FLAGS ON THE BEACH – 2023

Posted on 4th April 2025 by Shirley Pegna

Geological Time and Stone Turntable R&D – 5

The flags placed at spaced intervals show to scale when rock was formed: I meter represents 23 million years (I know that’s nuts)

Forming of alabaster gypsum Zaragoza Spain 23 million years ago (first flag)

Forming of the Lizard peninsular Cornwall 400 million years ago (second flag)

Forming of Nuk gneiss Illulisat Greenland 3.2 billion years ago (third flag)

Information

These three dates in geological time, time that spans the life of the earth, feature as information researched in the project Geological Time and Stone Turntable R&D. Bringing Spanish, Cornish and Greenlandic strands of exploration I managed to plot them in a geological chart informing me of my experience of the planet I live on and its own life.

The descriptions and information below show:

1.time frames for the rocks of the project

2.comments on cultural and cultural attitudes concerning rock

Geological Society of America – A chart of unimaginable time frames

Time Frames

Cornwall

In Cornwall I became interested in the vast differences of sound in time and space, when recording sound for a dance piece Deep Time Moving situated on the Lizard. I learned from consultant geologist Dr Beth Simmonds that the Lizard in Cornwall was formed during the Devonian period, roughly 400 million years ago:

“The rocks at the Lizard are part of an ophiolite – a piece of oceanic crust that has been uplifted onto continental crust. When the rocks of the Lizard were formed around 400 million years ago, the area was completely submerged by water. The area of what is now Cornwall was at that time a divergent plate margin and new igneous rocks were being created as two oceanic plates moved apart at a spreading ridge. As the plates moved apart, molten rock rising up from the mantle filled the space created and cooled to form new oceanic floor.

The minerals that form in these rocks are stable below the crust, where pressure and temperature is high and there is no water. Once formed however, these rocks come into contact with water which can cause alteration through a process called hydrothermal metamorphism. At the rocks seen at the Lizard, this alteration created the mineral serpentine which is found in the rock serpentinite.”

Photo from website – Serpentine rock found on the lizard and recording on and in lizard rocks (although not Serpentine here on the right)

https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/Policy-and-Media/Outreach/Plate-Tectonic-Stories/The-Lizard#:~:text=When%20the%20rocks%20of%20the,apart%20at%20a%20spreading%20ridge

Greenland

Greenland – Illulisat , a small port on the west coast of Greenland, is sitting on some of the most ancient rock on the planet. Where only rock found in Australia in older. Beneath the snow and ice is largely gneiss (yellow on the map) and granite (pink). The gneiss is known as the Nuk gneiss and this was formerly a granodiorite (igneous rock) that has been metamorphosed. The pink is mixed Nuk gneiss a. Both are It is Neoarchaen to Mesoarchaen in age. This is 3.2-2.5 billion years old.

View of rocky landscape outside my hostel at the back of Illulisat

Gneiss rock (yellow) and Granite (pink)

Greenland with rock types visible and Disko bay (Qeqetarsuup) and Disko Island (Qeqertarsuaq) and Illulisat visible.

Zaragoza

Zaragoza In northern Spain at the Aragon district there are quarries for gypsum alabaster. Formed in lagoons 13-23 million years ago.

Photo Gypsum alabaster cut but still rough

Photo https://doi.org/10.1007/s12371-023-00878-x

The top pictures here you can see the layers of escarpment with gypsum and mud stone found embedded. As I understand in this article, the Ebro River in the past has been the key to the formation of the gypsum.

The geological rock record of this area as stated in this article says;

“The key geoheritage value of the ‘Tauste—Juslibol’ escarpment in terms of rock record lies in an excellent, almost uninterrupted, continuous exposure of the Miocene continental sedimentary flow of the Ebro Cenozoic Basin…….. The outcrops are dominated by alternating gypsum and mudstone/marl packages of variable thickness…”

The gypsum which became compacted from different minerals and sediments settled in subcutaneous pools, solidified, and has become gradually exposed for surface mining for its qualities for centuries.

Indonesia

Indonesia – vibration recorded from the Sulawesi earthquake was recorded via seismometer in Bristol University. The earthquake, 7.4 came from Sulawesi Island – Indonesia, 02°S 121°E_ / _2°S 121°E 7,595 miles from UK. This was my starting point, to listen in to the noisy interior of the planet.

I have returned to the vibration/sound recorded in 2018 at the time of the Sulawesi /Indonesian earthquake to see these tectonic plates in relation to the other rocks in the project I have been finding out about. The quake was caused by the collision of tectonic causing havoc and destruction in its wake, and happened because the area where it occurred there are “a complex interaction of plates”….

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Sulawesi_earthquake_and_tsunami

These big plates can be “from a few hundred to thousands of kilometers across.” They can float and drift and are made of different rock material. “Continental crust is composed of granite rocks which are made up of relatively lightweight minerals such as quartz and feldspar. By contrast, ocean crust is composed of basaltic rocks, which are much denser and heavier

https://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/tectonic.html#:~:text=A%20tectonic%20plate%20 (also%20called,only%20about%205%20km%20thick

I understand from the Sulawesi Earthquake that just millimetres of slippage of the tectonic plates caused the activity. “The rate of slip along this fault is estimated to be in the range 30–40 mm per year”. In our frame of time this is a small movement, but over billions these plates are positively speeding around the planet.

Here is a picture of the plates we have with their ‘joinery ‘and ‘leakage’.

Photo https://warrengeography.weebly.com/plate-tectonics.html

To attempt to imagine the architecture of the planet and its furniture, walls, gaps and cracks is an enormous task. But then so is imagining geological time. The two sit well together and are brought closer by the intimate listening in to the interior noise coming to my ears of the super-fast, superhero, super fearless long travelling impact waves or waves of vibration/ sound.

Human’s and rock

Human and cultural attitudes to rock came into my explorations, so to somehow respond to the power of the energy generated from our rock/earth/planet, I looked towards a few human ideas of rock. My explorations took me to look at the way we look at rock /stone/ ground as not just an inert substance but a life form.

Bristol University’s the Presentation of Migrating Rocks Project Symposium . To explore some aspects of the importance of rock in cultural terms, I spoke to poet Alyson Hallett -Stone Talks /Triachy press, went to a Bristol University’s the Presentation of Migrating Rocks Project Symposium – September 2024 on the returning of sacred rocks to Aotearoa – New Zealand.

The treaty of Waitangi – on screen

I listened to Dr Rupert Till, University of Huddersfield aka Professor Chill on Radio 4 The Birth of Music (11.2024), discussing neolithic stone chambers and their importance for their spiritual life in the late stone age as well as exploring older artifacts and their ritual uses. First the resonating chambers at West Kennet Long Barrow Avebury Wiltshire from 5,500 thousand years ago seems to show that the barrow itself is a musical instrument. Till comments,

“…rituals for the neolithic the mediation between the living and the ancestral spirits was an important thing to mark bits of life or the transition from life into death are often intentionally made to be very visceral experiences that leave a very strong mark in the memory and the body of the individuals.” (Radio 4 The Birth of Music – 11.2024).

