Thelma Hulbert Gallery Drop me a line exhibition Teaser

Some images from the exhibition as installation is taking place this week for the private view on saturday 3.00 -5.00

Drop me a Line: Wires and Pins: Wall of Sound Thelma Hulbert Gallery

I am working towards an exhibition at the Thelma Hulbert Gallery in Honiton, Devon.  A joint exhibition with Louise Baker who is another artist at Hurstone where I have my studio. After yet another mad cap lunch we came upon the idea of a joint show about lines, Louise to work with graphite lines and me to work with wire lines to create sound.  We approached Angela Blackwell at the Thelma Hulbert Gallery with our crackpot idea and Angela smiled and said yes let's go for it, and so it developed.
Louise's project grew from graphite lines to any sort of line, then also to include lines that have been created by other people, so she sent out a call for people around the world to 'Drop her a Line' on a spefically sized piece of paper, the postman came regularly with envelopes of lines, people have done her proud, Louise has also produced a vast number of lines, the work will be displayed geographically  around one gallery and Louise's works will be in book form around the rest of the upstairs.
So what of me?
The two downstairs galleries I am going to cover in a number of lengths of piano wire, these are connected to piano tuning pegs and can be tuned, the two galleries will take on the appearance that a heavy duty mutant spider has been let loose, spinning webs of sound.  The sound is to be heard, listened too by placing especially turned wooden listening devices to the wall, whilst someone else plucks, taps, bows the strings, the sound is transmitted through the wall.  There will be an acoustic sound as well but different.  Over the 6 weeks the exhibition is on for the strings will go out of tune, the sounds in the gallery will change.  The gallery will be recording a 30 second recording of the walls everyday and at the end of the exhibition I will put these recordings together to create an audio file. The public are invited to record sounds of them playing and to send those to me as well. The first part of the exhibition is from the 28th March to the 16th May 2015.

This brings me to the second instalment of the show which lasts from the 23rd May to the 20th June, this will have that recording available, plus the sound instruments that have been created in the workshops I will be taking during the first part of the show.  If you want to be part of those workshops please get in touch with the Thelma Hulbert Gallery, Honiton.  Louise will also me doing workshops for her 'Drop Me a Line' and you can also book a place on those.

The Ballad of Johny Walford

Okay so you have heard about this over the last few months, may have listened to scraps on my Soundcloud, even came to the performances, well here is a film that we commissioned Nathan Hughes to make. A short 7 minute film to create an emotion and feeling of  Ralph and my collaboration.  We would like to take this story on the road, to create other performance based on hangings and the like. If you like this film and think you know of anyone who may be interested please pass on this link.  Ralph and I can be both contacted via our websites, through Facebook and Twitter.  If you know of any short film festivals we can enter it into again please let us know, comment below or contact us.
We really hope you enjoy the film.

https://vimeo.com/113942263

More Romancing the Gibbet sound to be heard

To start the story, I made a cart, a musical cart, a sound cart, that cart needed to be played.
Played in public so I needed to get a feel. These are the recording that pre-empt the sad tale of Johny Walford and Jane Shorney. Listen on my soundcloud here:  https://soundcloud.com/michael-fairfax
Great sounds.

Silk Threaded Ear Harp

Another experiment with the ear harps, this time trying out silk thread as the string instead of nylon. The reasoning is that a lot of far eastern instruments use silk strings and I have found no way of getting them in this country, or even if they are used anymore.  I approached a company that makes silk thread and asked for a strong thread that might be used to string an instrument, they sent me some samples and I tried them out, yes they were strong enough and yes they produced sound.  So whilst waiting for my next project to surface I thought I would have a go with the silk threads and making my own wooden tuning pegs at the same time, carved in oak, they are okay, not perfect but they do work although they crucify my tennis elbow that is causing so much grief at the moment.  The sound is very pure it doesn't have the richness and depth of the nylon but produces it's own unique sound, very clean.  The wood is ash with lichen and moss on it for added interest and the stand also acts as the listening spur although of course you can hear sound anywhere on the wood.

Film of Romancing the Gibbet

Here is the link the my vimeo site for a film and voxpop of the Over Stowey performance.
https://vimeo.com/112999438

The Gibbet has been Romanced

The 'Being Human' Festival has finished, Professor Poole and the Gibbet Boys have completed their tour and the equipment has been stowed away.

The events at Over Stowey Village Hall and Warminster Library have proven to be a wonderful success.  The Over Stowey presentation of 'The Ballad of Johny Walford' had an attendance of around 75 people on a saturday morning at 11o'clock which was terrific.  Professor Steve Poole kicked off events with an absorbing talk on gibbeting and hangings which the audience devoured and then asked many a question in the Q&A.
Then poet, writer, performer Ralph Hoyte and I performed our artistic interpretation of events that lead up to the murder of Jane Shorney by Johny Walford, the murder, the trial and the hanging, 45 minutes of sounds from the Gibbet Cart and words from Ralph, again the audience where spellbound by the event, another Q&A and that was that.  Part of the performance was filmed and vox pops at the end, this I will post onto my vimeo site soon and I will notify when.

The event the following saturday again at 11.00 was held in Warminster Library as near as we could get to the hanging site.  The story of George Carpenter and George Ruddock was very different, the murder much darker and evil.  Again Professor Poole started proceeding with his lecture and again it provoked lots of questions.  Ralph and I performed our set, very different this time, still the Gibbet Cart but a more menacing evocation.  Audience appreciation was again manifest and these two events have proved extremely popular and a thought provoking way of dealing with a tricky but enthralling subject matter.  We would love to take this further and research more Gibbet sites and do more gigs/events.  Please contact me if you would be interested in putting on such an event.

The working of the Gibbet Cart

Michael and Ralph during Q&A

A still from a film that Nathan Hughes will be producing about the Ballad of Johny Walford