Tag: sound art

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Memory Dream Encounter 2 Micro-Commissions

The Memory Dream Encounter micro-commissions emerged during the development phase of Night Vision in 2021 as part of my research. I invited five composers/sound artists to respond in sound to a visual prompt – each received a variation on a sketch I made during that phase.

As part of this production phase of Night Vision 2022-23, I was delighted to organise another series – with Clara de Asis, Liew Niyomcarn, Ryoko Akama and Go Sing. The visual prompt this time was a photo from film explorations during a residency for Night Vision early in the year. In November 2023, we met to listen to our works and chat.

Many thanks indeed to everyone involved – it was so wonderful to connect and listen together. The pieces are standalone but also a collection that may be aired in the future.

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Reviews – a few Interzone updates

Audio Crackle Non-Music Roundup June 2023

“‘Interzone’ is a mesmerizing and captivating work of experimental sound art. These haunting and beautiful soundscapes of layered vocals and various immersive noises effectively capture the dream-like twilight state that marks the end of the day, and also heralds the coming night…”
https://audiocrackle.blogspot.com/2023/06/non-music-roundup-june-23.html

The Skinny Scottish New Music Round-Up June 2023

“Sound design fans will be well-fed this month. Nichola Scrutton’s Interzone (15 Jun) earns its experimental distinction with innovations in performance and post-production, as well as themes of liminality, or in-betweenness. In-studio, Scrutton performs idiosyncratic vocal techniques, guttural chanting and sharp intakes of breath, which are intermixed with abstract accompaniments, modulating into the notes themselves. Unfamiliar methods of distortion create the sense that this is all a distant dream, or, as Scrutton’s voice becomes more overwhelming and antagonistic, a restless nightmare.” https://www.theskinny.co.uk/music/new-music/scottish-new-music-round-up-june-2023

MUSIC NOW playlist at The Skinny

Delighted Trio from Interzone to has been included on the Music Now: New Scottish Music playlist, 30 Scottish bands and artists. Listen at: MUSIC NOW – Spotify

Late Junction Radio 3

Quartet B was included in Late Junction 9th June 2023
“…Elsewhere in the show, we hear some energetic Cameroonian bikutsi from the late Roger Bekono, experiments on a toy glockenspiel from Australian producer Broken Chip, and vocal reflections on the space between wakefulness and sleep from Glasgow-based composer Nichola Scrutton.” More at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001mdc4

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Interzone Release on Nonclassical

New album Interzone was released on Nonclassical label on 15th June 2023, and is currently available in CD and digital formats.

https://nicholascrutton.bandcamp.com/album/interzone

The Interzone series of tracks on the album were composed with voice, field recordings and archive materials by Nichola Scrutton in her studio, then mixed and mastered by Jim McEwan of Bark Bark Dog Studios. The second second series of voice tracks were recorded live in Solas Sound Studios by Jim McEwan, and then mixed and mastered by Jim at Bark Bark Dog Studios.

Cover art: Nichola Scrutton

Interzone has been supported by the PRS Foundation Open Fund for Music Creators, Creative Scotland and Nonclassical.

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Lying Over Under Another with Zoë Strachan

Lying Over Under Another is a collaborative sound performance with Zoë Strachan.

We were absolutely delighted to have been selected for a Second Life Award by the Edwin Morgan Trust to research, develop and produce the work through 2023. https://edwinmorgantrust.com/2022/10/14/nichola-scrutton-and-zoe-strachan-lying-over-under-another/

Responding to the visual richness of Edwin Morgan’s scrapbooks, held in Archives and Special Collections, we reimagine the scrapbooking and research process through sound and gesture. This improvised performance combines recorded and live sound with spoken word to re-present the diverse materials Morgan collected as bodies (entities) in relation to each other; offering new connections that may be physical, emotional, psychical. Elements of verbal disintegration and moments of absurdity and humour echo Morgan’s own poetic practice and its rootedness in the city of Glasgow.

Supported by the Edwin Morgan Trust through The Second Life Award.

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New Worlds with Martin O’Connor

Image © Nichola Scrutton

New Worlds is a spoken word / sound composition created with writer Martin O’Connor in Autumn 2022. The piece weaves together recordings from Your Voice in Greenock, Inverclyde, Martin’s poems, field and other recordings.

