In 2009 we developed PINGS, a year long process of live performance exchange from our respective local rivers in Abercych west Wales and Melbourne, Australia. Approaching the river as an unbroken body of water through which we corresponded weekly, we used the web as an interface for public engagement. We were supported by an Artsadmin bursary and at the end of the process we met in person to perform together in Cardiff and London.
We have recently returned to our local rivers, the Dulais and Stoney Creek and we are currently making field recordings. Visiting the same places intermittently and accumulating a series of images in sound over time, there is no ultimate outcome to this work, other than to follow the process, to be led by the river, its changing states and its wider cosmology. The unfolding work operates as a conversation between artists and friends living at distance, whilst disclosing the river’s everywhereness…
A hot, still day. Not much water in the creek today. Cool and dark where it passes under a railway track – I sit and play with the echoes, trains and birds.
Equinox afternoon, the river is full after recent rain. The main current is fast and deep, i explore the edges where the inside of a meander is slower and the water actually travels back upstream. There’s a large root reaching out from the bank, catching leaves and catkins, i rest the neck of the guitar here and there’s a quiet reflection of events…
westerly wind… I set upon the bank, a small sapling moved by the wind and river eddies occasionally brushes the guitar, gusts play the open strings, channelled along the river bank and surface
Following the rapid flooding of the valley, where a herd of horses were marooned in the field opposite, the rivers course is strangely visible, detritus washed downstream, undergrowth flattened and the water clear, blue and in the shade, dark. Dulais means the black-blue river, and today, it is…
Matthews Hill Reserve, Sunshine. Upstream from the fire. Broken bottles and banjo frogs