Maquettes:

After Anna’s Hummingbird

 

After the bushtit

 

After Spiderhunter

 

After Tailorbird

 

After verdin

 

Foot Prints, a record of my interactions with the earth. Lost Dutchman State Park, Arizona

 

We looked at some promotion materials for the 4/20 sound bath and compared it to the footage of the event, and examined the discrepancy. This is something I’ve also been discussing with the promoters – why is the event page not conveying the richness of the in-person experience?

1) Is this work about my biometric data, the amplification of my body, overpowering or dominating the biological systems of the other people in the room? Could audience members be informed of that to better understand what is happening as they go in? Knowing me makes that more comfortable, or a sense of trust in the brand or community or space? They are surrendering to a processes that hijacks / overtakes / dominates / synchronizes their biological system

(Noah Dixon is here as I write this, and he attended the soundbath, so I asked him “how would you describe this event to someone in Utah (his home state) who had no experience with this world?”)

Meditation, single facilitator leading a group meditation, using biofeedback, used my heartbeat and the amplification of my heartbeat to sync, a “captive portal for meditation”, something he stepped into willing, he was pulled into a new realm, out of his control, being led and facilitated. Dom situation: Noah chose to sync up his heart? Made the choice to sync up.

2) Are these performances about the virtuoso or the abilities of the technological system? How is that conveyed? Why not just use a pre-recorded set, either from Ableton or a previous soundbath? For me, it makes me feel more vulnerable to have it live, but that is my experience, not the experience of the audience. What if heart rate sensors are on audience members that (as previously brainstormed) influence the sound, or, trigger a small light on them, so they rate and synchrony can be perceived visually by others or on the video recording. Or multiple sensors, even just one more person helps people witness the live / interactive nature of the piece. If it’s just me, it’s harder for others to perceive the live nature of the sensors, because if the sound or light changes, how does the audience know it’s real? If they look at me and I’m still just sitting meditating with my eyes closed, there is no perceivable change to confirm the change in the media output.

I had a positive and generative meeting with my mentor, Marina, this morning. We spent a lot of time discussing Bird University and playing with that thought experiment. We talked about the system of higher education — a system of education, knowledge possession, knowledge production, with implications on class, race, and privilege. We discussed different ways that higher education shows up in different places, from Reed College to ASU to the Ivy League . She mentioned Tagore, a poet who started his own university, something I need to look into.

We then talked about what Bird University might be a system of. It’s not FOR birds —  birds have already graduated. Is it a missionary school, set up to re-educate humans? Does it play with Dartmouth (my alma mater)’s messed-up history of education for Native Americans?

Lots to dig into here. Who are the teachers at BU? Who are the other students? Where is bird university? Does it follow a migration route? What do the birds get out of it?

We applied similar systems thinking to nests. Nests as fitting into things that birds need — shelter, food, families, babies. Birds that walk, swim, fly. Birds that migrate, birds that dont. Nests as collection of materials — spit and dirt, or sticks and leaves and plastic, or cobwebs and down.

I have been thinking about material sourcing for my maquettes that I have been making, and for the Jamie Nest I have been building. I have asked my family to give me their singleton socks so that I could use them for material. Disposability of the current fashion industry as a rich source for materials that serve similar purposes to what a nest could do.

Marina also gave me a long list of people to look up:

Tagore – poet started a university

Elizabeth gross – Chaos in Territory

Alphonso Lerus

Gordon Hampton Dawn Chorus

Antenna magazine, a multi-species art magazine – did a piece on the recording of Dawn Chorus. 

Africam – network of high-res camera/audio set up at watering holes. 

Jill Haefele

Climate clock Andrew boyd

Jennifer Monson, iLand – biology and dance, followed migration routes, several species.

Richard Long – walking movement. 

Hamish fulton – walking

Francis Alÿs – the green line. Line by palestine and isreal. 

Suzannah Sailor and Ed Mars Canary Project

I have made some significant progress this last weekend, which feels pretty good.

The larger idea within which a lot of my thesis work lives is this idea for Bird University (working title…). The main premise for Bird University is that human intelligence isn’t the only meaningful intelligence, and it might be less meaningful than many other species’ intelligences as the world changes around us. One of the species that we could learn from is birds — what would it look like if humans went to Bird University?

