Le Forme Dei Sogni Tornano A Mare - James MIX20210912 320kbps

Knowing the ways:  In the time of the indrawn breath
   
An audio recording made inside the former-R1 nuclear reactor hall underneath Stockholm of an ensemble of singers performing five of the Virtues (Humility, Love, Fear of God, Mercy, and Hope) from Hildegard von Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum (1151). 
 
Mounted on scaffolding as if propping up the Liljevalchs building, the six speakers switch between recordings from sixteen microphones: documenting the ways in which the singers’ voices activate the subterranean architecture of Sweden’s first nuclear project. 

St. Hildegard von Bingen (Bermersheim vor der Höhe, 1098 - 1179) was a German religious leader, composer, and botanist. Ordo Virtutum is a sacred music drama originally composed for the nuns of Rupertsberg Abbey where St. Hildegard was the Abbess. 

Ensemble: Lina Kinning (Humility), Caroline Lundgren Brandberg (Love), Ebba Edberg di Paola (Fear of God), Karin Olin (Hope), Anna Lagercrantz (Mercy).

Date: 2024
Materials: Scaffolding, speakers, audio
Dimensions: Variable
Format: 6-channel audio
Duration: 00:09:04 
Language: Latin

Knowing The Ways: In The Time Of The Indrawn Breath

20 James Webb DE

20 James Webb EN

This passionate piece of chamber music written in 1929 features both music and text by Olivier Messiaen.

La mort du nombre

Today is a troubling day for many in the UK. After the results of an election that was plagued and stained with lies and deception, we are now left in a very precarious position. Many friends are feeling very dispirited and lost today, as am I. So, I sat in the studio this morning and improvised live to the celebratory speech of the winning party. In response to the situation I then reversed parts of it, as well as using a recording of this very speech and buried it deep within the music, again playing backwards. It's clear to many that this political situation is not taking us forwards, but rather back to a nostalgic and challenging past. So, for this moment, use this music to relax and switch off the news.

Backwards to go Forwards

This is the second time I have used this microphone, the Rode NTG-8 long gun mic.  For a few years now I have been using the short gun mic the Rode NTG-3 an amazing mic.   Interesting to see how more directional it would be.  I went out to an area in the foothills of the south Wicklow mountains (Ireland)down a quiet road to visit a stubble field as it is surrounded by good hedge rows.  I was soon recording.  In one place I could hear three Yellowhammers in song, usually two.  In the last recording (The Robin - song) I was not very close to the bird, however I was very surprised how close up it sounds, even though it was about 4 to 5 meters away.  
It was a nice clear mild morning and very noisy as the north drift of air brought in traffic and tractor noise from the Woodenbridge area.  
I have to try out this mic more, however it is odd in that it seems to be not really directional, yet later when processing the recordings I am blown away at just how close up the birds sound. I still need the recording area to be quiet, however it gives a very helpful amount of rejection to sounds that are off axis. 
I put the recordings into one file, and are in the following order.  All tracks are mono.  The recorder used was the Sound Devices MixPre3.

Yellowhammer - song.
Robin - ticking calls.
Wren - ticking calls.
Wren - one song.
Robin - song.

My thanks to pixabay.com/users/TheOtherKev-9436196/  for the image of the Yellowhammer.

Rode NTG8- Experiment. 8 Aug 2020 Rostagah Wicklow Ireland

Writing Aloud is an anthology focusing on the relationship of language to sound, writing to music, and brings together a highly diverse collection of essays, interviews, meditations, visual projects, text-sound scores and audio by some of the leading individuals in the field of cultural and performance studies, experimental music and contemporary art. Edited by Brandon LaBelle and Christof Migone.

Yasunao Tone, Man'yoshu#16

Marina Abramovic, Freeing The Voice

James Webb is an artist, recognised for his site-specific interventions and installations. His practice often involves sound, found objects, and text, invoking references to literature, cinema, and the conceptualist traditions. By shifting objects, techniques, and forms beyond their original contexts and introducing them to different environments, Webb creates new spaces of tension. These spaces bind Webb’s background in religion, theatre, and advertising, offering poetic inquiries into the economies of belief and dynamics of communication in our contemporary world.

As Brandon LaBelle writes, “The works of James Webb circulate around a complex mixture of emotional and affective states; of longing and despair, of the ecstatic and of hopefulness, states of bodies and minds that move throughout his practice to raise questions of individuality and community, belonging and displacement, fragmentation and recuperation.” (Xenagogue, edited by Anthea Buys, published by the Hordaland Kunstsenter, 2015.)

Webb has had solo exhibitions at, amongst others, the Art Institute of Chicago, USA (2018); SPACES, Cleveland, USA (2018); Norrtälje Konsthall, Norrtälje, Sweden (2018); Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, United Kingdom (2016); Hordaland Kunstsenter, Bergen, Norway (2015); CentroCentro, Madrid, Spain (2013); Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa (2012); and mac, Birmingham, United Kingdom (2010).

Major group exhibitions include the 13th Biennial of Dakar (2018), 4th Prospect Triennial of New Orleans (2017), Documenta 14 (2017), 13th Biennial of Sharjah (2017), 12th Bienal de la Habana (2015), 55th Biennale di Venezia (2013), 3rd Marrakech Biennale (2009), Melbourne International Arts Festival (2009), and the 8th Biennale d’Art Contemporain de Lyon (2007). Other notable group shows include  those at spaces such as Wanås Konst and Historiska, Sweden; MAXXI Roma, Italy; Darat al Funun, Jordan; Théâtre Graslin, France; and the Tate Modern, London. 

Webb’s projects have been the subject of the two monographs, “. . .” (blank projects, 2020), and “Xenagogue” (Hordaland Kunstsenter, 2015). 

Impressum: All rights reserved. The copyright for these audio pieces and artworks  are reserved. Any replication or use of the content such as images, audio, and texts is not permitted without James Webb’s written consent.

Gallery representation: 
Galerie Imane Farès, Paris www.imanefares.com 
blank projects, Cape Town www.blankprojects.com

Knowing The Ways: In The Time Of The Indrawn Breath

theotherjameswebb

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