Pragmatism And Plantagrams August 2024

There are so many things to do! Stopped fretting about not making stuff and just done what I could which has been a series of Plantagrams, posted on Instagram, where a photo a day observes the patch of land near the River Soar in Leicestershire. The plan is to post all the plants that are there. These have been increasing now that the huge nettle, dock and thistle plantation has been reduced this allowing some light and other species to flourish.

Plantagram No.1

Plantagram No.2

Plantagram No. 3

Plantagram No. 4

Plantagram No. 5

Plantagram No. 6

Plantagram No. 7

The exhibition, See Hear, is up and running. The artist talk is tomorrow and still needs writing and although I am not going to read it, I need to have some pointers in my head. There is a two day workshop next week where I am doing an experimental sound day followed by Ashley Morris’ film day. I have been trying to fit in exhibition visits and other informative events such as three great days at In the Field conference with Crisap and have follow-ups to do. Also Sonic Sculptures at Near Now, Broadway, Nottingham where sound artists were able to present their work for critique. This was the last in a series of events run by nojobsinthearts in conjunction with Near Now. So, lots of new knowledge and new friends who I am enjoying following their navigations through the complex artist channels. In Osnabrück, I was delighted to work with Margit Rusert (https://margit-rusert.de and https://skulptur-galerie.de/artistaustausch/) and hope we will have a future fruitful artist collaboration.

Building Bridges June 2024

I continue to pursue my aims of the Quiet Residency which I hope will become a way of life. Slipping these ideals into Building Bridges, a residency that I currently doing with Artcore Gallery in Derby and Osnabrück, Germany is a little more challenging. Deadlines create their own agenda and having only two weeks to gather work for an exhibition in July that also links with Derby takes time especially with a request to present new work at the open studios this Saturday. Of course, I am really happy to do it and I am nearly ready. I am enjoying the challenge! Luckily, I have done enough residencies to have a routine to get me started and I have been slow running every morning except today ( I stayed up very late to edit the sound tracks for the weekend and then couldn’t sleep) which also contributes to an essay I am writing for RAN publication later this year. I documented my journey here by train by drawing and recording and later added text which is the basis for the work on Saturday. I have collected water samples and am testing them - all things I usually do. Now, I am having some time off (for good behaviour) this morning and tomorrow afternoon when I am meeting a friend from the FKL sound conferences.

A quiet residency.. continued

I am observing and listening as my first steps. Looking outside the space that I live by, there are so many changes. The docks have all been eaten by tiny beetles like oil drops, the nettles are growing strongly and the bracket fungi are doing well. The reeds and reed mace are now a few feet high. Since cutting down a lot of the docks, nettles and thistles, whilst still leaving several dense patches of them, there has been an increase in flowers and other wild plants. This state of observation, noticing, paying attention, has been part of my art practice for a very long time, particularly in relation to my sound practice. The states of listening and hearing are a constant see-saw of noticing and not-noticing. Putting this into practice in this tiny space where the bird sound is a constant, it only becomes noticeable when something different happens.

The idea of the quiet residency has become a gentle meander through ideas, thoughts and small interventions. However, I have been offered a residency and exhibition in Derby and Osnabrück and want to continue with these ideas but also need to produce work for the exhibition. The ‘gathering’ stage of the residency in Germany will begin with my known ways of working, slow running and recording sound, water collecting and testing and drawing along the journey which will be done by train. From there, it is a wonderful unknown.

A Quiet Residency - trying to find a new approach

I have been thinking a lot and this text How can I make art…with all this going on? sums everything up. Understanding the how’s and why’s and, even, the what’s of the way that one makes work sometimes gets really muddled.  But now, I am beginning to see a way through. There is still the awful, heavy weight of world woes, mostly of our own making, but I am getting a perspective.

Detail of A1 mind map - in progress

Creating mind maps always works for me. This one is A1 and gives me lots of opportunity to fill in spaces as I go along. The answer that I have come up with is to create a self-directed, mainly home-based residency, The Quiet Residency. Developing a fluid plan –

1.        It includes the fact that I am only 6 months into my plan to not make new work for a year. This was part of a way to not add things to the world, to use what I have and develop work that is already in the world in some state or other.

2.        To think of my creativity as inclusive of music, writing etc. not limit my output. To have thinking as a major activity.

