‘What do you hear when you think about the future?’ Griet Beyaert

GRIET BEYAERT REMOTE GLASS SOUND WORKSHOP

‘What do you hear when you think about the future?’

‘What do you hear when you think about the future?’

As part of Glass, Meet the Future Film Festival 2021 20 people from around the globe participated in this Remote Glass Sound Workshop which was designed and led by artist Griet Beyaert.

Participants were set the task of filming a sound/rhythm made using glass objects responding to and exploring the question “What do you hear when you think about the future?”, defining their thinking to be in the near, distant or far future.

These submissions have been realised by Griet as a short film and sound piece screened as part of the Glass, Meet The Future Film Festival.

This workshop and film were commissioned by North Lands Creative, as part of the UK in Japan 2019-20 bilateral campaign, a partnership between British Council Scotland and Creative Scotland. Supported by project partners Toyama Institute of Glass Art, Toyama Glass Art Museum and Museum of Arts and Design, New York.

Zsofia Jakab (Hungarian, Scotland) @zsfiv.jkb

Zoey (Taiwan) @Cittust

‘I was thinking about global warming, something that will change and deform our environment – looking through the glass object is like a glasshouse, a bell jar that encapsulates the viewer into this suffocating environment.’

‘At the start you hear a tempo with a comfortable speed, and it soon reforms to a suffocating speed with alarm like feature, as it abruptly ends, we are left with white noises that signal no more than the rolling video and time. The sounds in this video signify a moment in the restless minds of contemporary citizens, from simply being, to alarmed and concerned about the future (receive certain information), and resume being (forgetting). For example the information can be the daily tally of Covid 19 cases, Brazil fire, president debates, Myanmar coup, etc, information that could alter the picture of our future.’

‘Ever since I had the chance to try glassblowing I’ve been attracted to glass – I became interested in the workshop as it allowed experimentation with the sound of glass that’s something quite unique. I’ve also always loved the sound glass makes.’

I’ve always been interested in making music with objects, and glass is an interesting and versatile item for this task.’

Jim and Maura Williamson (UK) @japw23uk ‘Future Unlocked - Keys are a metaphor for many things eg locking away; opening doors , keeping secrets, hiding emotions, coming of age, new home, new car, moving in with a loved one. They are needed for journeys, they can cause much anxiety when lost or misplaced.’’

Lois Parker (UK) @loismparker ‘The piece emerged out of the process of exploring glass sounds. The pate de verre bubble wrap is protec-

tion that does not protect, that may be harmful. The cast glass vertebra carries the idea of residual indicators of existence and also that of what should be hidden becoming visible.

Having had my mother-in-law die in a care home having not seen her for a year, with her entering the care home during lockdown after several falls, the issue of those with dementia having no idea why they are not visited, why they are locked away, why what should be private becomes public, and what remains when independence is lost, are all ideas I have been haunted by over this last year.

The future orientation is taking these ideas and considering a possible future - who decides? How is value attributed? How does protection remain relevant? How would I want my existence to be marked? And how can we safeguard a future where so many variables are unknown.’

by Julie Light (UK) @julielightglass

Madeline Rile Smith (USA) @madhotglass

‘In the video are two glass pate de verre ‘cocoons’ onto which a rain of nails are falling. To me the cocoons are a bit like the safe spaces we’ve been inhabiting and the falling nails symbolise some of the difficulties heading our way over the next few years as we ‘recover’ (or not) from the pandemic and as we tackle (or not) some of the trends that it has exacerbated, like the increasing wealth gap between rich and poor.

‘For me the future feels intimidating, optimistic, and also mundane. I’m at a transitional point in my life. Soon I will be moving back to the city where I am originally from and putting down permanent roots. The feeling of uncertainty can be overwhelming. Afraid to settle into a routine, of staying in one place, and also of not knowing what will happen.

My video includes slow motion as well as normal speed footage. One of the things I enjoyed about the sound in the slow motion segment is that while the immediate sound is from the impact of the nails, if you listen carefully there are also sweet high notes of harmonics as the glass resonates.’

I wanted to create a noise that is both musical and also a little unpleasant.

I’m dropping pieces of scrap rod on a table. They clink and create a noise that sounds almost like a song, but it’s also harsh and a little jarring. The rhythm is monotonous, like the feeling of time passing, but it’s also unpredictable. I think for me it represents the tension when regarding the future, between the fear and excitement of the unknown, and the expectation of eventual repetition.’

Tim Kirman (Scotland) @timkirman

Micheal Bullen @northlandscreative

‘I wanted to capture and create something that instills a sense of repetition.

When I think about the future, I do not think singularly about myself or society, rather more on a cosmic scale.

When I think about the near future (the year we are in) we are in an orbit not too dissimilar to that of last year.

We are repeating the journey and it is only the things that we do that make it feel any different. Yet the cycle will be repeated long after I pass and am no longer conscious of the events.

At the same time there are elements that seem almost static as we observe them motionless in the universe. We are unable to perceive any movement or change in their pattern or behaviour. To capture this sense, I both speeded up and slowed down my footage and audio. Some of the marbles used to create the sounds hang frozen whilst others pass around them in almost the blink of an eye.’

‘Mixing vitreous glass paint and enamel is the start of my creative process.

For a year and more work stopped.

The gentle rhythm of palette and knife became a memory. The film is a new beginning, the start of a whole new world to investigate as the tempo of life and creativity starts to beat once more. I began with the immediate pleasure of mixing paint but thoughts soon turned towards the ever-expanding future and all the lines and tones of inquiry the paint would take me on.’

