Re-Dock’s John O’Shea returns for a further recce of Barrow Park in advance of their FON project. Here we have Andrew making a test broadcast from the boating lake while John and Glenn, (with Ruth McCullough from AND) test the range from various sites around the park. John also visited our friends at Station View House in Barrow to set up a meeting with residents who will be compiling vinyl for a FON Desert Island Discs broadcast from the Re-Dock Swan Pedalo.
Elderly Fairport fans will get the reference. Mary Stark , Ellie Chaney with friends and family in the , er, Octopus garden after thier april Bandstand show.
Purposefully striding towards the kitchen are Octopods Andrew and Glenn and ( red jacket) FON 2011 artist John O’Shea of RE-DOCK. John was in the park to have a look at the boating pond which on which the RE-DOCK Swan Pedalo will sail during FON weekend August 5 and 6. John also gave us a preview of his great film documenting a Workington Uppies v Downies game from a few weeks ago, and his plans for the reintroduction of pigs bladder football into the sporting calendar.
FON AIR artists Ellie Chaney and Mary Stark tweak the files prior to thier performance of “Think Outside The Phone Box” in the park today.
This is what you might have heard if you happened to be walking your dog in Barrow Park last Sunday… Noise Club performing a 2hr set as part of the FON AIR series for the Park bandstand.
Octopus’ John, Andrew, Fern and Glenn working on Poulpe in the upper floors of Islington Mill in Salford, Monday 21st March. Poulpe is a commission for the Merzman festival to be performed on Sat 26th.
The piece takes charity shop audio books collected in Cumbria and Manchester as source material for a short wave radio installation and series of live performances. Creating a variable audio collage from fragments of throwaway fiction, ‘Poulpe’ will be presented on the Mill’s upper floors during the Merzman cabaret on Sat 26th March from 7pm.
‘Poulpe’ is Octopus’ second foray into Schwitters-inspired audio work following ‘Morsonata’, a radio piece by Mobile Radio that was commissioned for the inaugural FON Festival in 2009. ‘Morsonata’ saw Schwitters’ ‘Ursonate’ performed by two Morse code operators from Barrow-in-Furness Submariners’ Association as part of an hour long transmission that was broadcast live from the festival’s base in Barrow Shipyard.
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Established in 2003, Noise Club is a sound art group based in Liverpool and Edinburgh. Straddling the divide between stage performance and interactive intervention, the group creates dynamic soundscapes using homemade electronics, specially-constructed sonic sculptures, found objects, toys, plants, and even smells.
For this commission from Octopus, they have created a new work that mixes interactive installation and performance piece. The work explores the creative possibilities of brass instruments refashioned to new purposes, bent, twisted, and reconstructed in ways that they were never meant to function: from a sawn-off trombone to a circuit-bent tuba.
Pictures from number 4 in our series of sound works for Barrow Park Bandstand – Dan Fox’s Boom Bike and directional speaker.
UCLAN student Pete Dent and colleague Davydd Pattinson outside Octopus HQ where they will be working on Pete’s Octopus /FON commission. Pete’s Course requires what he describes as a Real World brief, and with our varied and arcane knowledge of the real world we’ve supplied one, which will lead to a performance /installation at Barrow Park Bandstand on April the 15th. Pete begins work tomorrow, in the remaining 8 square feet of space that isn’t taken up with flight cases and broken tape recorders.
Alys emerges from Tech duties and helps Sue handle the visuals.