One of the ways I have been exploring this idea is by watching videos of birds building nests, and making small maquettes of nests after these birds’ style. This has felt like birds teaching a Nest Building class. Maybe it would be called Nest Building; Function, Craft, and Sustainable Architecture. If that were the case, then the maquettes are homework assignments. The final assignment would be building a nest for myself based on similar principles. This project would focus not only on techniques for construction, as the maquettes did, but would move deeper into looking at some of the why’s behind nest building. What is it for (comfort? growth and nurturing? protection? from what?) and how does it meet those needs? How does a consideration of materials factor into the specific design of the nest?

^^ That is where I expect to spend the bulk of the next week, getting the “Jamie Nest” which is a Migraine Vest, closer to completion. I have made progress roughing out the vest itself and drafting the hood, which is the key migraine feature. I will finalize that shape/design early this week, and plan for some other features that I will work on later. This will include an internal structure to create more shape, fans (laptop fan? something small) that can create some air movement within the hood, and…?? what else?

As I have been working, I have been thinking about what makes the rest of this class at Bird University. Who is the teacher? What is their bio? What is the syllabus? (I have the basic outline of the syllabus outlined above — what else?)

And then what is the rest of the University? What are the other classes? Who are the other students? Where is it, when is it?

Marina encouraged me to think about what the birds get out of it. I’m still working on that, but even if it starts with a deeper appreciation and understanding of birds, what they do, and what they need, that seems like a step in the right direction.

• In class on 3/28, Nun asked me if I was thinking of creating more of an exhibition piece, or a kit. I had been thinking of a collection of interactive art pieces that could stand together in an exhibition and hadn’t considered the idea of creating a kit. But thinking about that idea a bit more deeply, it does make sense. I’m essentially using this semester to build my own kit, and am doing the experimentation about what works and what doesn’t.
• This question helped me realize what I ultimately am trying to do is to shed some light on radio waves (their physical behavior, application, and social impact), and to help my audience (right now, just me) understand how they work at a deeper, tangible level. This is a challenge because radio waves are invisible and move through the air, rather than moving through a material.
• I’m not doing justice to the mini-epiphany I had at the beginning of the meeting with Sarah the next day, but I finally am starting to have a clearer vision of my “why”, besides “radio waves are cool, and it’s fun”. I want to physically learn and embody the waves… or something. Maybe to interact with sound and other physical things to understand radio waves more thoroughly. Okay, maybe I have some more work to do on actually putting that “why” into words.
• Once I started talking about this with Sarah, she also seemed to have a stronger understanding and sense of what I was hoping to achieve. She started to wonder if using a sound walk as my form may be interesting and suggested looking up Janet Cardiff’s Her Long Black Hair . In this walk, Cardiff has the audience walk through Central Park and talks them through the different sounds and sights. Occasionally she will cue the audience to hold up a series of photographs, allowing them to interact with the real world in a very specific way that moves the narrative forward.
• Maybe I could have a box that has experiments and a sound walk?

 

https://first-latency-df1.notion.site/Next-Caroline-1-1-9d4d41b3055e426c9a6a431ef4a23e74

Hi all!

Just finished up my 6th peer group meeting with Beth! The meeting was just me and Beth and overall everything went well! I updated Beth on where I was in the process and we had a long conversation about what the interview process was like with my grandparents.

We then began discussing what my next steps were for my thesis process, and then we went over my reflections from the feedback speed session from class which I thought was really helpful! Overall we had a really great time! 🙂

That’s all for now!

Until Next Time 🙂

This is my first cardboard prototype of the camera portion of my project. It actually turned out better than I expected. I used a laser printer to cut out the pieces, and put a mirror inside to reflect wha the top lens displays. There are some places to improve for the next iteration, but I’m excited having something real in my hands.

Last meeting of the full cohort. Coming to terms with certain stressors outside of the program are impact my ability to keep up with the emails, as I put my slide together as we were presenting rather than before. I need to put some boundaries up in my life so I can focus better on the program this last month of spring semester and through the summer semester.

I had questions about whether I should be working on my build or my slide deck and got clarity that build is the priority and slide deck can happen in Shanghai. I feel like I’m making good progress on my prototypes and testing and that my focus is really coalescing around theta work, and not the other states I spontaneously experienced during my 2019 tour (like ecstasy). I’ve made appointments at the MARL lab for 2 rehearsals and my final performance on May 11, 4-7pm. Working on that sound kit directly and considering ways to utilize the 50 speaker spatial sound in that room.

Reflecting on the Time class and how much I enjoy it, and perhaps it would have been easier to do in the first half of the semester when more topics were being explored, then have 50 days of making the second half, which could directly support daily thesis work.