B/W, 57 minutes
PAL HD, 16:9

filmed/recorded: 2006-2009
edited: 2009

concept, camera, editing: John Grzinich

additional sound: Patrick Mcginley

collaborative recordings made with: Patrick McGinley, Jim Haynes, Toomas Thetloff, Maksims Shentelevs, Kaspars Kalninsh, Eamon Sprod, Hitoshi Kojo, Evelyn Müürsepp

equipment and support: MoKS – Center for Art and Social Practice, Mooste Estonia.

Sound Aspects of Material Elements reveals how our sense of hearing can use non-linguistic signals to communicate, interpret and build relations to the world around us. Using sound as the primary signifier, the film shows a specific approach to the artistic use of sound, covering a 3 year period of the authors personal research and collaborations with a number of close colleagues. The film documents in-situ processes of exploration and sonification of the landscape along with the numerous objects and structures found there.

All the sound recordings emphasize how the combinations of certain materials (metal, wood, glass) with natural elements (water, wind fire), take on alchemical characteristics as we listen in. We experience aeolian metal wires in the wind, structures affected by fire, water, snow and the casual effects of human interventions in insect worlds. The sonic outcomes can be subtle and sometimes below our common perception so a variety of experimental recording techniques were employed. Contact microphones are placed on surfaces shifting our attention toward the internal resonances of the materials themselves while mini microphones reveal spaces normally inaccessible by our ears. What we hear is what we see, yet is sometimes translated through amplified means.

With its minimal editing style and durational shots, Sound Aspects of Material Elements shifts our attention toward and extended view of time and place, of the ever changing micro-processes that hint to eternal growth and decay inherent to cycles of nature itself. The possibilities to intercept, shape, disrupt, recombine and capture the elements through creative experiments is what this film attempts to illustrate in the interest that it may inspire the viewer to listen in new way.

premiere screening April 17th, 2010 : CUFF – Calgary Underground Film Festival

additional screenings: galeria entropia Poland, Pacific Northwest College of Art USA (5.10), Altes Finanzamt Berlin (9.10), Estonian National Museum (11.10), Haus Der Kulturen der Welt Berlin for the Über Lebenskunst Festival (8.11) Audio Kino by SoundFjord, London (10.11) Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, Scotland (10.11)

DVD release info coming soon…

Formica aquilonia or Red Wood Ant is a species of ant commonly found in the area where I live. The ant colonies are easily recognizable by the large mounds that they build out of debris from the pine forests they inhabit. The mounds also tend to be clustered together. I’m not sure what is the relation between the mounds, but the activity between them can be so frequent that “ant highways” or noticeable paths form on the forest floor. Ants are in the Family Formicidae meaning they give off formic acid when defending a territory through biting or spraying. Formic acid happens to be highly corrosive to some piezo transducer materials. This I know because one of the contact mics I used to record the ants was unprotected and went bad after about 15 seconds after I placed it on a mound.

The recording method here is something of an intervention and is not scientific in any way. If anything it is quite a provocation for the ants as I place the mics on the surface of the mound. They take it as a foreign object (which it is) and attack it. So the sound is a combination of biting, scratching and walking on the contact mics. To add some variation I used two different kinds of piezos and attached some thin brass wire to the discs. I do my very best not to harm the ants or their mounds especially since they are under a mild form of environmental protection due to threats from pollution.

contact microphone intervention with formica aqulonia – red wood ants (3:26) mp3 file

and here is a video I made about these ants:

Click here to view the embedded video.

sound+video works DVD

During the spring and summer of 2006 a number of visiting artists came to take part in a residency or event at MoKS, an artist-run center in the rural south-eastern part of Estonia. My intention was to record the sounds as well as images of the events, collaborations and investigation which took place. For this, it is important to mention Hitoshi Kojo, Patrick McGinley, Fantomas, and the participants of PostsovkhoZ 6, for their participation and creative inspiration.

The Location Sound Film project has to do with a territory that falls somewhere between “performance”, “field recording” and “documentation”. It takes the usual idea of recording sound while adding the component of video. The following sounds and images were recorded simultaneously on a HD video camera. Little or no post-processing was involved other than the adjustment of equalization and sound levels. Various techniques were used to make recordings, some more clearly visible than others, depending on the type of sound captured. The main difference here being the use of a pair of stereo condenser microphones or piezo contact microphones.

Location filming has to do with observation and reflection on events in a recored space and time, looking at what induces and affects spontaneous interventions using sound and image as the evidence.

Location Sound Films have been shown at: Skolska28 (Prague), Eyeglass Shop (Portland), Võru Linnagalerii (Estonia), Tuned City (Berlin), La Pommerie (France), Full Pull (Malmö), Liquid Architecture (Melbourne)

List of works and times:

Baltic Ferry – contact microphones on a boat railing (03:15)

Ant Hill Activity – contact microphones in an ant hill ( 04:20)

Tree in Coastal Wind – contact microphones on a tree (02:38)

Jars and Fire – stereo microphones in glass jars (04:02)

Metal Door Tones – contact microphones on a metal door – with: Patrick McGinley, Hitoshi Kojo, Fantomas (08:44)

Bowed Piano Wires – stereo microphones – with Hitoshi Kojo (12:09)

Bowed Metal Objects – stereo microphones – with Hitoshi Kojo (04:33)

Bowed Metal Structures – stereo microphones – with: Patrick McGinley, Fantomas (07:37)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Rusted Wheels – stereo microphones – with: Patrick McGinley, Hitoshi Kojo, Fantomas (05:24)

(Un)Stable Structure – stereo microphones (06:12)

Phone Tower Cables + 250% – contact mics on wires ( 12:28)

Phone Tower Cables 02 (05:22)

Phone Tower Cables 03 (05:40)

Sound Cellar: Directed – stereo microphones – with the participants of PS6 (06:10)

Sound Cellar: Non-Directed – stereo microphones – with the participants of PS6 (08:15)

Other videos on Youtube.