Exemption from meaning
This project is supported by Daiwa Anglo Japanese Foundation and the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation .
The pitch was to make a new piece of sound work, based on the Japanese ceramics contained in the Aberystwyth University School of Art. And to bring experimental and improvising artists together with Toshimaru Nakamura who makes his Welsh debut here in Aberystwyth in 2018-a few weeks away now!
You can see my trace here in this photo which I snapped, visiting by chance, at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge before Christmas. The pitch had been made at this point but there was someting very pleasing about seeing this particualar example.
Kyokusul no en i is a song reading festival conducted in Spring (currently held on the first Sunday of March at the Dazaifu shrine), where poets compete in their skills to create an original verse before a Japanese wine-cup which has been placed over-stream passes through its strecth on a narrow river branch. Historically, this festival was believed to have been held by the high-court members of classical China from 300 BC as a festival to wash away the impurities of spirit. It became popular in Japan from around the Heian period (794-1868).
This provided me with a burst of confidence in the project which would see several improvisers collaborating with Toshimaru Nakamura. Each would select an item from the collection and this be the basis of the ‘object score’. Amongs the collaborators are: Rhodri Davies, Greg Bevan (film) Adrew Leslie Hooker, Jenn Kirby, Mary Jacob (poet), Ed Wright, Dafydd Roberts & Toshimaru Nakamura.
With a few weeks now to run each of the collaborators choose an item from the collection to work with/respond to. With a bit of luck-respondents respond speedily (albeit at short notice) collaborator items will form the basis of an exhibition at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre in March.
So the idea now is to begin to capture some words and document some of the process.
I have not decided which pot i will use, but one of the best things already has been becoming aware of just how much we have in the collections and its quality and diversity inspires.
I started -re reading Barthes’ Empire of Signs as a prelude to this project and even though this is not of istelf a research project, finding contexts and texts about this process is something I will try and capture as well-but as I am in haste this may all come afterwards. I come from a point of naievety so you may provide links and text that I should refer to. Especially around creating object and graphic scores, Barthes, improvisation and sonification.