Movement
11
provocation
In her Movement 10, Jenny wove a soundbasket out of audio tracks from Binda and Dale
response
BINDA
When Jenny told Jonathan about the sound basket sound piece, she said she wasn’t sure that it could maintain interest for 9 minutes. Jonathan replied: “Well, the soundbasket has to hold something” in order to sustain interest.
That sparked in me the desire to create an environment in which the sound basket could live. A holding space of sorts so that it can hold and be held all at once. A warp and a weft of reciprocity. And for anyone who is sitting with it, a place to immerse in the sound while being held in place physically, visually, soundly.
I also incorporated a reading element that tells the story of the Old Woman of the World myth. It involves weaving, threads, trickster crow and a cauldron of plants and seeds. I came across this myth while listening to Sharon Blackie (she wrote Hagitude and If Women Rose Rooted) She was talking about the epidemic of unbelonging that is present for so many humans – especially in the western hemisphere. She believes that “myth and story is the connective tissue that help us belong again to the places we inhabit” (Advaya talk intro). Belonging to the land reunites us with the more than human world and with the planet. The tapestry of our belonging has been frayed, and the reweaving is more possible if we sense into the warp and weft that makes up the complexities of this moment (staying with the trouble). This myth can be found in many culture’s cosmologies. This one comes from the Galic ancient stories. I find resonance in these ideas. And for this movement? Maybe this myth is a map for the that the Sound Basket is holding.
During these two weeks, as I engaged in a weaving practice using the red threads from a prior installation that lived at Park HIll Orchard for two years (Reach Field Tree Project), I began to see woven patterns everywhere. Especially patterns that look like sound wave pattern images. I began to collect those images in one place and to incorporate them both in the environment I created, and in the video that came out of this movement’s practices.
The elements that entered into the environment have significance from the Helices myth. Some of them come from the land I live on. For example, the woven basket is made of trumpet vine branches and vines. The sticks come from wood in Dale’s land place, and the rocks and wood that anchor the threads of the red tent, come from this landscape as well. The red rope, while synthetic, is repurposed from an installation that lived on this land for two years.
Included in the environment are sticks prepared by Dale (he said “I picked three different pieces, didn’t know what they wanted to be/do… split them thinking of weaving, and I think they are us three…??”)
They are laid out in a pattern that includes triangles. Those represent (for me) Dale, Jenny and I. The pattern is also imitant of the patterns Dale creates in his fire making practice. The prism refracts and invites shifting perspectives so as to take in the different ways that there are to look at a thing. The woven inverted basket creates a roof or bell like shape. A home for belonging with the sound weave. The bark imprint bowl houses the story of the old woman of the world written on a long piece of fabric. To my mind, it represents the myth that is Helices with its many colored threads ready to be used in many different ways.
Below are images gathered during this movement. The first is an image of the sound waves that the Sound Basket recording makes.
Below are some images of sound wave avatars in woven artifacts
Last note:
When Richard saw me weaving the roof basket, he thought I was unraveling my sweater to make the basket! He has not heard of the old woman of the world myth. That affirmed that I was on the right track.
