more widely accessible to users across Scotland. Also read more at TES news.

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Move Mood | Sarah Tripp

I composed electroacoustic music for Move Mood, an observational documentary film by writer and artist Sarah Tripp. Screenings at X-Ray at the Persevence, London, Diversions Film Festival, Edinburgh Filmhouse, Artists Film & Video at the BBC Glasgow (in association with the National Gallery of Modern Art and the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art). Here’s an excerpt from the film.

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Breathing Space

Breathing Space (7’56) is an early studio composition that uses the human voice as the only sound source.  As the title suggests, the driving force of the work is the breath and its potential to evoke different sensations of space.  Breathing Space continually overlaps the border between the literal and metaphorical, and the ambiguous relationship between ‘natural’ and processed sounds.  The form proceeds as a relatively free exploration of these multiple vocal possibilities but comes to pivot on a transformation from intense saturation to extreme reduction. The work was selected for a range of international broadcasts on experimental radio.