Summoning circles made of mutable earth. Most of the time the AI generated images of circles become slideshow videos which become layers of colour and texture in live audio visual improvisations. I was quite intrigued by the Deep Dream Generator’s results and thought I’d have a go at making one move…it’s quite a lot of work for an ok result.
So I put one into Runway’s Gen2 to see how it might move it…
Pretty cool but expensive to do anything more. I decided it’s more interesting to have the separate components as layers in Resolume, that way they can change direction and adjust speeds individually according to the tempo.
A circle in 12 parts has from its beginning included a number of vinyl records as a constant resource. The records of Holst’s planet suite is the most obvious one and I have a number of different versions of it, mostly orchestral but with a couple of electronic variations. When it comes to certain zodiac signs the planet suite doesnt figure as there are no compositions dedicated to the Sun and Moon, or Luminaries as they are known in astrology. I posted a bit here about the records I came to use for these https://thefoundofmusic.co.uk/2022/07/25/music-of-the-spheres/
Along with a regular set of vinyl representing the planetary or luminary rulers of the signs there are also astrological spoken word records from Melvin J Gunton, Sydney Omarr, Patric Walker, Maurice Woodruff, Madame Francesca and Anne Petrie. Most of the astrology spoken word records have been recorded to yoube and are embedded in posts on the different Zodiac signs. I’ve a couple of spoken word records that cover the whole Zodiac, Astrology for Young Lovers narrated by Casey Casem, Roger Christian’s Discover yourself through Astrology and Your stars for 1968 by Cosmos.
There are some musical interpretations of the Zodiac with TheZodiac Suite from Norrie Paramour strings and orchestra, Russell Grants Zodiac Jukebox, Johnny Dankworth’s Zodiac Variations Cannonball Adderly’s Soul Zodiac, Roberta Kelly’s Zodiac Lady. Since starting the project in 2020 I have managed to get the entire series of ‘Astromusical House of…’ records with a booklet of interpretation notes by Carroll Righter. I love this set of muzak covers of popular hiots of the day (1969) themed to tie in with characteristics of each sign (these are all recorded playing straight and on youtube)
So far all the vinyl mentioned here has obvious astrological connections but theres a few others that have become staples of the improvisations. These are chosen to refer more to the magical ritual aspect of the project. A Kind of Magic by Queen (almost always in the mix in some way), The Magic Key by Charles M Simmons has some great moments and Percy Thrower’s guide to good gardening record is fantastic to place us at a particular time of the year. I’m sure there are others Ive forgotten…
There are images of all the records mentioned somewhere in the posts on here and many videos of them too. Images of these and more of my vinyl collection are also posted on my Flickr feed
I have been using AI image generators for a while to create circles made of the 4 elements and this year I gave the AI the mode and element as a guide to create them. They go on to become animated layers within the live streamed visual mixes and are rarely seen in their original state as shown below.
Improvised audio visuals with J&K Hodges on turntables, pedals and synths. Cardinal water and crystal circles for an anniversary with live circle drawing by Spike from https://waldenarts.co.uk/
The Fourth Circle
The fourth circle is a return to the cardinal mode, itself suggesting a new initiatory principle that marks a shift towards more tangible and visible circles both at home and beyond.
Astrologically speaking the 4th house represents the home and family life, echoes the zodiac sign of Cancer, the cardinal mode and water element. The number 4 also suggests solidity, stability and structure, perhaps representing the solid physical world. With these principles in mind the work will extend further into the physical space of the studio and around my home as well as out to wider audiences in the coming year..
The social ritual that has developed over the year of the third circle with Jay and Keryl will also be extended to create a new, larger circle around the home, engaging more people in the physical world by inviting new participants to social ritual performances around the 4 Cardinal points of the zodiac. (edited extract from circular ramblings)
A great day in Aberystwyth Arts centre for the Aberetwm celebrations. Some lovely conversations with new and old friends. Thanks to everyone who came along and joined in and thanks to Marc and Becca for having us there!
I started off the sounds of the day with recordings made on Aberystwyth beach, the waves led us up onto the prom where voices and gulls joined in with some short loops of cello, bass and viol from the lovely Sianed Jones who’s loopstation I inherited full of memories. From there we heard the call of Penglais woods where the rich and lively birdsong merged with voices and music from the Arts Centre. The voice of Peter Stevenson and music from Ailsa Mair Hughes, recorded during the Flora exhibition in 2017, evokes and describes the geographic and botanical world of Penglais hill as experienced by John Salter in the 19th Century before being submerged in the drones and loops from vinyl records connected to Aberystwyth. The Vinyl Mycelium connections resonate, ogham trees adding new layers of connection reaching out to both past and future. Traditional instrumental sounds from Deuair bring us back to the present and merge with loops of the past – a stream begins to flow.
Live stream recorded from the event (apologies for some random level changes)
Above is a horoscope chartwheel for the day in Aberystwyth – this recurs in the live visual mix, rotating and merging with another more artistic impression of the chart drawn up for my collaboration with Jay and Keryl Hodges and the third circle.
The space was also inhabited by the mysterious figure of the mushroom man tending his pods and silently connecting us to a world beyond.
A 6hr performance/sound installation as part of Aberystwyth Arts Centre’s 50th birthday celebration. We will be in the Arts Centre theatre from 12pm – 6pm on Monday 8th May.
Mycelium Manifestation Sounds of Penglais emerge from the sea. Local voices resonate and repeat creating new forests of potential where past and future coincide. Fragments of the past loop, crackle, hiss and drone from a collection of audio equipment, old record players and vinyl records.
