DISPLACEMENT RECORDS: NON-SPACE
Outlands Presents: The Joyous Thing 4
Radio Broadcast
Resonance Extra
2023
A sound collage using field recordings, abstract sound and music as tools to symbolise manners of thinking. Over its duration conflict and discord (reflecting polarised categorical thought structures) evolve into a more serene sonic space (a resolution that circumvents such binaries). It imagines a move towards an environment where we can experience a sense of emancipation from polarised ways of viewing the world and ourselves. The piece forms part of Outlands’ radio broadcast presented in The Joyous Thing 4.
MIRROR TRANSMISSION
Outlands Presents: The Joyous Thing 3
Radio Broadcast
Resonance Extra
2022
Mirror Transmission is a long form work based on the extensive repetition of small musical fragments derived from piano recordings and sine waves. It is designed for meditative or attentive listening and explores a number of sonic polarities over the course of its duration, including the stereo field, temporal constructs, dynamics and harmonic symmetry. The Joyous Thing is an annual gathering for the UK experimental music community. The event features a programme at MK Gallery and a remote broadcast of additional sound works from commissioned artists.
KEMI (FOR PIANO FOUR WAYS)
Epicentroom International Audiovisual Festival 2021
St. Petersburg Sound Gallery
St. Petersburg
Russia
2021
Fort Process Festival
Newhaven
UK
2014
Vuorikaiku Sound Gallery
Helsinki
Finland
2014
A study into the potential for playing, recording and experiencing the piano. Different elements of the instrument were recorded and played on separate channels that can be heard intimately, or within a compositional whole. One channel captures the raw emotional expression of melodic piano playing, contrasting with discordant harmonics on prepared strings on another. A third channel concentrates on electromagnetic manipulations of the piano strings, whilst the fourth channel pulls away from the piano’s physical structures with an exploration of tuned feedback. Together the elements form a meditative piece that unfolds and refolds over a duration of thirty minutes.
‘One player. Two nested compositions. Cause and effect. Sound and echo. Daniel W J Mackenzie’s Kemi (for Piano Four Ways) is a multi-layered work in which a minimalist composition evokes an acoustic chain reaction. The musical structures disintegrate and survive as echoes inside the piano. Tongues activated by electromagnetic fields sound long and evenly like an organ. The slow-breathing work opens and closes symmetrically like a reflection that does not differ from the original pictorial. Mackenzie’s breathtakingly beautiful meditative piano works are reminiscent of big names like Arvo Pärt, Brian Eno and William Basinski’. - Vuorikaiku Sound Gallery
Piano recordings and arrangement, four channel playback system.
ZAFFERANA, MALAGA, KOS (OBSCURED)
Unmasking. Experimental Sonic Practices
MediSouP (Cyprus)
Online
2021
Comprising recordings captured in Zafferana, near Mt Etna on Sicily, Malaga, Spain and Kos, Greece, treated with numerous phase and shifting processes. The familiar, exciting sounds of waves, church bells and boat engines are obscured from their sources, creating a sonic experience that replaces romance and calm with tension. The apparent sound of cicadas, a common audible fixture all around the Mediterranean, is in fact a significantly up-shifted recording of a different subject altogether. Creating this work illustrates the emotional and psychological challenges associated with being held at a distance, practically and conceptually, from places for which one feels a fondness. This is a sensation felt by many in the past year, locally and universally. The work describes the personal frustration and sadness felt at being cut off, by COVID restrictions and the UK's departure from the European Union, from an area of the world in which the artist has ancestral roots and a profound connection.
Sound collage, presented online and archived here.
ASEMIC 2
The Second Wave
Private residence
Berlin
2020-21
From a series of small asemic writing prints which aim to obstruct meaning from language, therefore freeing the viewer from the pressure of understanding. In the process the work suggests a sense of entropy in its expression, moving what appears to be writing further towards free associative thought that is personal to the viewer.
Pencil on paper (print), black mount board, wooden frame.
DISPLACEMENT RECORDS: THREE
Outlands
De La Warr Pavilion
East Sussex
2019
Field recording sound collage featuring recordings captured in Europe, Hong Kong and Morocco. Presented alongside the Outlands experimental touring network programme.
Playback for stereo PA system.
Visual piece based on conceptual molecular sound perception. Reclaimed steel sheets were treated with various corrosive chemicals, gradually having their surfaces broken down, altering the character of the surface. As a conceptual sound piece the work is designed to illustrate a closer resolution of listening, suggesting the audible experience that would be present if observed at the magnitude of the surface.
The piece continues to evolve imperceptibly, extending its presence as an active artwork and pushing the boundaries of what an exhibited object can be.
Stripped steel sheets, acetic acid, citric acid, rusted metal dust.
CACOPHONY IN STEEL
Immateriality touring exhibition
Multiple locations
UK
2019
Sound collage made from field recordings, instrument and voice recordings in Europe and South Africa. Produced for the fort’s site-wide Tannoy system and programmed for the opening of the festival.
