As part of the collaboration with the AND Festival, M.A.R.I.N. artists in residence did a 2-day workshop with sound artists from SoundWave, a music and sound art organization from Workington. We met first on the catamaran docked in Whitehaven for informal discussion and dinner, introductions, and telling about our work and journey so far. In between several days of gushy winds, we enjoyed a cool and crisp, calmer evening.
We joined SoundWave at their offices in Workington for a show and tell, first myself, Nigel Helyer and Andreas Siagian discussed sound art in contexts of public space, locative work, and ecology. SoundWave coordinates programming for a nice 8-speaker rig in the town centre called The Hub, originally designed by BASE Structutes for the Allerdale Borough Council, and including work by Illustrious Company (Martyn Ware and Vince Clarke).
The Hub’s soundscape was quite beautiful, giving a sensation of for example sea birds hovering above you. Emma Foxall presented a community project called Sonic Picnic that they had realized at The Hub, from which one got a real sense of building community ownership through participation.
Also Steven Pearson, Dave Camlin, Mark Newport, and Dave Roberts discussed their work, in particular in the context of The Hub, 3D recording and authoring. Soundwave had also realized an interesting project called Slate Song at the Honister Slate Mine last Spring. Performed in the mine, a 1.5 tonne “Musical Stones of Skiddaw” instrument had been performed together by a mezzo-soprano and fiddler (Mike Newport).