Read more about the project and listen to New Worlds at: http://www.martinoconnor.info/new-worlds.html

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Second Life Award – Edwin Morgan Trust

Lying Over Under Another – a collaboration with Zoë Strachan

Really delighted to have been selected for The Second Life Awards with Zoë Strachan – thank you so much to the  Edwin Morgan Trust for such a fantastic opportunity to develop our collaborative practice and make new work! More info to follow…

Read more about the selected projects at: https://edwinmorgantrust.com/the-second-life-awards-2023/

In case it’s of interest, I also have a Mailing List for occasional news updates – Join Mailing List

@EdMorganTrust
@zoestrachan
@NicholaScrutton

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Dream Stream

Dream Stream – a Radio Art Zone Commission

Dream Stream was commissioned by Radio Art Zone as part of their 100-day programme inviting 100 artists to create 22-hour long radio works for European Capital of Culture at Esch 2022, Luxembourg. https://radioart.zone

Programme Note

Dream Stream weaves together field recordings, voice, fragments of text, visualisations, stories, performance and archive materials in a sonic contemplation of inner / outer landscapes. The sound of water is a thread across the whole duration. From that constantly shifting ‘surface’, various other sound worlds emerge and recede in a transient dream-like encounter.

In case it’s of interest, I have a Mailing List for occasional news updates – Join Mailing List

Many thanks indeed to Sarah, Knut and all at Radio Art Zone.

Artwork © Nichola Scrutton

@RadioArtZone
@Mobile_Radio
@RadioARA
@NicholaScrutton

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Night Vision

2022-23 – Phase 2

I’m thrilled to say that I have been awarded Creative Scotland funding for the Night Vision project over 2022-23.

As part of a general website overhaul, I have temporarily removed background information, credits and plans for Night Vision so I can update all the details.

In the meantime, I’ll be posting news about select performances and a recording, to be released first on Bandcamp in early April and then across all music platforms on 28th April so please do connect / follow for updates. Many thanks.

Many thanks indeed to everyone who has supported Night Vision.

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Test-Pitting with Zoë Strachan

Test-Pitting – a collaborative residency

Zoë Strachan and I had a two-week residency at Glasgow Project Room in April/May 2022.

In our residency we were engaging in a process of ‘test-pitting’ to develop new work around themes of excavation as a means of opening an aperture onto fragile lines of connection between inner and outer landscapes. We shared some work-in-progress at the end of the residency in a public event that included a performance and a Q+A chat.

In archaeology a test-pit is a trial, a delving in to reveal layers, fragments of artefacts, the potential of a site of enquiry. It enables a snapshot of composition and decomposition, of life cycle and decay in the earth. Grids and tracing map the process.

Zoë and I have an ongoing collaboration making sound art works and experimental radio combining newly written and found text, composed sound, field recordings, found sound, voice and improvisation.

@zoestrachan
@NicholaScrutton

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Julius Caesar Company of Wolves

Julius Caesar – Company of Wolves

More information and Scottish tour dates for summer 2022 at Company of Wolves website.

Director – Ewan Downie
Associate Director – Brian Ferguson
Set and Costume Designer – Alisa Kalyanova
Lighting Designer – Benny Goodman
Sound Designer – Nichola Scrutton
Cast – Lawrence Boothman, Esme Baylay, Oat Jenner, Belle Jones, Megan Lovat
Technical Stage Manager – Stephen Cunningham
Wardrobe supervisor and Costume-maker – Catherine Barthram 
Producer – Corinne Salisbury
Production Manager – Elleanor Taylor

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Salt Cellar with Zoë Strachan

Salt Cellar – live-to-broadcast performance – Zoë Strachan and Nichola Scrutton

Salt Cellar – a collaborative radio art work

Zoë Strachan and I first performed Salt Cellar as a live-to-air broadcast on Radiophrenia, 11th February 2022, in the Creative Lab at the CCA Glasgow.

Programme Note

What is a prompt? It’s an inciting, a bringing forth, an augury, an urge, a bringing to light. In this live to broadcast performance, Nichola Scrutton and Zoë Strachan employ a cootie catcher (also known as a salt cellar) to provoke a series of discreet but interlinked improvisations based on texts, photographs and physical objects. Thus they seek to enact an archaeology of embodied memory within the palimpsest of a time-limited performance space.  

Zoë and I collaborate to make sound art/experimental radio combining newly written and found text, composed sound, field recordings, found sound, voice and improvisation.

@zoestrachan
@NicholaScrutton

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Memory Dream Encounter 1 Micro-Commissions

In another strand of research that emerged during Night Vision phase 1 in 2021, I curated a series of micro-commissions.

