2023 June and July: This post includes some terrific video and audio from work with colleagues who are members of the ECOTONES research network, Directed by Prof Amanda Bayley at Bath Spa University. Here we provide two short but incredibly interesting audio-video documents followed by a sound recording. All work begins with a tree and HAKOTO which is then complimented and extended by two internationally recognised virtuoso musicians.
Stevie Wishart is recognised as composer and musician with a passion for improvisational method, nature and birdsong.. She is based in Belgium and UK.
Hyelim Kim is a daegeum (Korean flute) soloist, and composer, using pioneering intercultural/interdisciplinary approaches rooted in Korean traditional music.
A VIDEO featuring Stevie and Hyelim performing with HAKOTO + Hawthorne.
AUDIO – Data driven composition meets virtuoso improvisation.
This is a nice 17minute sound recording of HAKOTO and STEVIE in the Children’s Wood. Settle in an enjoy the effort in the Children’s Wood from June 21, 2023.
We (Reiko and Tim) are visual artists with a primary interest in the environment. We work across sculpture, installation and digital media. With this work we move into a space of interdisciplinary public performance. The core work on the sound of HAKOTO is developed with Chris Malcolm who we have known for ten years, he has taken responsibility to realise a data driven dynamic composition (it shifts and changes with a bank of sensors recording leaf data), which is based on the characteristics of traditional Japanese percussion, woodwind and string instruments. We spent months experimenting before we all agreed that this was kind of sound was a good place to begin this new effort
To construct the data driven body-instruments used to perform an ever-changing series of climate duets, we secured help from Blair Thompson an electronics engineer, and a programmer. who specified and developed the hardware for the project. Jim Watt is an artist and technical expert, he took all of the parts and made them work together. Liaising with with Blair and Chris as well as Reiko and I to develop the technology as well as the material form of the gauntlet, the leaf chamber and the back pack system.
In June friends and colleagues gathered in Glasgow. Musician Prof Amanda Bayley, Artist-curator Georg Dietzler, Writer, Director and Producer, Rachel McJury and composer, musician Stevie Wishart all contributed to the dramaturgical development of HAKOTO, helping us think through the performative elements, the idea of a duet and the ways that the material form either enables, or constrains the experience of the performance.
The work remains developmental, the two body-instruments are being refined and rebuilt in August. We are also working on a a high quality performance video which will be helpful as we seek venues to perform and exhibit the work.
All work on HAKOTO was done within the GLASGOW SCULPTURE STUDIO.
We also benefitted from an artist residency at Knockvologan, Isle of Mull.