Musician, Mike Adcock generously allowed me to question him about his research for his book on Lithophones. He is interested in the idea of the material make up or structure of rock that will ring out sound. He spoke about Vietnam where they have found large boulders that specially ring when struck. Also, his travels to a remote village in West Java where he tracked down what was spoken about as the stone gamelan from ancient times. We spoke about our modern phrases such as being ‘stone dead’ for instance, and where the ‘animalistic’ spiritual beliefs hold a different connection with important rocks.

https://mikeadcock.com/articles/in-search-of-dan-da-and-the-mekong-lithophones-in-vietnam/

Homemade lithophone

My own experience is that the rock conveys the sound and vibration of the life of the earth. I wondered how it would be for me to write that sound back into the same material? Would it convey its own sound? How do I feel cutting into it with this information? What would an onlooker think about the sound of the earth being heard coming from rock? Would the age of the material be evident? Will the intimacy of listening to its ‘sound’ bring the onlooker any closer to the understanding of their planet and the timetable of the planet’s geological life?

Some rocks contain the mineral zircon that allows for carbon dating. The rocks therefore themselves contain the where with all to retain information about earth’s early history, and dating back to 4,375 billion years ago, providing insights into the Hadean Eon.

“Hadean time is not a geological period as such. No rocks on the Earth are this old – except for meteorites. During Hadean time, the Solar System was forming, probably within a large cloud of gas and dust around the sun…..”https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/precambrian/hadean.html

Although seemingly random, the research into these three rock types in conjunction with the earthquake sound from the tectonic plates, has given me an overview of the very energy that exudes from rocks – a life force we are part of. In terms of time, the human species’ time spent on the planet is an infinitesimally small pin prick on the graph of geological time. And my perception of time is different again from other species of say a fly – living its own brief life span, although we are all small players in the life span of the earth. I hope there’ll somehow be a resonance of some of these ideas concerning us and our planet in the newly cut sonic rock made for this project.

This is the last section of the Geological Time and Stone Turntable R&D project. Other parts of this R&D can be seen here on this website called The Groove, Sonic Rock Interactions, The Lizard is a lizard and Skin and Ice.

End

Skin and Ice – Residency aboard Skydancer – Greenland

Posted on 4th April 2025 by Shirley Pegna

Geological Time and Stone Turntable R&D – 4

https://vimeo.com/1059292914 🎧

Abord Skydancer – at the Eqi Glacier

The Greenland residency was a 10 day exploration of the west Greenland coast line starting and ending in the southern region of the arctic in the Port of Illulisat 69°13′N 51°06′W. August 2023. This exploration was taken aboard Skydancer, a 20m long two masted cutter with a Norwegian crew of two and in the company of 10 European and American artists. The expedition was planned and organised by artist Lena von Goedeke/ Satellite Institute /Svalbard. https://www.vongoedeke.com/news/satellite

We travelled from Illulisat north to the glacier Eqi and then through Disko Bugt / Qeqetarsuup to Disko Island/ Qeqertarsauq, then returning to Illulisat.

Left Here’s Eqi glacier

Right Arctic region

I experienced a bit of the vast the continent mostly from the coast. In the time I had there, I wanted to find what I could of the land and its people with a focus on notions of ‘time’ and how this differed from notions of time I have. My own means of getting closer to experiences is to record sound.

With extremely restricted space to store and travel my equipment and the gear I needed for the climate and being aboard ship, I took the minimum and wrapped it in my clothes in my kit bag…

through water, rock and wood with an Aquerian hydrophone contact mic + extralong cable for lengths in the deeper sea.
the landscape with a Mix Pre-6, Sound Devices recorder with Sanken CS 3E shotgun stereo microphone and rode modular WX 4 windshield and mount -the windshield being vital for exterior recording especially on the boat.
the upper atmosphere with radio receiver – WR-3 VLF ‘whistler receiver?
through rock with a geophone (similar to SM4)?

Listening in, underwater recordings picked up an intimate link to the explosive and odd sounding calving of the glacier and bergs surrounding the boat; like trucks of rubble emptying their load and sometimes like gun shots. It was very noisy and a shock to hear it sound so close to the boat. The sound under the hull of Skydancer opened up a universe of lively sound below the water line bringing to my ears the strange noise of impacts and the clashing of powerful materials.

https://soundcloud.com/shirley-896949324/underwater-calving-ice-bergs-2 🎧

https://soundcloud.com/shirley-896949324/underwater-calving-icebergs-1 🎧

https://soundcloud.com/shirley-896949324/hoisting-the-anchor 🎧

https://soundcloud.com/shirley-896949324/tsunami-waves-from-the-eqi-glacier 🎧

The Skydancer at anchor

Here’s the Sanken shotgun mic picking up from a distance. Listening to the Loons at Ritenben

https://vimeo.com/1059295399 🎧

Our safety talk re the polar bears from the skipper: “….they usually are afraid because they are hunted here. Lena has a flare gun – if they approach which she will shoot towards it. If they are angry and approach we huddle together and make a very loud noise.”
(Well that puts that in perspective, then!)

Here we are with the on-board air rifle shooting practice at ice in the water. Not a gun for the bears but for safety.

Aboard Skydancer, I began to understand that the sea, the need to keep water and food and warmth on our boat, the understanding of the tides and nourishment from the icy sea keyed into our survival. We had to dodge the wilful rogue and fast movement of the ice bergs travelling dangerously at speed round us. A third of an iceberg is visible with two thirds underwater and if they flip over can easily capsize a small boat. This Iceberg (in the picture below) appeared next to the boat on our mooring. It needed to be fended off delicately with a long pole.

Rogue Iceberg being poled off the boat at Qete by Lena

Here’s the contact mic on black ice.

https://soundcloud.com/shirley-896949324/noisy-black-ice 🎧

Time here is the ability to live at the pace of the seasons and weather conditions. People’s ability to survive is completely related to the light in the length of daylight, dark night through winter and almost permanent daylight through summers. I learnt that along with the restrictions of fierce seasonal temperatures were travel restrictions, where the connections between villages town and the capital Nuuk, is dependent on boat, dog sleds and small planes, the entire continent being completely devoid of internal roads.

Huskies in the town – food’s coming!

https://vimeo.com/1059428637 🎧

Qertaq – You can see the different coloured houses. Each colour informs what the house is for. Blue for power, police, help, Church. Red for supplies. Yellow for education and health etc

Beyond My Vision

Even in the present time Greenland has hidden depths under the continents snow and ice, 35miles deep in some places, and the situation of climate change being critical, the exact depth below the continent’s thick ice is still not accounted for. Under our boat as we sailed, was dark deep water with maritime mammals and unknown life beyond my vision that I could only guess at.

https://vimeo.com/1059430235

Greenland coming into view – well not green it seems…

I listened to this description of what was underneath, beyond view, the Greenland continent on the plane coming into Illulisat when I sat next to a geologist who was working on a climate change project. Her group of scientists were gathering information about an area in the north of the continent where they were exploring an underground – or under ice, valley that was now, due to climate change, filling with sea water. They wanted to determine if this salt water would melt the ice above it slowly or crack it fast. Either way it wasn’t going to be a good outcome for who lived there- mainly Inuit.

