ETCETERA

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“ETCETERA” lifts a corner on the memory of a house, using text and video to create a space of things remembered, not by us, but by the walls and rooms, so we watch as the lavish contents of the house pass through the curtains, their descriptions floating on a dark surface, illuminated by the window beyond. Using the 1897 Auction catalogue as raw material, the focus of the work is on the house’s lavish “aesthetic and artistic” furnishings, described in the catalogue’s introduction as “Superb and costly high-art furniture of the most beautiful description ….”. The house today seems filled with mystery, and some of that is slowly being unravelled as more and more of the interiors are being revealed. This is what is most compelling, the slow, fastidious process of history being discovered and retold.

Processing & original concept by Solange Kershaw
Soundtrack & video by Damian Castaldi
More info at: http://reverievillaalba.tumblr.com/

On Message (a work in progress)

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On Message is a data visualisation work (currently in progress) that looks at political language in Australia.  It has an audio component, and is animated: as the speech is being played / heard, words move around the screen, coming forward and therefore growing bigger as their frequency throughout the speech increases.

The illustrations here are snapshots of the Clean Energy Bill 2011 Second Reading speeches by Abbott (above) and Gillard (below) respectively.

More to come as this works develops!

Tambourine Bay

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Tambourine Bay is a mixed media audiovisual performance. A solo musician manipulates augmented (hyper) instruments, keyboard and percussions, discharging explosive electrical sounds through a sensor interface to build a live soundtrack to a 22 minute video projection. The performance is scored for sensor and wired interface, large floor tom, 20” pang cymbal, electronic snare & bass drum, tambourine, cello bow and software synths. The performance is in an electro-acoustic style, building on the relationship between environmental sounds, dynamic rhythm, software synths and recorded voice.

The performance looks at and predicts the effects of wild weather on an affluent inner city suburb of Sydney and across the east and west coast of the country over the Australia day long weekend in January 2012. The video footage processed for the performance is real-life and was recorded on HD video from early to late January. It has been processed in Final Cut Pro to alter its duration and hue only. The footage is in 3 parts representing a transition or shift in the weather pattern over a 12 day period from evening thunder to late morning drizzle and afternoon sunshine.

Over the duration of the performance the audience will watch and listen to the systematic pounding of the Tambourine Bay Reserve, situated on the Lane Cove river, as it is severely struck by lighting and thunder. The video then transitions from late evening into an overcast midday with a forecast of further showers, storms and bush fires. The final scene is late afternoon interspersed with sunshine and heavy cloud cover and again with further predictions of dangerous weather.

The red saturation of the video illustrates and heightens the unusual patterns in our atmosphere and is a dramatic indication of the possible deterioration of our environment. As such the work is intended to provoke a disturbing reaction of potential dread at the ongoing shift in our local weather patterns and what this might indicate in terms of broader climate change issues.

The performance soundtrack will include a 10 minute recorded oral history narrated by an aboriginal elder, one of the oldest inhabitants of this Sydney location from the Cammeraygal group of the Kuringgai Aboriginal tribe. Prior to the arrival of the First Fleet this group inhabited the area in which Lane Cove is situated. They lived on the north shore of Port Jackson and were one of the largest groups in the Sydney area. The narrative is intended as a snapshot of the history of the Tambourine Bay Reserve and tells of the changes that have occurred in the environment over our lifetime.

Balance Unbalance Conference Paper

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An audio extract of the paper Damian gave in November 2011 at the Balance Unbalance conference at Concordia University, Montréal.

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The full Program is available at: http://balance-unbalance2011.hexagram.ca/?page_id=229

Session #2 – Changing environments Abstracts and Bios are here:
http://balance-unbalance2011.hexagram.ca/?page_id=304

Read about this Project: http://wildweather.net.au/

Travel if You Can

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Electrofringe 2011 – a performance with projected animation, audio & video interviews, live acoustic and electronic music and sound design.

TiYC is a satirical look at Australia’s international role as a migration nation. The performance animation looks back at the history of the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship’s Risk Factor List or RFL, first implemented in June 1991 through to it’s latest update in June 2008. In this context the performance presented three stories told by individuals who have migrated to Australia from Bosnia, Afghanistan and the East Congo democratic republic and the conditions under which they did so. The animation and stories were interspersed with acoustic and electronic musical performance, providing a live soundtrack to the on screen narrative.

