Murmuration

The Soviet and the Airplane

2012-01-15T21:16:00.002Z

In April 1919, in response to civil unrest following the death in custody of an IRA man, the British Army declared Limerick City a Special Military Area. Barricades were erected on the streets and bridges, and people needed permits to enter or leave. This caused such disruption that Limerick people called a general strike and set up a committee to fight the restrictions and control their own affairs within the SMA. For a fortnight the committee, which became known as the Limerick Soviet after similar uprisings throughout Europe, ran the city. They even issued their own currency.

Meanwhile, in Britain, the Daily Mail offered a prize of £10,000 to the first pilot to fly across the Atlantic. Major Wood of the RAF thought he'd give it a shot. He reckoned that Limerick would be the ideal starting point- his plan for navigation was to follow the Shannon to the sea and carry on in a straight line to Newfoundland.

Wood had obtained military permission to take off from a field in Bawnmore, which had been painted with a large whitewash cross, but was surprised to find that he had to then make arrangements with the Limerick Soviet. The international press, who had gathered in Limerick to cover the only east-west flight in the race, were similarly amused to find themselves in the middle of a story as daring as the flight itself. They were briefed by the Limerick Soviet press office, and sent their copy via an American cable station in Valentia, thus avoiding the British censor and bringing news of the Limerick Soviet to the whole world. [Though not, sadly, to later generations of Irish schoolchildren.]

On the second day of the strike, Major Wood's plane, a Rolls Royce craft called The Shamrock, was expected to land at Bawnmore. The whole striking town and international press corps headed out the road to see the flying machine and Wood and his co-pilot Wyllie, in their specially designed flying suits that were rigged for warmth to a dynamo attached to the propellors; Major Wood and Captain Wyllie, who would attempt the first ever transatlantic flight from Limerick, Ireland's first independent city.

I imagine them all in the field in Bawnmore, scanning the sky, goosebumps standing to attention for the double dare of an uprising and a flight. They waited there all day, crackling like a needle on the edge of a record. There is a grace to suspense that cannot be grounded by any eventual outcome: when, holding your breath and feeling time tumble over itself from a just-dropped cup, you sense that this has already happened, and not happened, then happened again, because you are poised, taut, on the horizon.

They did not know, as they waited, that The Shamrock had crashed into the Irish Sea. Major Wood and Captain Wyllie were rescued by a group of Welsh picnickers who put out to sea in a rowboat. The strike ended twelve days later, after a compromise was reached with the military. The barricades and permit restrictions were lifted.

Two months later, Alcock and Brown crash-landed their plane into a bog near Clifden, co. Galway, having flown all the way from Newfoundland. My great-grandfather, founder of the Connacht Tribune, directed the Daily Mail correspondent the long way round the mountains, got there first, and scooped the first interview with the pilots of the first transatlantic flight.

In 2000 I flew to Vilnius to meet a group of artists who, flush with the success of their campaign to erect a statue of Frank Zappa on a plinth once occupied by Lenin, declared their part of the city the Independent Republic of Užupis. They further declared 2000 the Year of Užupis Airport in the hope that the beautiful poet-pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, whose plane was last seen over the Mediterranean in 1944, would finally come back to earth.

In 2001 I found the story of the Limerick Soviet and Major Wood in the archives of the Limerick Civic Trust; Liam Cahill has written an excellent account in Chapter 8, here. The story came to mind twice lately, as this is a time when people are thinking and dreaming about the city again. We need airports for inspiration as well as for people and goods. De Saint-Exupéry flew across oceans and continents to bring the post - a twentieth century Hermes. Every dashing airman needs a safe place to land, to exchange news for fuel, to take off again. I think of ideas as belonging to the air, sometimes alighting to whisper in our ears; we can follow their trails but we cannot ground or keep them. We do not know who, or what, will land. Yet everything is possible in the grace of suspense. We must paint a white cross on the grass, light the tar barrels at night, keep listening and watching the skies.

Ecce Eco

2012-01-11T18:09:00.016Z

Lately, there has been a convergence of ideas in town. People who would not have sat at the same table during the silly-money years are now speaking and planning together for the common good. The recession has brought a levelling. Once, all the local business and cultural groups were competing for funding and custom. Now that the money is gone, people are using their time and energy to achieve what used to take a forest-full of forms. (and begrudgery.)

I've been looking into the economics of barter. I have found common ground with people who have been working on environmental initiatives. We are both interested in sustainability and an alternative to the zero-sum game.

It only struck me today that the words economy and ecology have the same root: οἶκος (oikos) Greek > oeco Latin > eco-.

It means home.

Now that the empires of speculation have collapsed, we are starting again from the hearth. The people who gather around no longer expect someone else to fix their problems - for a fee or tax - nor do they suggest solutions that they are not prepared to carry out. Spare time, whether it be from unemployment or lack of disposable income, can be volunteered for activities to benefit everyone.

Today I went to UL along the riverbank and photographed the rubbish that washes downstream when the river swells with rain. A colleague had done the same. She has resolved to bring a bag and gloves and clean a little every day. I'll do the same. We will invite people to join us in a regular, social day out, and then we can all enjoy our river again. A student environmental group did a day of this last year in March but, as she pointed out, the new growth of spring will bury the rubbish so winter, though it is cold and mean, is the time to do it.

A quote from Richard III- "Now is the winter of our discontent" - was thrown around a lot two winters ago, when the bubble burst and protesters marched in the snow, but it was taken out of context. The line is not spoken at the time of discontent, and it is followed by -

"Made glorious summer by this son of York

And all the clouds that low'r'd upon our house

In the deep bosom ocean buried."

I think we should bear that in mind.

Thanatosis

2011-10-10T17:09:00.009+01:00

(photo by Risssa, and a very sweet one too, public domain)

Today (windy, sideways rain, again) I was trying to account for being workshy for the past month. There's no positive stress to groan under- no deadlines, no people waiting. I like that kind of stress. Nor is it the weather, for which I have a waterproof coat and boots. It's the negative stress that must be guarded against: the absence of expectation. Instead of adrenalin from demands, there is a vast, unfocussed fear which comes from wondering about the point of it all. I think unemployment might lead to existentialism. While it may make for a stylish dole queue, I'd hate to fall in that line.

