Month: August 2006

Visitors flood in continuously, surprised and delighted at the experience. Many
think that its interactive and climb out commenting on the subtlety of the
interactivity.
” …..so is it the weight of my buttocks or their temperature that causes those gorgeous
bass frequencies to modulate ? ”
I am spending all and every day watching people experience it and answer their questions.
It’s fascinating and they love it
So much for the conference.

The workers give it a test and realise what all the work was about.
It’s only now that I realise how wooden and cozy/analogue? this work is.
The other side of that curtained door there are hundreds of computers and
monitors and black surfaces and visibly fast moving hard surfaced technology
and dark dark rooms. Here the white blinds sway in the summer breeze and bodies
trip happy on simple music.
The OK centrum is presenting the Interactive Arts Prize winners for ARS Electronica 2006.

Good morning and David has arrived to sort the automated loading of
appropriate software on booting of the computer. Also fine tuning the
webcam causing visitor presence to turn the Bed music on and off.
We are running on a new MacMini which is a small and powerful Intel
Mac that will run without monitor. Perfect for installations. However, it
had required new versions of Max and MOTU driver updates in London,
so this is the first time we have run all this together. We test and retest.
Meanwhile I get in Bed and wire up all the amps and speakers and by
noon we are happily running. ~ and doesn’t she sound sweet.

I have arrived and so did Bed. Fine and fast.
Our space at the OK Centrum für Garegenwartskunst, is large, still and block wooden floored
with big windows that they are already making plain white blinds for. After a welcome ARS glass,
Rudi, Hans and Kaffe come down and unwrap and measure and screw it all together.
It’s essential for the Bed to sit 100% square abnd horizontal otherwise the corners and tops won’t
slip perfectly into place. Its late but Freidl’s rule and Austrian diligence solves the wobbly floor and
we’re not too late for sleeping.

ARS have sent a huge lorry driven by a really nice Hungarian guy who doesn’t
speak a word of English and has been super struggling with this massive machine
and Tower Hamlets parking zones all night not to mention getting a cup of tea.
But the early morning sun revives spirits and we strap our tiny load into the front of his
huge box with a wing and a prayer and hope all that paper work does the job.
See you on the other side!

We are packing Bed to ship to ARS. The first time it has been abroad and the first time
I have had to pack a work that won’t fit in my suitcase.
Rich Mix had kindly offered flight cases but the cost and amount of time available was
too much so we use bubble wrap and cardboards edges. With the super polished side
panels and polished hard wood tops, this is very time consuming work.

I am happily ensconsed in Bed quietly working on piece for ARS Electronica. Surprise, Bed
won a Distinction in the Digital Musics category, so it has to be shipped out to Linz next
week. In the interim, I shall do things to the piece that I have known that it needs, adding
new phrases, remixing /replacing old ones, removing a few dudds. With six months of
focused work at Annette Works with Alex and David and all those visitors and their feedback,
this concentration alone now is fabulous and I am so fast with it .

Elated but wounded. Moving has its side effects.
We empty the studio and move the Sonic Bed and all its essentials into the Glass Room
at Rich Mix on Bethnal Green Road. Good to be back in this stomping ground. I had
a studio at the other end of Brick Lane back in 1998 when you couldn’t get a cup of
coffee down there. Now when I pop out for my first fresh baked bagel, I bump into 2
artist friends I had barely seen since those days, so its all very welcoming and timely.

6 years working with this space just here, and now its time to go.
music for bodies and Annette Works are being kicked out, but the new and local
arts space, Rich Mix, invites us in for a commission and residency with Sonic Bed
in their large, street facing studio, – right into the arms of the public.
Things couldn’t be better.

MIDI be gone.
at last i have a truly musical bit of hardware
and built by an old friend i met 10 years ago
and again was behind something
brilliant found on the web.