A respected on line source of music provided an ideal, and easy, option for the sound .
Luckily, after deciding to switch off last week- with some easy viewing telly, I realised how popular! A BBC tour of rural Spain. A Channel 4 house search in France, in one week! Firstly I didn’t think my choice of music was so ‘travel’ orientated( although I had decided it was more jaunty than I was looking for! Secondly, The work needs to be unique – Plan B is confirmed. I have two professional contacts (cost an issue but funding application pending) and two colleagues that could be open to negotiation! So making a list of genre, tempo, mood and words to describe what I want to achieve with the sound. Not the mood of a European ‘sejour’ thats for sure.
My excitement about the work is building up like the pressure of steam waiting to be released.
The Beam Engine started yesterday at 11am to an audience of six. It got going seamlessly with grace, elegance and an almost silent whirr. The building filled with new smells, sounds and sights of coal and steam. Left alone with it I lost myself in the hypnotic motion and gentle power and filmed it and thrilled in the boiler’s flames and steamy spaces. Working for the first time in over 4 years.
Sipping tomato soup, from Peter, to warm up- and celebrate, I studied a ‘man going to replenish the fire’ in a 1712 engraving. It made me consider the engine as a whole, not just the individual moving parts. More filming until the power went on the camera (now on shopping list: extra battery pack!)
A problem with working site specifically in a building that has ever changing plans, with work that is shifting equally as fast, is that identifying the right spot to show it. I liked the space we explored in January, but light was an issue. Now the sound has developed a new direction I’m not sure if that would work. The room I thought would be roped off now won’t have to be. It is a distinct possibility, but is it right. And the plans I’ll see in a few weeks may offer further possibilities in rooms yet to be built!. With such flux I have to just focus on the work and stop feeling so desperate about the location, for now. After seeing Mining Review, Number 11 (1949), I threw another idea that wasn’t right into a basket this week. Satisfying!
Next week I meet with my Peer Review Group. We are going to work on a group project and with my days and increasingly my evenings being swallowed with engineering influenced thoughts it will be refreshing to be distracted down a new creative route.
Snows and obligatory shifts in the daily routine meant a disjointed start to the year and planned experiments at the Engineerium postponed. The shift in the main focus of the work was unsettling me too. Like being a vegetarian and then suddenly eating meat, and having to tell everyone (or vice versa!) I am giving my practice a new ‘label’ and its taking some getting used to. But that’s why I’m doing this.
Time now is divided between warm home and chilly studio, studying ‘The Mechanical Engineer, a Magazine for the Mechanically Minded’ and The Engineer at home, interrupted by bursts of Googling. The photocopying at the studio is interrupted by doodling. I have finally found my strand in the old paperwork and I have a clear concealed subheading now. Obvious now, I wonder why it wasn’t before.
Suspecting that the building work may take longer than anticipated I’m gathering ideas into baskets. An initial idea is heading towards a basket, a by-product now. It’s stronger out on its own and it gives me other exhibiting opportunities away from the Engineerium. I’m getting better at paring ideas down.
Last week (after they had tested the pressure in Boiler No 2) I saw the dark smoke escaping out of the huge chimney and floating towards Hove Park. A reminder, we don’t see this much anymore. Giddy with nostalgia (all that mighty heart had a beat) I filled my camera phone with (inadequate) photos.
