Environment & Synthesis at CampFR

In 2022 & 2023 I delivered workshops at Camp FR in the Pyrenees mountains as part of a week long residency with Carl Michael von Hausswolff, Okkyung Lee & Mark Fell. We worked with a group of partipants exploring the Environment & Synthesis and devising unusual stratergies for group performance.

In 2022 we built shelters in the woods and listened to the rain filling the streams, bounced electronic sound around a disused silver mine at 1600m altitude, performed in the silent, pitch-black forest after midnight, worked through the details of various synthesis techniques and transformed CAMP into a multi-installation work, with speaker arrays and generative audio processes nestled inside and outside the building. In 2023 we did all that and more - we explored the epic reverb of a high altitude lake, dug into Max with a programming workshop, experimented with Mark & Rian's networked sequencing systems, and Carl Michael launched a new iteration of his renowned "freq" project, commissioning frequency band recordings from earth-based sources from the group, and forming a new chapter in that acclaimed project.

This year, we'll be exploring the relationship between landscape and sound through a series of evolving performative, geometrical, time-based systems and structures. These will include location recording exercises, sound synthesis, the placement of sound within the landscape, durational performances, discussion and analysis, group performance systems, rule-based procedures, focal listening activities, psychogeographic exercises, and exploring and activating space/time. Emphasis will be given to consideration of spatial audio techniques including multi-microphone and multi-speaker methodologies. We'll be looking at how all these methods can be explored using primitive instruments and materials, and how they change when using digital systems and synthesisers. We'll be working at CAMP, in the studios and recording spaces, as well as out in the epic Pyrenean landscape, in the forests, meadows, high plateaus and rocky peaks of the Pyrenees, exploring the soundscapes of rivers and lakes, glacial valleys and towering cirques