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AmbiEntrance: Your Undark discs are impressive not only for their sound, but for their "star power". How did this idea of gathering contributions from so many others come about? How do you get folks involved? Are there any "rules" when you receive you source materials?
Mills: In 1995-96 I was approached by an independent record label in Nottingham who had heard some of the soundpieces I'd made specifically for various site specific multi-media installations over the last 10 years or so. Suprisingly, as these pieces are/were low-tech minimal pieces constructed to be heard in specific contexts and not really suited to being heard in isolation, they liked them and asked if I'd consider making an album for them. I hesitated, then agreed and then just as quickly I panicked ! How can I do this? With what? About what? Whilst I had experience of recording studios having contributed various sounds/vocals etc., on a number of albums for and with members of Wire amongst others, to be confronted with the responsibility of an an album of my own was a daunting yet exciting prospect.
Following a couple of days wracking my brains and worrying, I thought that an interesting project might be to approach some of those musicians for whom I'd done work (album covers, sets etc.) asking them for sounds. What they provided was left to them ; new pieces done specifically, redundant sounds that may have been consigned to the bin, anything they chose to send would be fine as long as it had not been used in any released form. Types of sounds, durations, quality, etc., were not specified. My only proviso being that I could use or abuse these sounds in whatever ways I felt to be appropriate.
Once the sounds had been received from contributors on DAT. CD, MD, cassette or ADAT (or in a couple of cases live recordings made in my barn/studio), the contributors tended not to have any further involvement quite simply because a) time was limited, and b) I felt that to go back to a musician to respond or to add to a mix would be a betrayal of the original "chance" ethos of the process. I wanted to receive sounds that had not been conceived in any particular prescribed context, sounds that were all totally divorced from all other sounds. It was for me to make something out of these disparate contributions , to transform them via a collage approach into something anew.
Thankfully these musicians, many of whom have over the years become good friends, entered into the open-ended "collage" spirit of the project and generously provided me with a plethora of sounds. These ranged from 80 guitar "noises" from Kevin Shields to about 10 glorious melodic drifts from Roger Eno, to solid bass runs from Bill Laswell to a vocal track from David Sylvian, amongst others. Most of them in the process made either direct statements or allusions to the notion that it was about time that I made an album. Many of these musicians had come to trust my judgement on musical matters and had often used me as a "sounding board" for their various albums whilst in emergent form. I guess that as making music (as opposed to listening to it solely for pleasure) has never been my main concern, being primarily a visual artist, then my perception of music is still that of a punter, an interested fan. My naivete as to how sounds are made, used, treated, studio technology etc., allows me to be honest in my responses to sound.
When Robin Guthrie and Simon Raymonde contacted me asking if I'd consider making an album for their label Bella Union, I was naturally flattered, excited and again scared witless ! The process driven "collage" approach was relevant to the way I think and work visually and seemed worthy of further exploration and experiment, so once again I approached friends, both professional and amateur.
There was never a game plan to assemble some kind of virtual supergroup, it just so happens that I've been extremely lucky to have worked with and for some of the most innovative and influential sound-shapers in contemporary musics from that past twenty years.
AmbiEntrance: As far as your internal creative processes, were there any major differences between your first Undark CD and Pearl + Umbra?
Mills: Not especially but I guess that given more time, a far superior studio, equipment and more support from all those at Bella Union and September Sound made it a far more pleasant experience. Given such an environment I felt more comfortable if not totally confident with the internal workings of the process which I and Tom attempted to explore. Obviously with the 1st Undark album I was extremely naive and nervous; also I felt as if I were working in a complete vacuum, no references, no benchmarks, no one to check or temper the process. With " Pearl & Umbra" I was more confident in myself and the ideas I had, I was more attuned to working with Tom and all those around us supported what we were doing.
AmbiEntrance: Are the conceptual ideas for individual songs already in place from the beginning, or do they develop as sounds begin to accumulate and form?