The response to fear in living things is most commonly expressed in fight or flight, but I'll leave that to the biologists to explain. Today I was thinking of a third, much rarer option - thanatosis, or "playing dead". Various creatures do this: certain snakes, beetles and the Virginia Oppossum pictured above, as they know that most predators will presume the flesh is rotten if it's already dead.

I have, on occasion, had writer's block, and made myself sit in a chair doing absolutely nothing for a day so that the fear would go away and boredom itself would eventually become motivation. It just seems to be taking so much longer this time. Yet I can't blame fear of the gloom for my inertia because while thanatosis seems to be a successful strategy for survival in the species that practise it, certain individuals, regrettably, have tried to use it against oncoming traffic.

A cautionary tale.

In Which I Finally Put Social Media to Good Use

2011-08-10T16:54:00.016+01:00

This little cat made a home for herself at the entrance to an empty basement on O'Connell Street. I first saw her sleeping, curled up on a stair, and thought it odd that a cat would sleep so close to a busy street. The next time I passed she sat up and greeted me with a polite meow. When I stopped she slinked out through the railings and slalomed round my ankles, purring and kissing my shoes. I was smitten.

For about a week I saw her in passing several times a day, sometimes stopping to sit with her on the neighbouring stoop. As she had the same colouring, I wondered if she was a descendant of thesis cat, who had visited my building exactly two years ago. I liked to see her, but started to hope for her absence, which I would take - optimistically - as a sign that she had found her way back home, or to a new home. And she must have had a home once; she was in good health, and not at all shy around people. All people -everyone who passed by, many of whom brought her food and water or played with her for a while. We wondered where she had come from and compared notes about attempts to find her owners through lost and found notices and local animal welfare organisations.

After a week of learning nothing about the cat (apart from her charms), I telephoned the Limerick Animal Welfare sanctuary to see if they could take her. They are in Kilfinane, about 40km away, (where my great-grandmother came from) and completely overstretched with abandoned and mistreated animals. Their "cat lady" was on leave, but responded on Tuesday evening to a message I sent on facebook, saying that they could take the cat the following day if I could get her out there. If I couldn't get her to Kilfinane on Wednesday, there was half a chance the local vet might keep her till Saturday, when they would be in Limerick City, but by then there might not be room any more.

As I was already on facebook, I started sending messages to friends with cars and friends who live nearby and wouldn't mind helping me put her in a box and getting her to the vet's early the next morning, before I had to sign on and get to the ISSTA concovation. At one stage I had 4 chat windows open and was fielding comments on my help-the-cat-wallpost and one that a friend had put on his wall. Within 15 minutes, I had a Schroedinger joke, contact details of someone else who works at the sanctuary, two offers to adopt the cat, an agreement to help me get her to the vet's the next morning and, best of all, a lift to Kilfinane in a brand-new cat-carrier in a car driven by one of my iMedia lecturers at the IDC, who had adopted a cat from the sanctuary the previous week.

I had previously only used social media to socialise, never to organise anything more complicated than a coffee. This was almost frightening in its immediacy and efficiency. So many people helping, or passing details on to others if they could not help directly, all because they happened to be online, connected, and interested. It spread out across networks until it found the right connection and tied the ends up in a very neat bow. This is encouraging, and light years of improvement on the lonely hand-written posters you still sometimes see in shop windows. And so it happened that the following morning I met Lui, who loves cats, and the lovely little cat went into the cat-carrier and into the car, purring, as if she had known all along that we would find a solution.

And as if this post isn't recursive enough, Itsy will adopt her next week.

It's true: The Internet is Made of Cats.

Too Busy Bartering to Organise Barter

2011-07-29T21:14:00.012+01:00

A sound art proposal I wrote - and subsequently forgot - back in March was accepted last month for ISSTA's inaugural convocation, "Overture", which will be held at the University of Limerick next month.

Yikes.

I think I got so used to rejection that an acceptance was a bit of a fright. (It's ALIVE!) And now I have to actually go and do it.

My current co-barterer, for whom I'm proof-reading, will be presenting a paper at the convocation. This tangled up our plans to exchange jobs (proof-reading for audio guidance) one at a time in order of urgency. Still, it's Summer and the evenings are long and bright, if not particularly warm, so we have a head start on it.

Here goes.

At the end of Summer I'll get back to the bartering site. I'll bring my co-designers Keith and Lette up to my grandparents' house in Furbo, co. Galway, for an offline week of planning and programming. The sea will be warm for swimming and we'll walk in the woods and give carrots and parsnips to Bánín:

and all will be well.

Red Pen

2011-06-02T15:00:00.027+01:00

A site for bartering work would need to have user profiles, in which users can list what they have to offer and what they are looking for in exchange. This "CV" would include items that belong under interests and hobbies in a standard job application, but here they are to be traded. Writing such a profile might be a cheering exercise for a user who feels useless in what is known as "the current economic climate".

My profile would include proof-reading. I've bartered this with a friend who is writing his PhD thesis on electroacoustic music. Rather than refer to market values - which are slippery at the best of times - or count the number of pages and hours spent, we have decided to exchange project for project. I can sculpt words and I'd like to make more sound art. He is a sound-sculptor and needs clarity in his writing. So I will proof-read his thesis and, once he has submitted it, I will dust off an old idea of mine and he will work on that. This was an easy handshake.

It did, however, impress on me the importance of communication about the work as well as within the work itself, a lesson that will not be lost as I go about the design. Proof-readers need proof-readers too.

To get the ball rolling, we sent emails arranging to meet:

Now I might like to think that I can sculpt words, but here, as I was checking if he lives at Number 5, I sent the message that I would rather meet at 5 o'clock.

The afternoon passed and I forgot about that tricky little dot. Until...

It is lucky that we both find this funny. Then again, we already know each other - what would this do to a new relationship online?

