Imminent exhibition...

Coming up...

Noise Above Noise: Day 2

I've just started a week long residency with The Penthouse NQ in the run up to the Noise Above Noise event on the 27th. Here are some images of the initial stages of set up. I'm going to be making some form of artefacts that will be broadcasting the sounds I'm making. More images and sounds to come...

http://thepenthousenq.com/post/59866254179/noise-above-noise-an-evening-of-experimental

Materials

I answered some questions about the materials I use for Peel magazine. Link below:

http://gnpeelmagazine.weebly.com/james-watts.html

RIFF/T

Tim Croft and I recently projected a performance in Baltic 39 as part of their RIFF/T exhibition. A brief video on the event is above. More to follow when we've decided who we're going to document the performance in full...

Loarr

I've been playing with running feedback through old, somewhat noisey hi-fi's through a looper unit, and modulating what it picks up. This coudl well develop into a performance. In the meantime, here are some recorded results. Named after the planet in Terry Carr's 'The Dance of the Changer and The Three'.

Motors and Drone

I've been playing with using electric motors to generate tones. Here are the results of the first experiment. I've run a low pass filter on the signal from the motor to smooth the tone out a bit then multitracked it. Five recordings layered over each other. The end result of this should yield some form of sculptural installation/group performance piece...

RIFF/T

Tim Croft and I have been involved in some serious volume in Baltic 39 recently. The results of which will be shown in the project space on 6th February...

"James Watts and Tim Croft, in a literal response to the exhibition theme, will explore privately within the RIFF exhibition space the synchronisation of riff into an unsynchronised rift. The documentation of this performance will be unharmoniously imposed on to the RIFT exhibition."

Link to the events page on the Baltic site here.

Experimental Sounding board.

 

This is tomorrow. Great sounds. Expect more photos/info etc soon. Come investigate if you're about...

ESB Catalogue

Here's the catalogue for the open lab I'm involved in...

Labs and sounds

Here's the next thing I'm up to...

And here's some recent noises:

<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F96710524"></iframe>

UnTongues

I did a little performance on Saturday in Hoult's Yard...

For some reason I can't upload it, so here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NLqQI59kl4&feature=youtu.be

Keeper

Here' some images of what I let lurk in Whistle Art Stop's roof space in Haltwhistle for a bit (I'm woefully late at updating with this, but I'm trying....)

Colony

I've had a show up in Empty Shop in Durham for a little while. I colonised the space with amorphous forms that emitted sonorous bell like tones, that became quite oppressive after enough time. The forms communicated with each other without care or concern for the viewer and illicited some really interesting reactions and comments from visitors ranging from suspicion that that sounds where triggered by people to links to social relationships in archeology. Images in the 3D section of the site and an excerpt of the sound can be heard here:

Things are happening...

A while ago I sent some work off to Basic.fm to be part of their Reuse Aloud show. Based around re-using existing material, I've done something with some old reports of strange happenings, and played with the context a bit. Look out for a piece called 'The Profound Encounter.'

There will be an opening event on March 1st when the show starts, here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/117549618424766/

And you can listen to it via the Basic.fm site, here:
http://www.basic.fm/?page_id=2516



More details to come as I get schedule information. There are also a couple of shows on the horizon - one of which is in Durham mid march. And I may even update this blog more regularly!

Plans...

Some images of a proposal I recently sent out to a gallery space in London. Large scale things.

Effigy

I was part of a show entitled 'After the Dust Settled' a couple of weeks back. I was allowed to install in a completely unheated huge attic space, and Effigy was born. The beast itself is about ten metres long and two metres wide, and the strands holding it in place extended through the space to take up what probably amounted to 12 square metres floor space with the strands extending up to the ceiling and leaving a void underneath the piece.

It hung there in the darkness, covered in salt and smelling of bleach and damp matter, confrontational yet dormant. There is definitely something about sitting halfway between grown and built that adds that sense of other. By suggesting at constructed origin it links in with our various myths and pantheons just enough relate to it's presence as an unknown entity. Or something.

Giver