Mills: Some tracks have been borne out of very clear conceptual ideas whilst others have been stimulated by juxtapositions of disparate sound elements which somehow triggered connections. My thought processes as applied to visual and aural/sonic works are epigenetic in that they evolve in layers. When working with sound I try to follow appropriate connections much in the same way that traditional Japanese theatre uses sounds to signify seasons,moods, to set up expectations. In most instances an idea sets off a train of thoughts which stimulates other, maybe very tenuous associations; it's a bit like starting out on a journey with only a fragment of a map - events encountered on the journey are simply responded to intuitively, for survival or for the rush of the unknown. Arriving is always new.
AmbiEntrance: Can you give us an example?
Mills: For most pieces there were some set ideas, some were extremely tenuous,
oblique, possibly more about a vague notion; some were very specific and
others were frustratingly elusive.
"Canyon: Split Asunder" came out of
several inter-connected lines of thinking that had been pre-occupying me for
some time. I had been giving quite a number of lectures in art colleges
about my work and the things, people, ideas, etc., that have and still do
inspire and inform me. Two of these subjects in particular became more and
more amplified in my head; one is Kurt Schwitters, a German artist who died
in Ambleside (where I've lived for the last 7 years) and who is considered
by many of the world's art critics/writers/academics as being one of the
most important figures in 20th century art.
Well he's been a hero of mine for years and I'd been thinking of his legacy
- he worked in collage,
abstract, made from the discarded everyday.
The other thing that kept
fascinating me were questions of what collage is in contemporary life and
culture. I kept finding a link between what Schwitters made and his
writings, performances and poems (phonetic and more formal) and cultural
norms of the last 40 years. The way that all contemporary forms are created
and received/perceived are all prime examples of what Schwitters set into
motion 70 -80 years ago. TV programmes, videos, news coverage,
radio programmes, magazines, the use of sampling and other technologies in
recording of sound,newspapers, novels, design, advertising, art, etc., - all
are forms of collage; dislocated, disparate elements re-contextualised; all mediums capable of shifting in any direction chronologically from reality to the imagined, from dream state to
known fact, from documented past to possible futures, etc.
In amongst all
of this forest of connections I was looking in an art-historical way at
those artists who had been inspired by Schwitters from the Pop artists to
writers such as James Joyce curious to see how this legacy had been
transformed by each successive generation and how these influences had
seeped into the mainstream. Another artist I admire greatly is Robert
Rauschenberg who was also greatly affected by Schwitters. One of his early
pieces, a painting or as he called it a "combine" struck a direct chord with
what I'd been looking for, this was called "Canyon" done in the mid '50's -
a large canvas with a flattened rusted metal barrel attached to it, images
of military helicopters and other references to contemporary America
scratched and scrawled over it plus a huge and dusty Golden Eagle, wings
outspread, spattered with paint runs and dribbles.
It caused great consternation when first shown because of its critical
allusions to US foreign policies at the time. The USA had emerged from WW II
as world leader and it was now propagating its chauvinist macho muscles
globally. Rauschenberg's use of the Eagle, especially such a battered and
bespoilt one was calculated and hit the nerves of the newly proud Joe
Average as well as all the pompous politicians in Washington. Anyhow all the
correlations, parallels, which emerged in all of this seeking out some
lineage culturally from Schwitters led to the track "Canyon: Split Asunder".
(I bet that you wish that you'd never asked now !)
In the track are two vocal samples, one a female voice talking about
presences being defined by absences - something can only exist only if there
is also nothing ... This sample is from the works of Marshall McLuhan, the
cultural theoretician who coined the phrase "The Global Village" (another
series of allusions in the choice of him ); the other is of a New York
evangelist talking about fishing for money (more allusions to the
aspirations of the US since the Second World War). Emma Townshend's distant melismatic vocalise, whilst being unintentional on her part , seemed most appropriate to in the context of the track conceptually; it being a kind of lament, a wailing for something lost maybe
? ....
