The four colours denote the four locations—red Newfoundland, green Cullernose, blue Dunstanburgh, orange Newcastle upon Tyne. Note the volume adjustment of tracks shown by the green lines with dots.
seven days in June (seven-channel installation)
Appendix B. Digital Audio Workstation composition images
This appendix contains screenshots of most of the included works (arranged by chapter), included to allow the interested reader to see the composition structures that I used, illustrated as track arrangements inside a digital audio workstation.
Chapter 3 Walking through my senses
No. 1: “trace” at Allenheads Contemporary Arts (eight-channel installation)
Track colour code: brown walk to and away from the mine entrance; pale green fell walk; pale blue mine walk; yellow rengas; pink mine names (used in performance). These files form the basis of the composition that was mixed down to a stereo format for the radio broadcast. The yellow rengas and pink mine names were used in several positions and combinations during performances.
No. 2: “no trace” at Cheeseburn Grange (eight-channel installation)
Track colour code: yellow downstream winter; pale green downstream spring; orange stream of consciousness upstream and downstream; dark blue hydrophone; mauve upstream winter; pale blue upstream spring. These files form the basis of the composition that was mixed down to a stereo format for the radio broadcast. Note the volume adjustment of tracks shown by the green lines with dots.
Chapter 4 Walking Time: Replicated Walking
begin to hear (eight-channel installation)
There is one walk per colour sequenced as per the main text. The recorded haibun were incorporated into their respective walk (paler corresponding colour channel below the main walk recordings); the haiku were spread across the duration of the walk rather than being presented as a single set of verses as they were in the radio version.
Chapter 5 A Pattern of Islands
(A)round Islands: Around the Wind (nine-channel performance)
The left-hand side corresponds to 08:12:00 and all the tracks are then positioned at their time of recording relative to this. The seven blue tracks are the static recordings made in the outhouse, the two green tracks are the two island circumnavigations, and the red tracks are spoken word tracks. The short red 4th track is the spoken poetry; the three longer red tracks are the island names recorded with varying gaps between them. Shown here in their placeholder positions they were mixed into the performance at various and multiple points.
Random (Islands): Fair Isle Reels (four-channel installation)
The composition of Fair Isle Reels 4x2 (after John Cage) is shown below.
Reels 1 to 4 are coloured red, yellow, blue, green. The Reels from walk 1 are presented, then the Reels from walk 2. There is volume adjustment shown by the red lines.
The composition of 4 Island Reels (after John Cage) is shown below.
Reels 1 to 4 are sequenced left to right. The recordings from both walk 1 and walk 2 played simultaneously for each step.
Random (Islands): Four Northumbrian Rants (four-channel installation)
The composition that was mixed to a quad. file is shown below.
Colours denote Rants 1 to 4. Walk recordings are shaded paler and static recordings darker. Where walking and static recordings overlapped the walking recordings were silenced.
Random (Islands): four rants for the summer solstice (after John Cage, 1977) (four-channel installation)
Rants are arranged vertically. Rant 1 is red, rant 2 orange and so on; each step has a walk recording and a subsequent shorter place recording in the track below it.
Back Up The Long Wall: four midsummer dances for an imaginary island (four-hr. stereo radio broadcast Radiophrenia)
With an incorporated recording of an intro and outro, the structure that was mixed to a stereo file is shown. Rants were synchronized from the start of each step. Accompanying poetry was incorporated at the start of each place recording. When the place recordings were playing the walking tracks were muted (the bottom green line and dots). Rant 2 locations 1 and 4 were inaccessible (dark orange); this resulted in two periods of broadcast silence.
Imagined Islands: Alnay (four-channel installation)
Recorded in quadrophonic, walking tracks in green and the poetry (track 1) in blue. The Radiophrenia broadcast stereo track was formed from tracks one and three with the poetry distributed throughout the recording.
Imagined Islands: Walking Contención Island: Walking Contención Island (installation)
Mono versions of the recordings of each of the sets of walks were played through three speakers. The field recordings from the first work played continuously; the recordings from the second and third alternated until the end of the second work after which the third played continuously. Thus there was only ever a maximum of two speakers playing at any one point in time. Each set of field recordings was accompanied by a series of spoken word recordings. For lockdown one these were an announcement of the days—day 1, day 2 etc.—providing a sonic punctuation to the shifting days of the lockdown. For lockdowns two and three, I recorded my reading the days poems.