I responded to the main text through a series of improvised drawings, and photographed fragments of the drawings in process. Those images served as a prompt, a connecting point, a spring board for dialogue.

I invited composers/sound artists Ruth Wiesenfeld, Elisabetta Senesi, Dafna Naphtali, Julia Drouhin and Claire Docherty to create miniature sound compositions in response to the visual prompts and title Memory Dream Encounter. The sound compositions stand alone as individual works and as a collection.

On 31st August 2021 the six composers met in a virtual gathering to listen together, and discuss the creative process. Subsequently I edited the works into a programme that was broadcast on Radiophrenia at 9pm on 13th February 2022.

Many thanks indeed to:

Claire Docherty – Pulse dream fragment For Una MacGlone (bass) & Emma Roche (flute) (3’23)
Dafna Naphtali- Striations (3′)
Elisabetta Senesi – Under the Surface (3’50)
Julia Drouhin – Mer4 (3’50)
Nichola Scrutton – Gestures (3’44)
Ruth Wiesenfeld – the wool from which the ribbons were made (3’54)

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Up Closeness with Zoë Strachan

Up Closeness – a collaborative radio artwork

Zoë Strachan and I continue our exploration of performing live experimental radio artwork. Up Closeness is a dialogue between two green urban spaces, a close look at the local. An attempt to find small connections amid the dislocation from everyday life. Field recordings and voice sounds are combined with found and composed text to animate distinct temporal spaces. Live improvisation and embedded writing practice enact a mimetic re-inhabiting of space.

We first performed Up Closeness as a live broadcast at Radiophrenia Glasgow on 20th November 2020 in CCA Glasgow., in the hour before lockdown. Here’s a clip…

@zoestrachan
@NicholaScrutton

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Co-commission – Outspoken Arts

Love Street – The Musical

Love Street Paisley ExpressMartin O’Connor and I collaborated once again  on a co-commission from Outspoken Arts Scotland. We were invited to develop a proposal for a  new theatre production in Paisley called Love Street – The Musical. We spent two months  out and about visiting organisations and gathering stories from people in Paisley who have memories and connections to Love Street.

Love Street research
Research at Paisley Heritage Centre

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The Mark of the Beast review

***** (The Herald)

Read the review online

Presented by Martin O’Connor and Platform
Written and Performed by Martin O’Connor
With Nichola Scrutton and the North East Recovery Community
Platform, Easterhouse 13th-15th April
The Scottish Storytelling Centre 19th April

Creative Team:
Martin O’Connor – Writer and Performer
Nichola Scrutton – Composition/Sound Design
Fergus Dunnet – Set Design
Hana Allen – Stage Management
Davie Green – Lighting Design
Alan McKendrick – Directing Support
Eoin Carey – Image and Production Photography

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The Mark of the Beast | Martin O’Connor

Mark of the Beast 1

The Mark of the Beast – a collaboration as composer/sound artist with writer/theatre-maker Martin O’Connor that explores lived experience of alcohol and addiction in Glasgow.

Between November 2015 and March 2016, Martin and I worked with the North East Recovery Community to create materials for a sound installation Good Days Bad Days.  I composed a ‘soundtrack’ from the many voices/stories of participant’s experiences that was projected as an immersive installation at Platform Glasgow. The work was commissioned by GEAC Platform-to-Health and GRAND (Getting Real About Alcohol n Drugs).

The installation was research and development for Martin’s live solo show The Mark of the Beast , for which I re-composed the Good Days Bad Days material in 2018.

***** The Herald (Platform Glasgow)
**** The Wee Review (Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh)

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Static Flux with Zoë Strachan

Static Flux – a radio art and performance collaboration

Zoë Strachan and I first produced Static Flux as a live studio broadcast for Radiophrenia in 2017. The work was then selected for a live performance at  Hidden Door Festival  2018.

Programme Note

Static Flux focuses on out-of-time memory states, and how they can be both static and in flux. We are interested in exploring narrative and time through chance encounters with remnants, fragments and the ephemera of past lives. Metaphors for our endeavour include the remnants found in second-hand bags and the pockets of clothing, or in notes scribbled on the back of black and white photographs. There is a melancholy air to these things, but as with any kind of haunting, also the potential for fear, and for deeper connections with our own sense of mortality.

