Projects: Sbarbi's Arrow (2013)
Sbarbi's Arrow is the first major creative output of Duncan Whitley's study of the saeta flamenca, a form of flamenco prayer, sung to the religious images of the Catholic Easter processions in Andalucia. The exhibition was commissioned by Soundfjord to coincide with the movable feast of Lent and Easter.
The title refers to an 1880 text by José María Sbarbi in which he describes the saeta as "a brief, fervent spiritual maxim, capable of producing in the mind an impression similar to that caused in the body by the wound from an arrow... capable, not of riddling the heart of the most hardened or indifferent sinner with arrows, but of giving a dead man gooseflesh." Whitley searches for traces of Sbarbi's metaphorical arrow within his self-reflexive investigations in contemporary ethnography, extending the metaphor from flamenco song to processes of recording, memory and playback.
Sbarbi's Arrow was first realised at Soundfjord with the generous support of the Arts Council England, with additional support from the British Library, Measure, Unit for Sound Practice Research of Goldsmiths University of London, and Sound and Music.
Projects: G. D. Parada (2012)
G.D.Parada is a video/sound work, developed
around the amateur football club, Grupo
Desportivo de Parada, in the village of Parada
de Ester in rural Portugal.
Rendered in exquisite multi-channel sound, the piece is centred in a series of sound recordings, designed to capture the choreographies of training drills and exercises on team's training ground, Campo da Nossa Senhora de Fátima.
Moving beyond the themes of space and movement, the work begins to form a complex portrait of this club as a social as well as a sporting unit. As a club 'da aldeia' (from the villages) taking part in the competitive, regional league ‘Divisão de Honra’, Grupo Desportivo de Parada embodies a unique set of identities, the reflection and produce of the geographies of the village of Parada de Ester.
G.D.Parada was conceived and produced at Nodar Artist Residency Centre (Nodar, S. Pedro do Sul). Produced by Binaural / Nodar www.binauralmedia.org/news/ with the support of Grupo Desportivo de Parada, and funded by the Portuguese Ministry of Culture.
Projects: Saetas: sound and video
production in Seville 2011 - present
Video / sound sketch from work in progress documenting a saeta sung by Pepe 'Perejil' to Cristo de la Expiración during the 'Semana Santa' (Holy Week) of 2011.
Pepe Perejil (José María Pérez Blanco 1945 - 2012) was well known throughout Seville both as a tabernero at his bar Quitapesares and as a singer specialist in fandangos, sevillanas and saetas. This short video was recorded in the Plaza Museo where Perejil habitually sang each year to the religious images of his beloved 'El Museo' with whom he was associated throughout his life.
The video forms part of an extensive study in video and multi-channel sound, observing Seville's Semana Santa principally through the sense of sound, with a particular focus on the 'saetas flamencas', and featuring a great number of singers or 'saeteros' currently active on the scene.
A collection of field recordings relating to this project is currently held at the British Library, catalogue reference C1338 (Soundscape recordings of the Holy Week procession in Spain)
Projects: Four Shepherds (2011)
Synopsis: Four shepherds; four journeys; four loudspeakers. The focus for this project was based on a series of proposed recordings with different shepherds of the village of Covas do Monte; each shepherd carrying a lavalier microphone and portable digital recorder to document their particular journey to the mountain accompanying their flock. The resulting material would form the basis for a four-channel documentary sound work.
Diary Excerpt: A call to herd the flock; a shriek to frighten the wolves. Today I made a series of recordings, sketches, along the semi-dry river bed leading from Covas do Monte to the foot of the mountain. The same route I had followed with Luís and 'Auntie' Maria Martins two days ago; where María had performed an almost unbroken twenty-minute series of calls and shrieks from the incline, and I had stood right next to her, listening to her voice answering back from the slope on the opposite side.
This morning it is Fátima and Rosa who take the goats to the slope. I wait on a raised platform in the middle of the river bed, where the goats will pass by on both sides of me; hundreds and thousands of stones 'tinkling' under the steps of their hooves, creating a dense weave of sound punctuated by the hissing of the accompanying shepherds. Reaching the slope, Fátima and Rosa banter: 'Olha, viste esta merda de gado?', 'É para ali, Rosa. Acho que é do Manuel João...' ('Look, did you see that shit of a goat?', 'I think it went this way, it belongs to Manuel João...'). In between words, Rosa exhales series of whooping cries, rising and then falling in pitch; her voice emanating out across the stones and shrubland before retreating back into the valley, returning three times as an echo.
Rosa is the new heroine of my project. I hope she may accept my proposal tomorrow to carry a small lavalier microphone and digital recorder with her, as she accompanies the goats from the paddocks up to the base of the mountain. Tomorrow morning I'll ask, and we'll see.