"Causes Cause Causes" is another political analogy in both it's title and it's form. I hope that the title is self-explanatory. Arrangement-wise (not that I have clue about such crafts) I saw it as being a simple visual translation of the title and what the title alludes to; so to Tom I
described as a long wedge which begins as a fine point (the very quiet start, organic, metal rumblings and extremely muted screamings, which if you can hear them at all, are actually
Peter Gabriel), becomes thicker, denser (more sonic scratchings, more
organic searchings are introduced layer by layer), becomes thicker still
until Thurston Moore's and Mike Fearon's guitars being wrestling and hollering
at each other, until the whole wedge becomes so dense, so fibrous, clogged,
that the whole process cannot move at all, all inputs (political
interferences) have strangled the original impulse to move forward and
finally the whole massive machine crashes, melts, overloads, collides with
air, space, nothingness, and ends.
"Cage Of Air" was inspired by a
line in one of Cormac McCarthy's books; it is used to describe a skeletal
rib cage picked clean, The use of this line is also a homage to him and his
astonishing books. "A Swoon In Amber" is a kind of poetic piece which
attempts to describe in sound what it might be like to encounter a swoon, a
faint if it itself were visible, preserved like some rare insect in amber
.... hhmmm. (Strange boy you mutter ...).
AmbiEntrance: You mentioned your barn/studio; this is the "shed"? In the disc's credits, it mentions the "shed method"? What can you tell us about your workspace?
Mills: Yes, the shed is my barn which is a 17th century Lakeland stone barn about 3 steps from our kitchen door. The house is in fact 2 house joined, the smaller portion being the original 17th century (we think around 1640's)
farmhouse - oak floors (no good for marbles, crooked walls, Lakeland stone steps to the 1st floor, oak beams, etc., - the second house, dated 1840 was added by Dora Wordsworth (William Wordsworth's favourite daughter) who lived here with her family until she died. This Victorian, high ceilings, elegant proportions, severe detailing, etc. In short it is a dream house; built into the base of Loughrigg Fell, a smallish wild mountain with 3 acres of similarly wild gardens, a beck (stream) running off the fells through the garden down into the river which winds past the front of the house, which looks out down to Ambleside about 1-2 miles down the valley, the whole surrounded by fells and mountains. The barn/shed is where I primarily do my paintings as it's isolated from the house, it's walls are immensely thick so I can make as much noise as I want at any time of the day or night ( I tend to work mostly at nights - no interruptions, phone ringing, etc.).
I call it and my design persona "shed" because for me it symbolises, particularly in the UK where sheds are abundant, a spirit of individual enterprise, of individual aspirations, experiments, etc. It alludes to loners who have a belief, a dream, an idea, an invention, at
one end of the spectrum, to those at the other end of the spectrum, individuals who simply enjoy their own thoughts and their own company - it is removed mentally and physically from the everyday world. The history of invention, of culture, has stemmed from people pursuing their beliefs or hunches from either real or metaphorical sheds, without corporate or
governmental support, usually without financial support too and certainly without the understanding of the general public, who are in the main suspicious and cynical of anything new or of possible change. From Archimedes to Flemming, from Newton to Picasso, Schwitters to Jenner, Priestley to Daguerre, the list is endless - loners who through serendipity, strength of conviction and vision - just kind of do what they feel they have
to do; they all represent the idea of the "shed method" - using what is available to
transform materials or ideas from one state into another, hopefully better, more interesting, more exciting state - a new state.
AmbiEntrance: Of all your contributors, whose sounds were particularly
challenging to work with? Whose were particularly easy?
Mills: I don't think that any of the contributors sounds were particularly
difficult to work with; they were all equally exciting and pleasurable. Problems only occurred when myself and Tom Smyth my collaborator and engineer found ourselves pushing sounds together in ways that they were resisting, distinct opposites - naturally this approach was a conscious working method used to bypass our normal thought processes and hopefully set up new directions. Some sounds were so inherently stunning, beautiful, complete that they needed very little work other than determining and evolving the right setting or ground for them to exist in or against.
Sussan Deyhim's vocals, Paul Schutze's pure recordings, Laswell's basslines,
Ian McCullough's and Mike Fearon's guitar work, Sylvian's vocals, etc., they
were all revelatory sounds to work with. In fact given the parameters of the recording I was in the luxurious position of having too much of real worth to work with. The editing process, ongoing, was crucial.