@zoestrachan
@NicholaScrutton

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Building a Nation | Martin O’Connor

Building A Nation eflyerCollaboration as composer/sound designer with writer/theatre-maker Martin O’Connor on his solo show Togail Nàisean/Building a Nation. We toured as part of a double bill with Aisling Oidhche Meadhan Samhraidh/A Midsummer Nights Dream (performed by Daibhidh Walker, directed by Liz Carruthers).

The tour visited venues in  Lewis, North Uist, South Uist, Skye, Isle of Mull, Glasgow, Edinburgh. In 2018 the work had a performance at Tramway, Glasgow. Read more about it at Martin’s website here.

 

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Sura Medura Exhibition

Sura Medura Exhibition

A Sura Medura exhibition is running from 21st April to 19th May 2017 at The Briggait in Glasgow. The exhibition includes a range of work by artists who have been artist-in-residence at Sura Medura in Sri Lanka.

Wave Shift, a new work made in collaboration with artist and illustrator Natasha Russell, is premiered as part of the Sura Medura exhibition. Read more about Wave Shift

 

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Wave Shift | Natasha Russell

Wave ShiftWave Shift was originally an experimental audiovisual collaboration with artist and illustrator Natasha Russell in response to the ideas and situations we encountered on the UZ Arts Sura Medura Residency in Sri Lanka. Natasha and I were in residence from October – December 2016, along with Sumit Sarkar and other visiting artists. Following the installation I re-worked Wave Shift into a stand alone composition.

During our post-residency collaboration, Natasha and I were interested in the way an understanding of the experience of a place shifts over time, between people, even at the drop of a hat. We decided to weave decaying memories, slippery facts and shifting folklores through sound and print to form a portable set that melts place and atmosphere into an imaginary landscape.

Wave Shift At The BriggaitIntegrating with the structure and printed visual landscape with the set, my Wave Shift audio was projected into the space as an immersive, abstract, evocative soundscape. Source materials for the work included a selection of field recordings captured during the residency and vocal sound recordings. Both the main thread of sound that underpinned the work, composed with a series of hydrophonerecordings, and the form, which unfolds as a series of wave-like emergences, draw on myriad notions of water as a bridge between real and fictional landscapes.

The installation was exhibited in 2017 at Sura Medura Exhibition, The Briggait, Glasgow and then Summerhall, Edinburgh

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Sabda saha Pintura

Fishing boat Dodanduwa

Sabda saha Pintura is a sound collage composed on site during the six-week Sura Medura residency with UZ Arts in Sri Lanka using a selection of field recordings captured early in the residency. Repetition and fast cut edits try at the same time to capture something of the sensory experience on arrival in Hikkaduwa and reveal detail in a dense sound world. Sabda saha Pintura had its first airing as a headphone installation at Moving Out for the Colombo Art Biennale in November 2016.

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Creative Collective, Platform

Photo by Katy Dye
Stories of Easterhouse (photo: Katy Dye)

Stories of Easterhouse

As part of Made in Easterhouse at Platform Glasgow, I worked on the final stages of Stories of Easterhouse with the Creative Collective and Platform Associate Artist Katy Dye.

I recorded the stories, generated atmospheric backdrops through a creative sound workshop and composed the audio pieces for the final installation.

The map/sound installation is running through October/November 2016.

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Good Days Bad Days Excerpt

Good Days Bad Days was a 5-month research and development collaborative project with writer Martin O’Connor , Glasgow’s North East Recovery Community commissioned by Platform-to-Health and GRAND (Getting Real About Alchohol N Drugs). Participants were engaged in conversations focused on remembering their first and last alcoholic drink, to open up bigger discussions of childhood and family life, living conditions and wider society in Glasgow, and the impact of addiction and recovery on individuals and communities.

These conversations formed the basis of a composed, immersive sound installation, originally staged at Platform Glasgow, and then as a headphone installation at Outskirts Festival in 2016.

Subsequently, I re-designed that material as interactive sound track for Martin’s solo performance Mark of the Beast in 2018 ( “An exceptional piece of work” ***** The Herald ).

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BBC Radio 3 Exposure

Exposure GigI was delighted to be performing solo on the first programme of a new BBC Radio 3 series – Exposure. The programme ‘explores the local alternative and underground music scenes’.

The live event is on 23rd September 2016 in Glasgow at the Glad Cafe. The programme will be broadcast on 29th September at 11 pm and available online for a month.

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In Transit with Zoë Strachan

In Transit – a collaborative live-to-air broadcast

Radiophrenia commissioned me and writer Zoë Strachan to collaborate on a Live-to-Air commission. We performed live from the Radiophrenia studio on 5th September 2016 at CCA Glasgow.

