James Wyness: Ice Factory
In the early spring of 2013 I contributed to a regional arts project in the Scottish Borders called Casting the Net: Coast to Inland. The project set out to explore aspects of our relationship with the sea and fishing: how the sea shapes life on the coast and impacts on the inland communities; the connections and the flow of ideas in both directions. The outcomes were intended to effectively engage with the materiality of place and the trades, crafts and lives of people living in the fishing town of Eyemouth and Selkirk in the inland Borders.
I proposed a series of sound works which would investigate, by means of field recordings, aspects of a specific working environment and the influence of this environment on the lives of men and women in the fishing industry. Initially I wanted to explore the use of sound in gauging the health of a seafaring vessel. I knew from research that sailors used to, and probably still do, use their ears as much if not more than their eyes to judge whether a vessel is ‘sound’, in other words whether it is sailing or working well. This important form of occupational auscultation, or aural diagnosis, is used across many domains of working life, from industry to agriculture to science to domestic and everyday life.
I sought also to strengthen and develop an existing investigation into the ethnography of technology in the Borders, in which I was exploring industrial auscultation in the textile industry. In this respect I set out to develop my archive of recordings from working textile mills and to establish the extent to which the ear of the machine operator is used in gauging the ‘health’ of his or her machine.
In terms of outcome, I proposed a series of sound works which would be played in various empty shops and industrial spaces in Eyemouth, a coastal town with a fishing heritage and Selkirk, an inland town with a textile heritage. My intention was to remap and recreate an original sonic environment and to recontextualise this in the new spaces by means of immersive sound installation and performance.
The Ice Factory je pak novou zvukovou kompozicí vytvořenou ze zvuků z továrny na led ve městě Eyemouth, zvuků pořízených na rybářské lodi White Heather VI a z některých dalších studiových zvuků. Zkouším tak pokračovat v mém průzkumu vzniku a vývoje zvukových tvarů a hudebních forem. Skladba je vytvořena za pomoci terénních nahrávek prostředí a studiově nahraných podomácku vyrobených hudebních nástrojů a různých dalších nalezených předmětů. Mým cílem bylo vytvořit spíše jakési vícedimenzionální zvukové organismy, než jen prostá stereofonní zvuková pole – to za pomoci proti sobě stojících kontrastních bloků zvuku vytvářejících proměnlivou hloubku prostoru.
the ice factory, commissioned by Czech Radio, is a new composition made from the sounds of the ice factory at Eyemouth, the fishing vessel White Heather VI, and from the sounds of objects and materials recorded in the studio. It continues my research into the genesis and evolution of sound shapes and musical forms. Following a lengthy research phase, compositions are typically created with environmental field recordings and material generated in the studio using hand-made instruments and found objects. By juxtaposing layers of dense textures, separated out into contrasting blocks of sound, then establishing a range of relationships between various foreground and background layers, my aim is to make these sonic environments function less as stereo sound-fields and more as living evolving multidimensional organisms. This compositional work is informed by a range of extra-musical interests, in particular aspects of the biological sciences, semiotics and anthropology. An overall intention in all my compositional work is that the listener will ‘listen through’ the composition to a range of themes and topics, activated largely by means of socially engaged working procedures. In the ice factory the abstraction of the working soundscape is underpinned by a very real physical and material working environment.
I would like to thank Robin and Billy Aitcheson, Davie and Kyle Spouse and Keith Alexander for their kind assistance and guidance throughout the project.