Greenland is not only the fast-moving climate reacting continent of change with its ancient thick ice, but speaking with geologist Beth Simons I found later that underneath where I stood in Illulisat was some of the oldest formed rock on the planet. Beneath the snow and ice is largely gneiss (yellow on the map) and granite (pink). The gneiss is known as the Nuk gneiss and this was formerly a granodiorite (igneous rock) that has been metamorphosed. The pink is mixed granodiorite (like a granite but with less silica) and Finnefjeld gneiss. Both are Neoarchaen to Mesoarchaen in age (3.2-2.5 billion years old). Described to have existed since the Hadean Eon volcanic ‘hellish’ period of earths’ evolution.https://www.earth.com/earthpedia-articles/hadean-eon/

https://maps.greenmin.gl/geusmap/?mapname=greenland_portal&lang=en#baslay=&optlay=&extent=-2825222.222222222,6427835.648148148,3619222.222222222,9472164.35185185&layers=g250_topographic_map_utm24n,grl_geus_500k_geology_map_2022

Equally beyond my vision below the surface of the sea, I was unable to see the marine life, unless they chased the boat and appeared at the surface. At every opportunity I thew my hydrophone overboard to catch the Fin Whales calling.

https://vimeo.com/1059297217 🎧

Fin Whale – with their waterspouts

I found out however that the oldest living vertebrate living in the arctic oceans – the Greenland Shark had been “….wandering the Arctic Ocean since 1627”. How could they tell this? On board the Skydancer was Artist Tamara Enz, a biologist photographer and writer, who answered my enquiry about measuring the longevity of the Greenland shark. She described her colleague and friend, Craig George, developing the technique to age whales by finding the its age by removing the layers of the lens of its eye—which continues growing throughout its lifetime—and radiocarbon dating the tissue in the centre. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/facts/greenland-shark

The Greenland shark the deepest fish ever filmed. At a depth of 8,336 meters at 27,000g pressure. that’s 5.179 miles down. “They have a life expectancy of at least 272 years and could reach 392 years old – give or take about 120 years. What’s more, these slow-growing creatures don’t reach reproductive age until around 150 years old”. I just had to write that out as it’s extraordinary to me.

And for future listening to marine life – live, the new underwater listening station at Qaqqaliaq in Qeqertarsuaq can be accessed at https://diskolive.com/sounds-underwater

Culture

We sailed in the Skydancer across Qeqertarsuup Tunua or the bay Danish Disko Bugt , mooring in the port at Disko Island, called Qeqertarsuaq in Inuit. In the dock the Skydancer moored up to a large ish rough and ready tourist boat. We met a young crew member who came aboard the Skydancer for a beer, and we got to asking about her amazing tattoos. They featured Sedna the Goddess of the sea and for this young crew member was an important strong woman character that she identified with and held important.

The lines across her fingers represents the chopping off of Sedena’s fingers. Now in the present-day young women have these symbols of the abused daughter, depending on which tale you hear, winning out ultimately over the abusive father.

Another young Inuit working at the museum showed me a children’s story book about a character called Kaassassuk (by Tupaarnaq Rosing Olsen/ milk publishing). The violence and brutality, he said, had been reduced for children. The level of critical survival in both encounters showed me how the cultural stories handed down were important to the present-day Inuit youngsters. From the museum and art centre I could see that the symbols tattooed on skin, carved in or burnt in wood and bone and sewn in animal hide or platted into hair, expressed beliefs, told stories or reminded the people of their spirit life.https://visitgreenland.com/articles/a-guide-to-inuit-tattoos-in-greenland/

“The art of Inuit tattoos is called Tunniit. The process and method are colloquially called Kakiorneq in West Greenland and Kagierneq in East Greenland.” – “For the Inuit, the ‘sacred’, spiritual and religious are everything that surrounds us, and everything is animate and alive in that worldview.” – “Their first Tunniit is the Talloqut, the chin tattoo that women receive when they enter the role of woman. The forehead tattoo is in honour of Maliina, the sun.” Chin and forehead tattoos are explained but this is lovely – “While the amulets on the legs were to ensure future children and that the first a child saw at birth was something beautiful.”

Hand made items in the museum at Qeqertarsuaq

Cultural beliefs were etched into the materials around daily life. Even now tools, electricity and materials are available but scarce. In some places because of the fierce over riding weather, the temperature, the light and remote situation of the settlements – these tools have a value we (from temperate climates) can’t grasp. The practise of etching into materials made an impression on me and I thought about it bringing a value to the interface between material and human.

Football Club G-44. The pristine pitch at Qeqertarsuaq or Disko Island – ice bergs floating directly behind in the bay.

Returning to Illulisat we encountered the hill sized floating ice bergs from its adjacent Glacier, Sermeq Kujalleq. More bergs moving at speed. Here below are much bigger bergs! It was said that – “take your eyes off them and the sneak up on you, a bit like the game ‘grandmothers footsteps’,

The book – About Illulisat Icefjord

Illulisat’s fjord, Kaniata Sullua is fed by the glacier Semeq Kujalleq. https://kangia.gl/fakta-om-isfjorden/navngivning?sc_lang=en . The resulting ice bergs in the sea around this area are like veritable mountains. We motored through them in a freezing fog.

Although I was learning about the surprising speedy mobility of icebergs, in this short trip it was evident that the country was in change on all fronts with climate change and the opening up of mines – popular interest from other powerful countries. The steady and continual lobbying from the indigenous people for their balance of control in the parliament with the Danish protectorate being highlighted by all the change of focus on the country.

Nature throughout continues to strive. Here’s a recording from earlier at Eqi Glacier. Birds are flocking to get the summer arctic food that’s abundant near the glacier ice face. The birds are stocking up now summer is turning to autumn. I heard several species calling here. The Skydancer’s diesel engine is taking us through the ice and several crunches can be heard against the lumps impact on the hull.

https://soundcloud.com/shirley-896949324/sea-birds-at-eqi 🎧

Photo Bonnie Levinthal

We all had our turn on watch!

This residency has contributed to Geological Time and Stone Turntable R&D project. Other parts of this R&D can be seen here on this website called The Groove, Sonic Rock Interactions and Flags on the Beach.

END

THE LIZARD IS A LIZARD – DEEP TIME MOVING -2023

Posted on 4th April 2025 by Shirley Pegna

Photo -The Lizard

Geological Time and Stone Turntable R&D – 3

https://vimeo.com/1057128614 🎧

Deep Time Moving is a project based on the Lizard in Cornwall. Lizard Point – 49.9593° N, 5.2065° W. The research residency, July 2023, and resulting outcomes responds to the landscape with 3 dancers sound and the movement. A 4day residency based on the Lizard took place for research and development work leading to sold out 40minute public performances for at Epworth Hall, Helston, November 2023 and subsequent performances at Ashburton Art Centre.

Artist Kyra Norman the originator of the work, director and choreographer, was curios to explore movement in this landscape in human time, inspired by the multiple layers of movement in the landscape she was aware of.

We looked and listened for different movements and their sound sources. I was struck by the very vast difference’s there were to find from high-speed radio waves and frenetic flies to the deep tectonic plate movement of the earth. These were contrasting extreme events in time.

The video above – filmed while developing work in the residency – 2023 – Director and choreographer Kyra Norman, film maker Eleanor Sikorski, sound composition Shirley Pegna, dancers Winona Guy, Talia Sealey, Caud Tonietto.

