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Follow Suit Part 2 of 4 – Spades

Digging through almost 20 years of previously unheard documents.
A Barry Joseph Cullen Retrospective.

The title is inspired by Seamus Heaney’s poem Digging.
What we do, how we make.
The value of an archive, the power of reflection.
History is never truly past, its ability to influence us continues to be felt in the present.

Original:
“Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.”

Remix:
“Between my finger and my thumb
The soldering iron rests.
I’ll make with it.”

A – 190614 edit
Live recording from a week-long mini festival at PS2 gallery, Belfast. Round Buttons Square Tones co-curated with Min Hyong Kim. An instrument/system was built using reclaimed metal dishes, solenoids activated by a 555 timer circuit (taken from D. Holzer’s Tonewheels project) with piezo transducers fed into DIY distortion effects; Fuzz Face, Tone Bender MKII, Little Big Muff. A short performance gaining complexity & intensity.

2 – 240419 04 edit
One of several takes. An improvisation using DIY eurorack modules.
Learning to use Turing Machine through play. VCFs as generators and LFOs as clocks & modulators.
Swaying from melodic to dissonant and back.

3 – guitar tuner bow fan eavesdropping (outro edit v1)
This piece was made by combining a number of materials that were available for play at the time. An early example of ‘Drone’ in my practice. The guitar was still central to my instrumentation but extended approaches were becoming more important. The guitar was later stolen in a burglary and attention turned to other methods of making music.

4 – 3KFCN able v2
A short study showing the 3KFCN circuit as a feedback tone generator.
A multi track recording with tuning by ear. A stack of improvisation. Slow.
The result of cumulative play and listening practice.

5 – newton’s cat
One of several pieces made using the Newton’s 12 Mins Companion Box with a Copycat tape echo.
Noise bursts and rhythm created by layering improvisations. No editing was required.

6 – moving 1 improv
One of several recordings made exploring Jasuto Pro, an iPhone app which facilitates dynamic tone play via gesture. A synth patch for live manipulation, to facilitate a new performance routine. This recording was captured from rehearsals for a performance using bass guitar through multiple DIY fuzz boxes (M.I.A).

7 – newt FKE mod v1
Companion Box (Newton’s 12 Mins) and Koma Field Kit Effects.
Improvisation around a patch made to test & learn the Field Kit’s capabilities.

8 – broken lights
This was made after remixing a reactive & generative AV software patch I made during my MA studies at SARC. I was living in Al Khuwair in Muscat. The neighbourhood was well lit. I found a few flickering electric lights. I took short videos and made a silent video composition; a grid of nine loops. The video triggered sine waves in max/msp/jitter. An array of frequencies depending on a previous monochrome frame difference. This is a response. There was a lack of electronic music in the location. I made my own.

9 – sarc fender contact mic
Waiting in a practice room with band hardware. Instead of browsing on my phone, I used what was available to do creative work. Contact mic, bass amp and a portable recorder. The routine was to slowly change each EQ knob from high to low.

10 – Bent 4.5v B&W Companions & Ellie 7
This piece is one of a number of improvised pieces recorded with a set up including two Companion Boxes (Black & White), a circuit bent instrument containing a number of rewired sound effect makers and a Comet filter, Ellitone multi-synth and looper pedal. Routine of setting a start loop and improvising.

J – Texture Test 261017 02
Using Resolume to animate an audio arrangement. Dancing fragments of workshop test signals.

Q – CNTRL RM CNC v31
This piece was made from field recordings made in the control room at SARC.
This track uses the sound of a CNC machine cutting the edges of a PCB.
The recording was edited and arranged using Avenue.
The resulting audio sounds a little like a cello ensemble.

Joker – Stockhausen tells us to go to the studio 3 may 2004 @ opening concert at SARC Belfast.