3.        To try and do 12 projects, one a month.

4.        Slowly, quietly,

5.        To begin yesterday (that sounds relevant In an odd way) by kicking off with a live recording for Reveil of early morning sounds for their broadcast. So the residency (not sure it should be called that) began at 04.44 precisely on Sunday May 5th, 2024.

Sunday May 5th 2024

Today is the day for the live broadcast for www.soundtent.org and their Reveil project timed to coincide with International Dawn Chorus day. Reveil is a 24hour series of early morning sounds that begin in the UK and travel westwards before returning to the UK.  It will be archived at www.soundtent.org/reveil.  Not wanting to be the one who messed up, I set the alarm for 3.45am and after coffee, went outside and set up the equipment. Perching on the jetty by the side of the boat, my home, I fumbled in the dark trying to locate the slot for the lead, desperately trying not to drop anything in the river. I put the Zoom on a tripod so it wouldn’t pick up any sounds from the jetty itself which is wooden and creaks a lot. This also meant I couldn’t fidget which I do a lot. Using the XY mic form the Zoom and a parabolic dish in input 1 with its own mic, I streamed it through my Android phone. Timed to begin somewhere between 04.44 and 05.23, I sat and watched the light creep in. At one point, a tiny white feather floated down from the tree above and into the river. Around 5am, there was much more bird movement but also traffic and planes.

The time before sunrise is called civil twilight, when the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon. Before this, there is astronomical twilight followed by nautical twilight. This is all new to me and researched it on timeanddate.com, a really informative website.

Monday May 6th, 2024

Further listening to bird sounds sent to me by Louisa Chase, a lovely and fantastic artist working with the natural environment. She recorded nightingales at Knowlands Wood near Barcombe, East Sussex as part of her Arts Council funding. The patch of ground near my boat is covered in docks, thistles and nettles, which while they have merits in themselves, are not very good for walking around barefoot. My solution is to keep cutting them down until they get tired and give up whilst leaving some areas untouched. I have also planted some marsh marigolds, hemp agrimony and yellow flag near the water mint to try and encourage a natural environment.  There were quite a few small round beetles that looked like a drop of oil, not sure of their name maybe mint beetles although I think they are mostly found in the south of England. Very eye-catching though.

The next few days I will be working so will have to store up my thoughts but hope to keep on working on this drawing which began as an illustration of art practice, its one continuous line that winds, twists, flows and is rarely linear.

In Progress, and might be for some time

THINKING SPACE APRIL 11TH, 2024

It was so busy last year, I realise that, after clearing out so much artwork, the spring cleaning, I now need some space just to think. I have filled yet another notebook with thoughts and ideas, some of which are proving useful. There are a couple of things which I really want to progress with and have been writing proposals for but, otherwise, I feel that this time of mental nomadism is really worthwhile.

Spring Cleaning February 29th, 2024

Clearing out old blog sites, working through all that stuff on the computer that is slowing things down and is very obviously no longer needed, throwing out old artwork and drawings that I am paying to store, labelling all my sound recordings correctly, downloading from my phone, numerous SD cards and maybe, even, reducing the 80 odd identical black journals. (Not sure about this last one!)

Then I hope to re-energise my whole practice. It is bogged down. And bogged is the word for my current very watery situation. Just spent a week in Normandy meeting the artists from last year's collaboration and it rained every day except coming home day. It was a week for growing thoughts rather than producing work although I did a little bit of sound recording.

Having ended Hatchery Artists last year, I still have to sort through certain things. It was great while it lasted but now I want to concentrate on my own practice. I decided on October 11th, 2023 that I would make no new work for a year but develop things I had already 'finished'. Prompted, of course, by my throwing out sessions, it has been a good evaluation.

Looking forward when now I have finished looking back, I am applying for residencies and exhibitions with the new approach.

January 17th, 2024

Time for an evaluation, a review of the past couple of years rather than blindly going forward. 2022 was the year I took time out from the everyday to embark on a narrowboat journey as a self-directed residency. Although cut short for a family emergency, it yielded so many ideas. 2023 was the year of residencies, firstly Lode, a solo project, followed by Traversée, both at Broadway Gallery, Nottingham where the support of Near Now was crucial. The Traversée residencies were a collaboration with Hatchery Artists and Le Labo des Arts, Caen, France - Le Labo provided much support. Traversée2 took place in Caen with an exhibition at Saint Nicolas and Traversée3 followed again in Nottingham at Broadway Gallery. The cultural exchange enriched horizons in many ways and I am hoping for more exchanges.

April 7th, 2023

Lode residency

The Lab!

In progress

March 12th, 2023

Lode

Watery Ways/Bleak Place - February 27th, 2023

A lot of thinking has been done over the past year and now I am lucky enough to be able to develop this work in the Broadway Gallery, Nottingham thanks to the kind support of the Near Now studio. This will take place form April 1st to April 16th, 2023. My plan is to take all my material there and see it all in one place. It is currently boxed up. The priority is water and pollution - the Watery Ways part of the residency - but The Forgotten is the culmination of Bleak Place. Whilst it will only be open on application, I am planning two open days with one having a focus on water from a wide variety of viewpoints with invited guests.

Watery Ways/Bleak Place

This was my summer, self-directed residency for which I used a Wordpress blog site. https://chriswright.wordpress.com/2022/05/07/watery-ways-bleak-place/

Images can also be seen in the gallery here.

On May 7th, 2022, I wrote

‘This is a self-directed and unfunded residency. My intention is to spend three months on England’s waterways, travelling by narrowboat. It will be a testing space that will inform the development of new work through expanded use of materials with a focus on the waterways environs. Embodied within the potential new ways of working are ideas of sustainability, care of self (well-being) & care of the environment. 

I began travelling on April 20th, 2022 and headed south on the River Soar and am now on the Grand Union Canal at Cosgrove. Why wait until now to write? The title of this residency includes the words Bleak Place and it is this bleak place that has prevented me from doing much more than keeping a diary and taking pictures. The world is in turmoil and I have been bowed down by it. Yesterday, I walking in the water meadows in search of the Rive Tove. I heard my first cuckoo of the year and began to have a little hope. So whilst I cannot forget everything that is happening, I acknowledge it all and will try to find ways to exist alongside it.’

It is now January, the residency was cut short after 6 weeks due to unavoidable family illness, but I have an enormous amount of work to develop even in that short time. I am now beginning to process that work.

Art Etc. No. 30 Jan 2022

Starting the New Year with a Hatchery Artist challenge. 31 pieces of work in 31 days. For me, it is a chance to play with materials and process and gather ideas together for the future. Hatchery Artists, now unfunded but I will apply again later in the year, have gathered two new artists for the challenge so we are now 10, that is 310 new works. These can be seen in the blog at www.hatcheryartists.com

I am also posting on Instagram to try and improve our profile and it is quite a challenge as I don’ t use it much but I understand that I need to engage with social media more. I draw the line at facebook, sorry, meta, though. It has been quite a learning year with all the Hatchery professional development but I have done quite a few courses, the best being the VR day with Kerryn Wise from my NearNow studio. The next course is on Instagram reels in a couple of weeks time.

I am beginning to have a clarity about my practice and its position between social engagement and contemporary art. It is quite another challenge to keep on track when the commissioner doesn’t always appreciate the contemporary art side. Using sound lends itself perfectly to social projects but it tends to be the presentation of those projects which causes problems.

It is interesting that in the first three days of art challenge, I have not included sound. Perhaps it is because it is always raining!

Maker Fair, thoughts

Today is the first day of the Maker Fair at Artcore Gallery, Derby which I am doing with Hatchery Artists. It has been really interesting as I don’t make things to sell. The whole process from deciding what to make, how to make it, when to make it, doing it and then presenting it, packaging it and pricing it has been a steep learning curve. Still haven’t done the pricing bit but, well, it doesn’t start until 5pm. Have I enjoyed it? I enjoyed the making and I probably enjoyed the process as it was new to me. I have not yet worked out how to manage the speculation of what to make/sell/ might sell. I guess that would come in time. One thing is clear though, as a diverse group of artists, it will be good fun to actually meet up and do something together.

Art etc. No. 29 Jan 30th 2021

Note initial recording of a sound poem exploring the act of running as an artist.