Map from the coastal path

Recorded layers of sound and movement both close up and at a distance:

the upper atmosphere with radio receiver – WR-3 VLF ‘whistler reciever’.
the landscape with a Mix Pre-6, Sound Devices recorder with Sanken CS 3E shotgun stereo microphone and rode modular WX 4 windshield and mount -the windshield being vital for exterior recording.
through rock with a geophone (similar to SM4).
Through water and rock and wood with an Aquerian hydrophone and contact mic

My part was to record sound, mix and compose sound for the developing work in the studio and the performance. DancersTalia Sealey, Winona Guy and Claud Tonietto, producer Liz Howell and documenting film maker Eleanor Sikorski explored places, ideas, choreographies. The sound was made from field recordings and composed sound/music and mixed live for the performances. We were joined by designer Theo Clinkard who gave a feel of the outside wind and air in our inside performance space.

https://www.deeptimemoving.co.uk/about

Photo Steve Tanner

Here are just a few soundtracks and thoughts about this process

I was surprised how busy the English Channel was with radio filling that space below the ionosphere, and Kyra Norman pointed out that the French radio seems to “bring the French coast even closer to us.” Radio waves travelling at the speed of light: 300,000,000 (million) meters per second. The perception of the empty sea scape deceptive in terms of sound to be heard. With the aid of technology my human ears are ‘extended’ with these aids, and I could now hear the radio signals. Similarly, the geophone could pick up the lower frequencies of the ocean waves on the beach. Goonhilly station could bring me signals from out of the ionosphere from space and Heartland Point Observatory could bring me seismic data from earth activities reaching further ‘up’ and further ‘down’..

https://soundcloud.com/shirley-896949324/french-radio 🎧

The lizard’s scales

I imagine that the shape of the Lizard Peninsular as an animal in name and shape. This mass of land is imperceptibly moving as the earth evolves and the continents edge their way across the oceans. As the dancers explored what was their ‘present time’ improvising with newly presented field recordings, I was aware that under our feet or the boards of the village hall, was the historical outcome of the shifts of tectonic plates that abducted or pushed together 400 million years ago. Somehow the Lizard is a ‘separate animal’ from the rest of Cornwall. Dr. Beth Simons writes :

“The Lizard as an entirety represents a fragment of dominantly oceanic, with some continental, crust that have been thrust (or obducted) over younger sedimentary rocks. This obduction likely occurred by the Upper Devonian, with the closure of an ancient ocean.” https://variscancoast.co.uk/pentreath-beach

Due to the pressures of the tectonic plates “the compressional forces of the Variscan orogeny,” the land area which is now the Lizard was formed of entirely different rock types and is unique to the Cornwall landmass.”

These movements, 400 million years ago, beyond my experience remain only in my imagination. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0jsg3l7/solar-system

The movement below the Lizard under the village hall is of another calibre and of a larger slower system. Tapping into the lower frequencies of the ocean floor as the sea pounded on Gunwalloe beach was just a reminder of this larger scale of movement.

https://soundcloud.com/shirley-896949324/gunwalloe-beach-rollers 🎧

Photo Beth Simonds – @variscancoast Dollar Cove, Gunwallowe

For millions of years trees have been growing in partnership with rock and earth. Beth Simons caught sight of ancient trees that had been growing by rock and now preserved in the rock. Pictured above a type of conifer from the Devonian Age 380 million years old. Herre are recorded movements of some coastal trees with a light breeze blowing off the sea moving them – at the back of Poltesco beach with two pickup mics pressed close to the bark.

https://soundcloud.com/shirley-896949324/trees-on-poltesco 🎧

Close up tactile pebble sound clinking on Poltesco Beach picked up with a hydrophone and recordings of sound vibrating within the static large rock picked up with a geophone. I hoped the recordings could access for our ears the awkward internal spaces.

https://soundcloud.com/shirley-896949324/more-claustrophobic-rocks 🎧

In development when the piece might have been performed in the landscape outside, I was able to speak with Chris Watson, BBC sound recordist and artist, about how to deliver close-up sound to distant listening audience watching the piece on the cliffs. In the theatre inside space, translating the outside recordings to sonic experience for the audience in an inside space, we had a 5.1 surround sound system. Sound artist and technician Chris Fayers described to me how it was possible to move the focus of the sound, while mixing in real time, to the different areas of the theatre space. The encircling speakers would immerse the listeners allowing the sound to suggest a sense of movement, space and distance.

Recording the coastal sounds close by and at a distance

https://soundcloud.com/shirley-896949324/flies-and-birds 🎧

I wondered how I could think about ‘time’ with these vastly different movements from sounds.There were tectonic plates moving slowly underfoot and the fast-flying insects I was recording on the coastal grasses. Listening to a radio programme A Sense of Time, from Radio 4 programme in the All Scientifically series. Geoff Marsh commented, “What we know is that animals experience the world through their senses and different animals have different temporal resolutions rates at which they sample the outside world from one per second up to 400. This allows animals like birds to catch flies in flight and flies to dodge newspapers”.

Carlo Rovelli in his book The Order of Time comments on noticed perception, while Marsh comments that: “After speaking to experts about the perception of different life forms and by trying to get into the minds of different animals we unavoidably stray into the area of philosophy.”

In working on Deep Time Moving, the speed or movement of vibration/sound and the movement in the landscape of the dancers, flies or tectonic plates – et al – was brought into focus. Standing in the ‘present time’ was put into context with all the other elements around me on this geologically curious peninsular crouching lizard-like in the sea!

Photo Steve Tanner

This work has contributed to Geological Time and Stone Turntable R&D. Other parts of this R&D can be seen here on this website called The Groove, Sonic Rock Interactions, Skin and Ice and Flags on the Beach.

END

Sonic Rock Interactions – 2023

Posted on 4th April 2025 by Shirley Pegna

Geological Time and Stone Turntable R&D – 2

Developing Ideas

The descriptions below show:

1.introduction

2.Initial explorations

3. Artists with related practices

4. Thinking round the processes

5. Possibilities

1.Introduction

This post is a collection of developing ideas and links to artists and their work I came across during my explorations for the project Geological Time and Stone Turntable R&D. My plan has been to explore writing sound in to rock, writing particularly seismic sound I’d recorded at Bristol University (The Unsettled Planet/ Brigstow Institute). We have successfully written into rock, but questions remain around how this can further my/our understanding of the materiality of the ground underfoot, and how it could be brought to our attention with this rock?

By investigating other work exploring sound and rock materials I’ve felt encouraged to ask more critical questions about my interaction with stone. Having successfully imprinted rock with sound, I’m able to start to contextualize my practice about the earth’s activity and our /my relationship to it.

For instance, why did I choose to use a mechanical cutting method to write into the rock? Why am I interested to hold previous recordings gathered from tectonic movements rather than highlighting the texture of the host rock record itself? Why would I want to show the work on a turntable, and do I want to show the work on a turn table? How much would performance be part of showing the work ideas?

Whilst exploring processes around reading and writing into rock, Lorenzo Prati who was one of the artists I consulted commented, “Resonance as a notion beyond the physical sense seems relevant to your project?” I have been interested to explore and find out about these possibilities.

2.Initial explorations

Firstly, here below are the steps I took towards cutting rock, the processes and rock type I found and the artists I came across who also cut or sounded out rock. I spoke to the two artists from Coppersounds, Sonny Lee Lightfoot and Issac Stacey, with whom I have a long running conversation about this process. Advice also came from sculptors and stone masons Rod Harris and Rene Rice about types of rock and where I could find them, what rock was available and how would I write information into it? https://www.coppersounds.co.uk/projects

Copper Sounds – Rock Record -picking up sound from contact with the contours of the rock

I spoke to Neil and Jay at Design Forge Bristol, https://bristoldesignforge.co.uk/ who advised me about their laser process and the burning of a detailed accurate visual picture of the sound wave via a vector file. Their experience was with slate, but they were willing to try other rock. I would like to explore this in the future, but at the time I had only the where with all to explore one process which I chose mechanically cutting the rock like vinyl.

