RESEARCH: ARCADES AND ORGANS.

SEASONING is the 2017-18 BIFOCALS project.  including installations, performances and workshops embedded within Cumbria's cultural calendar which will involve design and construction, instrument building, music, a/v installation and performance. Where possible we will work with colleagues in other regions and build some links and opportunities for further work.
Our focus is on vernacular, tradition and seasonal celebration. We will explore the roots and persistence of archetypal images and figures in song and story and look for their current manifestations through research and interaction with shared histories, archive material, traditional music and contemporary practice. The project will promote exploratory aspects of audio/visual arts and performance, through partnerships between artists and community groups (including our local schools) producing new work and facilitating new work from young people.


  A couple of things are underway.. Alex Black more is at work on the Human Organs...I was given ( I think)  a set of Church Organ pipes by Octopus Collective associate and Cinema Organist Mark Latimer, and set about trying to play them with various bellows and footpumps. The idea is a simple and easily mastered walkabout instrument. Not surprisingly there are a few people with form in this field, including this chap and his Borgen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hyAH6iYwzQ
Dan Fox pointed us at Dog Troupes(?) work, and Alex has arrived at this backpack model..seen here upside down..
we now have 4 of them, and the resulting noise is a kind of Camberwick Green Techno. We'll be (a) recording under a railway bridge and (b) going public throughout the year with Organists Jamie McPhie,  Neil Wade and hopefully Rob Cooney. 

Bill Bartlett (below) is a Sound Recordist who specialises in factual and actuality recording.










https://billbartlettsound.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/cv.pdf

 We planned to meet up in Scarborough in February to  make some exploratory Artificial Head recordings in the magnificent Olympia Leisure building on the Foreshore (right) as the first step towards a Binaural piece for installation or broadcast.  But Bill's car broke down in rural Yorkshire. So, I made a few stereo recordings to give us some idea of how sound can be used to evoke  the space without visuals, and we are returning next week.  
  Our thanks to Lesley Agar at Olympia for her help in setting this up, to the Arcade staff, (really helpful people) and, to our supporters and project partners: