Jan Swinburne

 

 

It was well over a decade ago that Dr Licia Carlson asked to licence an image of mine for her book: 

 

“The Faces of Intellectual disability : Philosophical Reflections” 

 

And I was very happy to oblige, as her work touched on themes I was also thinking about when working as an art facilitator in the disabled community. I had written, and been thinking about: representation, visibility and access - especially intellectual access, while discovering that Licia’s book explored a number of these themes in Philosophy.

 

That was the first parallel.

 

A lot of time and life went by, as tends to happen. We have reconnected. And we have since discovered a second parallel…

 

It was a pleasant surprise when I heard from Licia to discover there was another book heading for publication and there was once again serendipitous parallel themes in our work, those being: sound, sonification, words, voice, voicelessness, adaptive technology, language as the method of place and the greater meaning-making of these as bound to aesthetics.

 

We discussed some potential images for the cover and easily settled on the image of one my current relief sculptures “TIME: Wander Lost In The Foothills Of Impasto.”

 

The cover image is from a very process driven body of work with an umbrella title of “Waveform Landscapes” whereby I translate spoken word of my voice - in this case: TIME - into 2D and 3D abstracted visualizations.

 

The emotive source for this body of work is my voice, and although heavily distorted through machines and hand-refinements, mysterious qualities of the word-sound remain. These attributes allow the manifest form to flourish in its associations and aesthetic qualities. The result feels somehow elemental, much like the paralanguage we engage in on a day to day basis that is, for the most part, unconscious.

 

I like to think that this underlying essence is where our ideas coalesce; where our serendipitous, yet differing approaches begin to question the notion that parallel lines never intersect.

 

Please check out Licia Carlson’s work. 

 

Shared Musical Lives: Philosophy, Disability and the Power of Sonification will be released August 2022

 

 

Art is hope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I think of the ideas behind techspressionism in general, I am reminded of how even a clock holds emotive meaning, yet we proceed through life bound to these machines with nary a thought as to how they have altered our relationship to the sun as timekeeper. It takes artistic depiction to remind us of its impact. 

 

WAVEFORM LANDSCAPES
Project Tile: INTERNET SONGLINES
Moving image title: TIME: wander lost in the foothills of impasto
Dimensions: variable, 16:9 ratio
Materials: Digital video capture of sculptural relief, shadows and light.

Sculptural relief dimensions: W36”xH21”xD1”
Sculptural relief description: Machine and hand carved, sealed, medium density fibre board, acrylic paint and medium.
Sculptural relief title description:
Source: Audio: voice
Subject: word :TIME

Title: Wander Lost In The Foothills Of Impasto

 

When I think of techspressionism with regards to my own work, in this case an intermedia body of work that falls under project umbrella entitled Waveform Landscapes, the emotive source for this body of work is my voice: spoken words transformed from mind to body to air to digital audio recording to visual rendering through and by machines and then back to handworked objects then captured to moving image.

 

The forms depicted are novel but render patterns of places that feel familiar. Language is transformed to visual, silent, voicelessness (in the linguistic sense of sounds being pronounced without the larynx). The only hint of the word source is held within the title. It is a journey of solidification through materiality and a digital wandering, through still and moving image forms that I liken to songlines.

 

INTERNET SONGLINES is the moving image arm of the "Waveform Landscapes" umbrella project that links ideas of sound, language and place to serve the need for a metaphysical, perhaps ontological, way finding in an environment of screens. 

 

Through various means our emotive life finds its way to materiality through tools and machine processes, shifting human response algorithms along the way; the art becomes as fluid as our feeling states that were the source and the impetus to create them.

 

INTERNET SONGLINES

If places of the internet are artifice, then language is the substitute and it is mutated, it is art.

 

Art is to traverse the dreams that others offer us.

 

Make a sound, it is a place. A place named is a place created. We sing and name ourselves into existence and codify our experience into dreams, into parallel realities.

 

Language is codified and hidden, creative and illusory, present and in flux.

 

The word is the place you carry with you.

 

We name and sing our worlds into existence.

 

The amplitudes and frequencies of our words, our songs, become place and time.

 

It is utterance given form.

 

I'm pleased to share the first of a couple of things that are happening...

 

I have finally launched my Bandcamp page with a debut EP: IF THEN.

 

These are tracks from my videos and other projects.

 

 

Shout out to allrealsound.com for the mastering. 

 

Art is hope.

 

 

 

 

Getting back to some audio-visual projects after having fun screening a couple of videos with Vector Festival I'm back to experimenting and editing some new work that tracks a line from the Fractal Frequencies exhibition from Morse and Piano Roll codes to animating wavefroms into flight and landscapes.

 

Here is a study loop for a work in progress. Animated capture of the visual counterpart to the audio. The audio waveform shape looked like the air show jet that passed over and with further manipulation it grew feathers.

 

 

 

And here are a few of waveform landscapes created from some sounds I recorded.

For a broader understanding of how my practice is evolving, I created this flow chart that links methods and ideas.




Now back to the studio. Art is hope.

 

FRACTAL FREQUENCIES

 

CHECK OUT THE VIDEO:

https://www.facebook.com/Jan-Swinburne-173312286067833/

 

About The Installation

 

Fractal Frequencies is an exhibition of paintings and sound. Each painting is a unique work and also represents a unit of sound.

 

The installation pattern on the South wall of the gallery is structured in a Piano Roll form using the Morse Code sequence for the word “MUSIC __ .._ … .. _._.”  at the frequency A2.  That was the starting point for developing this exhibition. This pattern is then augmented with additional note-paintings forming visual chords that correspond to the audio created by myself and Philippe Gerber.

 

This exhibition is built around the aesthetic underpinnings of Fractals and Complexity Theory and the relationships between the use of visual and auditory properties of Morse and Piano Roll code.

 

The ultimate task of this exhibition is to compose chaos. Like all things in Nature, the expression of complexity is uniqueness constructed with recurring patterns.

 

 

Jan Swinburne is a visual artist whose interdisciplinary practice makes use of traditional and digital media. Swinburne approaches all media from a painter’s sensibility and this drives her aesthetic. At times her work mutates into large-scale, site-sensitive installations and projects.

 

Known locally for her visual arts, Jan Swinburne is visible in the New York City and Brooklyn underground experimental music and video scene via her association with Alrealon Musique record label to which she signed in 2015. Her sound work has appeared through The Wire, WFMU's Strength Through Failure with Fabio, The Chill Room and Little Water Radio.

 

For a sneak preview of our tracks click here:

https://soundcloud.com/alrealon-musique-stream/sets/jan-swinburne-fractal-frequencies

 

Advanced Catastrophe Tenders Grace 2016. Acrylic and medium on board. H1'xW2'

--

janswinburne.com

https://soundcloud.com/theswinburne_complex

https://www.facebook.com/events/670579049780083/

https://twitter.com/SwinburnePlex

 

JOHN 3:16 is Philippe Gerber, whose Heat From A DeadStar existed between 2004–09 and worked with Rick Harte / Ace Of Hearts Records in Boston. As JOHN 3:16, Gerber has released numerous works via Alrealon Musique, Flood Records, Little Crackd Rabbit Records, Lost children, 75orLess, White Label Music, Venus Aeon, Classwar Karaoke, Trace Recordings, The Wire and more. He has collaborated with artists such as Pas Musique, TheUse, Rasplyn, Anthony Donovan, Philippe Petit, I-Symptom,Eisenlager and Mark Harris.

john316john316john@gmail.com

 

http://www.john316experience.com/

https://soundcloud.com/john316john

https://john316.bandcamp.com/

http://www.alrealon.com/artists.html

 

 

FRACTAL FREQUENCIES was generously supported by:

 

This spring I had the privilege of working with a fine group of artists for the sound installation  "Navigating Wellness" that is taking place for Nuit Blanche on on October 1st on CAMH grounds and is described as “A site specific sound installation reflecting lived experience of recovery and wellness.” Well, in life, everyone is navigating something. We had more than a few laughs. To have the opportunity to generate audio echoes of collective histories within such an ambivalent environment, was at times an exhilarating and daunting challenge for which I am grateful to lend my sonic presence to. The project is the brainchild of Workman Arts with New Adventures in Sound Art.

 

In a somewhat ironic and unintentional twist of logistics, both artists and project leaders names have been omitted from the official Nuit Blanche independent projects description. We are not a formal collective. We are individuals who came together for this project. These sorts of omissions happen, however in the broader context of the project’s aims of “reflecting lived experience” this oversight unintentionally speaks volumes to “lived experience”, to one’s relationships with over-shadowing systems, to disenfranchisement, to stigma and the seemingly endless situations of anonymity, either chosen, enforced or simply fumbled.

 

So I am taking advantage of this oversight to highlight our contribution, to speak to history, and to buffer any preconceptions about this omission by reclaiming our presence, and offering up our particular chorus of “Navigating Something”.

 

I hope you can make it out on October 1st to have a listen and perhaps have a moment.

 

We are:

 

Participating Artists:

James Buffin, Carrol Louie, Sarafin, Jan Swinburne, Lisa Walter & Kerry Westell

 

Lighting Design: David Sweeney

 

Project Divisors and Technical Support: Chris Mitchell for Workman Arts, Darren Copeland & Matthew Miller for New Adventures In Sound Art

 

And for a closer listen, you can check out our tracks here:

https://soundcloud.com/workman-arts-audio-stream/sets/hearing-voices-nuit-blanche

 

Art Is Hope.

I have been truly honoured to sign with Alrealon Musique for the release of Consensual Enigmas.

 

"Alrealon Musique is proud to release the new EP from Canadian multi-artist Jan Swinburne
Jan Swinburne 'Consensual Enigmas' (ALRN056)
Limited Edition CD-R in a DVD Case (99 copies only) + Digital: 
$5.50 + $3.50 (USA)
$5.50 + $5.00 (Canada)
$5.50 + $10.50 (Rest of the World)
Jan Swinburne's CONSENSUAL ENIGMAS began as an art video inspired by the life and paintings of Francis Bacon. Through invitation, the work soon developed into a remix project of corresponding video iterations with audio track remixes by Ryan Campos, Marco Fierro and Philippe Gerber/JOHN 3:16, each lending their own unique voice to the spare original.
Tracklist:
1. Consensual Enigmas (Original Mix by Jan Swinburne)
2. Consensual Enigmas (Ryan Campos Remix)
3. Consensual Enigmas (Marco Fierro Remix)
4. Consensual Enigmas (Philippe Gerber/JOHN 3:16 Remix)
https://alrealonmusique.bandcamp.com/album/consensual-enigmas-alrn056
with ryan campos, Marco Fierro, Philippe Gerber / JOHN 3:16
https://itunes.apple.com/in/album/consensual-enigmas-ep/id1008548563?app=itunes&ign-mpt=uo%3D4 "

Art is hope.

Now back to the studio.