Playback for tannoy system.
UNTITLED
Fort Process
Newhaven
UK
2018
Collaged recordings of acoustic instruments played and manipulated through physical and software processes, with treated field recordings. Presented through hung speaker on the boundary between private and public space, as part of the Sonic Actions series of guerilla sound exhibitions.
Sound collage, playback device, amplifier, single speaker.
UNTITLED
Sonic Actions
Public space
Brighton
UK
2017
Ars Rotatio is a multi-channel sound work designed to create an immersive sonic atmosphere within the dramatic interior spaces of The Great Tower at Dover Castle. Taking cues from music of the 12th century and subsequent music informed by the Ars Antiqua and Countenance Anglois movements, the roots of the work are historically apt. Providing a contrast however is the method of deployment: four custom made 12" records, each containing five sections of different repeating loops with locked grooves on the last rotation. These hold symbolic significance, providing a point of familiarity to those not versed in medieval composition. They also provide a key function - visitors are encouraged to interact with the records, which will all be playing simultaneously, changing the loops as they see fit and creating an overlapping, ever changing composition.
The interactive nature of the work is augmented through a secondary listening device, which concerns the particularities of the set up. As the composition changes visitors are welcome to explore the way the sound changes in each room, tracking switches and fades in sonic prominence, adjusting the balance between the sounds they can hear, and discovering the acoustic characteritics of the building's inner architecture and the sonic qualities of the records themselves.
Evoking the works of Walter Frye, Hildegard von Bingen, Thomas Tallis and Pérotin, the musical information cut to the records suggests the cross-Channel influences not only on music and art, but in wider culture, running against the current climate of political separation and nationalism. In a setting symbolic of British power and the monarchy, this seems especially pertinent.
Commissioned by English Heritage.
Four record players, four custom made clear 12” records cut with sampled audio loops, amplifier systems.
ARS ROTATIO
Dover Castle
Dover
UK
2017
A test version of a piece developed during a residency in The Karoo desert area of South Africa, five hours drive north of Cape Town. A glass lamp was amplified using a contact mic, and as the only source of light in the room attracted a variety of flying insects. In making contact with the glass the insects became players or performers, creating an unpredictable sonic environment that was abstract but musical. This was fed through an audio recorder and amplified through a car stereo system, with an audience situated inside the car, mirroring the sense of intimacy present at the point of origin of the sounds.
This activity has been deemed unharmful to animals by the Royal Entomology Society.
Glass light fitting, light bulb, contact mic, audio recorder, car stereo system, car.
PROTOPHOTOTAXIS
Edge of Wrong Residency
Jakkalsdans Farm
The Karoo
Northern Cape
South Africa
2017
DISPERSED ARE WE
Dear Serge Presents
Sonic Rebellion Now @ Sussex Modernism
Two Temple Place
London
UK
2017
Multichannel sound work constructed from audio content relating to the Sussex Modernism exhibition, chosen and provided by Dr. Hope Wolf. The sonic interventions on this evening - which also included appearances from Ewa Justka and Audrey Chen - were curated and produced by cross-disciplinary project Dear Serge. Alongside the installation sound was a performance which expanded on the themes using extra processing, sampling, live electronics and amplified objects.
Playback for four channel speaker system.
UNTITLED
Colour Out of Space Festival
Brighton
UK
2016
Sculptural sound installation suspended in circular stairwell of the venue’s foyer, playing sound through three speakers down to the public area below. The speakers are mounted on wooden beams and the structure is hung through four floors, resting above floor two. The audio contains recordings of piano and stringed instrument, manipulated through various means. An additional sound source - a live microphone - picked up the sounds happening around the installation and fed them into what was being played.
Plywood beams, galvanised steel cord, speaker cones, amplification system.
SUSPENDED MAGNETICS (VERSION)
Infrasection: Disperson
De La Warr Pavilion
Bexhill
UK
2016
A version version of the sound sculpture first shown at False Autonomy, Galerie Spektral, Berlin. This version used the same principles and design, but the tile was amplified with contact mic and guitar amp. Presented in the glass fronted north facing stairwell of De La Warr Pavilion.
Magnets, tile, steel cabling, motor, scaffold cross beam, contact mic, amplification.
Exhibition of three sound and sculptural pieces exploring various thresholds of listening in a duo show with Joshua Legallienne. The show also
Suspended Magnetics sees a length of wood attached high up on the wall of the gallery space. On this is attached a slow rotating motor that creates subtle motion in a circular magnet set just above the floor at the end of a steel cable. Another identical magnet is placed face up on a small tile, positioned on a cone shaped pivot. Working on repellant forces the magnets never touch, instead push each other away. In this process the hung magnet moves continuously around the magnet on the tile, causing slight and unpredictable movements which are heard as the materials interact. The concepts of patience and anticipation are tested as listening thresholds.