Programme Note

In our collaboration we explored the state of being In Transit and how it disrupts the interior monologues of two people on separate but overlapping journeys of a slightly mysterious kind.

Radiophrenia is a temporary art radio station broadcasting from the CCA in Glasgow. In 2016 it produced a two-week exploration into current trends in sound and transmission arts.

@zoestrachan
@NicholaScrutton

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Sura Medura Residency

uzarts logo sura medura residency

I was thrilled to be selected for a six-week Sura Medura residency with UZ Arts  from October to December 2016. The Sura Medura residency on this occasion was being hosted in Hikkaduwa, Sri Lanka. My fellow artists were Natasha Russell and Sumit Sarkar, and two other artists arrived later in the residency – Martin Janicek and Samson Ogiamien. Early experience after arrival was a whirlwind of sensations and there was definitely a process of settling into Sunbeach and adjusting – heat, humidity, sounds, smells, surf, swimming, dogs, jungle, mozzies, food, walks, and meeting many warm friendly folk along the way sharing experiences, tips and ideas.

Sura Medura, Storm Brewing

Presentations

As part of the residency we travelled to Colombo and gave presentations to staff and students in the University Faculty of Visual and Performing Arts in week 3. That was a really good day – as well as meeting people, we were fortunate to be shown round all the art departments then had lunch before travelling back.

Sura Medura, Train Nichola ScruttonTrain TimetableFaculty Of Visual And Performing Arts Colombo UniversityFaculty Of Visual And Performing Arts Colombo University2

Thinking about soundscapes

The sound environment is generally very dense and I spent quite a bit of time actively listening and drawing.The area has two main aspect – beach and jungle – and each has its own distinct soundscape. On the beach side the sea roars continuously as the surf thunders in and on the jungle side the air is thick with heat, bird song, massive trees rustling and people going about their daily lives.  A railway line runs between the two through much of the area and regular trains, horns and bells punctuate the air. In the mix are a whole rich array of sounds – the hollering voices of people selling at markets and on the street, the honking and revving of huge buses overtaking other vehicles at breakneck speed (treacherous), thunderstorms and torrential rain, intermittent firework eruptions, the bread, fish and other vans making melodic announcements and so on. I created two soundscape pieces – Sabda saha Pintura and Wave Shift.

Sura Medura, Fish Market

Sura Medura, Lightening Storm

Sura Medura, Jungle

 

 

 

 

 

In week five  we hosted a Moving Out public event at Sunbeach as part of the Colombo Art Biennale, which was a big success. And actually it was on my birthday so an extra cake was involved at the end of the night. Read a bit more info on that at Moving Out. Finally, we had a trip up to Colombo for the opening of the Biennale. I also had been invited to perform/score a film clip at the opening as part of Video Jam. More info on that at Video Jam…

Huge thanks to Neil and all at UZ Arts, Chaminda, Chathura, Hasantha, Kari and all at Sunbeach, Maria and Jack, my fellow artists-in-residence, everyone I met.

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Curator – WebSYNradio

websynradio

Glasgow Soundscapes: Place, Space and Memory

I am delighted to have been invited by Dominique Balaÿ to curate a programme for broadcast on WebSYNradio from 16th – 30th June 2016.  Alongside a selection of my own works are compositions by Alistair MacDonald, Bethan Parkes, Luca Nasciuti and Mark Vernon – big thanks to them for contributing.

Read more and listen at synradio.fr.

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At First Light

At First Light listener
At First Light listener – WISWOS, LICA

At First Light  is a studio composition (8’49). Arising from an ongoing strand of exploration around ideas of ‘ephemeral’,  At First Light is a vocal meditation  inspired by the play of light at sunrise and a notion that each moment may be filled with the past, present and future. The process of making the piece involved repeated exploration of the material ideas using a simple MAXMSP patch, with the final work being created in a single real-time improvisation. While a version of the piece was ultimately fixed to become At First Light, inherent in the process and the material is an idea of transient evolution – emergence, cycle and decay.

The piece was selected for:

‘Women in Sound/Women on Sound‘ Symposium at Lancaster Institute for Contemporary Arts (LICA) (2015)
New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival Concert 35 (NYCEMF) (2016)
‘Tomorrow, Today will be Yesterday‘ group installation at CAAA, Guimaraes, Portugal, ELO, Victoria BC, Canada, and LCGA, Limerick, Ireland as part of the Screen Dance Festival.