AmbiEntrance: What is Tom Smyth's role in Pearl + Umbra?
Mills: Tom Smyth was one of the engineers on my first UNDARK album and throughout that experience we discovered a mutually reciprocal intuitive relationship. I asked Tom to join me for work on PEARL & UMBRA and thankfully he agreed. Tom has the best pair of ears I know (very pretty appendages), on a par with Michael Brook or Brian Eno I think. He listens very carefully to the minute intricacies within sounds and has a knack of isolating elements and passages of the greatest potential. He is an absolutely brilliant engineer and programmer without whom I could not have made these albums; his role in our partnership is vital, pivotal.
Whilst I tend to concentrate on the conceptual basis for tracks and can describe visual equivalents for the sounds I'm imagining, Tom acts as a translator for these, sometimes very nebulous or intangible clues. Through a process of trial and error, push and pull, give and take, threaded through with that very special intuitive understanding of each other, we somehow manage to produce sounds that satisfy and excite us both. A diamond geezer!
AmbiEntrance: Robin Guthrie is listed as "sonic mandarin"; tell us about that position.
Mills: Robin is credited as "Sonic mandarin" for two reasons essentially. Primarily he acted as a benign dictator who through his immense experience in music and his guile in dealing with musician's fragile egos learnt from those years of recording, playing live and producing,would be discreetly monitoring our faltering progress and would intervene at crucial moments,i.e. when Tom and I would refuse to leave a piece alone, nagging more and more out of an idea until we'd lost the initial spark, building mammoth tracks full of incident but in danger of losing momentum. Robin applied a more commercial perspective on our experimental meanderings, teaching us much about conciseness, editing and dynamics. Sometimes his natural leaning towards the gloriously melodic clashed with our penchant for more angular undertows of menace. In the beginning I sensed that this point of collision was actually what we were both hoping would occur; both of us were open to these possible differences in the expectation of them producing a hybrid sonic language.
Robin was also given this moniker as it was his brainchild to invite me to
record the album so "sonic mandarin" became a more poetic and slightly jokey term for a kind of executive producer. Whilst Robin didn't actually produce on the album his presence was like that of some Japanese warlord overseeing his subjects. He acted as arbiter, tempering our flights of fancy or encouraging our ambitions, a mentor, a favourite uncle or supportive
teacher.
AmbiEntrance: Besides your sound sculpture and music, you also engage in painting, designing, illustrating, designing stage sets, etc. Can you give us a brief history of your "other" art? And, what about your concept of "serious play"; how does it apply to your various artistic expressions?
Mills: Whilst at and since graduating from the Royal College of Art in London
in 1977 I have always been interested in hybrid crossovers of disciplines, multi-media , etc.
These have more often than not included sound as well as literary inputs. Whilst I have a very clear understanding of ideas and projects of worth, artistically, I've never actually had a clear vision of a set direction, and I've never wanted one! My career has ricocheted or meandered from project to project by chance. From one bookcover to stage set, from album cover to exhibition, from installation to lecturing, from limited edition books to corporate reports, it's just a strange and wonderful journey from one opportunity to another. Long may it continue thus.
Following on from one of my cultural heroes , the German artist Kurt
Schwitters, I too believe that nothing is mean i.e. everything has potential for transformation from one state to a better state. This attitude is expressed in the term "serious play" which I tend to use a great deal. Another way of stating this approach is exemplified in what I call the "What if?..." mode to problem solving.
Essentially I work with varying degrees of prepared chance whereby
situations and elements (materials and sounds) are set against each other and I observe what happens, what is the alchemical marriage that ensues. Then I respond with yet another set of unknowns. This approach keeps me curious and open to possible futures and whilst being occasionally disastrous and nerve wracking it is more often than not a highly charged adventure leading to minute discoveries or huge leaps forward. It's fun, highly pleasurable , never dull and yet requires a determined commitment contextually and aesthetically. I believe that all of the arts should be like this - non-formulaic , mind-expanding, a kind of excavation .
AmbiEntrance: You did the art for Pearl + Umbra... very textural, dark and enigmatic! What's the message of the piece(s) with several books, snakeskin, wires, bones, etc.?
Mills: How much time have you got ?
Generally most of the pieces are about ideas related to regeneration; again
transformations from one state to another, ecological life cycles, from
being into dissolution into being into dissolution into ... etc. Or they
refer to questions about differences or similarities between knowledge and
wisdom, between the given and the formulated, between nature and nurture.
All of the materials used are incorporated not just because I find them
aesthetically beautiful but mainly because they are all loaded with symbolic
associations which when used in juxtaposition with other, perhaps totally
obtuse items, strike or lead to other potential associations/readings.
i.e. copper is used not just for its linear potential but also because it is
a conductor of energy; a book ( which happens to be Goldsmith's learned but
generally ill-informed natural history classic) represents knowledge,
edited, prejudiced, in this case imperialist and arrogant, and flawed, being
overrun by various insects, moths, spiders, etc., - wisdom, the given
taking revenge maybe ...
this image sits directly under the Cd itself. The snake skins are concerned
with ideas of changing one's mind or of being open to change, being prepared
to change one's mind like one is prepared to change one's shirt.
AmbiEntrance: Is most of your art work done "the old fashioned way", or do you work digitally, or some combination thereof?
Mills: My painting/assemblage work is done in what you call the "old fashioned
way", however my work is far from traditional in that the materials I use
are generally not so-called "art" materials, although I do use such stuff as
oils and acrylics as well. Also the way I work is not formulaic; I guess the
nearest I could get to describing how I work, and I don't mean in a kind of
mystical, cultish way, is that of being alchemical. Much is prepared chance
- substances such as liquid shoe polish may be poured over a ground of earth
and plaster, left to go almost dry, still tacky, and then a solution of
furniture varnish mixed with pigment and turps may be added. I'll observe
how this concoction is acting or reacting and then maybe add some other kind
of alien substance, such bronze powder with meths, ... the resulting
marriage (or quick divorce) will invariably lead me make further decisions
or ideas and so it goes.
I approach digital work similarly, attempting to find ways of working that
are not common. Most of my design work starts with the hand made, with a
painting or paintings with details of works, which are then photographed,
scanned into the computer and then manipulated appropriately. All of my
design commissions follow a golden rule, that of being appropriate to
whatever the essence of the commission is, whether it be an album, a book,
whatever. Gratuitous design, in which the designer has become more important
than the author, which has been the practice of some of today's so-called
"stars" of design on both sides of the spitoon, I consider to be
masturbation with a soft-off... pointless.
AmbiEntrance: Of your book and album covers, what were some of your personal "favorite" projects and why?
Mills: Hard to pinpoint and kind of unfair to isolate some above others, but if
pushed then I guess I would have to choose "The Pearl" by Harold Budd and
Brian Eno and "Between Tides " by Roger Eno along with all the work I've
done for "The Downward Spiral" for Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails. These
are favourites partly because I really believe that they work and operate
successfully on several levels.
The images I made for them have direct contextual relevance to the content
or moods of the music and yet also work independently , they have a
visceral connection and a visual beauty which blends the seductive with
menace. Also these albums and my covers/images/designs for them signified
important turning points for me where I discovered a more appropriate way of
responding which was also not overt or obvious. Others that I feel are
equally successful have been the two box sets for Brian Eno "Eno I & II",
the 5 CD boxset for David Sylvian "Weatherbox" and more recently I've been
really pleased with the work done for Bill Laswell's "Hear No Evil", Cocteau
Twins double "BBC Sessions" and, surprise surprise, for my own UNDARK :
"Pearl + Umbra".
As for bookcovers the same criteria applies to the images/designs as for
albums and as such the following are the ones that I feel are successful ; a
series for Samuel Beckett's novels (he's been one of my favourite and most
inspirational writers for years) ; a series of covers for the novels and
short stories of Ian McEwan; all of the covers I've done for the American
writer Jayne Anne Phillips; "Exotica" by David Toop; "Continent" by Jim
Crace. That'll do for now.
