Embedded Files
Sculpting Sound: Working with sound and ceramics to unearth shared practice. Sarah Villeneau (ceramics) and Adrian Moore (composer) work together to sculpt sound and ceramics into a set of small pieces with embedded loudspeakers. We want to investigate how we shape materials through stretching, tapering, filtering and other shared manipulations.
A Festival of the Mind collaboration between ceramic artist Sarah Villeneau and electroacoustic music composer Adrian Moore. Adafruit boards provided sound to two small loudspeakers which were inserted into each of four ceramic pieces. The sounds were drawn from ceramics, metals, birds and many other sources. The pieces were on display at the Millennium Gallery, Sheffield between 19 and 29 September 2024.
Festival of the Mind is up and running from 19 - 29 September. Our exhibit is in Futurecade, Millenium Galleries in the centre of Sheffield.
How to Listen: These sounds are quiet so you need to 'lean in'. Sound may emerge from gaps and holes. With sound you can't 'listen away' so many other sounds - from people and other exhibits will merge with our fragile pieces. Hopefully in a good way!
Visit the websites of project participants Sarah Villeneau and Adrian Moore
Adrian learns basic shaping and texturing
We are keen to understand more about the way we work with our materials and whether we share methods (in their broadest sense). We recognise a craft based approach, an embodied and physical methodology and an approach to materials that is natural, free flowing and based upon our reaction to the materials at hand (defining structure through stretching, tapering, filtering and mixing). This project will involve shared reflection but also swapped practice with each partner learning, ‘hands on’, something about the other’s work. The project will conclude with an exhibition of new pieces of ceramic art alongside new works of sonic art embedded within the ceramic pieces using portable, battery powered loudspeakers that will send small, quiet sounds through tubes and shell-like shapes, acting as resonant cavities. The subtle sound recordings emanating from the sculptures, alongside interactive elements (springs and strings) which can be played, will offer the viewer/listener a more fully embodied and engaged experience of the work. The pieces will be exhibited for the duration of the Festival and potentially feature elsewhere. We will document where shared practice drives collaboration through text and visual media. This will lead to a small online site charting the cross-disciplinary experience for us and the viewer.
Whilst compositional practice is personal, the tools used are relatively ubiquitous. Moore’s ongoing research into ‘craft in electroacoustic music’ hopes to compare method and practice across disciplines with a view to identifying technique, skill and the embodiment of experience in art (particularly Sarah Villeneau’s ceramics). Villeneau’s pieces have a natural flow, tactile detail through firing and glazing, and a form that emerges through immersive engagement with materials. The analogies between Villeneau and Moore’s practice are relatively superficial given the difference in output, but the shared approach to practice seems to afford greater collaboration.
Creating Sound
Creating Sound
We've met on numerous occasions to share ideas. As the Festival is one month away we were concerned about practicalities, health and safety and risk. The picture to the left shows the basic sound setup. The two circled objects are the adafruit card that feeds the small loudspeakers. I was very concerned that any exhibit with sound has the potential to be obtrusive. The wiring is somewhat fragile but hopefully after careful installation, this should work. From an aesthetic point of view, we both realised that ceramics and sound are two completely different practices even though the sound of recorded ceramics makes up a part of one piece. We're definitely not making a catalogue; nor are we making pre-designed narratives. I hope we're making pieces that animate each other and demonstrate the embodiment of material.
The installation of four original pieces of ceramic art is currently underway in the Millennium Galleries (19 to29 September 2024) as part of the Festival of the Mind. These four pieces have embedded loudspeakers playing 10 minute loops of sound. The research aspects of the project continue to reinforce a craft-based approach where ‘Empathy for material’ is a much better rule than ‘truth to material' (Shales, 2017, p.21). Clearly sculpting clay and shaping sound are two vastly different processes. However, the embodiment of material by both artists, invites the viewer/listener to imagine their own narrative, journey, space and place that is potentially outside of the physical space they are in.
Shales, E. (2017). The Shape of Craft. Reaktion Books.
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