My friend and I each have a strong interest in getting the jobs done well - working to our strengths and needs makes this a matter of pride rather than a grudging chore. If I slack on the proof-reading he might do the same on the audio work. But if I do my best reading his thesis, I trust he will return the work in kind. And, of course, I now know where his house is. ;-)

So how to design a site though which people can build relationships and deals like this before they have met in real life? As with goods-trading sites, I envisage a rating system for transactions conducted; the idea being to map the deals and give users confidence in each other, but how would they earn ratings - denominations of trust - without having ratings already, or links to their own websites/work experience? What is their capital?

I'll be holding a workshop to figure this out with participants at 3DCamp on Saturday the 11th of June...

The Elves and the Shoemaker

2011-05-24T11:55:00.016+01:00

Do you know this story by the Brothers Grimm?

An honest old shoemaker has fallen on hard times. He only has enough material for one more pair of shoes, so he cuts out his work for the next day, says his prayers, and goes to bed. In the morning he finds an exquisite pair of shoes on the table, and wonders who could have made them in the night. A customer thinks the shoes so fine he pays double the price the honest old shoemaker asks, giving him enough to buy material for two pairs of shoes, which he cuts out to make the next day, says his prayers, and goes to bed. The next morning there are two pairs of shoes on the table, as beautiful as those of the previous day, and he sells these for enough money to make four pairs. On it goes; the honest old shoemaker and his wife live comfortably again, but they wonder about their good fortune and decide to stay up one night to see who their helper might be.

Two naked elves spring into the house at nightfall and set to work, their little fingers stitching the shoes faster than the shoemaker's eyes could follow. All night long they work, watched by the honest old shoemaker and his wife, and before daybreak they run away, leaving a row of perfect pairs of shoes on the table. The shoemaker and his wife are very grateful to the elves, but sorry that they are naked as winter is on the way. So they make little elf-clothes and leave these on the table instead of the cut-out leather. That night the elves come to work and, watched by the delighted honest old shoemaker and his wife, put on their new clothes, dance around the room and out the door, never to be seen again.

This was my favourite childhood story. It has neither wickedness that must be punished nor heroics that must be rewarded with kingdoms and gold, just a dear old couple who are helped back on their shoemaker feet. The elves are intriguing because the story gives them no background, no rationale. It is reciprocity that brings about the end of this story, although this was not the end the elves were working toward. They do not make formal presentations with the built-in obligation of return: they are sneaky little anti-burglars who do their little elfin deeds and run off into the night. I like to imagine new adventures for them because their kindness takes the form of mischief. That is what makes it true.

Barter at Work

2011-05-16T17:02:00.009+01:00

I have been sketching a design for a website for the bartering of work: skills, knowledge, labour, time. It might help people to save money; it might improve confidence by re-evaluating personal worth and trading on it; it might form social connections for those who are isolated from what remains of the job market. It might make us happy.

I have been reading at the IDC; quietly, and not always in the same direction, but it's fascinating and food for many future posts. I cycle here and home along the riverbank, but on Tuesdays I walk out with my friend Iziar, who goes to the weekly Farmers' Market. She likes a particular stall, run by Lough Boora Farm, but at this time of year the fruit comes all the way from France and Spain - maybe from her native Euskal Herria - which makes it too expensive for her weekly budget. Tony, the farmer, was finding it hard to set up the stall by himself each week and couldn't afford to hire anyone. So they made a deal. Now we walk out earlier on Tuesdays, Itsy helps set up the stall, and goes home happy with a bag full of goodies.

My Grandmother's Wedding Suit

2011-05-16T14:07:00.016+01:00

After proof-reading earned me a holiday with friends in Berlin, I got to thinking about reciprocity and how it can help in times of economic hardship. Though I might be adding childhood naiveté to memories, I thought about the swapping and hand-me-downs that were part of life when I was growing up. These exchanges were a valuable supplement to the budget of punts and pence, e.g. the money saved by swapping children's clothes could be put toward things that could not be paid for in goods, like the ESB bill.

I remembered my grandparents' accounts of life in the "Emergency" of the Second World War. They met while working in Dublin as Civil Servants. My grandmother was from a small farm in Co. Mayo and enjoyed her job in the Meteorological Office, with additional duties as a standby fire-woman -she loved the jumping-out-windows training, and was raging she wasn't called up the few times Dublin was hit by stray German bombs. My grandfather, up from Cork, was in Customs and Excise, with compulsory stints in the army -from the photographs, being a soldier in a neutral country seems a good life. The war severely curtailed trade, so all goods were rationed. Being young and healthy, the shortages of food and fuel were an annoyance rather than a hardship, and left them with a lifelong frugality that never kept pace with market values. For them, enough was luxury. My grandfather, who was fond of quoting Mr. Micawber on economics, was horrified when my younger sister rang from New Zealand in 2003 to wish him a happy birthday. "This will cost you a FORTUNE!" he said, by way of hello, and hung up the phone like it was on fire.

When they married in 1946, rationing was still in effect. So my grandmother gave up her sweet tooth for a year and swapped her sugar coupons for enough cloth coupons from a neighbour to make a new suit. It was powder blue.

Quid Pro Quo

2011-05-10T15:15:00.020+01:00

Last winter I went to see Manuela in Berlin. It was good; I enjoyed wandering the city while she and Heiko worked, and in the evenings we ate together and chatted about what we did that day, about Manuela's days in Ireland and my days since we parted. They had questions about Ireland that made me sad to answer (they could be boiled down to "WTF?" but for their good minds and manners). I had been unemployed since we got our Masters in Interactive Media, and the dole queues were getting longer. There was a sinking awareness that it would all implode soon -"it" being the loop of economic bluster and myopia that had entangled the nation since I graduated with my BA in 1997.

