Sound Artist in Residence
Machines Room, Vyner Street
in association with Sonica Found Music.
As part of a continuation of my sound practice using mechanical sounds, the sounds of machines, and a DIY approach to making my own musical instruments, I continued these strands in the physical form of the DIY shed. The SHED becomes the visual representation of a sound art residency. The sounds that I researched and produced emanated from the shed, and the shed over the month slowly turned into a laboratory, somewhere to explore and find DIY sounds as it develops and transforms into a musical instrument itself.
Using various approaches from contact mics to arduino programming and other investigations - tape loops, using the shed as a physical object to make sound from or on - I also tapped into the context of the Machines Room, using the tools available there - laser cutting, 3d printing etc - and all the sounds and acoustics of the space itself, recording the sounds people and machines make in the space and using these in compositions. My first response to this was making a wooden laser cut record of a field recording from outside the Machines Rooms on Vyner Street. This is the first in a series of objects I will make using field recordings from the space and the machines and materials available.
I performed with SHED and invited guests across three sessions:
Session 1 // 07/04/2015
Stephen Shiell - shed, power tools, hand tools, effects
Ian Thompson - 'cello, power tools
Artur Vidal - tenor sax, toys, objects, radio
Session 2 // 14/04/2015
Richard Wilson - drums, percussion, shed
Lee Berwick - kaoss pads, loops
Stephen Shiell - vibrating metal objects, musicbox, shed
Session 3 // 21/04/2015
Stephen Shiell - shed, strings, opjects, electro-magnetic frequencies