3. Artists with related practices

I’m very grateful to artist Graham Dunning for recommending artists whose practises involved lathe cutting live as a performance practice https://grahamdunning.com/

Left Graham Dunning – Mechanical Techno https://grahamdunning.com/blog/

Right Handheld record inscription – a tattooed record – Furrowed Sound https://www.instagram.com/p/Cs_s1oANnBw/?img_index=1

Dylan Beattie. Furrowed Sound – http://furrowedsound.co.uk/.   “Playing a modified vinyl record lathe, he incorporates live disc inscription into performance and creates fixed media work involving unusual and experimental ‘record cutting”.

Andrea Borghi https://andreaborghi.com/ and https://andreaborghi.com/project/texts_und/  “magnification of sound waves seen in stone.”… “His work focuses on the relationship between sound and matter. His practice is based on oriented and multidisciplinary research processes, and includes sculptural objects, installations, obsolete media and electronics.”

Left Texts_und | 2017-19 Andrea Borghi

Right Chavez-Maria_Topography of Sound-Vinyl Groove

Maria Chavez https://wallach.columbia.edu/Uptown-23/Maria-Chavez and http://mariachavez.org/ “who repurposes the detritus of vinyl into sonic sculptures, comparable to improvised musique concrete pieces.”

I explored vinyl cutting and spoke to a few adventurous cutters, but they hadn’t the equipment for cutting rock. Although he needed persuading at first, Henry Bainbridge, an experienced Bristol vinyl cutter, took up the challenge. The equipment needed to cut rock needed to be specialised in various respects. https://www.dubstudio.co.uk/

4. Thinking round the processes

At the same time as this was developing, I was able to contact artists

Dr Lorenzo Prati and Dr Mike Blow (referred to here as LP and MB) who introduced me to other artists work who were pushing the ideas of writing or reading rock both technically and conceptually. Computer programmer Mike Tonks was able to question my assumptions while I was trying to take in ideas.

My interest is in investigating the material of this noisy and sonic planet. I wanted to work with and was curious about presenting, the seismic earth activity digital recordings I had. I also wanted to expand the ideas, which by its nature is a work in progress. So, guessing at various processes I thought up questions to put to LP and MB. I asked about the use digital hole punching, 3d scanning, spectrograms, radio waves, resonance and memory.

LP introduced the word ‘resonance’ opening up possibilities that I could think about. He commented, “Is ‘listening’ (Leafcutter Jon’s piece – Peaks) a more poetic term for sonification or an attitude towards the world (as proposed by Jean Luc Nancy) which can reveal resonance? Resonance as a notion beyond the physical sense seems relevant to your project?” This was certainly a new direction of thought in this interesting conversation.

I chose to write into rock with seismic sounds rather than aim to receive resonances from rock. Various artists have turntables with rock discs where they are reading either the impact from the surface like Copper Sounds or interestingly picking up, and recording, electromagnetic fields and conveying them by sonifying them via synthesisers Gerard Gormely and Charles Richards work 2018 at https://www.soncities.org/current/open-lab-concrete-dreams-of-sound

For me initially in presenting the sounds, the familiar equipment was key to help the onlooker understand that the sound was being read from the grooves in the rock. Even though with closer inspection you can also see sound was coming from the friction/impact of the stylus in the rock itself.

Copper Sounds (shown below) have a pickup to sense the impact of the contours of the rock on the turntable.

Photo from Copper Sounds

John Burton aka Leaf cutter John says,” I’ve built this turntable, well, it’s got four turntables on it. You can put rocks on it and then you put a stylus on the rock and, essentially, listen to it. I think I’m going to try and connect them to my synthesisers and see what comes out.” https://nowthenmagazine.com/articles/leafcutter-john-ive-built-this-turntable-you-put-rocks-on-it-and-listen-to-them-music-in-the-round-peak-district

Left Leafcutter Jon

Mid Leafcutter Jon

Right @gormelygerard

Geotones, a work by Charlie Richardson and Gerard Gormely, in which “stones’ resonant frequencies are activated, recorded, and resonated through the stones; and modulated by a modular synth patch that people can use to compose with.” @gormelygerard

Natural resonances

I will dive into the most poetic and least mechanical of these ideas and attempt to show what I understand from them.

LP commented on the idea of the material, rock itself, having a memory. Could you ‘read’ a rocks’ natural resonance? Does it contain a memory of itself. An idea akin to Rupert Sheldrakes notion of ‘morphic resonance’, which sets the hypothesis that matter has memory because “memory is inherent in nature” https://www.sheldrake.org/research/morphic-resonance/introduction . I’d listened to a radio programme (The Birth of Music R4) and heard about Jem Finer and Jimmy Corti’s idea a standing stone retaining the resonance of the memory of sound like a neolithic stone usb stick. (the Gurdi Stone zine 2023)

Could you therefore then tune into these resonances like you can tune into radio waves or indeed between radio stations? Khan discusses in his article ‘Three Receivers’ that the suggestive ‘voices’ from the radio tapping into the past and the future, have been influential. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1146550 .

LP comments, “Maybe the noise of the stylus which cuts the rock and writes the music is the sound of the long-time which has taken to make it; this is physically and morphologically engrained in the material, and it is impossible to get rid of. I can imagine that the same exact noise could be found using a radio and tuning it to the rock. Or could be broadcasted from the rock to the radio?”

I like the slippage between the now and the long-time past in LP’s comments bringing together ‘reading’ rock, memory and geological time.“Maybe the noise of the stylus which cuts the rock and writes the music is the sound of the longtime which has taken to make it;”

Hole punches

I asked, if there anyway there could be digital information read out from a rock, if you were to use 0s and 1s punched into the rock. Like a stone age CD. With the info written out like they did on the original cardboard punch cards?

Mike Blow (referred to as MB) said,

“In theory yes, of course. A mark could be a 1 and a space a 0 (or, like the way CDs work, the change from a mark to a space, or a space to a mark, could be a 1, and a continuing mark or space could be a 0). The issue is the amount of info you need to read. Consider a CD quality recording for 1 second of audio it has 44,100 samples each with 16 bits = over 700,000 marks or spaces!

Photo Lorenzo Prati

Scanning and mapping

My here question was,” “You could encode the music in stone without engraving it and instead use a scanner ?” MB commented, “…. certainly, you could have some kind of laser scanner, possibly hand-held like Nam June Paik’s Random Access piece with the hand held tape head. You can engrave slate with a decent power laser cutter, of the kind you find at FabLab’s. Might be interesting to engrave the smallest sine or square wave you can on a piece of slate and see how fast you have to move the laser reader to get an audible frequency.

MB added, “if we are talking scanning the surface of the rock, I can imagine the texture could be translated into a musical score through some transformation / mapping process. That might be really interesting; however, this would only work one way I guess, I don’t think you could easily shape the rock to record music into it. That’s essentially a more severe form of engraving anyway, I suppose. But imagine different textured slices of rock being put next to each other and read sequentially to make a composition… sounds interesting!”

LP commented, “Radio can be used for geological mapping https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00206816109473649 (interestingly the machine described here has a sonic output), but is there something about the noise and interference that can bring us closer to the unimaginable geological timescale of rocks and deep time?”

