Dallas Simpson, Location Performance Sound Artist
artistic statement:
Since childhood I have been exploring both country and urban environments. These experiences have been recorded visually through photography and aurally through sound recording. Over the last five years I have been exploring these environments both through listening and interactive performance using in some instances only found objects, or in other cases by carrying objects or placing them within the environment that I am exploring. These experiences, sometimes of a purely observational nature, sometimes driven by pre-conceived narratives, are recorded binaurally by sampling the sound from inside my ears.
When using headphones the listener is effectively hearing through my ears and has effectively access to my three dimensional perception (the artists perspective) of the location and my interaction with it. Through these shared relationships I am attempting to invite the listener into a new realm of aural sensory discovery which they may wish to explore for themselves in their everyday experiences.
True conservation starts from the heart through developing an emotional relationship through our senses with our environment. The utility of the practise of my art is, therefore, an attempt to invigorate the intensity of our relationship with our environment spiritually, emotionally, socially, musically, historically and in many other ways.
Contact Dallas Simpson.
Sound Excerpts
This is an extract from a recent work featuring a walk with sound improvisation using only found materials on the flood plain of the River Trent near the village of Kneeton, Nottinghamshire, England, UK. This section of the river is only accessible on foot. At this location a line of old willow trees marks the former edge of the main water course before the river was diverted and deepened to its present position about 70 yards away. The old willows here suffer regular drought during dry weather when the residual trough, which used to be the old bed of the river, dries out - on this occasion it is filled with the recent rains. The form of the willows reflects their condition. They are slowly dying, agonisingly bent and tortured in appearance. This is an improvisation intended to evoke the irregular rhythm of drought and water and the agonising dryness experienced by these old guardians of the river bank. Please note that the trees were not damaged during the course of the improvisation. The snapping sounds were made by using fallen twigs which had been stripped from the trees presumably by wind, deeper sounds by handling larger fallen dead branches.
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