While on a residency at the Elan Valley Wales I created a series of responses to the landscape; a guided walk describing birds by experience and not knowledge as they would have been in the past before collective naming EG:” there is the one that sounds like a rusty gate”; short films insects negotiating the text on the page of a Science Fiction novel where the text becomes a maze of contrasts AND writing a collection of fiddle jigs based on field recordings of water as it flowed from hilltop to river. In particular at a single point in a brook where the water was forced through three large stones left in the water flow. The sound of the water on the stone had a percussive sound with each stone making a slightly different ‘note’. On close listening, tiny melodies could be heard, these form the basis for the Water Jigs. Intended for performing in pubs local to the Elan Valley, they can be played individually or played across each other in the round, with players beginning at their chosen point. This is to represent the chaos on the movement of the water’s flow. I was reading Brazzaville Beach by William Boyd at the time and one character, a mathematician in chaos theory was attempting to create an equation for water flow. Being a stranger in the landscape, I took this as a metaphor for my own time on the residency.
Richard Higlett 12/06/17
two of the jig were performed in the residency cottage, interpreted in the welsh folk fiddle style by renowned welsh fiddle player Mike Lease.
12:60 / 13:20 / 9/8
We live by 12:60 time, 12 months in a year and 60 minutes in an hour. A second is a flexible unit in our minds; when viewing the second hand, feel you have the power to change the duration of the time between one second number step and the next. Try it now… Before clocks we slept with seasons, aligned with nature, before lamps, by the setting sun. Previous civilisations lived by 13:20 time, 13 referring to the 13 articulations of the body such as the hip joint, knee, wrists and neck. 20 referring to the number of fingers and toes. This referred to a direct physical relationship with our surroundings. Like 12:60 time, it is unique to our species, the process of how we passed through the landscape is unique. I read that a spider has 48 knees, this means its interaction with the physical world is completely alien to us. In the valley, there is also grasshopper time, bird time and tree time. Elan is shaped by eons of water time, the time that in the early history of the planet replaced the dominance of sun time in controlling the shape of all things. This was an era before the oceans formed and the planet was cooling. While still strong in nature, Sun’s time has been demoted in our lives by the electric light bulb, we now could truly live outside of natural time and the rhythms of the planet. At this point we moved to a position of conflict with the world into which were are born……. and excepted.
excerpt from Journal Notes 01/12/15
Sometime when the sun was beginning to set earlier and its warmth was starting to diminish, what we may call mid-September, I walk on the hilltops high above Garreg-ddu Reservoir. Walking against the flow of a small brook, I became aware of a rapid tapping with a regular rhythm. It was almost a regular ticking but had a pause every few beats, like a slip-jig in folk music in 9/8 time. I take some recordings. I return the following day when the sun was directly above my head. Now the rhythm is slower, breathing heavy; the sun heating the path, the flow is reduced. I make further recordings. I Listen back, the subtle tonal changes as the water trickled through shards of slate can be translated into notes of music. Tonight, when it is dark, I will sit and transcribe these patterns as music.
excerpt from Journal Notes 26/09/15
The APTELAN residency is an opportunity to experience deep time, a place to work outside expectation. It is a place to think differently. On my first visit I took one book, Olaf Stapledon’s 1937 novel, Star Maker, with a self imposed remit of not to learn any history or gather information about the valley I was about to sit within. An exercise in the value of experience over knowledge. Stapledon’s tale of a man traveling across the universe encountering new civilisations had its moment of symbolic clarity on the third day when I read in the sun. Insects were attracted to the bleached white pages of the book, many landing on the text to be confront with a monochrome system of shapes in ink. A human codex of liquid dried upon paper. As I read, flies would explore the paths of texts with their own senses, exploring in their own time, this alien surface and echoing the main protagonist of Star Maker, an unwitting explorer.
excerpt from Journal Notes 28/09/15
PROPOSAL FOR WALL PAPER IN RESIDENCY COTTAGE
As this was a pilot project, I also created a website to archive the pilot activity
link image to see all the artists
RICHARD HIGLETT 