25th July – ready to go

 

The first post on my new Crossed Paths blog..

Today I prepared the kit and supplies for the first of the crawl performances tomorrow, to be filmed by Destina Bartley and photographed by Hannah Mann

Rain is expected! but never mind everything is ready to go…I will collect the 4 x 4 hire car at 8.00 tomorrow morning.

Crossed Paths is an exhibition, publication, public programme and documentary film..in the making…starting tomorrow…

The project is funded by an Arts Council of Wales grant for Creative Professionals.

As a kind of cyborg – sheep/human wearing a sheep fleece, 13 GoPro cameras and audio recorders, I will crawl incrementally for 5 1/2 miles along sheep tracks in the bio-diverse upland area of the Cambrian Mountains, the Elenydd Special Area of Conservation, West Wales. I will begin the journey in the peat and heather moorlands, known as the ‘carbon sink’, starting at the highest point, Pen y Garn (611m), over the summer and autumn I will crawl down through the acid grassland and peaty Molinia/rush bogs into the improved pastures and managed farmlands to reach the Pwllpeiran Upland Research Centre in Cwmystwyth.

I will make 13 films using 13 GoPro cameras attached to my legs, arms, back, stomach, head etc

The GoPro film footage will be viewed and analysed for macro and microscopic scientific data by researchers at Pwllpeiran – The Upland Research Platform, centre for the study of upland farmed ecosystems, Institute of Biological, environmental & Rural Sciences (IBERS), Aberystwyth University, and Liz Lewis – Reddy from Montgomery Wildlife Trust. The research group’s round table analytical and anecdotal conversation/discussion will be recorded and edited and added to the sound scape.

The sound scape will also contain edits from creative contributions by local musicians Ric Lloyd, Harriet Earis, Tim Noble, Diarmuid Johnson, Jasper Salmon and poems by Zoe Skoulding. They have all been invited to innovatively respond to the scientific data, the landscape and my performance.

An immersive multi-media, 13 projection installation will be installed in the first gallery and a contextual exhibition in the second at Oriel Davies, Newtown, Wales – 21 April – 13 June 2018