On the day I flew out from Dublin, the IMF were flying in. The day I flew back was the day after the government had agreed a bail-out package. Manuela saw me off on the S-Bahn, pressing an envelope into my hand, and wished me well. At the airport, a news-stand clamoured Irland-Irlande-Ierland-Irlanda-Ιρλανδία-Ирландия! with the faces of fat T.D.s looking grim and grey in the camera flashes. I took a free copy of Die Welt and deconstructed enough of the long German lego-words to know that we weren't just the laughing stock we feared we would be: we were the cause of great worry and anger. The shame of it. I covered the harp on my passport with my fingers.

Back home, I couldn't figure out what to do - work had already looked unlikely for me and thousands of others, and now we were hobbled with national debt. I opened Manuela's envelope. An Advent card, a shower of glitter, with windows to open every day till Christmas, and a lovely personal message. I had gone to Berlin at her invitation, and she had paid for the plane ticket, because in the summer I had proof-read and helped edit two papers she and her colleagues at the Berlin University of Applied Sciences had written in their second-language English. She had been apologetic about the lack of pay, but I insisted that the exercise was enjoyable and good for my unemployed mind. This was true, but she insisted on reciprocating, so she sent her invitation.

It got me thinking.

Dawn Chorus: Finale

2010-06-15T00:43:00.005+01:00

After sunrise, around 06.00, 14.5.10. This is all Patrick's work - I used the audio from his camera because the flight took my breath away; there were gasps and motion in my recording.

Dawn Chorus, Part 4: Later Birds and Early Cars

2010-05-28T12:09:00.004+01:00

Dawn. 05.30, 14.5.10. The rooks, woodpigeons and geese waken. This is from an "amphitheatre", a corner of the path between the woods in St. Munchin's school grounds and the river. The photo is by Patrick, from further downriver, but the light is accurate to the time of recording.

Dawn Chorus, Part 3: Somewhere, in the distance, a duck quacked.

2010-05-27T10:02:00.006+01:00

17.5.10, about 4.40am, further upriver. Away from the weir and the millstream, but closer to traffic. Picture by Patrick, from the morning of the 14th.

While pushing my bicycle through a meadow to get to the bank, I could hear a dog barking in the distance - across the river in co. Clare. I thought, ha, a Vonnegut soundscape. But the dog could only be heard in the recording if I raised the amplitude to a level where the blackbird on a branch at my right shoulder would set the listener's teeth on edge. Closer, however, was a cranky old duck splashing and heckling the songbirds. Now it's a Larsonesque soundscape.

(So it goes.)

Dawn Chorus, Part 2: First Light at the Weir

2010-05-26T00:18:00.008+01:00

A heron, songbirds, and rushing water. In the distance, a car.

Recording and photography as previous part.

Dawn Chorus, Part 1: Songbirds and a Stream

2010-05-24T21:55:00.006+01:00

At the Mill Race, Corbally, Limerick. 4.30am May 14th, 2010. Recorded on Zoom H4n (by the light of a bicycle lamp).

Photo taken on grainy old film by Patrick Corcoran, who is a very good sport at that hour of the morning.

Spring Cleaning

2010-03-05T15:35:00.004Z

And here is Spring, gatecrashing the quiet hearth. It's very rowdy out there- all straining buds and starlings singing at 3am, and not a care for sleep or the occasional back-stabbing frost.

So it's time I woke up the blog. I've asked to take part in Hugo Verweij's 5 Questions about Sound, since he so kindly took part in my student effort (thanks!) and I like his site very much. And it needs a link to sounds I've arranged, so I've posted two clips below.

Now that I can bear to press the record button with an ungloved finger, I'll be playing with my new toy and posting sounds from out and about. Frogs first, if I can find them...

Ringing Limerick, 7.5.07

2010-03-05T14:21:00.006Z

This is a clip from Ringing Limerick, a 30 minute sound intervention composed and performed for EV+A 2007. Church bells always sounded lonely to me because they call out loud but the response - prayer, time-telling - is silent, internal. This performance was a conversation between over 50 bells, rung by Master Bellringers and volunteers. It follows the pattern of change ringing, but with the bells spread out around the city rather than in one tower. People were invited to walk around the city centre - to listen from inside the body of the instrument. On the day, strong westerly winds blew most of the sound away - I later heard that people in an eastern suburb had the best seats.

I can't post this without thanking again the bellringers of St. Mary's Catherdal and St. Joseph's; Mikael Fernstrom and staff and students at CCMCM; the Umbrella Project and all the volunteers and the churches - research was never as much fun as climbing towers and swinging around the Augustinian's Belfry.

Vertigo Smith

2010-03-05T13:58:00.007Z

And this is Vertigo Smith, a sonification of apples falling in a garden one autumn.(Also mentioned here.) I staked an octave around the base of the tree-trunk and gathered fallen apples at dawn and dusk every day during October 2007, noting their position and weight. The position determined the note (distance from the tree-trunk the octave) and weight the duration. I also noted weather conditions. In November I chose the days I liked best for their atmosphere, wrote their musical notes on little pieces of paper, let them fall to the ground and picked them up to make an order. The harpist, Áine O'Dwyer, found expressions for rustling leaves and reverberating branches, frost, fog... In December she played it out.

Thesis Cat

2009-10-24T23:27:00.021+01:00

Tim likes to take pictures with old cameras he finds in second-hand shops. This is "Thesis Cat". She appeared early in July, slinking across the rooftops behind my building, screaming for kittens. She cried day and night. The sound -broad, lonely- rattled me. It interrupted my writing and thinking.

For weeks no tomcats fell for her charms, so I ended up deafened, but feeling sorry for her.(All that screeching and slutty slinking, yet no takers. How embarrassing!) When she was quiet, and I needed a break, I'd go downstairs and sit in the yard and smoke, and she would curl up beside me and purr. This often helped me find or fine-tune a thought. We were at the same point in our creative efforts; she was a good familiar.

Tim took this picture on 1962 Agfa Silette film, on my birthday, just after the thesis deadline. She disappeared soon afterwards.

So Long Tong!

