Headstart Hull: You Are Not Alone

Headstart Hull: You Are Not Alone – Sound Installation @ Humber Bridge 2018 from Counting to Zero on Vimeo.

Annabel Strange and Hull poet Vicky Foster have been commissioned to co-create a project with participants of the youth resiliency programme, Headstart Hull.

This project has been developed by volunteers of the local Headstart initiative bringing Foster & Strange to deliver writing, recording, and sound editing workshops with the participants from the Headstart Hull volunteer group and Hull College’s 14-16s school which will form the basis of a public sound installation on the Humber Bridge to support youth wellbeing and resilience and to reduce social isolation by removing stigma from youth mental wellbeing.

Growing Your Creative Space

Working with Louise Cramond of Groundwork Hull and Hayley Buchan of Creative X-Change, Infinite Play Sonic Arts is supporting the ongoing development of a community initiative at Edinburgh Street Community Centre in Hull; where the three organisations develop youth projects for the Hessle Road/St Andrews area which will include outcomes involving sonic arts, theatre, and sustainable growth for the centre and participants through green initiatives, upcycling, and increased community ownership of green spaces and resources.

Alive on the Infinite Play

Festival of Sonic Arts

Documentation of the first year of the festival curated by Annie can be found HERE including original works by Bill Drummond & work by Bill in response to the festival.

Future iterations are in development, follow the Infinite Play site for updates.

Here’s Annie & Vicky Foster’s rendition of Steve Reich’s Pendulum Music:

And the infamous piano smash:

Artists’ Wellbeing Experience

Still in the early stages, but c2z is developing a network of artists to align principles for artswork with youth groups to support both participant and artist alike in getting the most out of such experience. Watch this space >>> AWE <<<

The AWE project came about through a discussion on funding c2z organised at Artlink, pictures from this event can be found on the Infinite Play site.

Souljam

Souljam in the Secret Garden began in 2017 but due to poor weather conditions, these informal jam sessions were kept indoors. Here’s to outdoor shamanic drumming in 2018!

Past Projects

Nye Parry: Playing the Bridge (2017)

Working with Nye Parry on this project was York Assembled in addition to local musicians and local composer Laurence Rugg.

(Photo: with York Assembled, credit Rich Duffy-Howard)

Aswarm: Re-Rediffusion (2016)

Working closely with Thor McIntyre-Burnie, I was commissioned to compose soundscapes for Thor’s bus stop installation on Hull’s Beverley Road.

With Hull being twinned with Freetown in Sierre Leone and the theme of the installation being based on Hull’s past as a major hub for the Rediffusion network, I was tasked with making a soundscape for each theme which could be selected via a classic Rediffusion channel dial attached to the bus stop.

ARC: ‘Hullness’ Tech Commission (2012)

In 2012, c2z was commissioned to make a telephone play MP3s of oral histories on the subject of Hull for the Hullness project at Arc.

The end result was a telephone which rang intermittently until the receiver was picked up and played the voices from the earpiece. Two MP3 players were housed in a vintage telephone which were turned on each day by a simple key switch at the back (to stop random people from being able to turn it off yet keep the switch close enough to make sure the phone was playing back the sounds) and powered via the original telephone cable attached to a USB wall plug.

HERE is a BBC article about the Heritage Lottery funded project, HERE is the Artlink archive page for when the exhibition toured, and HERE is a writeup of the project by David Atkinson of the University of Hull.

Breaking Down a Groove 2005/2008

Beginning as part of c2z’s degree show whilst studying sonic arts at the University of Lincoln, c2z asked Elektrodiesel to play one note on a guitar for half an hour. This was recorded on cassette whilst c2z was in a separate studio also recording one note for half an hour. Both studios were isolated so different notes and rhythms were chosen and both subsequent cassettes were subsequently cut live simultaneously to vinyl as separate stereo sides.

The next stage of the project involved approaching other artists to provide half an hour of one sound to the project. Automated Noise Ensemble were approached first – Rob Gawthrop playing a cello string attached to a clamp stand struck by a motor with string attached; Ruth Levene (nee Bob Levene) provided a 30 minute edit of recordings of bees from her then recent installation at Manchester’s Cornerhouse.

Submissions followed from Helmut Lemke, Ben Gwilliam, Reinhild Pazelt and Hans Specht, with c2z providing the final layer of a cymbal formerly belonging to Paul Burwell rotated by a record turntable and struck by a harmonica on rotation.

Monochrome Dwarf

Monochrome Dwarf was an open collective of sonic art improvisation set up by c2z during university. The track below features Norway’s Elektrodiesel and Chicago’s now defunct Milk Baby, with c2z. The concept was more about recording improvised performance than performing live and these efforts were given away as gifts to friends rather than being sold in the traditional sense. More archive recordings to be uploaded soon.