A curious figure (created by Dominic Saha) investigates how nature can adopt its persona by abstracting the sentient qualities found in fungus. He will inhabit the character of Mushroom Man, the protector of curious giant seed pods whose mysterious presence is amplified and animated by the shifting sound score transforming the ritual caretaking into something otherworldly that conveys a converging of something both ancient and futuristic.
Whittaker & friends will manifest to channel the spirit of the mycelium connecting the trees, embracing Venus to explore and connect with the spring energy of Taurus to create a ritualistic soundscape for modern times. Old and new combine to explore memory, music, repetition, ritual and function.
You are invited to join us in a ritual sound making experiment. Contribute and connect with voice and vinyl records to conjure a new lost forest world made from symbols of the past to connect with the future.
A Forest of Words – Find out your celtic zodiac tree and record your tree name to help grow a forest, who knows maybe we’ll summon some Dryads
Vinyl Mycelium – Browse a collection of vinyl connected to Aberystwyth and select tracks for the mix. From Datblygu to George Melly, to Cor Meibion Aberystwyth via Laurie Anderson to The Sound of Music and Cor Cantre Gwaelod, the connections are there to be discovered.
The fourth circle at Beltane with friends Ceri, Elsa and Kathryn. I previously wrote about my plans for the fourth circle here.
Visual earth symbols for this session are almost exclusively derived from video clips of the trees of the Ogham Tree alphabet which I have been collecting as part of a new work for ‘Aberetwm’ at Aberystwyth Arts Centre on May 8th.
The birthcharts in the video are mine and Jay and Keryl’s. There’s also one drawn up from the date, time and place of our first play together on Youtube on March 22nd last year.
We were also celebrating the anniversary of the wonderful Cragen Beca parade in Carmarthen on Mayday 2022. An amazing project with public art parade event by Kathryn Campbell Dodd that we were all involved with in some way! Cragen Beca was a conch shell blown by the leader of the ‘Rebecca ‘Merched Beca’ protestors in the 19th century (without them you’d probably be paying tolls on all the roads!). For Kathryn’s project and for this fourth circle celebration of it’s anniversary event artist Ceri Owen Jones sounded a conch, each in a very different way. (Read more about Cragen Beca)
This year the sounds went into some Make Noise modules and bounced around to become some of what you hear in this.
Circular ramblings. As I start another circle in 12 parts I want to say again just how grateful I am for the time and contributions of all my guests over the last 2 years. I’ve really enjoyed the opportunities and challenges it’s raised.
Circles, cycles, endings and beginnings. When I started in 2020 it was with an idea of creating and posting monthly on the the same date each year, that it would become a monthly and annual ritual act. Art, ritual and magic share so much.
Alongside the monthly mix my studio time is now guided by the Sun’s movement through the zodiac signs, images and vinyl selected to compliment and explore the qualities of the sign, its element and planetary ruler.
The third circle brought a number of new ideas to the project and is where the ideas and interactions consolidate as a social ritual.
All live mixes – In January 2022 I bought some VJ software and started to explore using that during the performances instead of editing post. Wherever possible my guests have joined me physically in the studio and both visual and audio mixes have been improvised live with some mixed results! When my guest was remote, I recorded the audio mix with them over the web live, I then took the live audio and the camera recordings along with any video clips we decided on and used them as the material for a live visual mix.
Modular Synths – I started playing with VCV Rack, a virtual eurorack synthesiser back in August 2021 and by the time I started the 3rd circle had invested in some hardware. I added the Make Noise Strega, the 0Coast and 0Control in February 2022 and over the following months started to use them in the mixes if it felt appropriate. The first mix of the third circle for Aries 2022 with Elsa Davies was the first time they were included. Sometime around the same time I started playing more regularly with 2 of my previous guests, Jay and Keryl Hodges, continuing the process of selecting and playing records according to zodiac sign and using the sign’s element and planetary rulers to influence the visual material.
Perhaps the years and the different approaches can be seen as echoes of the astrological houses or modal qualities – 1 – The principal act – A monthly vinyl mix 2 – Consolidation and continuation – Inviting guests to participate continuing a process and reiterating the method 3 – Extension and inclusion – Extending and experimenting with more processes to introduce more liveness
The Fourth Circle I see the fourth circle as a return to the cardinal mode, itself suggesting a new initiatory principle that marks a shift towards more tangible and visible circles both at home and beyond.
Astrologically speaking the 4th house represents the home and family life, echoes the zodiac sign of Cancer and cardinal water. The number 4 also suggests solidity, stability and structure, perhaps representing the solid physical world. With these principles in mind the work will extend further into the physical space of the studio and around my home as well as out to wider audiences in the coming year..
The social ritual that has developed over the year of the third circle with Jay and Keryl will also be extended to create a new, larger circle around the home, engaging more people in the physical world by inviting new participants to social ritual performances around the 4 Cardinal points of the zodiac. The first of these was to take place on the spring equinox but unfortunately I was too unwell to do it, I’m still not sure what that means and how it affects the whole…
My guest for Pisces this year was unwell unfortunately and rather than put pressure on them to participate, or try and find another with little time for preparation, I decided to take another break from working with guests and use the time once again to revisit work created in the first circle.
This is a live remix of the 2020 Pisces mix. Played on a laptop it goes through a HDMI – AV converter and on into circuit-bent analog video processors and into an analog capture device in Resolume Avenue.
Towards the end of the original recording I started using morphagene to take samples and mix them in. I let the video loop to explore this for a while.
The found of music 