Residency: This project based in Covas do Monte, was one of a series of residencies with international artists hosted by Binaural/Nodar [link - http://binauralmedia.org/news/] as part of 'Vozes de Magaio' ('Magaio Voicescapes'). The three week residencies culminated in a two-day festival, taking place in the villages of Sequeiros, Covas do Monte and Nodar.
Maps: The people of Covas do Monte use a communal shepherding system, in which a number of shepherds are employed on a rota. Each shepherd may decide to take the village's goats, numbering approximately 1,500 at the time of writing, via one of a number of routes to graze on the mountain.
Download a simple map displaying the principle routes used by the shepherds of Covas do Monte, viewable in Google Earth - [kmz file!] Maps of Covas do Monte.
If you do not have Google Earth installed on your computer,
you can download it here - Google Earth
Credits: Fieldwork carried out at the Nodar Artist Residency Centre (Nodar, Pt).
Photographs by Carina Martins for Binaural/Nodar. All rights reserved.
Special thanks to Luis Costa, Ana Fernandes, Carina Martins and Manuela Barile for their support
Publications: 58 Processions:
Listening Through Holy Week
58 Processions: Listening Through Holy Week is
an electronic publication documenting the research
and practice in the field and studio of Duncan Whitley
and James Wyness, from 2007-2008.
It is the first significant release of edited field recordings from their work within the Holy Week processions of Seville during this period, and documents their installation '58 Processions' in the crypt of St Pancras Parish Church (London) in 2008. Available for download as a PDF, the publication features twelve sound recordings, and writing by Duncan Whitley, James Wyness and Katherine Hunt.
This revised edition features new writing by James Wyness , and two previously unreleased recordings from the artists' fieldwork. The introduction is written by Simon Day, co-director of London-based arts organisation Measure, who co-produced 58 Processions.
Published by Labculture Ltd. 2012 ISBN: 978-0-9560187-3-1 in association with Measure.
NB. For full multimedia functionality including emdedded sound recordings please view in Adobe Reader or Acrobat.
1. Download the PDF from here
2. Open the file in Adobe Reader.
3. The document will open in full-screen mode.
4. Connect the computer to your speakers or headphones.
Publications: Three Years in Nodar: Context-Specific Art Practices in Rural Portugal
The Nodar Rural Art Lab, coordinated by Binaural/Nodar, located in a rural mountainous community of Portugal (Nodar, S. Pedro do Sul Municipality) organizes and produces multidisciplinary artistic projects (mainly in the areas of sound, video and intermedia arts) from both local and international artists, followed by public presentations in the region. During their stay, the resident artists are encouraged to establish interactions with the place, its inhabitants, geographic space and social memory.
The idea for this catalogue arose from the need to close a cycle, the first three years of regular artist residencies between 2007 and 2009, years where the hosted projects were mainly developed in Nodar. The catalogue includes essays, critical texts, field diaries, photographs and drawings of more than 40 artists who developed art projects at Nodar Rural Art Lab during this period.
The Accompanying double CD, “Nodar Location-Specific Sound 2007-2009?, includes twenty sound compositions created in Nodar or composed from material collected there by many sound artists, contemporary composers and vocal performers. This CD is also a necessary embodiment of all sounds that filled the landscape of Nodar and had to be shared with a wider audience.
Bio: Duncan Whitley
Duncan Whitley practices as a visual artist and
sound recordist. His creative output ranges from project-specific field recording archives, to multi-channel sound work, film and video, and site-responsive sound installations.
As an artist working with both musical and 'non-musical' sound, he is fundamentally concerned with themes of acoustic communication – language mediated in and through sound – and the experience of visual and acoustic space. His approach to working with sound is at once forensic and poetic, marked by both rigorous methodology and a delicate, subtle aesthetic language.
Duncan explores themes of sound, space/place and collective memory: in the empty wards of ex-NHS hospital buildings; in the football stadiums across the breadth of the UK; in the religious processions of southern, Catholic Spain; or in the journeys of shepherds in the Portuguese mountain villages of 'Magaio'. Much of his recent work explores emergent issues in contemporary sound work, in particular those related to contemporary ethnography and socially-engaged art practice.
In his ongoing research into the 'saetas flamencas' of Seville he works with the British Library, the Platform for Contemporary and Modern Flamenco Studies (part of UNIA – the International University of Andalucia 'Arteypensamiento'), and Weekend Proms (curators of Sensxperiment and Andaluciasoundscape). His work has been exhibited recently as installations at the Museu Serralves (Porto, PT), Herbert Art Gallery and Museum (Coventry), and his sound and video/sound works have been presented in festivals across Europe, such as Valfino al Cante (IT), Gorey Arts and Film Festival (IE), CTRL_ALT_DEL (TR). He is currently an associate artist of Binaural/Nodar (PT).
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