Unearthing a blog post I wrote on the 23rd of May but forgot to upload!

I am relieved to say that I have come up with more concrete ideas for this project. The film will be a collection of images of the sounds being made with abstract images making use of shadow and stills. It will be interspersed with memorable sound experiences from my childhood and a narrative in the form of a series of telephone conversations between two sisters.

There are a number of ideas that I would like to include, these include:

• Recreating the experience of lying underneath a grand piano as it is being played.

• Recording birdsong and slowing it down, getting a group of singers to recreate the sound and record it with a binaural head.

• Recreating the experience of being in the middle of a circle of singers singing an ancient Georgian healing song

• Experimenting with underwater filming and audio recording.

• Short original tracks re mixed binaurally acting as vignettes of story and musical interludes.

• Recreating the sound of June, the operatic news agent. (June used to rehearse with my parents in 1982 and had a surprisingly robust operatic soprano voice!)

This week I have met with the new director of Norwich Puppet Theatre and I am waiting for confirmation that I have secured the theatre for a four day residency to experiment and build the installation. This will be July the 19th -22nd. On the third or 4th day I will invite guests to see the film.

Having compiled a project schedule it is quite clear that I have made a huge amount of work for myself!

I have been researching materials to project on and currently I am experimenting with garden weed suppressant. It works well in a blacked out space.

I would like to also look at the possibility of projecting onto an enormous cloth that is being blown by a fan. I’ve seen this done before and it looks brilliant.

I have been projecting film footage using a make shift screen of weed suppressant and placing objects in-front of the screen, that act as a screen such as “Jane” the binaural head and a bell shaped standard lamp shade. Jane is highly reflective so it does not come across well in the video footage but it looks great in the room. The lamp is a cream colour and I wonder if were made of the same fabric as the screen it would be more successful as a screen.

The film of the singers I plan to use projections as we are filming and to have someone else to operate the camera. This will save a lot of time both filming and editing.

This week I have had some very good fortune. I have been loaned a long throw projector, a Radio transmitter and seven sets of wireless headphones. After researching into blue tooth headphones my feeling is that radio frequencies may be less problematic. (I hope so anyway). With the tech and the venue almost sorted, I have the important things in place.

Just got to make the film and soundtrack! Easy!!

I am toying with the idea of projecting on the ceiling and making a comfortable space for an audience to lie down and look up. Or perhaps they can be seated with mirrors to enable ceiling gazing. My idea originally was for the audience to be able to move around the installation but this may affect the projections with people casting shadows as they move. This may be less likely to happen if the projector is pointed towards the ceiling and out of the way.