Magnets, tile, steel cabling, motor, wooden mount.
Feedback for Small Speaker System places a simple feedback circuit into the corner of a space. The volume level is set to be on the boundary of silence, testing capabilities of both the electronics and the listener. Rather than an exercise in quietude the piece pits subjectivity and objectivity against each other, elevating the role of the listener in the audibility of the work.
Output speaker, input speaker, cabling, amplification system.
Implication on Balsa comprises a partially burnt wooden structure hung from a support on the gallery wall. It is a silent piece designed to activate imagination and memory through the viewer’s own associations and experiences with fire and material destruction. The threshold being explored concerns the significance and role of sound in the memory of the observer.
Balsa wood, bolts, steel cable, metal bracket.
SUSPENDED MAGNETICS
FEEDBACK FOR SMALL SPEAKER SYSTEM
IMPLICATION ON BALSA
False Autonomy
Galerie Spektral
Berlin
2016
UNTITLED
Festival 23
Sheffield
2016
Installation in a semi external space. A bass guitar hung from the rafters of a barn is set to feedback through an amp, struck by a revolving guitar string spun by a slow motor, creating unpredictable harmonic scraps and audible impact. The feedback is fed through a secondary amp which feeds sound to a speaker cone filled with coffee grounds, set into motion by the sound and lit with a spotlight. The whole piece was lit by floodlight at night.
Bass guitar, motor, amplifier, loudspeaker, coffee grounds, floodlight, spotlight.
Remnants of a found object partially destroyed in a performance at Atlantic House, Cape Town, set up as an unsolicited exhibited piece elsewhere in the space after the performance.
Smashed concrete cylinder, tape.
UNTITLED
Edge of Wrong Festival
Cape Town
South Africa
2016
Playback piece featuring sounds of a zither and vocal abstractions recorded in a fort on the south coast of the UK, played back in a fort in Ostend, northern Belgium during Nocturne of the Atlantikwall sound festival.
Sound recordings, playback system.
FORT CHANNEL RELOCATION
Nocturne of the Atlantikwall
Ostend
Belgium
2015
DISPLACEMENT RECORDS: ESCAPISM
Diep~Haven Festival Transmache
d'Art Contemporain
Diep / Newhaven
2015
A sound collage of audio material captured in Germany, Finland, Estonia, Madeira, Holland, France and England. Contained within its duration are rural and urban environments, spoken segments, sounds of transit and mysterious broadcasts from public address systems. The work aims to bring the atmosphere of disparate and unrelated locations together, highlighting the differences in tone and pace, reminding us of a world of contrasts. These jarring experiences are injected with shades of movement between places, evoking the feeling of travel and its associations: discovery, hardship, excitement and unfamiliarity. Ultimately, however, the piece conveys a personal yearning to escape tired and difficult surroundings for new worlds and inspiring climates. It is this which provides a hazy melancholy, and forms a somewhat desperate, unreachable notion of better things.
Released on disc by Chocolate Monk, November 2015.
Field recordings and sound collage, deconstructed speaker system.
Live mixing of pre-recorded piano and microphone feedback, designed to be interpreted as installed sound.
Pre-recorded material, mixing desk, PA.
UNTITLED
The Green Door Store
Brighton
UK
2014
Sound collage comprising recordings of wind, sine waves and voice samples taken from Roman Polanski’s Le locataire. The sound source was buried, along with one end of the pipe into which the sound was fed, emerging from the exposed end protruding from the surface of the ground.
Copper pipe, black paint, small speaker system, sound source.
EARTH TONE
Private exhibition
Brighton
UK
2014
Bound is an interactive sound producing sculpture that aims to explore and ultimately destroy conventions of artist, audience and performer. It is made from pieces of reclaimed wood and abandoned instruments, black paint, varnish and other detritus, completed with electronic components allowing it to be played and heard – the emerging sound is subject to hardware audio processing that results in a cohesion of texture; resonating and eternally decaying notes drifting around the room, consolidating the input of those who interact with the piece and thus enabling them to make a leap from simply passive observer to contributing artist. Since the vast majority of the component parts have been salvaged or saved from condemnation, it is as much as exercise in responsible sourcing as an exercise in sonic art.
Sonically, the nature of the instrument directs itself towards timbres associated with drone, doom metal and noise. Visually, the sculpture was inspired by Spanish artist David Sequieros' 1936 piece Cosmos y Desastre and the bio-mechanical visions of H. R. Giger, and references sculptures made from manipulated instruments by artists such as Philip Corner, Nam June Paik and Carolee Schneemann. The piece is designed to portray a totemic, sentinel-like artefact; commanding, disquieting and mysterious.
Reclaimed wood, double bass neck and headstock, guitar neck and headstock, wooden stand, speaker cabinet, black paint, varnish, guitar and bass strings, pickups, fixings, audio delay system, amplifiers.
BOUND
CMP Sound Art, Brighton, 2011