It’s not that the island needs more of me…

The Beacon Room, Gibraltar Point Centre for the Arts…it’s that I need more of the island in me (and my work).

I’ve been working with Bluemouth Inc these last few weeks on the first breath of a new immersive performance project – so far a kind of hallucinatory take on ‘summer camp’ – through a short residency at the Gibraltar Point Center for the Arts, Toronto Island. I think the last time I worked on an art project here was with electroacoustic composer Darren Copeland (New Adventures in Sound Art). We were making a radio documentary about the history of Toronto’s soundscape, on the island, in the dead of winter, 1999. The island is an insanely beautiful place to come to work to every day. Everything about it – the constant surf crashing against the shore, the expansive blue sky, the wind that rushes through everything – it all insists that you leave what’s past behind you and move forward. Although a lot of the things we experimented with during this residency reminded me (perhaps too much) of many past (and in some cases very early) projects, the island itself  insists that I am only as good as my last work and so would I please mind moving forward and not repeat myself?

‘HABIT@’ — FINGER opens up a cardboard box in order to figure out what makes a house a home.

Still from HABIT@When is a house a home? Or when is it not? And when or how does a structure (like even a cardboard box in an underpass) become a ‘home’ anyway? On the surface, the owner or occupant moulds the house to their needs (through renovations, decorations, routines and rituals), while the house secretly moulds the occupants to its needs. HABIT@ seeks a deeper understanding of this experience. FINGER opens up a cardboard box in order to figure out what makes a house a home.

Ingredients:
1 cardboard box
a handful of sensor technology
several digital recall devices
machines for crunching data
luminence tools
sharp things
small things (including fingers)
…and one cat.

 

Finger performance of ‘Habit@’ (excerpt) from richard windeyer on Vimeo.

An excerpt from ‘HABIT@’, a Finger performance created by Cameron McKittrick, Cameron Davis and Richard Windeyer.

Presented by New Adventures in Sound Art as part of the SoundPlay Festival’s Homescapes performance + screening November 20, 2010 at Theatre Direct’s Christie Studio, Artscape Wychwood Barns, 601 Christie #170, Toronto.

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