2009-09-07T09:41:00.010+01:00

"I am lost in sweet memories when looking at these photos."- 徐童

Tong sent me these pictures. The one on the top was taken just before the DAWN exhibition opened last Wednesday. There she is on the right, next to Manu, who will be back in Berlin by now. Viel Glück! The crazy Yank at the back writes to say he got home safe, having wandered Limerick in the hours between closing time and the first bus to the airport. Shelagh and I, on the left, are dreaming of walks and talks in autumn woods.

The exhibition, and with it our year in iMedia, closed last Friday. There we some of us are in the bottom photo, after we dismantled our work, handed the lab over to Lette and the new class, and got the camera drunk.

At least I think that's what happened... this past year has been a festival. I'm still reeling, and I can't find my bearings (or my shoes), but it will all make sense later.

Then, someday in the future, my friend Tong, we will meet in China.

Twitter DAWN Chorus

2009-09-01T14:39:00.010+01:00

Hello World!

The Twitter Orchestra is now playing at Digital Arts Week Now, at the University of Limerick. The exhibition of work by iMedia and Music Technology students, including this Twitter Orchestra called Murmuration, will run until Friday September 4th, with the opening bash tomorrow at 6pm in the CSIS building -do come along!

The Twitter Orchestra are:

@lettemcnamara

@gabig58

@cobyrne

@pathfinderpat

@froodie

@garethesn

@cflinnds

@garymcginty

@daynuv

@skehillr

@cheebah

@marialarkin

"@" the nice man called Daryl who joined up at the exhibition today (didn't get his username!)

More welcome!

All week, these Twitterers can play sounds and graphics on my exhibition computer screen, by posting tweets containing these keywords:

Word = Sound

thinking = the winding up of a music box;

send = the swoosh of a rope being swung;

busy = the beating wings of several pigeons

taking flight;

love = the purring of a cat;

going = the draining of water from a bathtub;

:) = the song of a blackbird;

missing = the sound of sea waves receding

from the shore;

tired = the rustling of a skirt;

no = the thump of a foot kicking a ball;

happy = three notes from wind chimes

and for all of these Twitterers:

good = a round of applause

Thanks to all Orchestra members, interviewees and survey respondents. It's been a privilege and a pleasure to listen to the world through your ears.

Anyone in or near Limerick -do come in to the exhibition. I'll try to keep the rest of you posted with clips and feedback when it's over.

Bye for now (*sound of a tired but satisfied sigh*)!

Miriam

How to join a Twitter Orchestra

2009-08-07T16:04:00.011+01:00

Calling all Twitterers...

For my Masters degree at the University of Limerick, I'm designing an application called "Murmuration" that turns words from Tweets into an interactive soundscape with animated graphics.

I have a list of words and a corresponding list of everyday sounds that many of you have kindly helped me to compile. Now all I'm missing is the orchestra. Lette has stepped up as 1st violin and we'd love to play with more Twitterers!

When it's up and running, any time that an "orchestra member" -a participating Twitterer, tweets the word "thinking", for example, Murmuration (through Flash and xml magic that is still boggling my mind) will play a little animation with the "sound of thinking".

If you would like to play, all you have to do is send me your Twitter ID number and carry on tweeting melodiously. To find your ID number, click the RSS button to the bottom right of your Twitter home or profile page. Ignore the request to sign in to Twitter API, as your ID number will immediately appear in the URL. Here's mine in red:

http://twitter.com/statuses/friends_timeline/45204216.rss

Your numbers before ".rss" are all you need to send me in order to play. Please note that all I can obtain by putting ID numbers through the system are data that the whole world can already see on your Twitter profile page: Name, Location, Bio, Tweets and your layout style code. I cannot see IP addresses, direct messages or anything personal.

If you would like to join in, just send your ID no. in a Direct Message to my Twitter account, or email it to me at miriam.lohan[AT]gmail[DOT]com.

(Oops, that's my real name. The jig is up...)

Questions can be asked via the same routes, or here in the comments. I'm going to be examined and marked on this project, so ask away -the practice would be good for me.

And while you're at it, do send me your favourite sounds and words and I'll see if they can be woven into the music. I love hearing sounds through other people's ears.

All going well, Murmuration should be live by the end of this month, so you can see and hear yourselves play. I'll blog about it then to let you know.

Thanks!

Miriam

Good news and high heels

2009-07-20T15:42:00.007+01:00

It's ages since I've seen T- (China Girl). The hug felt odd -today she is taller than me. She is wearing high heels. She has good news; she will have a job as a Journalist when she returns to China. The heels are for practice, she says, and demonstrates a "professional" walk with an adorably unprofessional giggle.

As a clumsy European, I've always smiled at her bright, dainty steps. On the first day of the year, she shared her umbrella with me, and I had to dance to stay under its shelter. Today she is a kitten on a piano.

Bravo!

2009-06-30T22:26:00.004+01:00

Thank you, all of you who have completed my sound survey -I love the ears on ye!

I emailed a link to the survey to dozens of you, friends, and though it's anonymous, recognition is possible -from the sounds that surround you, the sounds you remember and your responses to them. Your chosen sounds are a half-personal, half-earthly marker; the clothes that you wear, which you did not make but to which you give shape.

I'm also reading strangers' responses, or responses from people I may not know as well as I had thought. Unscientifically, I imagine you all as choirs, little exclaves of sound, and you do not have to shout to be heard. Your reception is a voice.

Sound, etc, It's all about You.

2009-06-29T12:09:00.003+01:00

Here are my questions:

http://tinyurl.com/lu2jjr

Enjoy the listening. Over and out.

Sound, etc, Part 5

2009-06-16T10:06:00.011+01:00

5. Summerscape

On Sunday mornings when the roof tiles make cracking sounds in the heat, you know you'll be taken to the beach. Salthill is always crowded on days like that, so you are brought further out the coast to Baile na hAbhann. Days like that, the Aran islands hover above the sea in the haze, not wanting to get their feet wet. You love getting wet though, and run straight in, the water slowing your stride (splash, fizz) and then under, to the thick and slow sounds, for as long as you can hold your breath. You remember from the map on the classroom wall that all the seas in the world are joined-up and the continents are just islands. You realise that there's nothing but cold sea between you and the shores of Canada, 3,000 miles to the west, and that the depths are full of scary monsters. You come up, gasping, and hear the comfort of voices, gulls, the water swishing on and gurgling off the sand, and further away the car radios with Micháel Ó Muircheartaigh buzzing his report of the match to the fathers leaning back with their feet on the dashboards, smoking Major cigarettes.

