tapestry weaving

Dumfries 3 – Sound and Weave

The most important reason for me to visit Dumfries was to check out Gracefield Arts Centre and the space in which I would have work in an exhibition later in the year. The British Tapestry Group exhibition “Sound and Weave” is now on at the arts centre and runs there until 29th September.

Gracefield Arts Centre

My tapestry is experimentally interactive with light sensors embedded in the weave – the sensors trigger different field recordings layered over a looping background soundscape when they are cast into shadow by, for instance, the viewer’s hand or body.

“Experimental” is the key work here and it proved a challenge to calibrate the sensors to react at their optimum in a space with lighting quite different from my studio. In this instance I am happy for the interactivity of the tapestry to be sensitive to the changing ambient light as much as the gallery lighting and human intervention, but in future venues I will provide my own lighting with a view to a tighter control of the sensors.

The videos below show both my own tapestry “in action” and the other works in the exhibition. Thanks again to Dawn, the Arts Officer at Gracefield, and all the BTG people involved in setting up the exhibition. It will be my turn when it comes to Swansea in March 2019!

If the videos do not show below in your browser, please click the links below to view them on Vimeo.

INTERCONNECTION at Gracefield Arts Centre

https://vimeo.com/285860378

Sound and Weave at Gracefield Arts Centre

https://vimeo.com/286544845


Missing Marsh Music

Weeks 1 – 3 of my marsh wood birds sound clips went smoothly and it was great to hear different “music” (bird song) on each occasion. I’m afraid there will be no “music” this week as I’m off to York for a British Tapestry Group meeting (another, parallel life) – they have an excellent new website.

The week has been very busy with the launch of the new StillWalks website and various other things including a trip to Cardiff where we visited the library and the Chapter Arts Centre. The main exhibition there was Lothar Götz and was much more interesting than I was led to believe from what I saw on their website. We also went to see The Artist and really enjoyed it – the best film I’ve seen for a while . . . and silent!

Anyway, in place of a sound clip, there are a couple of pics from Cardiff and the Chapter here or you can see them and others on Flickr.

from Cardiff Library

from Cardiff Library

There is one other shot on Flickr of the interior of the library – I would have taken more  as it is a great building but Vertigo is not a good thing to suffer from there 🙁

Lothar Götz

Lothar Götz

Hope to do a recce walk for StillWalks in York while I’m there and maybe get back in the Spring for a production day.