I asked, “Are there any examples of 3D scanning superimposed onto or into a material – that you’ve come across?”

LP commented, “3D scanning could be another means of reading information out of a rock, leading to a digital image of it (in point cloud format for example) which can be modified or interacted with virtually. See for example ‘Common Ground’ by Gareth Proskourine-Barnett https://g-p-b.studio/Work-1 .

LP described the use of this software from Francesco Myles Sciotto’s software Kosmos. “This aims to create new transmodal approaches of mixing music and architecture where point cloud spatial information and spectral audio information can be manipulated at the same time in the same ‘playing field’ using 3d virtual models. Using an approach like this you could ‘encode’ a piece of audio onto a 3d scan of a rock – effectively superimposing them both as spatial data, one wrapped onto the other.”
https://www.academia.edu/53809807/Archimusic_A_New_Po%C3%AFesis

Below a non-contact laser triangulation sensor from Micro-Epsilon is helping a German University to create musical melodies and rhythms by scanning the shape of everyday objects. http://www.micro.elipson.com/music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lyc7VNsxjoA

Artist Tim Feeney – his caption “automatic writing” @theothertimfeeney. For me it’s like a handheld stylus playing the planet.

Photo Tim Feeney

These were some of the fragments of speculative ideas thrown up in discussion with LP and MB, along with the mentioning of all these inspiring artists mentioned above, and they are now up for exploration and have offered me new thoughts about resonance and understanding the perception of materials, and particularly rock.

5.Possibilities

So, lastly, I will end this long post with a quick opening of doors for next steps and some possibilities with the disc of rock already cut.

As an installation the turntable with rock would work in different situations, either in a gallery or in nature. Having the rock in a performance with film or working with improvising musicians such as I have before with Dominic Lash and Angharad Davies are options. Highlighting the fabric of the material in tune with the ideas of the ‘Long Player’ (1995) Jem Finer or Alvin Lucier’s tape piece ‘I am sitting in a room’ (1969), where the stylus wears away the recorded sound in the gypsum, are all possibilities. Mixing the sound as it plays from the rock or several rocks in performance, or mixing several different rock types would offer exploration. Trying different rock to write into is another route, where marble and granite may offer challenges. Creating smaller rock discs for DJs and turntablists to try out may be interesting.

This project’s full title Geological Time and Stone Turntable R&D. Other parts of this R&D can be seen on this website called The Groove, The Lizard is a lizard, Skin and Ice and Flags on the Beach.

End

The Groove -2023/24

Posted on 4th April 2025 by Shirley Pegna

photo – Henry Bainbridge

Material processes describing the development of Stone Turntable R&D – 1

The Idea

Between the 2023 – 2024, I undertook to create a situation where seismic data could be written into rock. Could this be done? The sound recorded from seismometers in Bristol picking up earth activity from Indonesia, would be written or etched into the rock itself.

I was motivated to work with material that would last longer than a human lifetime, or perhaps humankind. This time scale fitted into the time frame suggested by the description of Geological time. Geological time being the span of time the earth was formed till the earth would die out.

I will cut to the chase – so here is the gypsum alabaster rock cut expertly like vinyl, by Henry Bainbridge at Dubstudio in Bristol.

Photo Henry Bainbridge

Listen here: https://soundcloud.com/shirley-896949324/rock-record-in-gypsum-alabaster 🎧

The Process – and how we got there

The description below shows:

1. bespoke equipment and micro engineering

2. finding what type of rock to cut -finding the rock

3. finding a cutting head

4. centring the disc & creating the gears to slow the travelling of the cutting head across the disc

5. testing the stylus on the gypsum

6. creating the arm to hold the cutting head

7. balancing the arm so its neither too heavy or to light to cut

8. first cut – what problems

9. adjusting balancing and weighting the head to cut

10.using a recognisable music track to hear how much level to input the recording

11.counteracting skating tendencies

12. levelling of the disc

13. writing into the disc from the inside outwards

1.Bespoke equipment and micro engineering

To cut the gypsum/ alabaster, bespoke equipment needed to be made, as the equipment for the studios’ vinyl cutting would not be appropriate and may get damaged. This was an exploration for Henry Bainbridge (referred to as HB), and he made the different bespoke pieces of the equipment for the task, as he went along and saw what was needed for the unprocessed natural rock.

I had not experienced micro engineering of this sort before. Some measuring was done under the microscope to a thousandth of an inch. With his experience of cutting vinyl tracks HB could see by eye and sometimes with a magnifying tool when there was a problem cutting this low frequency sound with its correspondingly large wave shape into the irregular material. New to me when dealing with a micro scale of measurements, was the interesting balance of both experienced eye and precisions tools.

The process of cutting vinyl seemingly familiar to me became more and more extraordinary as I got to know more of the details of how the equipment and process worked. HB said himself that even after 20 years cutting, he found that the way sound waves cut in vinyl creating such detailed music had an element of magic about it!

2.Finding the rock

I was able to find out from HB what sort of material would deal with a stylus and a cutting head to cut rock. The cutter would need a material that “wasn’t rough or flaky and that allowed the cutter to glide” through the grooves that were being cut.

Having read that copper was once a material that was used for cutting sound and looking up its official ‘hardness’ or ‘moh’ (3moh). I then was on a path to finding a rock of similar hardness and qualities required. I looked at alabaster gypsum (1.5 – 2moh). This led me to Southern Stone Ltd, Dorset, the company run by sculptor and stone supplier, Tim York.

The Mohs hardness scale is from 1-10 with 1 being the softest: 1 Talc, 2 Gypsum, 3 Calcite, 4 Fluorite, 5 Apatite, 6 Orthoclase feldspar, 7 Quartz, 8 Topaz, 9 Corundum, 10, Diamond

I found that the gypsum alabaster was imported from Zaragoza in Spain from the Ebro river area. https://www.mindat.org/loc-106023.html

This rock was historically used in art and architecture and the properties and behaviours of which are well known and documented. These deposits were formed in the Miocene Epoch between 13.8 and 23 million years ago).

Left 24kg gypsum alabaster carried by sculptor and stone mason Tim York

Mid Torchlight showing translucent properties of the gypsum

Right Gypsum alabaster showing the veins of the rock interior

Material processes leading to the cut

3. Finding a cutting head

The head itself, a presto cutting head, came from older equipment that had previously been used for recording long large discs for radio programmes before there was internet to stream radio programmes station to station. It was a solid looking piece of equipment that we hoped would take the strain of larger wave patterns cutting into the rock without creating overheating in the internal wiring connections.

Left the presto cutting head

Right the cutting head used for commercial vinyl cutting

See the Presto cutting head

Watch here: https://vimeo.com/1071395417

I was shown the inside of a cutting head. HB said, “To record into a vinyl disc the cutting head has two channels, two cables, left and right, that make the stylus move properly. There’s loads of moving parts including the drive coil itself that connects to the linkages. They all vibrate and what you are trying to do is get as little vibration of the object (the cutting head) and the most vibration from the information (the music). This information travels through these linkages from the drive coil to the stylus and that’s what you want to pick up, but inevitable other bits are going to vibrate, and then they create harmonics of the signal. Each cutting head has its own harmonic signature to do with all the other bits in it. When you were describing how sound travels differently through different parts of the planet it’s a similar sort of thing…….”