Art etc. No. 28

The situation demands an alternative response, to life and art. This is how I began the last letter. I didn’t think it would still be happening. It is becoming normalised. I have now begun to think of these not as newsletters but as letters, a connection to the outside where contact has become more fluid, words spoken in Zoom, a few lines within a thousand WhatsApp messages exchange.

But things have happened, online exhibitions gather thousands of viewers rather than the usual small numbers who go to galleries. Artist talks require new skills, a steady look and eye contact with the imaginary audience but there is an audience, and one that can listen later, at a time of their own choosing. 

The art group, Hatchery, which began as a solo self-directed residency, is now Arts Council funded. Its aim is for artist development and mutual support, with creativity at its heart, trying to provide for a sustainable future, ending the Covid year as better artists than we when we began. 

I have been lucky, I have had support in different ways from organisations such as Artcore, Derby and Near Now Studio at Broadway, Nottingham as well as ACE. I have also had a really productive 2019 to build on. 

Created as part of Hatchery Artists She'd 2 exhibition hosted by Artcore, Derby,

My favourite piece from this year has been Slow Flow, a one minute film that was accepted by Kerry Baldry and her ongoing volume of films. Earlier volumes, in which I had a couple of films, are archived at the British Film Institute. Kerry has done a tremendous job but is now stepping back through illness. This very short film is no longer or shorter than it needs to be, it epitomises the quietness of the environment as well as the calmness my days passed with. Unity is created by the reflections that entwine with the real as the feather passes. Happenstance, here through the feather falling in the water near me, is a major feature of most of my work, that and seeing opportunities everywhere. Through the Covid situation, I have had to think more carefully about how I make work. Previously, I have used the impetus of the new as a bouncing off point. Now, I have had to dig deep and look at what is around me more closely. Water mostly! It is hard to get excited about the familiar. However, I have used running and walking as a link to my location thus creating a changing space. The second image shows the Mermaid’s Pool on the slopes of Kinder Scout where I used a hydrophone. It makes life easier than the cling film and condom method I used to have to use. Was I hoping to hear the mermaid who lives in the pool and appears only at midnight at Easter to grant eternal life to whoever sees her? The connecting of the real and the myth seem so emblematic of today. 

This underwater recording is made below the summit of Kinder Scout in the PeakDistrict where lies the Mermaid's Pool.

Finding ways to change/alter/manipulate/compose sounds has been a challenge as well as finding ways to record. Following on from Early Birds, a keyboard and birdsong piece, I have just finished another very short piece called Angry Gulls with Duck, Crow and Clarinet. I think this will be a continuing strand. 

Drawing has long been part of my practice and these miniature drawings are the result of using sanitiser and thermal paper as a basis. The shapes are not controlled but flow from the chemical reaction whilst the pen drawings highlight shapes that may or may not suggest something else.

Drawing 2

Art etc. No.27

The situation demands an alternative response, to life and art. We are all doing it differently. I am trying to look at it as an opportunity, a space that can be filled but doesn’t have to be to allow time for mental wandering and wondering letting thoughts and ideas to swirl around. 

In December, I was selected to take part in a residency in Vadodara, Gujarat by Artcore, Derby, UK. The results of this have already been shown in India and were to be exhibited in Derby in April. With impeccable timing, this had to be postponed and as yet, do not have a date. I am aware how everything will have changed with the length of time we are unable to freely move about. 

To keep links, discussions and critiques going, I began a self-directed residency called Hatchery and invited others to join me. There are now ten artists, mostly UK but also Canada and Italy, who meet through Zoom once a week to talk about virtual gallery visits, artwork progressed and general ‘how things are going’. Our What’sApp group is lively!

For me, this self-directed residency is to prioritise my creativity, not just artwork. Recently, I have had to do temp. work to sustain myself and this is an opportunity to have space and time (if not money). I have been using materials to hand and this limitation has produced a lot of experimental work that do not align to my usual practice. Melting oil pastels to create 3D landscapes, making Modroc casts, printing with bulrushes, making chalk drawings on cardboard and painting lines with the only colour of paint I have which is black as well as things like filming a feather drifting in the water from a kayak and exploring spectrograms after a night time recording. Some of this was in response to the 12o 30day artwork which was a challenge, even Here, I decided to think about the ideas and do the work quickly, not following the brief but being very actively creative and I thank the organisers for the effort they put into this. It must have presented huge technical difficulties.  It was important for me not to limit myself and although not everything worked, it was the action of making. 

