Hampstead Authors' Society No. 71 Issue 11 September 2008
Time 2:00 for 2:15 p.m. Walk starts from Watertone’s Hampstead. |
Many thanks to those who have helped to make things happen for HAS over the past year. Special thanks from Zsuzsanna Ardó and Mariane Rosel-Miles to Deborah Moggach, Phil Williamson, Daniel Andor-Ardó, Jay Silver, Martin Simon, Phil Grey, Rachel Buchanan, Genie Poretzky-Lee, The Lotus Foundation, Anja Steinbauer, Natalie D’Arbeloff, Jessica Duchen, Louise Doughty, Screen on the Hill, Hampstead Observatory.
If you’d like to contribute some creativity, and get actively involved in HAS, drop Zsuzsanna a line, saying what you'd like to do. Please email nominations and suggestions for the AGM agenda to Zsuzsanna at ardo@pobox.com.
image of sound @ the Lotus Studio image of sound – colours from the unconscious An Installation/Exhibition by Genie Poretzky-Lee and Lawrence Ball Curated by Zsuzsanna Ardó Refreshments. |
Genie Poretzky-Lee was brought up in Paris where she did her fine art training at the Academie Julian. She moved to London in 1960 where her interest in textile art made her a founder member of Fibre Art in 1981 organizing and exhibiting internationally. She turned to painting in the late eighties . She was invited for Residency at Gozo International-Malta in 2003. In 2006 a body of work Alchemy was shown at Plymouth University. She has work in public and private collections. Genie taught for many years in adult education and has travelled widely in Europe, Peru and India.
image of sound
Genie Poretzky-Lee, artist, and Lawrence Ball, composer, in conversation.
Lawrence Ball Our second collaboration sees us evolving the use of common themes, and sometimes common images. In this installation we have images which appear visually and which also inform the composition. This music has simple gestures each composed of intricate details. I make graphs of 17 layers of sound, to determine where each will be heard. Each layer is 2 pieces of iron bark being struck together in rhythm, but slowed down or sped up over 17 octaves. For example the piece "Meditation" starts with all the layers active and gradually peels them away until all that is left is an extremely slow version of the iron bark – giant pieces of wood being struck in a large echoing space. So a very busy sound very slowly goes through a series of reductions down to something at its heart. Simple gestures. That's the sound part of the work.
Genie Lee It is interesting that for this second collaboration we only interacted briefly and never formulated our interaction. I am holding to these words and to your sound for inspiration towards a central three-dimensional composition of woven sticks to a 17 beat frequency, as texture of sound. As we speak, my work is still in intention. It feels very present and is inducing forms making their own demands on the work. I see it as primarily honoring the earth, steeped in ancient memory of a time humans used sound to communicate but also used implements as physical and artistic presence. My intention is to attempt reawakening these experiences renewed or refreshed. An intuitive guidance precedes the way my work is developing. Although we are using contemporary projection facilities to show Lawrence's fascinating working process I will follow with very basic materials.
LB In creating all my music, I feel there needs to be plenty of space in the experience. That's a major difference between what I'm doing and what happened in classical music. I feel now there needs to be fuller awareness of the space between sounds. When people listen to music they should not be swamped with impressions. It is important to address the deeper person, very directly. I use sound transformations, and in this particular piece I use computer processing techniques, particularly on speeds of the sounds and the way they are laid against each other and the way they reverberate. But it is all towards making more space around the sounds so the experience is not an assault course, but much more of an open field for them to explore than is normally the case. This is not ambient music, equally easy to listen to or ignore. I'm speaking about inviting giving one's attention fully – whilst not to denigrate the idea of ambient music.
GL I see this second installation – Image of Sound – as cross-fertilization between static images and musical vibration. An aim towards sensory blending the scope is part of the mystery of transformation and of things ever changing. A form can become an offering response to an experience where a poetical sound gives one an opportunity to put down one's ideas. I hope to compliment the sound scape. I see it as an affirmation, a color from the unconscious. I also feel it as a difficult terrain. To talk too much about what one does makes me feel depleted and although I do respect the power of words I also feel often the less said the better. In all I have done, I always trust the viewer to complete the work.
Primarily for me it has been that of the cross fertilization of media. As I see it what has being motivating us is a strong motivation to be aligned within our intention. In this instance it seems to be an invocation to our planet earth, a true concern to most of us at present. We are not in any way imposing a viewpoint only evoking something much broader. There is no agenda in our installation and we offer the experience in an open-ended fashion.
LB I'm very conscious when I go to a gallery exhibition, there's often a very specific colour or view or idea being expressed. To me the freedom of intuition is an open energy field, or a field of imagery whereby we can unfold who we are, rather than be communicating something specific, its evoking something universal. I don't deliberately create sounds to be like crickets, or running water or a fire or even drums.
These are byproducts of working in a very archetypal field of sound, its not illustrative, I think we both share this, perhaps its a dream world where things have meanings that go way beyond what you would normally relate to. By not trying to illustrate, our environment has more chance of allowing a more archetypal level where it might remind them of anything, just like fractals might remind people of anything from pinecones to galaxies, multi-fold associations are there, its more a question of the spirit of animation of forms rather than particular forms.
GL I absolutely agree with you. Most of my work, drawing or painting has been concerned not to depict directly but to become in touch with the essence of the presence that feeds me.
Allowing for a field of expansion beyond total control. Free will from the subject at hand.
LB Yes, LaMonte Young, one of my favourite composers, said something significant in the 60s, that, with his sound and light environments, if people were not carried away to heaven then he felt he was failing. I saw that as very beautiful, it concurred with my thinking. I do think art has the capacity to give people experiences that are meaningful and helpful. It is not for me about being clever, which many other people seem to get excited about.
GL An ambient atmosphere not so easily categorized. Using parameters without being tightly bound by styles or art history towards the unknown moving forward where this unknown might be revealing itself during the process.
LB What we're doing is the human equivalent of birdsong, it goes right to the core experience of perception itself, and also of apprehension. An approach to artistic form which is just utterly sincere and direct, without having to do intellectual cross-referencing. Ultimately something is either magically transformative for people or its stuck. For me a lot of art and particularly music - there is not a sense of presence in it, its simply an intellectual exercise, going through the motions of creating something from the mere artefacts of production itself. It doesn't transcend, you don't forget who you are and where you are, and that is critical. It misses the target.
GL Artists are mostly lonely. Therefore they can be very aware of the opinion power of their peers. Easily seduced into not being true to themselves in order not to be marginal or unseen. Within a collaboration, these pressures are lessened. One has the support of another being working along oneself. A sharing.
LB Following the inspiration from the first collaboration we made Anonymous Words, the excitement of that inspired me, for the second one, to do something very daring, both intellectually, in the production process, and also in the whole forming of it. So that was enormously rewarding.
GL The same for me. At this point in time, I am challenged by the interdimensional rationale of sound and image. The one and the other... or rather the one with the other. At the same time it is so exciting to be involved in what is wanted by this specific creative activity.
Rounding up our conversation...
GL I hope we can impart some of the feelings that have inspired us together and individually.
LB I hope people will give it a chance to work its multi-sensory effect, that it may be very rewarding and amazing.
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