Sounds like...

2009-06-15T19:55:00.007+01:00

Apologia

"We fail to see the advantage of invoking, even metaphorically, scientific concepts that one oneself understands only shakily when addressing a readership composed almost entirely of non-scientists."

Sokal, A. and Bricmont, J. (1998): Fashionable Nonsense, Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science.

Before I continue writing wild allusions, throwing terms around as if they could mean anything at all, I slap myself on the wrist with this excellent book. I really must grasp both sides of metaphor; hold the ground in one hand and the figure in the other (I'm sorry -I can't make it stop). Else I'll end up in conceit. Or 'Pataphor, which is not a bad place to spend an evening.

Sound -An Autobiography, Part 4

2009-06-15T07:49:00.003+01:00

4. The heightened-hearing effect that precedes a first kiss.

There are external components, heard with keen precision and hangover impact; circumstantial -sometimes rain or babble from the next room, once a bicycle let crash to the ground. There are reliable internals of pulse, breath, clicks and gulps of swallowing. But the main events sound in the closing circuit between two people. Another electromagnetic crackle, this time more like the hiss and spit of the needle on the edge of a record. I swear I've heard pupils dilate. The last words spoken, thick-throated, hang in the air like smoke and have to be cleared with pressure.

"Would you..?" "Yes, I..." "Ehhhh..."

It's hard to be eloquent with your heart in your mouth.

Sound -An Autobiography, Part 3

2009-06-14T20:05:00.005+01:00

3. The lonely effect of the telephone line

An electromagnetic crackle. I hear it on the phone with a grieving friend, when neither of us can say anything anymore but we need to keep the line open. I hear him suffering. He hears me wishing it away. We both know that's not enough. Static.

Sound -An Autobiography, Part 2

2009-06-14T19:53:00.006+01:00

2. The wistful effect of distant children playing.

We lived near the village school and days when I was sick (mostly exaggerating) I would hear the other children playing at breaktimes. There was a flat field nearby, perfect for ballgames in Summer, after the hay had been made. Summer also brings long evenings, and I used to hate being sent to bed early, when it was still bright and I could hear the older children playing. Shrill voices -short calls with long trails, their laughter and tone discernable, but not their words; the deep thump! of shoe on football, the clack! of hurley and sliothar; the stretched-out longing, the exclusion felt in panorama.

Sound -An Autobiography, Part 1

2009-06-14T19:39:00.004+01:00

A highly subjective series, in which I try to figure out what Qualities of Sound I want for my project, and why. The how, and the Sound Quality are another puzzle, for another report.

1. The lulling effect of voices speaking foreign languages.

I wonder if this is a memory of my mother's voice, before I was born and before I understood language? When I was 10 I moved into my own bedroom, which had a handy getaway window and a stereo with a broken cassette deck. At night I used to listen to the radio, tuned to long wave frequencies, volume turned down so no one would catch me. My favourite programme was Norwegian (Bergen, on the dial) and featured two mellow-voiced men talking and playing Jazz. I didn't like the Jazz then- just the slow, hilly cadences of the conversation. It always helped me drift off to sleep (only to be rudely awoken by the signature tune of the next programme). I still like listening to foreign languages, though only in amiable, late-night tones.

Halcyon (For the Birds)

2009-06-13T14:11:00.012+01:00

(image, Lip Kee , cc)

I've been trying to get up before the birds in order to record sounds at a (relatively) quiet time at home. This is tricky as we approach Midsummer, particularly on weekends, when people sing their way home until the dawn chorus.

This morning, I thought- it's a pity I didn't do this in the quiet dark of Midwinter.

Then, on my way to UL, along the canal bank, I saw a Kingfisher skim over the water in electric blue arcs. These could be reverse "Halcyon days": the Ancient Greeks believed the Kingfisher (Halcyon) calmed the winds and the waters and thus gave us warmer days in the middle of Winter. I see a Kingfisher in all this warmth and light, and think fondly of December.

How not to impress a Techie

2009-06-10T16:35:00.005+01:00

I was borrowing recording equipment to take home, where I have gathered lots of sound-makers, and D- opened a microphone case. I expected two black sticks with fuzzy or wire-mesh heads, but instead saw two of these.

Before I could stop it, "Oh, they're lovely!" came out of my mouth at a high pitch, as if they were made out of kittens or emeralds or something.

Then I burst out laughing and, being a gentleman, he did too.

Sometimes, well most times, I'm like a child in a toyshop.

Sound-Related Things I Forgot to Say on Saturday

2009-06-08T23:21:00.005+01:00

1. That, in the Stables for lunch that day, I met a little boy coming out of the toilets. He held his little hands up and announced something to me in a VERY BIG VOICE. I didn't understand, but he was very insistent, and shouted it again.

His mother: "He says he used the hand-dryer."

Me: "Oh. Was it warm?"

Little Boy: "Nooo! I used the quiet one."

2. That I gave the name of the apple-falling-music, "Vertigo Smith", to my dear dear dear friend T- to use as a pseudonym for his singing-songwriting career. He asked me for it one evening when we were walking up to Tom Collins'. And just as he asked, an apple core thrown from a high window fell at our feet. True. I would have said yes anyway, but that settled it. He's great. I love him. Vertigo Smyth.

3dcamp 6.6.09

2009-06-08T17:06:00.007+01:00

An excellent weekend. I enjoyed 3dcamp, as I'd expected; full of interesting, friendly people and their interesting, friendly ideas. I'm used to directing performances, not delivering them, but the smiling group made my part so much easier. (Well, that and the prescription pills I've been popping since my spectacular bicycle-to-ditch crash on Thursday evening, which certainly took the edge off!)