AmbiEntrance: Any upcoming CD/book projects you can tell share with us? Who would your "dream" assignment be for?
Mills: Having just finished album art and design commissions over the Summer for
David Sylvian's "dead Bees On A Cake", Bill Laswell's "Hear No Evil", Karl
Jenkins/Adiemus "The Best of ... The Journey", the Cocteau Twins' "BBC
Sessions" and bookcovers for David Toop's "Exotica" and Stanley Booth's
"Dance with The Devil", myself and my computer whizz-operator Michael
Webster are now working on the following ; "Operazone:The Redsign" with
Laswell, Tony Williams Lifetime "Turn It Over" re-mix project also with
Laswell and we're awaiting info. titles, credits for a new Graham Haynes
album.
Dream assignments ...Well I've been really lucky so far to have worked with
some of the most innovatory and influential movers and shakers in
contemporary music/ literature already in the likes of Brian Eno, David
Sylvian, Bill Laswell, Nine Inch Nails, Youssou N'Dour, Nusrat Fateh Ali
Khan, Harold Budd, Djivan Gasparyan, Toru takemitsu, Michael Brook, in music
and Samuel Beckett, Ian McEwan, Jayne Anne Phillips, Milan Kundera, Barry
Lopez, Don de Lillo, Mario Vargas Llosa, etc., in literature, so I reckon
I'd be blessed if some of my outstanding dream assignments were ever to
become realities.
However there are some "desert island" dream people/talents whose work is central to my life and work, who I would be really honoured to work with or for. These include the poet Seamus Heaney ( in fact I'd love to be asked to do covers for poetry books for the likes also of Anne Michaels, Paul Celan, Osip Mandelstam, Ted Hughes, Yeats,Czeslaw Milosz, Emily Dickinson, etc.); novelists/writers such as Annie Dillard, Wendell Berry, Annie Proulx, Cormac McCarthy, Iain Sinclair, Flannery O'Connor, Sam Shepherd, A.L. Kennady, Jeanette Winterson, Nina Fitzpatrick, Anne Michaels - I'd love to do more work for Jayne Anne Phillips, in fact all those mentioned above !
As for music I'd kill to work for/with ; Scott Walker, Captain Beefheart, Hendrix, Arvo Part, more work for NIN, Eno and Sylvian, - Tricky, Underworld, Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine), Leftfield,J ohn Lee Hooker, Mimi Goese, Bjork, Massive Attack, Nick Drake, Radiohead, Jeff Buckley, Chris Whitley, Zemlinsky, Scala, Solex, the Blue Nile, Ry Cooder, ... enough of this, I could go on for pages, but these are the bee's knees, as we say.
Other ludicrously optimistic dream projects - to work with David Lynch, Wim Wenders, MIT, to meet Antoni Tapies (Spanish painter), to have enough dosh (money) to purchase a Pro-Tools system, have some time off to think and rest, have a family holiday, buy some time to paint, continue with various Undark recording projects.
AmbiEntrance: And what about future musical projects?
Mills: These are mainly a continuation of the wish list at present - I'd love to make another Undark album, I'd also like to be able to put together a series
of mixes of all of the installation soundpieces I've done with my collaborator Ian Walton over the last 8-9 years, possibly to release on individual CD's or on one compilation.
As for real sound/recording projects, these are all connected to forthcoming site-specific multi-media installations that Ian and I are committed to and we will be preparing the sounds in collaboration with fellow Undark cohorts,
Tom Smyth, Mike Fearon and Jonny Tomlinson. These are for one big, important mixed show of installations called "Sonic Boom" curated by David Toop, to take place at the Hayward Gallery, London ( 27 April - 18 June 2000); another for a series of 4 venues here in Cumbria (the Lake District) also in 2000; another as part of Oporto, Portugal's European City of Culture events in 2001, and possibly one in Prague in 2002. Sadly nothing on the horizon for the USA or Canada, or the Seychelles, or Mustique, or Madagascar, ho hum, one lives in hope .
