Happier Here (day 274)

Getting here may have been work but being here does not feel like work at all.  I find myself out of my usual context into another one that is strangely familiar.  The language is familiar, people's faces are familiar, the way people move is familiar.  The parts of my body that remember Quebec awaken and start dancing with each other again.  It's a bit awkward at times but the dance is getting more limber and smooth.  I look around and it seems that people are happier here.  I said as much to Leila and she said "maybe you're the one that's happier here".  Indeed, smiling people see other smiling people.  I admit that being away from a steady flow of emails and being able to concentrate on production and creative work is like a summer morning after a fresh rain. 

I've been trying to remember to document the experience.  Documenting is not something that comes naturally to me and if I'm really enthralled by something I usually forget to document.  Likewise, failed experiments rarely get any kind of treatment.  Still, here is a spotty photo doc of some of the activities we've done so far.  I've had to at least get this much written down before the details are forgotten.


May 25th (day 1)
We spent the day getting settled and learning about the soundfield ambisonic microphone.  We had plans to take the mic to a bird sanctuary in the evening but it ended up being too windy and the Vancouver part of the team was silently grateful for this reprieve.  It had already been a long day.  Leila took me to The Liverpool House in St-Henri for dinner.  Amazing dinner.  Amazing dessert.

	A sculpture I came across on my first walk towards Oboro from the Metro station.  It was in front of a very regular Montreal walk-up.  I wondered how it came to be. ←
Dessert at The Liverpool House in St-Henri. →

May 26th (day 2)

A very hot day.  We spent the late morning and early afternoon recording birds (and flowing water) at the bird sanctuary in LaChine, by the rapids.  A great time was had by all.  When we got back we heard some of the samples in the recording/listening studio.  There was some pretty great footage in there.  We then made plans to go see Hubble 3D at the Imax but these plans were thwarted because the late show was in French and it was better for Miles to see it in English.  We ended up at Leila's for an impromptu homemade dinner.  Extreme goodness. We finished the meal at an ice cream parlour near her place where we ran into Lynn Hughes and Alain Thibault.  Walking back to her place, we stopped and got a dozen St-Viateur bagels for the next day's lunch.

	Red-winged black bird at the sanctuary. ←
Zoe and Miles recording. →
	Zoe, Miles, and Stephane learning about soundfield workflow. ←
Leila with the plated food. We ate outside on her deck. Menu was Stuffed Portobello mushroom with blue cheese, basil and tomato; Grilled asparagus with reduced balsamic; Tomato cucumber salad with Tzatziki; Gin&Tonic with Basil and Mango. →

May 27th (day 3)
Today we recorded many sounds including:

• group laughter
• individual laughter
• banter
• sounds of uncertainty
• breathing, slow and fast
• random phonemes
• singing bowl, tibetan bells
• "I like it", "I don't like it" both normal tone and whisper

The computer I will be using for the residency finally became ready.  I did some preliminary account setup things.
We tried again to make it to the Hubble 3D show but last minute tasks got in the way.  We made it an early night and I had dinner with my mom.  Sorry, not pics.  It's too bad because there were some pretty hilarious moments in there.  I'll post some sounds when I have them.

May 28th (day 4)
While Leila was wrangling camera purchases at Concordia, Miles and I parallel-played on our respective computers.  He played with speaker setups and sounds, and I played with lung graphics.  Just as I was thinking of a lunch break around 2pm, Chantal came in and said a curator from Glasgow would be touring through at about 2:30pm.  Miles said we should still have a quick lunch.  As we were eating lunch Leila arrived and we told her about the curator.  We decided to get something ready to show.  Much like the impromptu meal of the day before, Miles and I took the ingredients we had on hand and put something together that wasn't bad at all.   The previous day's recordings were very interesting when mixed with images of the lungs breathing and mapped with video. I think we surprised ourselves and it was a wonderful ramp into another stage of the residency.
That afternoon I tried the Sonic Bed by Kaffe Matthews.  It's a bed surrounded by speakers which when laid upon gives a kind of sonic massage both auditory and bodily.  Very interesting.  There is currently a call out for compositions for the bed.
In the evening we went to a Gregorian Chant performance by the Ensemble Scholastiques Neumatiques.  It was amazing.  We finished the evening at an informal gathering of people performing noise music at which Zoe was performing.

	Waiting for the sonic bed. It was popular. ←
Zoe performing in funky Montreal loft. →

A song for this post.