Though it seemed a shame at first to run talks simultaneously in separate rooms, everything came together when the audiences converged on breaks. There was also a great sense of inter-disciplinary attention and interest, which was particularly welcoming to Shelagh and I, as artists and newcomers to the tech world.

The 3d and "Pervasive Internet" themes might have been very loosely adhered to in a less engaged crowd, but there were connections everywhere. Fabiano and I worried that our presentations weren't quite 3d, but on cheeky reflection we reckoned that mine was 4d, since sound travels across time, and his was at least 6d, since it's an academic work about academics and therefore as meta- as can be. I went home thinking of maps, drawn through localisation technologies, depicting the past, present and future.

I left behind my adapter lead, which meant only a quick hello on Twitter once I signed up that evening. And yesterday, laptopless, I bought a newspaper for the first time in a year and a half. I had forgotten how much nicer it is to rustle the pages, spread them out on the table to read, happily spilling toast crumbs and coffee.

2nd Break

2009-05-29T18:50:00.003+01:00

Three boys went past in sulkies, pulled by piebald ponies. I never wish I had a camera -it's easy to keep images in mind. But I'm starting to wish for a little recorder and mics of my own.

Stepping Outside,

2009-05-29T16:09:00.006+01:00

after listening intently on headphones, and the world sounds brighter: the fountains and trees in the wind, the junior jackdaws in the eaves, traffic...

it's like a sip of cool water after whiskey.

Barcamp - idir dhá thine Bhealtaine*

2009-05-28T13:02:00.011+01:00

On June 6th, 3Dcamp will be held at UL. Gabriela invited the class to participate, so I googled, and I think I know what to expect. It seems to be somewhere between workshop and speed-dating. I put myself forward as a speaker, because they seem like a friendly lot and I need to kickstart work on my project. I'll try to make a little patch to play, based on a chaos equation, because I won't be able to rig up a real-time feed in the real time of 9 days. If that fails, I'll have to blather about sound in words, again, and that's a bit redundant.

I'm really interested in the speakers' list so far, and wonder how to manage time on the day. Festivals always frustrate me because I'd rather go to everything over an extended period than miss out in the rush. I saw the "Secrets of the Stones" programme, with 3D recreations by Gavin Duffy, and I thought the design was far more plausible than standard archaeological reconstructions, which remind me of this, so I'd definitely like to know more about that.

And the title of David McKeown's talk, "Wiimote interfacing and looking stupid while controlling a robot" has me hooked. When Macdara Butler and Oisin Lavery from Tricycle came to show our class their touchscreen work I was really impressed by how precise and graceful their movements became when they were using the screen. I think there's scope for new choreographies here and it's something I'd like to work on, once I've made the music.

But there's so much I've haven't heard of yet, and I don't want to miss something because I've fallen back on old interests. Hopefully I'll get useful links and connections so I can extend the festival and catch up afterwards.

* "Between two May fires", an Irish phrase for a tricky choice. However, these May fires are all good. :)

The Books On My Shelves Talk To Each Other

2009-04-25T16:03:00.014+01:00

It's lashing rain and I can't go out, so, thinking idly of my thesis, I thought I'd read some sound poems by Hugo Ball. The book led me to google and I found a new toy:

The Dada Engine

Try it.

Let it pour, I don't care, I've been giggling at the "pomo" essays all afternoon. De Selby, one of my favourite Flann O'Brien creations, is included in footnotes. (In The Third Policeman, footnotes explaining de Selby's theories grow larger page by page until they take over the chapter.) These essays, generated by this system by Andew C. Bulhak,* are bitingly close to all that obscurantism I had to read as an undergraduate.**

When I stop laughing, I can read the system manual and apply it to my own work.

*with one grammar translated by Lars Gustavsson for our Swedish friends, and one in French (where it sounds even more plausible).

** This is the personal opinion of the author and is not intended to cause offence to anyone except people who think L. Casei Immunitass is a scientific breakthrough.

Bestest Teacher

2009-04-17T17:34:00.003+01:00

While I'm catching up (yesterday I had a migraine so all I could manage was painting a prop for a prototype), I'll tell you about my best teacher.

Prof. - lectured in Scenography. He was exactly the sort of professor I hoped to find at University; an elder, excitable, eccentric gentleman with a fruity Anglo-Irish accent that kept his diction safe from babbling. He read at least a dozen languages and would recommend texts to us, then say "of course, it's all in Polish". Our texts -essays and sketches, would be returned after correction with illegible margin notes and, frequently, circular stains of red from a wine glass.

He had an encyclopaedic knowledge of theatre, with a great memory for amusing detail that would make his lectures burst with stories and images of spectacular designs. His enthusiasm was contagious -expressed by smiles and eyebrows like jumping circumflexes. (Designers of emoticons must have used him as a model.) The animation of his face was a memory aid - I can still remember his stories (I graduated 12 years ago) but I couldn't tell you anything I was taught by the dull PhD students, who would read their latest chapter aloud and call it a lecture.

Maybe because he was so animated, he loved puppets, and would always find a way to include them in performances he directed. Students would often be overjoyed at winning the lead role, only to be stuck inside a 2m tall construction of wicker and rags. His directing work led to great outbursts of passion, which often led to sabbaticals. (For years I thought "sabbatical" was an academic word for "nervous breakdown".)

I was delighted to get him as my tutor for my dissertation. I would sit in his office (with the puppets) and tell him what I had been thinking and writing. He would say "yes! yes! yes!" and dash to the shelves and find a book to match every thought. I would end up bewildered, with a tower of books in my lap. But because he was always so happy about the information he gave, I never thought it was an unmanageable load of work. And because he assumed that I was bright enough to follow him, I could follow him very well.

He wins my apple.

Ubik and Delusion

2009-03-04T14:29:00.001Z

Introduction to Arduino from E- .

During the lecture last night's snow melted, and when we came out, there were six snowmen on the (patchy-white) green. Pity we missed the making of them, but we have lots of fun ahead with soldering, wiring and programming our new little toys. The snow and the gadgets made Christmas of the morning.