Performance dates: 6pm, Friday 30th September & 7pm Saturday 1st October
Venue: Black Box Theatre, Newcastle Community Arts Centre, 246 Parry Street, Newcastle. Contact: ncac@ncac.org.au for more information, or call on (02) 4961 1696

TiYC animation introduction

Video of the Electrofringe festival 2011 performance media projected on stage at the Black Box Theatre, Newcastle Community Arts Centre. The videos include an introduction and a 2 part interview with Merima Pavlovic.
Performance Credits: Interviewees: Merima Pavlovic, Kwabo Batende & anonymous Afghani refugee. Vocals, percussions, sensor interface: Damian Castaldi. Guitars, electronics & sound design: Graeme Rhodes. Theme music: Co-written by Solange Kershaw (sodacake). Sound Engineer: Solange Kershaw. Rap vocal: 6 Pound

The full Electrofringe 2011 Program is online at: http://electrofringe.net/2011/program/

Performance media online at http://tiyc.com.au

Wild Weather

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A prototype for the installation of a networked public sound sculpture planned for the NSW, Newcastle CBD in mid to late 2012. The project is supported by the Newcastle City Centre Committee who, along with the organisation LiveSites, are seeking to install a range of projects over the coming year and are actively exploring strategies for interactive and innovative art projects in the public domain. More information is available at: http://wildweather.net.au/

The Memory Pendulums

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The Memory Pendulums was installed in May 2010 as part of the MEMORY FLOWS group exhibition at the Armory Gallery, Newington Armory, Sydney Olympic Park and is a project of the Centre for Media Arts Innovation, UTS. With special thanks to the Curators  Sophia Kouyoumdjian, Norie Neumark and Deborah Turnbull.

Further exhibition details are available from the CMAI website: http://www.communication.uts.edu.au/centres/cmai/projects/index.html

A motion sensitive sound Installation affected by contact and gravity, the Memory Pendulums modulate the spoken measure of a poem, written for the artwork by the Australian poet Jill Jones.

Her words flow randomly in time with the playful swinging back and forth of three diamond shaped acrylic water pendulums. Each one filled to a different capacity with a toxic blue liquid, triggering a different memory, dripping into (and polluting) the muddy waters of the Parramatta River …..

Exhibition Dates / Every weekend from 15 May 2010 to 20 June 2010

Listen to the poem in three parts:

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< Water as memory >

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< Sources >

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< Dry and wet >

Memory is referenced in two ways within the work. Through the use of 3 liquid filled pendulums which, like controlling the mechanism of a clock, control the listening of a poem over time. If the pendulums swing uninterrupted for approximately 90 seconds the listener will hear the entire poem, which in three parts takes all three pendulums to swing. The listener’s memory must be engaged in the experience or appreciation of the poem as it is more than likely with all three pendulums swinging the three parts will be heard simultaneously. Memory is also referenced literally throughout the poem, particularly the third part titled “River as memory”.

River as memory, by Jill Jones

where waters come from
clean as that mysterious rain
you never see
a source in the rock
from sea
cloud
sea

cycling planetary urges
the shiver of ancient degrees

death moves in circles
drinks at the ground
great birds
drift
in the flow’s shadow

making channels
and ridges
in our mud memory

memoryflows_invite

Play 109 @ Loop Space

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Play 109 is an interactive sound, video and graffiti installation by Damian Castaldi & Solange Kershaw  in collaboration with the artist/programmer Neil Jenkins and Jake Lewis of the Amerg Collective. See the Loop Space website for more details.

play109_opening

Watch a video of the opening night as part of the Renew Newcastle first Friday of the month events in the Newcastle mall on the 4th of December 2009.

Play 109 the second in a series of interactive sound installations sodacake are installing in 2009/2010. The first, Play 44 was installed in Melbourne in October 2009 at the historic house, Villa Alba in Kew. Each installation transforms a different location (shopfront, historic house, gallery, mall etc …) into a musical instrument, which people can then engage with and play. The instrument changes uniquely in relation to the location and its surroundings and takes the number of the street address for the title of the work, (as in 109 Hunter St Newcastle and 44 Walmer St Kew).
An underlying influence in this series of sound installations comes from the late 1940′s and 1950′s movement known as Musique Concrète, in that its pioneer Pierre Schaeffer, “emphasized the importance of play (in his terms, jeu) in the creation of music. Schaeffer’s idea of jeu comes from the French verb jouer, which carries the same double meaning as the English verb play: ‘to enjoy oneself by interacting with one’s surroundings’, as well as ‘to operate a musical instrument’.” This notion is the core of Musique Concrète and the underlying influence to Play 109.