This mind map was created throughout the 30 days and has become a springboard form which to leap. In itself, it is not important, it is the one that comes next which will be life-changing. 

Next, Hatchery is being supported by Artcore in an online exhibition called She’d. So called as it refers to the space we have carved out for ourselves to make work and, coincidentally, we are all female in the exhibition but not in Hatchery itself. This includes seven of the artists and the first events are in June, 11th and 25th, with artist talks. The exhibition itself opens on July in two parts, 3rd and 17th. I am so grateful to Artcore for their generous involvement. 

See Hear

Exploring the audio that is my practice, this blog delves into the thinking behind the works to encourage dialogue whilst helping me unravel my thoughts. 

See Hear

It is right to start the New Year, and a new decade, with a new blog. Having reached number 26 with my earlier one, Art Etc. it feels that this is the time. Here, I want to concentrate on art practice which includes my research as they are inherent to one other. Primarily a sound artist, I do not exclude other media but develop creativity across disciplines.

 It has been a good year for me culminating in the Artcore Winter Narratives Arts Council supported residency in Vadodara, India (blog – artcoregallery.org.uk > artist residency > Winter Narratives > Dr Wright). I arrived home on the 21st of December so it is still very fresh. It was perfect timing and the progress I made points to an excellent beginning to 2020. 

Making an exhibition from new work in just 10 days meant little time for procrastination. I went with ideas and a proposal that was, essentially, a methodology but I wanted to have a very open mind and create something that could only be created there. My thoughts are that to make something on a residency that could be done elsewhere means that you might as well stay at home. The work I made was borne out of the experience and pertains to the location but it is not necessarily site-specific, although certain drawings were. This will be tested when it is shown at Artcore in Derby in April. I rediscovered my pleasure in using drawing as a means of experiencing site although sound was my main medium. 

My intention is that knowledge and understanding of what I have achieved this year will unfold with time and impact on my thoughts and ideas.  

Exhibition, Vadodara, India

Art etc. no. 25

Threads of making, writing and play have become knotted into my practice which is very apt considering my collection of lost knots which subsequently all became woven into a rope of a tentative and ambiguous nature. I have become obsessed with the idea of sound as time and return over an dover again with the question ‘can you hear a stalagmite forming?’. It is the notion of time slowed down to thousands of years both in the process of formation from the raindrop percolating through the rocks to the permanence of the stalagmite. It informs my practice of humming with its ambiguity, its initial tenuousness to its longevity, its changing of state allied to its location, environment and its relationship to time. These things can be applied to any sonic environment (as they can to any environment) especially in relation to the listening process. This direction was explored during my Summer Lodge residency at NTU and I seem to be moving into sound performances. Hopefully, these directions will be fruitful but at least they will be fun.

I now have a digital studio at NearNow in Broadway, Nottingham which is arts-council funded. It is a lovely place to work though it is not open every day at the moment.

Over the past few months, I have seen and heard some interesting things. Bruno Latour at the University of Leicester, Lis Rhodes at Nottingham Contemporary, Alchemies of Research conference at Birmingham School of Art to name a few.

No images with this post - my computer was restored to factory settings and working from my hard drive and I haven’t yet worked out how to download the photos. But hope they are still there!

Art etc. No. 16

Art etc. No 16

I am working hard to build my website at www.chriswright.co.uk. A bit a day will keep the temper at bay! However, it is getting there though probably will never really finish it. In the meantime, just found out that In Cammino Verso Il Silenziowas published three days ago which is a really nice feeling. It includes my essaySound, time and self, moving through the aural landscape. This explores the interactions of perceptions of sound to the notion of silence, the heard and not-heard, as dynamic relations that influence the space of sound. My argument is that the construct of time, closely linked to the routines of our daily life, becomes an anomaly when experienced in the space of underground and constructed silent spaces. Thus indicating that the intricate layering of sound, human experience and space is directly related to the moment and creates a sonic landscape governed by natural and unnatural events.

 Scritti di: Michele Ammirata, Silvia Badon, Michele Bartolucci, Michele De Gregorio, Agostina Giuliani, Andrea Laquidara, Mario Mariani, Caterina Marrone, Andrea Taroppi, Chris Wright.