How To Use This Manual (UK) @howtousethismanual ‘Initially I thought about environment/ materials and their effect on the sounds. Recording in my house (which was built circa 1850) I wondered if the people who were around when it was built considered The Future. I looked through a book of old folk songs as they are a good indicator of people’s preoccupations and found a song called The Life of a Man which is about the passing of time (implying future) and its relationship to nature.

This led me to think about the life cycle of a sound and its component parts: Attack – the period it takes a sound to reach its peak Decay – the time it takes to go from peak to a sustained level Sustain – the level of the main part of the sound Release – the return to silence

Tapping different glass objects, I settled on a sound with well-defined ADSR characteristics. I wanted to bring the theme of future back into play, so I placed the sound in a sampler and tried to recreate the final note of the folk song. The final line is “Like a leaf, he shall wither and soon fade away.”

In manipulating the original sound by time-stretching, tuning, delay, dropping an octave and adding reverb to draw out hidden textures I am showing how through audio recordings time is elastic.

When the glass is struck creating ‘attack’ the ‘release’ phase is in the future but as time passes the sound plays out, fades and is transient - like a life only now with the ability to repeat.’

Ian Chadwick (UK) @ianchadwickglass

Fiona Byrne (Irish, Switzerland) @f__byrne

‘Here in the UK we have recently been given our roadmap out of the yearlong restrictions we have all been under due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

This roadmap is a staged lifting of the restrictions until we finally reach the point where we can hopefully return to some type of normality.

‘I actually pulled tarot cards for each of the futures you spoke of (will send you pic!). I am interested in divination and thinking about ways we try to predict the future, across magic, folklore and science. So it seemed right for this.

My video piece is a representation of us moving out of the restrictions in three stages. Each stage is represented by three sheets of textured glass which begin coarse, then less coarse and ends smooth.

A glass marble, which is rolled over these three stages and recorded.

Beginning with the rougher, noisy and more difficult to move over section onto a middle stage which is slightly quieter and easier to move over. A final section is smooth but with an undefined end point.’

Out of the three cards and playing around with sounds in the end I went for the distant future. This card was the 10 of wands which is linked to hard work. It is often to do with taking on responsibility and can also signal that there is an end to a current cycle.

Often it can be a sign to delegate, organise time better to free up time for oneself.’

Charlott Rodgers (German, Scotland) @charlottrodgers

Tracey Snape @tracey.snape @traceysnapeartglass

I made the glass bowl that I used in this video some time ago in Edinburgh College of Art’s hot shop. It is a place for me that radiates happiness and a feeling of endless possibilities.

I have felt deprived of opportunities during this pandemic and am terribly missing blowing glass and the community of likeminded female glass artists.

The sound made reminds me of a bell, of a Tibetan singing bowl, that soothes the troubled mind and hails a future where we once more can come together to practice our art.’

‘Everything we sense and feel and see and touch is pure Energy, tiny, denser bits of energy which we call particles, vibrating . Sound is carried in the vibrations. The entire Universe is in a state of vibration. I am interested in the vibratory frequencies of the glass interacting with the surroundings.

Nature moves in cycles and sound is measured in cycles per second, enabling us to draw correlations. A sense of time is felt through sound but also a timelessness. Mapping with sounds in the moment to connect to the future.

Vibrating sound can travel through us and enhance our experience of the current moment and into the future.’

Muriel Ulribe @trucha_patineta

Robin Bussell (UK) @pyrogandalf @thephotonicexcitors

‘While listening to glass and thinking about the exercise, I realised that everything I was listening to was some sort of conversation. I imagined a future where glass sounds could be a language. Maybe now all the clicking, scraping and hollow sounds are mere noise, but perhaps in the future all these noises will be part of a complex communication system. I used my writing machine as a way of writing with glass and choose marbles because they are always interacting with each other, as you are in a conversation.

‘Being immersed in the technical world my perception of the future is one of seemingly relentless acceleration. So using the surprising flexibility of glass rod, I show how an initial impulse can have reverberating accelerating effects into the future. I chose to use uranium glass under UV to invoke Sci Fi film tropes of futurism.

Using slow motion enables the viewer to appreciate the detailed reverberating harmonics and produces a sound evocative of the forges and fires of the industrial revolution, arguably the most quickening event of recent history.

I think of my video as a glimpse of conversations and indistinct chatter from a future where glass creates sounds but speaks as well.’

Karen Browning (UK) @glasslightspace ‘I was thinking about the future of this glass which is going to be smashed and re-cast into a new piece, I was just taking it for a day out, a walk and a swim before it meets the hammer.’

Catherine Carr (Scotland, UK) @catherinefugacarr ‘These lead crystal vessels were precious & expensive gifts of celebration to commemorate special life events through my grandmothers & mothers life. Never used, they were passed

onto me with their deaths. Now they mainly sit in my glass cabinet, inanimate apart from rare family occasions.

Percussing them to create sound, they begin to to express the unique sonorous voice of the glass, rather than as simple receptacles for food or flowers. As the years have passed however, breakages are inevitable.

Being a glass artist, I saved the broken remnants to reuse. Despite the sorrow of their deaths, we have had a new baby born into the family. I will be making a new vessel out of the smashed remains to gift to her & so something of her heritage & ancestors is passed on.

Bringing the whole collection together & making them ring, juxtaposed next to their shattered partners, they represent my family, then & now. The glass become a metaphor for time passing, birth, life & death, or past present & future, for my family in this age of Covid.’

Griet Beyaert grietbglass.com