Last Semester L - took us through Ubiquitous Computing and I can see how Arduino, particularly sensors, could be used for this.
However, the potential for confusion caused by invisibility bothers me a bit. Sometimes in a good way; we could make a lot of art and mischief using these principles. Other times I worry -mostly because I'm techno-gullible -that there is a very slippery slope from invisible systems to madness. If I can't see wires and switches, I get very confused and make incorrect, but vaguely logical, connections. Yesterday during a presentation, I kept pointing the remote control at the screen instead of the projector! Someday in the Ubiquitous Computing future you'll find me blinking at pedestrian traffic lights, expecting them to change.

But by then I'll have snow white hair and a dozen cats. So I won't care if you laugh.

An Experiment in Search of an Hypothesis

2009-02-24T18:57:00.002Z

I listened to yesterday's dance on A - 's computer (must get headphones) and remembered that D - was sorry that it had been recorded in mono. S - said, easy -split the file and put the two parts slightly out of phase. But I wasn't quite happy with that. Mono accidentally fits my musing on this epistemological chestnut:

"O body swayed to music, O brightening glance
How can we know the dancer from the dance?"*

In this case, if the body creates a sound, then dances to the sound, then hears the sound of the body dancing, and on and on, will we have a recursive dance?

So:

I'll cut the recording into a three-minute piece. Then I'll listen and learn it. Then (if D - doesn't mind) next Monday, I'll dance on the bridge again, while listening to the edit in one ear. I'll see if my feet remember which steps make which sounds. The dance-to-the-dance will be recorded, then put together with the dance. I'm sure there will be enough difference between the two to put them out together as stereo, the phase being the distance between my head and my feet.

Of course, there could be a huge phase difference. It could go beyond phase and into competing pieces. I could misinterpret the sounds -it was hard to connect the recorded sounds to the remembered steps. And without S - and D - dancing, the second dance will have less volume and texture.

But that brings me to another hypothesis. I asked D - if he thought the plan made sense in terms of hard and software. He said "that could sound nuts."

And in truth, that's what I really want to find out. So let's see.

* from Among School Children by W.B. Yeats, stuck in my head since I was a School Child

Epiphany 2: Theory to Practice

2009-02-18T14:06:00.003Z

I was trying to remember little epiphanies I had, like Emil's, when I realised that the response to a question could turn out to be an even bigger question, rather than an answer. A wicked problem? I think mine was when I was Emil's age and I had my doubts about this Catholicism thing everyone was on about. Having to be pinned into a communion dress was bad enough, but I took being told how the world is as a terrible indignity. Yet once I had thought my bold question "what if...?" (and wasn't struck down, as threatened), there followed a "what then...?" which was a lot more work than I'd expected. In fact, it took all the joy out of blasphemy.

Anyway, the "Eureka!" moments I remember best are two firsts: swimming and cycling - without holding on to my father. When I stopped worrying about drowning or falling (or paradoxes), and tried something new on my own.

Now that I'm remembering, I really miss being a child... These days I can swim in the morning before cycling to UL, and it's still such a pleasure. But I look forward to the day when I suddenly realise I have been working here without thinking, as if underwater, as if freewheeling -when I can interact fluently with the machine.

On that note: I'll be working with concrete sounds on Monday, and will report back.

Epiphany 1: Emil and the Butterfly

2009-02-16T16:52:00.003Z

I can't find a particular revelation-through-creative-learning memory of my own at the moment, though they happen all the time (which is handy), so I'll remember a good one soon.

The first learning experience that sprang to mind when Gabriela asked us to recount one was that of a little boy in Newcastle West. I was Artist-in-Residence in his school for a term and had different subjects to cover with each class. Emil was in 2nd class, which would put him at around 7 years old. His class were learning about "Nature" through whatever creative means came to mind. I thought the life cycle of the butterfly would make a good game; lots of joined-up caterpillar crawling on the floor, weaving cocoons, pretty wings etc. So the cycle was explained -egg, caterpillar, cocoon, butterfly, egg etc. The children nodded with great solemnity, then went about playing -all except Emil, who was looking a bit confused. When I asked him what was wrong he almost burst into tears, crying "WHERE DOES IT ALL START?" I told him nobody knows, which wasn't much comfort. He was grand the next day though.

On Privacy

2009-02-13T09:29:00.002Z

Last Tuesday's session -on life-logging -was interesting. It seems most of us are cagey when it comes to online presence. Not quite ready for our close-ups yet. Fears range from a sense of propriety -who wants to be gauche or misinterpreted? - to paranoia -details on the record forever and ever and ever.... But as S- said when I was shy about writing a little bio for the website exercise: It's like getting changed at the swimming pool. You get over it -and no one is looking too closely anyway.

I think people are probably interested in the personal detail and institutions are interested in the facts and figures. Depends who you trust. It is difficult to avoid leaving a trail of "thin memory" with ATMs, phone records etc., but at least we can control what "thick memory" we commit to the www.

The extroverted among us can blog and twitter and sing all our days' details to the world. The introverted cringe under blankets at night, thinking why why why did I say that?

The session activated my memory of a poem, "Secrets", by another cagey Galwaywoman, Rita Ann Higgins:

Secrets are for keeping
not for hiding,
the spines of wardrobes
will talk, sooner or later.

Keep your secrets in your heart,
in hip joints,
between folds of flesh,
or under rotting ulcers.

Never tell your best friend,
in time their minds will leak
from old age or too much whiskey.

Don’t succumb to pleas of
‘I swear I’ll never tell,’
eleven will know within the hour.

Don’t ever tell priests.

[...]

As for keeping a diary,
when you’re gone
for entertainment, on wet days
and after funerals,
your nearest and dearest
will read it aloud with relish.

Try blushing with clay between your teeth.

(from "Goddess on the Mervue Bus", Salmon Publishing, 1993)

sketch

2009-02-06T16:34:00.002Z

I still haven't worked out how to put pictures in the right places here.