AmbiEntrance: You have a couple of new installations in the works; can you tell
a bit more about these?
Mills: I'm currently working towards several installations in collaboration with
the artist Ian Walton who has been a close friend for thirty years and with
whom I've been collaborating on multi-media projects for over ten years. This
summer we produced a piece called "Still Moves" in a huge farm barn in the
middle of an area called the Forest of Bowland in Lancashire, in the north
of England. This was a piece made in response to certain aspects of the life
and work of the German artist Kurt Schwitters(one of our cultural heroes and
along with Duchamp one of the most important artists of the 20th century).
For "Still Moves" we hung twenty old suitcases, open, in a gentle arc
curving from the floor up to the roof. Each case was illuminated by a single
bare light bulb suspended about eight inches above the opened empty case. We
also adapted an old valve type radio in such a way that its programme dial
continually scrolled through signals very slowly, endlessly searching ,
thereby producing a ceaselessly changing soundpiece in real time. We have
plans to produce some recordings using this radio idea and would like to
extend the idea to an "orchestra" of digital shortwave radios all adapted in
this way, however this is a big undertaking and will require plenty of
financial and technical assistance in order to realise it; we'd love to find
a patron/host/organisation who would support this so that we can set up not
only a recording project with this notion but also a live "concert".... any
takers?
Also we're working towards a large installation called "Mantle" which will
be part of a show called "Sonic Boom" to be created at the Hayward Gallery
(part of the Soth Bank complex in London) in April - June 2000. This is
being curated by David Toop all will also feature pieces by Brian Eno,
Scanner,Thomas Koner, Pan Sonic, Disinformation, Angela Bulloch and Max
Eastley amongst others."Mantle" will consist of two cylindrical rooms or
zones, the inner one being made of about 800 X-Rays of human skulls
illuminated from within by four 1000watt bare bulbs set on a slow pulse.The
outer zone and the entire floor area will be clad in sheep fleeces thereby
acting as an insulator.Sound is being created for this by myself, Ian, Tom
Smyth, Mike Fearon and Jonny Tomlinson, all having contributed to my UNDARK
album. The soundpiece will be constructed in such a way as to be continually
mixing in real time so that a viewer/perceiver will never hear the same mix
twice.
Others on the horizon are; 4 site specific installations in Cumbria (where
we both live in the north of England); a piece for Porto '2001 in Oporto,
Portugal, in collaboration with Heitor Alvelos. There is also the
possibility of producing a piece in Prague in 2002. We're currently
researching towards a hugely ambitious piece which will occupy six specific
sites in the environment within the six regions of Cumbria. This will
consist of six contemporary Aeolian harp like devices with pick ups being
played by the winds, six hydrophones dropped into selected lakes
transmitting sonar signals continually and six surveillance cameras or
thermal imaging cameras also continually transmitting images of now.These
signals, aural, sonar and visual will be transmitted to various end user
sites to be mixed, treated and re-configured. They may also be put into live
events and will be accessed on the Net. The whole piece will be like a
geophysical acupuncture capturing the "heartbeat" of the area; the
environment, the climate, the elements themselves will be driving and
creating the art.
AmbiEntrance: Thanks so much for your time and input, Russell. Anything parting thoughts you'd care to add?
Mills: Hope this is all O.K. and is not too academic (as opposed to rock n' roll). Can't think of anything else to add..
Well actually I do have a strange request that you, being in the States might be able to help with - I'm kind of curious to find out more about professional stalkers, people who are
trained in the craft and discipline of observing changes, sometimes minute
changes in environments, looking for clues of disturbance/occupation/presence ? These people are employed by or work in association with various bodies in searching for lost/missing people, especially children or who work in cases of stalking ?
I heard, sometime ago a fascinating and moving interview on British radio with a woman who had undergone such training and was a qualified "stalker" and it struck me as an incredible discipline - a bit like the skills of Native American Indians and their legendary tracking skills. If you could find out anything about this strange, marvellous, little known profession and the methods used in training, or recollections of such people, then you are a bloody marvel and I'd be very grateful.
Apart from that nothing to add, so ta ta for now.
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