Internal connections in a cutting head

Watch here: https://vimeo.com/1071396960

4. Centring the disc and creating the gears to slow the travelling of the cutting head across the disc

Left The technics SP 20 turntable coping with the weight of the 14 kilo rose gypsum alabaster. As long as the rock was balanced with the centre as centred as it could be, then the motor could manage to turn

Right The 2 way motor with the universal gearing to rotate the stand for the cutting arm to travel slowly across the disc as it cuts. The cutting arm will be on the metal pole to elevate it as high as it is needed for the thicker than vinyl rock disc..

Left The planetary gears set to slow the gearing

Right The motor to move the cutting head very slowly across the disc while cutting

5. Testing the stylus on the gypsum

Left – First test cut with a diamond stylus

Right – Experimenting with lacquer on the rock to see if the grip and glide of the cutting stylus is improved. When tested it gave the stylus a sticky type contact with the rock and didn’t help the cutting

Photo Henry Bainbridge

Magnified diamond and ruby stylus for cutting. Pictures showing the scale

Explanation about the playback stylus tip and how it reads sound

Watch here: https://vimeo.com/1066733277

The transferring of the vibration from an electric cable to a vibrating coil and then into a diamond cutting needle seemed plausible but thinking about how this equates to the detailed sound and music we hear when replayed from the cutting of records – it becomes more and more unbelievable.

Left Making the bearing shaft where the very finest of calculations needing to be made

Right The motor is linked to the planetary gears via the bearing shaft and then linked to the cutting arm

6.Creating the arm to hold the cutting head

The cutting arm needed a bend in it.

Below are the cutting arm refinements for the suspension head. On this will later be fixed the spring, balancer and dash pot – that works as a shock absorber so the head doesn’t bounce when cutting.

Left The cutting head needs to be mounted at an angle

Right here’s the plan to suspend the cutting head.

Left Machining the cutting head mounting plate

Mid The metal looking like butter

Right The mounting plate

Left The mounted cutting head is connected up. All the angles and weights must be considered. The dashpot or shock absorber (seen here) is attached first across the top. It still needs a spring, so one is made the right tension and length.

Mid & Right Piano wire being curled and made into the spring.

7. Balancing the arm so its neither too heavy or to light to cut

Explaining the balances and weighting

Watch here: https://vimeo.com/1066719359

The First Cut

8. First cut – what problems?

On playback the sound of the crackling gypsum alabaster was overriding and masked any lower frequencies from the recording written into the rock, although we were sure they were there. Our spectogram was unclear and our playback speaker was only a small one. It was clearer later that the recording input level was too low, but more importantly the playing arm would sometimes jump the groove.

Left -The rock is chocked up so it’s as level as it can be

Right – First cut and playback

9. Adjusting balancing and weighting the head to cut

The weighting of the cutting head and its pressure on the disc, measured in grams, was key to how the stylus was staying in the rock and not encouraged by the sound vibrations to jump out of its groove. It could be measured with a spring. This would indicate if the spring and balancing top weight should be adjusted.

Adjusting the weight and therefore pressure downwards of the cutting head

10.Using a recognisable music track to hear how much level to input the recording

To get clearer playback with the lower frequencies, we planned to put the level of recorded sound up even-though this might encourage the cutting stylus to jump. Also, we decided to test the system by recording a music track with a pronounced beat rather than our field recording, on to the test rock so we could easily recognise it.

The loop of the Bushman track

The uneven-ness of the rock surface encouraged the cutting stylus to jump. So, the spring, the dash pot and the top balancing weight were adjusted. However, we could hear the bass and the definition of the rhythm of the Bushman track which played in a loop – Hurray!

11.Counteracting skating tendencies

To counteract the tone arm stylus jumping from the track, either having a tendency to jump backwards (looping) or jumping forwards, the tone arm could be balanced to counteract these tendencies by adjusting the anti-skating knob.

Anti skating adjustment and balancing horizontally for the playing tone arm

12. Levelling of the disc

We could see still that any slight uneven-ness of the disc surface encouraged jumping.

Magnifying the track, we can see the grooves are getting bigger/deeper with the lower frequencies in the seismic field recording.

Left looking to see where the track is uneven

Right this gadget showed surface unevenness

Looking for low frequency groove shapes in the track

Watch here: https://vimeo.com/1071400745

13. Writing into the disc from the inside outwards.

The balances are as good as they can be but there is still jumping when cutting. The best cut was a test in the centre of the disc where the speed of the turning disc was slowest and disrupted the stylus the least. Also, we thought it was the surface of the rock rather than the weighting creating the jumping of the stylus.

As the needle was travelling faster on the outer rim of the disc it was more likely to jump than near the middle of the disc. So, we cut from the middle outwards to maximise the slowest speed of the disc and the flattest surface to cut into.

Left Inside out cutting

Mid Inside out playing back tests starting in the middle.

Right Instructions to play ‘outside in or inside out.’ Before the industry standardised cutting from the rim inwards, records were recorded on both systems.

Recording from mid disc outwards

Watch here: https://vimeo.com/1071426144

The Final Cut

Here are the tracks cut to minimise jumping and play smoothly. The digital version here is mixed to emphasise the lower frequencies slightly, but the sound of the rock itself in a higher frequency is part of its mix and beauty

https://soundcloud.com/shirley-896949324/rock-record-in-gypsum-alabaster 🎧

This project’s full title Geological Time and Stone Turntable R&D. Other parts of this R&D can be seen here on this website called Sonic Rock Interactions, The Lizard is a lizard, Skin and Ice and Flags on the beach.

End

The Thicket – 2022 -2025/6

Posted on 4th April 2025 by Shirley Pegna

Pictured the equipment set up ready for rehearsals with our in-ear system prompts to try

The Thicket is a piece by Yas Clarke for four voices has been performed at the Supernormal Festival 2019, The Cube Cinema Bristol 2022 and the ICA, London 2024. The album can be found on https://tbceditions.bandcamp.com/

The show will be touring from 2025 onwards. First brought together at Supernormal Festival in 2019, the work was developed during lock down (in a break from the fierce restricted times) in Wales 2021 in a chapel.

Photo Yas Clarke

The vocalists are Beni Evans, Jo Hellier, Kate Evans and Shirley Pegna along with several other super talented singers who have been involved with performances and recordings.

We perform with mics scores and in-ear prompts. As a performer it has been a new way for me to perform music where the prompts (in my ear) instigate my pitch and timing rather than listening to the other vocalists. The textural sounds are guided by the computer. This is such a great piece to perform – credit to Yas Clarke for making “a beast of a piece”.

Here are two short exerts from the ICA performance oct 2024.

Watch here:

https://vimeo.com/1070308334 🎧

Watch here too:

https://vimeo.com/1070318026 🎧

Photo Cube Cinema stage set up

Here is a description of the piece from the Cube Cinema’s programme notes for the Album Launch 2022

“Written in arcane vernacular, The Thicket narrates an ambiguous pilgrimage into the wilderness; at times resembling an orphaned passage from one of William Morris’ early fantasy novels or a Doris Lessing science fiction, at others becoming abstract and non-verbal, like a syllabic tabla score or the alien opera of The Fifth Element. As the text progresses it becomes increasingly abstract and describes the dissolving of the human identity, both through its content and in the structure of language. Words break down into syllables, textures and tones and become musical in their presentation. What emerges is a unique a cappella work that opens up a speculative channel between Chaucer and Bob Cobbing.

