an ongoing project

music, dance, film, installation, sound design

creating spaces to trans – form in
evolve within

………..

sound- form- movement

ancient traditions – new technologies

improvisation – consciousness – integration

creative collaboration – shared visions- collective action
…………

As ever there is so much to convey – my paragraph blurbs keep turning into extended raves about the myriad of things which effect me, the creative people around me and the emergence of new models for being an artist. So the following is somewhat of a ramble as I continue to grapple with ongoing conundrums and complex issues……….I begin with core ideas which then explode in all sorts of directions and possibilities. Thus it is……….

I see ‘the sound of everything’ as on ongoing collaborative project – something I imagine exploring for the rest of my life. *Traditional cultural practices do not require you to come up with completely new themes every few years. Improvisation, as a key creative practice in most traditional performative models, allow for ongoing innovation within a shared language and established context of meaning/performative epistemology.

*By traditional I mean cultures/communities through time and space who have maintained an integrated cultural system complete with a unifying performative tradition which reflects and creates a shared ‘sacred canopy’ or over arching meaning structure for reality. These communities were more numerous before the advent of the industrial revolution and are prevalent in societies within which specialisation in daily activity is not extreme. IE within which the majority of people share the majority of day to day activities. Food production, creative and spiritual practices, performative activites etc…These type of communities can also be found within religious/ spiritual communities and new communities based around ideas of sustainability and collectivity.

My creative work is a form of practice akin to yoga through which I maintain my own health and well being and through which by sharing with people I can contribute to other people’s health and well being and the well being of communities.

Improvisation in drumming and dance and within and between all of my creative practices is an important element of integrating and balancing my brain hemispheres and nervous system. Improvisation works most effectively when it occurs within a shared language and established context of meaning. You can see this occurring within drum circles, dance and other structured / ritualised communicative forms. The more people share an understanding of the meaning of the gathering and are fluent in the utterances used in the gathering the more effective, consuming and integrating the experience will be for people. As soon as there are ‘witnesses’ to the performance, who stand completely outside the proceedings and are in anyway unsure, stressed or antagonistic to proceedings, the harder it is for the people in the circle to experience effective integration.

The Sound of Everything aims to create contexts in which practicing artists and community members can communicate and experiment with learning ancient improvisational forms and creating/consolidating shared creative languages and models for more coherent, sustainable and satisfying performative contexts and creative processes.

The over arching theme of the project is the relationship between sound, form and movement. This theme operates as a theoretical underpinning, an aesthetic ground swell and a basis for choosing methodologies which prioritise improvisation, collaboration and process and which nurtures performance and creativity as a means of inspiring conscious evolution.

The nexus of ideas which spring from observation of the relationships between sound/form/movement have informed much of my work and include :

* an objects form and sound are inextricably linked
* every form has a sound, a resonating frequency
* our bodies are the shape they are in response to the sounds which inhabit them
* practicing music, dance and surrounding ourselves in particular spaces with particular objects changes the very structures of our bodies, minds, nervous systems
*performative practices CHANGE us, EVOLVE us, create our very nature and have a direct relationship to our personal and shared REALITY
* the boundaries between us and everything else are much more permeable than we often like to imagine
*the way that every substance in creation moves is related – there are recurring patterns of movement in all things which effect the very structure of things
*seeing the world as sound blurs the boundaries between everything
*all things are connected
* the boundaries we place around things, ideas, cultures are often arbitrary and aesthetic in choice
*all is everything
* the sound of everything is …….. life

Following from this nexus of ideas a number of methodologies arise. If the boundaries between things are somewhat fuzzier than our rational brains like to construct ….then……the ideas we share as artists and collaborators perhaps dwell in blurrier terrains than our “industry” encourages us to express. Perhaps ideas and creative visions can be seen to exist within the spaces in-between us. Perhaps we are tapping into inner structures which we are compelled to manifest. Perhaps we need each other to manifest these visions to their full capacity. Perhaps consolidating a shared creative language and coherent performative epistemology is one step towards both maintaining important performative traditions and developing new models which reflect and respond to new technologies and emergent social realities.

Performance events/traditions/practices need not be associated simply as entertainment, an industry, or a means to explore ‘issues’ but can also be a means of changing the very structure of our bodies, minds, hearts…. our sense of identity, relationship to each other, the environment and ultimately our personal and shared realities. This can be.. and is … achieved through sharing training, performances and ideas in every way shape and form.

There is no clear lines between where my and my collaborators work begins. Maintaining improvisational practices within performances allows for a true expression of this. Improvisation works best when held within a known language which people are familiar and fluent in. Composed / choreographed/ planned sequences can contain the seeds and language from which to improvise from. Learning these seeds takes time and it is one of my major challenges to work out how to most effectively create and present material which can be learnt/ shared with ease by sizable groups of people. I believe technology holds a number of solutions.

This blurry-ness also impacts on how we work across genres: As Karl Cronin mused earlier in the year on his blog many of us have been experiencing somewhat of an identity crises as artists. The conventional boundaries between musician, artist, dancer, media artist, composer, choreographer, theatre practitioner, performance artist etc are becoming somewhat ridiculous. They are forcing us all to become increasingly hyphenated…

I am a Greek, Turkish, Scottish, French, German, Egyptian Australian who is a musician/composer/teacher/artist/dancer/media artist/sound designer/community cultural development worker… hmmmmmm no wonder the world seems blurry to me ; ) Boxes have always been an issue on every conceivable level and I guess that is because I have generally not fitted into them, which has perhaps why I have developed a fascination with the spaces in between, which has manifested in a number of ways including a series of images of portals, windows and doors…..

You can see more here

I am interested in developing/consolidating healthy, sustainable ways of working in collaboration with the wonderful artists I have so far shared my creative work with, building new relationships with artists far and wide and communities both known and yet to be explored.

Ok… enough for now.. must get on to the long list of things that need doing today : ) Including making a chick pea stew
: )