First draft of my work for stuart!

New Media Culturre
Assignment Two
Kirsty Stansfield- the tramway

The tramway has been around in Glasgow for over nineteen years since Peter Brook took a disused building in the east end in 1988. Then used it to stage a production called “The Makabharato”.
The exhibit that I went to see was called “object score” and was done by an artist that is based in Glasgow Kirsty Stansfield . The work itself has been created after an intensive period of research while Kirsty was an artist in residence with Art in hospital (2006). The residency was offered because of the relationship between the artist and the group of elderly women who live in a continuing care ward in a hospital in Glasgow.
The artist Kirsty Stansfield graduated originally in sculpture from the Glasgow school of Art (1993), before getting an Msc in electronic imaging from Duncan of Jordanstone college of Art and Design (2000). At this time she is doing a practice-led Phd at the university of Dundee, entitled “sound as interface”.
Object score carries on from her previous projects including aerial (brass), originally commissioned by the NOW festival (2004), and a study the artist undertook involving dancers string musicians at the Visual Research centre, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee (2005). The work in object score acts like a pause or a listening point in the artist’s cyclical and evolving process.
The installation itself utilizes sound and interactive technology through the implementation of a light sensitive camera that is placed high above the podium where the manipulation is to take place. The camera documents the light that comes off the appendage that you use to interact with the piece, the extent of these manipulations are then passed onto a motor that is contained underneath the surface of the podium. The motor consequently tightens or slackens the wire that it is connected to dependant on the amount of light that it receives. Slackening or tightening of the wire directly affects the speakers mounted on the walls that it is adjoined with resulting in the sound. This sound is passed onto a set of speakers on the ceiling of the exhibition space that play out so that the protagonist is able to hear the noise that their motion has created. Thus establishing the interaction between the viewer and the apparatus in this interactive process.
The thinking from the artist Kirsty Stansfiield in regards to manufacturing this project specifically was that the creative process must be in the journey and therefore anyone who engages with the journey shares a sense of ownership.

Academically speaking there was a wide range of positives to be seen about this project. Firstly the fact that people are encouraged to listen has to be one of the main assets, coupled with the exploration into wide uses of improvisation, collaboration and social as well as intuitive interaction. The mediums used to display the project were varied and complimented each other perfectly, as the exhibition space contained physical scores for action and listening along with discrete sculptural and sonic collages. That was used with photographic works made by participants of the project with included documentation from the residency.
However as with everything there were some problems that I noted as well the first instance that became apparent after I shortly arrived at the conclusion of its first showing of the day was that the attendees were made to wait for approximately 15 mins before the performance whilst the material was restarted. As for some reason the sound that you manipulated was not able to run throughout the course of the day. This meant that you needed to wait for this period of time before anything happened in the exhibition space. Another problem that the exhibit suffered from was again because of the sound. As even though the sound manipulation itself was very impressive there were as far as I could tell a limited amount of possible outputs. The reason for my thinking this is because I spend a fair amount of time performing some exaggerated and slightly embarrassing moves that produced similar sounding noise to some normal movements.
This exhibition reminds me of another project “sun by ear” that was done by Katy Dove and Victoria Morton, who have been showing their work together for the first time.
Katy Dove (1970) Studied psychology originally at the university of Glasgow .She then proceeded to study sculpture at Duncan of Jordanstone college of art, Dundee. She has had solo shows at Hales gallery London and Talbot rice gallery Edinburgh.
Victoria Morton (1971) is based in Glasgow and Fossombourne in Italy, she studied painting at Glasgow school of art and graduated as a Master of fine art (Mfa) in 1995. Recently she has had a solo show at Whitechapel London (2004).
This project is split over multiple rooms with varying mediums ranging from animation, sound, drawings and paintings. The starting point for the short animated video is the improvised music that compliments the sunny backdrop of a sunset. That then begins to collapse into itself as soon as the shapes begin to take on life of their own, and start to begin making some symmetrical and complicated designs. Flying around the screen in an organized seemingly random means, whilst the same music continues to play unchanged by the events occurring on the screen throughout the whole animated video.
Katy is reknowned for describing experiences using animation, sound, drawing and painting. Using experiential reference points allows the viewer the opportunity to access the work though their own experience in the moment. Therefore removing the need for prior knowledge.
Victoria on the otherhand has expanded her work into having faces and animated parts, street corners, rooms and activity. They follow impulses of the body and the structures of internal and external spaces. As an incomplete human presence, on a detailed continuous composition is intended to break through the limits of our imagination that we define.
There are quite a few similarities between these works in the mediums that they use to express their work as well as the implementation of the sound as a key tool in the interaction between the piece and the viewer. In the case of Kirsty Stansfield it was the area that visitors were able to manipulate whereas Katy and Victoria did not have any interaction in the piece that was controlled by the audience.