Stretching language from a fragmented linear narrative to churning minimalist cascades, Clarke’s text is delivered such that each performer takes one word each, cycling the whole text between them in a strict order and rhythm. Each singer is conducted by a distinct in-ear audio click track, a process which allows for an elaborate structuring of the four-part score; phrases, words and syllables that would otherwise be impossible to perform; unmanipulated voices generating phasing patterns and repetitions which are almost reminiscent of early Steve Reich tape works. “

Special ‘Thicket Cake’ for the Cube Album Launch by Snoozie

End

ATT Touring – 2020 -2024

Posted on 4th April 2025 by Shirley Pegna

Photo Arnolfini event 2023

“Premiered in 2020 All Terrain Training is an ongoing project series by Will Pegna firstly starting in collaboration with sonic artist Shirley Pegna.”

ATT has developed from its first performance in 2020 in London. I will allow Will Pegna, director and creator, to describe various of the works in this post as he illustrates the differences well. In choosing not to set the work on a conventional stage, Will has allowed the work to respond to the different settings and collaborations encouraging ideas to develop and create new and different iterations in the process. Described here are some of the first six events of this emerging body of work. Instead of being a single show with the name All Terrain Training, All Terrain Training or ATT, has become an umbrella company for further creative initiatives, ideas and artists. Here below are the performances I have been part of with descriptions.

Will Pegna writes:

“Currently taking form as a performative exhibition, ATT presents a situation that allows audiences to plug in to a deeply concentrated, non-competitive, physical simulation. Viewers share the space with 7-9 dancers tasked with maintaining engaged contact for 2-3 hours. A shift-taking movement structure that creates a durational tension, inspired from and accompanied by collected sounds of Arctic glacier’s and tectonic tremors.

Midway between dance and sport, ATT offers a new perspective on performance norms, group objective and athletic identity. Vocal signals between dancers, bespoke sportswear and rumbling sub-level vibrations all help to build the world of All Terrain Training, ultimately offering a space to connect to each-other and our active planet.”

ATT at Honeymoon Gallery Peckham London 2020

I will comment about this first gig in Honeymoon gallery in Peckham, where the audience instead of choosing to enter or exit during the two hours of performance, the space filed up and up. The performers moved needed to move round them and between them. Sound and people filled the space, and the start of the journey was a success.

ATT at Honeymoon Gallery Peckham London 2020

Stadium – Lee Valley Velodrome, London

Will Pegna writes:

“Lock down put a stop to touring for a while, although Will and his London team were able to access the Velodrome to make a short film. Stadium depicts a scene from project series “All Terrain Training” where six dancers are searching to find a point of balance. Embodying sounds of glacial shifts and tectonic tremors dancers explore physical positions whilst maintaining tension.

Drawing influence from endurance training and combat activities, ATT ‘s visual and conceptual language combines dance and sport. Filmed at the Lee Valley Velodrome, Elizabeth Park ’Stadium’ exists at a time when dance within this context is being introduced globally, with the inclusion of Breakin’ as a sport in the function of place, housing intuitive movement compositions at a stadium built for competitive speed.”

Here is a short exert.

Watch here: https://vimeo.com/1070763920 🎧

ATT at Milan’s Fashion Week 2022

For the Milan Fashion week Vibram commissioned ATT to bring the show for the opening night.

http://www.vibram.com . This company make the specialised climbing and floor gripping footwear worn here by the dancers. Vibram Innovation Lab were interested in how the dancers would use their footwear. The performance was set in the studio where the shoes were on display and where the sound was side by side with the evenings late night DJ set up.

Photos Teo Giovanni Poggi

Here is the company being filmed in the welcome warm Italian sunlight. And the company – some dancers from the UK and some from Milan, with the UK filming crew. The performance was set in the studio where the shoes were on display so another different space to navigate.

Scout – at the Windmill Gallery, Seoul

Scout – at the Windmill Gallery, Seoul

Will Pegna writes:

“Specific to Windmill’s underground gallery space ‘Scout’ is a new iteration of ATT that encourages people to think about how the earth is always in motion. From earthquakes and glaciers to its orbital rotation there is a constant activity going on below our day-to-day conception. Viewers are given flashlights upon entry to the exhibition space, mirroring the pursuit taken by sound artists Shirley Pegna to uncover the sounds of the earth’s continuous, sublevel activity. The flashlights are used to find and illuminate dancers in collision within the dark gallery space.”

Photos Jinyoung Lee

The dancers in Seoul came exclusively from the city and brought in an inquisitive audience ready to play and explore through the dark corridors with their torches to find the dancers. Once again, the piece had been adjusted reacting to the performance space to convey experience and pose questions.

It was cold in South Korea!

BLO-ATT – Collective Ending – London 2022

Will Pegna writes:

“Running thought July 2022 ATT collaborated with London based arts group BLOAT collective. Located at Collective Ending HQ the duo show compromised of sound and video installation, synchronising both party’s practices exploring non-competitive game play and group objective in response to natural landscape.

For the closing event, BLOAT reconfigured the exhibition space to present a live new work consisting of ATT’s dancers in contact training whilst BLOAT recorded and live streamed their own video work onto the green floor in real time.”

Photo Bloat Collective

The gallery looked like this but became transformed when filled with dancers and the streamed green screen video by BLOAT

Arnolfini performance – Bristol 2023

Photo – Arnolfini Bristol

At the Arnolfini Bristol, the performance space was the vestibule and main hallway entrance. This provided another ‘landscape’ for the dancers to navigate involving different floor levels, the staircase, doors, pillars as well as the public. Thanks to Phil Owen for making possible the radical staging. Many friends, dancers and colleagues were present at the workshop and performance given that at least half the dancers grew up in Bristol with Will and shared with him either school, dance or breakdance training and competition experiences.

WATCH THIS SPACE

“All Terrain Training” is an ongoing performance series focused on expanding athleticism beyond convention….

In 2024, ATT launched its second study, “Parasound” a sequential performance balancing function with fantasy. Reimagining the functionality of climbing equipment, performers navigate balance through harnesses and carabiners. The group of bodies in space acts as a collective instrument, amplifying tension through violin bows on the ropes that hold them together.”
Seoul 2022
Milan 2022
London 2022
London 2020
Berlin 2024
London 2024
The Hague 2023
Bristol 2023

https://www.pgna.studio/all-terrain-training

@all_terrain_training

End

The Composter – Half Super Hero Half Compost Heap – 2024

Posted on 4th April 2025 by Shirley Pegna

Image Hugh Clifford

The Composter approaches ….

Listen here:

https://soundcloud.com/shirley-896949324/muddy-boots-mix-for-the-composter 🎧

Desperate Men Theatre Co., have a new show/walkabout street performance. I was asked to make a sound system that the audience could hear coming from the costume of the composter.

The costume, made by Jenny Brent, has lights, sound/music, smoke, compost and worms (not real ones) on and in it. Importantly the sound of real worms in the compost!

Listen here:

https://soundcloud.com/shirley-896949324/real-worms-for-the-composter 🎧

I looked for the most effective mic or sensor to pick up sound made by worms or small life forms in the soil. Warick University and Baker Consultants are listening to worms for soil health and at “field and glasshouse research trials”. They are aiming to increase knowledge of soil organisms (see pictures and link below). I found that my hydrophone was the most sensitive microphone I had.