Welcome to the landing page that contains all of the materials, thoughts, audio clips, photographs and an interview related to the artistic process behind my newly devised piece “PORE.”
LIVING IN A HOUSE THAT SWEATS:
I am living in a house that sweats.
I am sleeping next to perspiring paint.
I am making sense of two old chimneys teasing the lead and slate and sealant with its eroded entry points.
I am struck by stained grey streaks dribbling gently downwards, desperately attempting to reach the earth.
I am wicking the moisture most nights, catching its wetness in a microfibre cloth.
I am listening to the drip, drip, drip, drip in the chimneys when the rain weighs heavy.
I am plugging in air purifiers; opening windows wide in the wind, force feeding oxygen.
I am watching an ancient intruder claim space.
I am exhausting the torchlight when stormy darkness visits.
I am worrying watching the STV weatherman inform us of heavy gales, isobars close together and low pressure bringing in a storm from the Atlantic ocean.
I am living in a house that sweats.
Zac Scott
BEGINNINGS:
Damp Clotting
Damp Trickling
The purpose of the geopoetics is to understand and conceptualize what it means to exist on this planet.
(geopoetics.org, 2021)
At the beginning of 2021, my partner Gudrun and I re-located to Newlands in the Southside of Glasgow, becoming the new tenants of the Old Church Officers’ House within Merrylea Parish Church. It is a curious, quirky site to reside - full of character, intrigue, might and mystery. Having just completed the move and also having just completed the Space, Place and People module weeks before, I devised the above poem “Living in a House That Sweats” as an attempt to geo-poetically preserve the unfortunate realisation of a rather leaky roof that we were cohabiting beneath.
I then decided to use the dampness as a graphic score to devise a new piece of performance in response to its shape. Within this landing page, my decision making process can be understood.
Gudrun and I have both been reclaiming our particular intensities and interests by working together and what significance and insignificance this act offers. I was inspired by poet David Whyte’s musing on this action as we began crafting the piece of work:
WORKING TOGETHER
We shape our selves
to fit this world
and by the world
are shaped again.
The visible
and the invisible
working together
in common cause,
- to produce
the miraculous.
I am thinking of the way
the intangible air
passed at speed
round
a shaped wing
easily
holds our weight.
So may we,
in this life
trust to those elements
we have yet to see
or imagine,
and find the true shape
of our own self,
by forming it well
to the great
intangibles about us.
(Whyte, D. 2012).
THE EXPLORATION BEGINS:
Outside Home
Bins and Scaffolding propping up the church
Inside the Church Armed with an H5
Recording
The Exploration Begins
Recording Set Up
PROCESS INTERVIEW:
Below is a podcast interview with my partner and collaborator Gudrun Soley Sigurdardottir in which we discuss the various influences and inspirations that motivated the process and that helped carve the pathway for the final artefact.
PLACE OF WORK:
Home Studio Set Up
Snowy Piano
LOGIC PRO X SESSION BREAKDOWN:
Below is an in-depth video reflective analysis of the audio-visual artefact PORE:
PORE: FINAL PERFORMANCE:
Below is the final performance which was devised as a result of all of my creative efforts and experiments. It is in video and audio form for you to enjoy:
FINAL THOUGHTS:
When we listen deeply to the places that create our understanding of significance, we get a tiny peek into the stories of the land and can sometimes create an imagination for how to mutually belong within these places. This practice of listening becomes a ritual in that it connects us to the great belonging within the community of creation, and also invites the spirit to break in afresh, posturing us forward toward possibilities of a flourishing future. These are acts of remembrance and re-membering, practices that remind us of our interrelationship with the more-than-human world and bring us back into membership within this assembly.
I have thoroughly enjoyed the encounters I have had with Merrylea Parish Church over the past months, carefully listening, capturing and responding to the many different outpourings that have occurred naturally and unnaturally over the last few months. I know this is only the first, tentative steps to a potentially larger-scale live performance at some point in the future that I hope to realise. I hope to continue to develop my film making practice and utilise it more as a creative medium.
Inside Home
Merrylea Parish Church drenched in Spring Light!
REFERENCE LIST:
Boyers, M. Cage, J. (1971): ‘Silence – Lectures and Writings by John Cage.’ Marion Boyars Publishers LTD.
Devereux, P. 2001: Stone Age Soundtracks - The Acoustic Archaeology of Ancient Sites. CPD, Wales.
Green, N. (2021): ‘Archaeoacoustics Scotland.’ Available from: https://www.archaeoacousticsscotland.org/about.html (Accessed April 28th 2021).
Hamilton, A. (2019): ‘Rhythm and Movement: The Conceptual Interdependence of Music, Dance and Poetry.’ Midwest Studies in Philosophy; 01/12/2019; Vol. 44, p161-182.
Schafer, R. M. (1977): ‘The soundscape: our sonic environment and the tuning of the world.’ Destiny Books.
Tufnell, M & Crickmay, C. 1990: Body, Space, Image - Notes towards improvisation and performance. Dance Books LTD. London.
Whyte, D. 2012. RIver Flow - New & Selected Poems. End Of Line Publications, London.