I’m delighted to be part of Radio Art Zone’s 100 artists 100-day programme for Esch 2022 European Capital of Culture starting on 18th June. Radio Art Zone is a project by Radio Ara and Mobile Radio as part of Esch 2022. The programme runs until 25th September. My show Dream Stream will be on 22nd August.
Find out more about all the artists and shows at https://radioart.zone/artists
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.
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.
We shared some work-in-progress at the end of the residency in an event that included an informal performance and Q+A chat.
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.
Mobile Radio residency – Glasgow Calling Scale
In collaboration with Radiophrenia and the Goethe Institut Glasgow ‘Mobile Radiophrenia’ is a cultural exchange and radio residency that will result in five new live broadcast works. The artist duo Mobile Radio (Sarah Washington & Knut Aufermann) from Ürzig in Germany have been invited over to work with five Glasgow based artists or artist duos on an intensive daily collaboration that culminates in a live radio performance at 5pm each day. The performances have been devised within the following framework:
Mobile Radio residency – Glasgow Calling Scale live with Nichola Scrutton – 17 February 2022 5:00 pm – 5:30 pm
‘Glasgow Calling Scale: a verbal response series in five parts’
There are five grades starting with the most musical:
Mon 14th Feb – No verbal response
Eothen Stearn, Lady Neptune, Knut Aufermann, Sarah Washington.
Tues 15th Feb – Incomprehensible sounds
Elina Bry, Knut Aufermann, Sarah Washington.
Weds 16th Feb – Inappropriate words
Cindy Islam, Knut Aufermann, Sarah Washington.
Thurs 17th Feb – Confused
Nichola Scrutton, Knut Aufermann, Sarah Washington.
Fri 18th Feb – Oriented
Rebecca Wilcox, Hannah Ellul, Knut Aufermann, Sarah Washington.
Salt Cellar is an experimental radio 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.
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.
I was delighted to be selected for a residency at Q-O2 in Brussels for two weeks May/June 2019. See more info at Q-O2. Part of my priority was to reflect on Night Vision – a new work-in-progress originally developed at Rough Mix Residency with Magnetic North Theatre Company. While I was there I also made some recordings, explored some visual artwork as an extension of the Night Vision text and, and gave an improvised performance with cellist Arnold Noid Haberl as part of a public sharing at the Q-O2 space.
Many thanks indeed to all at Q-O2!
Zoë Strachan and I created Rays & Correlations for a live broadcast from the Radiophrenia studio on 15th May 2019. This is our third collaborative radio artwork. Previous works are In Transit and Static Flux.
Inspired by the patterns of cosmic ray interactions in a cloud chamber, we imagine the myriad signals and attempts at communication that might enter a sphere and intersect, cluster, miss or fade away. Rays & Correlations is a voice-focused improvised performance with layers of interactive soundscape.
The listener is invited to find a thread to hold onto amid interweaving sparse and dense streams of words and evocations – and to decide whether the sound space is literal, as inside a kind of radome, or metaphorical – representing any individual consciousness trying to make sense of human connection.
Night Vision (working title) is a body of work in development.
The starting point was a series of texts captured in the middle of the night lying down in a semi-conscious state over a two-year period (2017-19). This was a new approach for me as a composer.
Many thanks to writer Em Strang – an early reader of a random, unfiltered selection of the texts. Em’s generous response gave me encouragement to trust my instincts in pursuing the work.
Early inquiries focused on investigating the text, making selections and initial thoughts about how to interact with the texts in performance. In 2019, I had the opportunity to explore those seed ideas in a Magnetic North Rough Mix Residency. The work-in-progress was aired in a public performance at Perth Theatre, Scotland.
I am delighted to say that in early 2021 I was awarded Creative Scotland funding to develop the next phase of the project over a six month period. A few threads are now unfolding, including a more substantial ensemble work for performance (which takes the title Night Vision), as well as a solo recording project, drawings/visual compositions, and micro-commissions.
I will link to more information here in the coming months, and I’m posting occasional updates on social media – you can connect there too if it’s of interest, details are on the Contact page…
Zoë Strachan and I performed Static Flux at the Hidden Door Festival in Edinburgh on 29th May 2018.
Hidden Door Festival: hiddendoorblog.org
Our FB page: FB event page
Static Flux is a sonic seance! In this spoken word/sound piece Zoë and I are exploring narrative and time through chance encounters with remnants, fragments and the ephemera of past lives. The performance was originally created for a live studio broadcast for Radiophrenia in 2017.
Hidden Door brings lost Leith venues to life with 2018 line-up
I was delighted to collaborate on the audio form for Kate Briggs written piece Corner Corner Volta Flip, which was part of ‘How Forms Live’ at the Mitchell Library for Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art. The work was set up as a headphone installation in the Poet’s Corner.
Read more about Corner Corner Volta Flip
Exploring the Unknown is a performance collaboration with Vernon & Burns, initially created for this lovely event in Glasgow produced by Sonically Depicting. Many thanks to Ceylan!
Have a listen to some Vernon & Burns on SoundCloud.
Listen out for Sarah Tripp’s Radiophrenia commission online or at 87.9fm. First transmission is at 6pm on 14th Nov 2017 with a repeat broadcast at 6pm on 15th Nov.
“One Hundred Glass Brains Waking Up is a fictional conversation between two people who begin as strangers. Without any prior social bonds they discover they are free to make each other up. This is escapist fiction pared back to two people in a room looking for a way out of social stultification.”
Performed by: Brighton Upton Trust
Composed by: Nichola Scrutton
Static Flux is a radio and performance collaboration with writer Zoë Strachan. The work was initially produced as a live studio broadcast for Radiophrenia in 2017 and then subsequently selected for a live performance at Hidden Door Festival 2018.
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.
Collaboration 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.
Radiophrenia
invited myself and writer Zoë Strachan to collaborate on a Live-to-Air commission. 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.
Selected Performances
2016
5th Sep, Radiophrenia, CCA, Glasgow
Over the summer I’m delighted to be collaborating on a Radiophrenia 2016 commission with writer Zoë Strachan for a Live-to-Air performance.
The temporary radio station will broadcast from 29th August until 11th September 2016. Our live-to-air performance will take place on 5th September at the CCA in Glasgow.
Fine more details about all the commissions and performances at Radiophrenia.
Collaboration with Sarah Tripp on 24 Stops radio artwork
“The work is a sequence of hourly chimes, one for each hour of the day. The chimes combine percussion and spoken word to reflect the character of a given hour and mark the passing of the day.
‘24 Stops’ was written and performed by Sarah Tripp
Composed for radio by Nichola Scrutton.
Percussion was performed by Nichola Scrutton, Fritz Welch and Mark Vernon and recorded by Iain Donnelly.‘24 Stops’ was developed on the inaugural Radio Writing residency at Camden Arts Centre with the support of University College London Hospital Arts.”
24 Stops was written and performed by Sarah Tripp and composed for radio by Nichola Scrutton. Photos © Sarah Tripp
24 Stops was later broadcast on Radiophrenia every hour on the hour for 24 hours in 2016.
I composed electroacoustic music for Simpozeum – a live performance by writer and artist Sarah Tripp.
Sarah created three spoken word/gesture performances: customs, objects, people, as part of ‘(Sim-poze-um)’, a collaborative installation event by four Glasgow-based artists created for Glasgow International Festival of Visual Arts. The performances took place in the Jeffrey Room, Mitchell Library, Glasgow. The music for the performances was projected and diffused through a four-channel speaker system.
