November

Oden, an audio-visual installation, is an immersive exploration of landscape presented in multi-screen video projection and binaural audio.

Gallery 1, Bath House Galleries

17.11.23 - 01.12.23

This was a collaborative project between composer/sound artist Simon Connor and filmmaker Andrew Brooks. The work is a study and a reimagination of Odin’s Gully, located in the evocative landscape of the Peak District. Between 2016 and 2020, Connor and Brooks gathered material from this unique site during winter, spring, summer and autumn months, filming and field recording using spatial audio techniques. The culmination of this project is presented as an audio-visual installation with large screen projection and spatial audio via headphones. Audiences may explore the work in their own time and pace, experiencing an immersive and intimate journey of landscape.

The sound and music of Oden forms part of Connor’s practice-based research doctorate at the University of Huddersfield; a holistic combination of field recordings from site, sound design and music. The work blurs sonic elements together into a synergetic relationship, so that they appear to emerge from the same environment. Oden features musical performances from members of the BBC Philharmonic and music department staff members from the University of Salford, these recordings are edited and woven amongst the field recordings.

The visual aesthetic of Oden shares resonances with landscape film and slow cinema; encapsulating long takes and a contemplation on the details of nature, akin to a moving photograph. The unique sound of Oden may be experienced via headtracked binaural audio, providing increased realism whilst listening and experiencing the work.

This textural combination of sight and sound, presented in an installation environment, was intended to enable a contemplative, and enriched multimodal perception of place.

For more information on Oden, please visit https://simonconnor.co.uk/oden
 

Drawing/Performing The Bath House Galleries contributed to current debates on the importance of drawing, considering its entanglements with sites of history, as a tool for song making and its role in the creation of narrative.

Click here to watch a film of Simon Woolham with L.A.S.H 'performing the Bath House Galleries'

In this installation Simon Woolham re-amassed a large-scale artwork consisting of graphite frottage that was first commissioned by Drawing Projects UK. This was installed within the the unique two-storey exhibition space at the Bath House Galleries, and formed a theatrical backdrop for a music performance by L.A.S.H, consisting of violin, guitar and harmonising vocals.

Woolham's practice highlights how history and space are not a fixed quantities, and are mediated through individual and collective experience. The pictorial space of the drawing acts as a site for interconnectivity and reflection on the histories and spaces represented.

The Calder in your bones by David Vélez was a sound installation made with industrial duct, fur and electroacoustic bone transducers.

The piece aimed to draw attention towards the health of the River Calder, which is the principal fluvial source for farms in the Calderdale and Kirklees boroughs. The Calder was affected by industrial waste for decades, and today is subjected to substantial sewage leaks, making it England's second most polluted river. As such this installation also took an explicitly activist stance.

The form of the installation created a bodily bonding experience with the river through the vibration of its sounds. Extensive underwater and subterranean recordings were made of the River Calder using a hydrophone and a geophone to emphasise the vibrating biodiversity of the site, including earthworms, snails, slugs, frogs, toads, newts, fishes, and an enormous variety of plants, among other sounding species.

Click here to find out more about David's work.

Hylas is a dialogue between language and music. In this first dialogue between the artists, they point towards George Berkeley (1685-1753) and his book 'Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous' (1713), which considers the nature of material substance.

"... silence ... I was afraid to look ... a new experience ... so it shall cease ... unknown uniformities ... replay the tape ... living somewhere with space ... in the faraway song ... it's table lands ... drawing of a tree ... think of me tomorrow ... of body limits ... at the limit ... the blood poured from her ... the age of twenty-seven ..." (Lycett, 2023)

"more than content to spend eternity amongst the beautiful they occasionally thought they heard their own names being called out" (Stillabower, 2023)

Hylas is an ongoing collaboration, and each iteration will be a work in progress.