Tag Archives: Creative Arts

Transmit/Receive: Making and Experimenting with First World War Sound Technologies

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2 x Workshops, Sunday 25 October & Sunday 8 November 2015 @ Discovery Museum, Newcastle upon Tyne

Join Newcastle University sound recording professionals Tim Shaw, John Bowers and Tom Schofield (all School of Arts and Cultures) over two workshops to explore and rebuild sound technologies of the First World War. The First World War was a period of great technological innovation. Many of the communication devices were developed to generate or listen to sound. From radio broadcasts to early underwater microphones, listening was a key strategy in the war effort.

Workshop One – Hydrophones and Morse Code Transmitters

Sunday 25 October, 12-3pm

At the first event you will build and use your own hydrophone (underwater microphone) and morse code transmitter. You will also explore their use during the First World War.

Workshop Two – Short-range radio transmitters and carbon granule microphones

Sunday 8 November, 12-3pm

At the second workshop you will build and use your own short-range radio transmitter and carbon granule microphone. You will also explore their use during the First World War.

Price
Workshops are £6 each (plus online booking fee). Advance booking is essential.

Places for workshops are limited. Each session covers different making activities – you are encouraged to attend both although you can also attend one or the other.

No prior specialist or technical knowledge is needed to attend and materials are included in the price.

All attendees must be aged 16 and over to attend. 

For more information and to book tickets, please visit: 

https://discoverymuseum.org.uk/whats-on/transmit-receive

Sing and Dance for King and Country

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Installation – Rachael Hales, Newcastle University

3pm, Friday 11 September @ Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum

Sound artist Rachael Hales will be presenting her audio-visual installation exploring the experiences of local people during the First World War, through the lens of local folk traditions and practices. Rachael will be presenting the findings of her research into Rapper Dancing, Clog Dancing and Children’s Song on Tyneside during the First World War, alongside the three audio-visual artworks that she created in response to this research. This project is part of Decoded 1914-18, commissioned by Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums and the Newcastle Institute for Creative Arts Practice, which involved seven artists producing creative responses to the First World War collections held by Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums.

The event is presented as part of the Heritage Open Days at Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum: The Chantry, Bridge Street, Morpeth, Northumberland, NE61 1PJ.

About the Installation:

Sing and Dance for King and Country is an audio-visual installation exploring the experiences of the people of Tyneside during the First World War, through the lens of local folk traditions and practices. It explores how various folk practices – including rapper dancing, clog dancing, and folksong – can be used to investigate the experiences of war of three groups of people: the rapper dancers of the North East, female munitions workers, and children. Move through the installation in the footsteps of the singers and dancers of 100 years ago, uncovering forgotten and untold stories of how the ordinary people of Tyneside danced and sang their way through the First World War. This installation was presented in collaboration with Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums at the Discovery Museum, Newcastle Upon Tyne in February 2015, and at the Chantry Bagpipe Museum, Morpeth in April 2015 as part of the Morpeth Northumbrian Gathering.

About the composer:

Rachael Hales is a sound artist, composer and performer, currently studying for a Ph.D. in composition at Newcastle University. Her work investigates ways in which environmental and everyday sounds can interact with musics of place, particularly folk and traditional music, to perform, represent or portray a sense of place. Recent work has included a commission for the Morpeth Northumbrian Gathering, exploring the Anglo-Saxon history of Morpeth; an audio-visual piece portraying Rachael’s experience of the High Level Bridge in Newcastle Upon Tyne; and a sound installation entitled ‘Listening to the Border: a sonic exploration of the construction and performance of identity in the Scottish borders’. Rachael is also a busy folk musician, performing regularly at ceilidhs.

Thomas Baker Brown FWW Comic and Anthology

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Newcastle University Library Education Outreach Team have teamed up with comic artist Terry Wiley, Lydia Wysocki from Applied Comics Etc and local secondary school students to explore the true war story of Thomas Baker Brown from North Shields, Tyne & Wear, who served as a signaller in the First World War. Wiley used the letters, documents, artefacts and other material in Baker Brown’s Archive, which was donated to Newcastle University by his family, to create a comic telling Tommy’s wartime story. The comic follows Baker Brown’s experiences as a soldier on the Western Front and in Prisoner of War camps, as a ‘typical Tommy’ from our local area.  

Students from four local schools (St John’s Catholic School, Monkseaton High School, Benfield School, and St Aidan’s Catholic Academy) then visited Newcastle University to work with the Baker Brown archive. They handled primary sources to understand how to use archives and how to be an historian. They also focused on how to plan, make, and read old and new comics. The students were given copies of True War Stories No.1: Thomas Baker Brown, both to share Thomas’ story and to start a discussion on how to write and draw an historical story. Then each group of students was given a resources pack (reproductions) of extracts from materials from the archive and instructions on how to use these to plan, pencil, and ink a one-page comic of their own. All students completed the task to a high standard and their comics are published in an anthology of all comics from this project, entitled ‘Draw More Comics: The Thomas Baker Brown World War One Comics Anthology’.  All students will receive a free printed copy of the book in the new academic year. The students’ comics and Wiley’s comic are  all available to view online here, along with free resources to use and share.

Women & the First World War (1910-1930) – Call for Papers

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17 September 2015 @ Newcastle University

Keynote Address: Professor Alison Fell (Leeds), ‘Back to the Front: French and British Female Veteran Groups in the 1920s’

This interdisciplinary symposium will showcase research on any aspect of women’s history in relation to the First World War. We welcome papers on the role and place of girls and women both during the war and also in the years leading up to the outbreak of hostilities and in the decade after. For example, how did literature for girls before the war prepare children for war? How were women involved in pacifist groups? What kinds of work did women do during the war? How were women and girls involved in memorialisation activities? What is the relationship between spiritualism, war and gender politics? Do new transnational paradigms complicate our understanding of women and war? What role did women play in journalism during the war? These are indicative questions only – the symposium is intended to share and develop research on women and the First World War. Papers from a range of fields – including Literature, History, Archaeology, Geography, Politics, Film and Media, Modern Languages, History of Medicine, and Law – are encouraged.

Please send abstracts of 150 words for 20-minute papers to fww@ncl.ac.uk by 15 July 2015.

This event is supported by the North East Research Forum for First World War Studies, the Living Legacies 1914-18 Engagement Centre, the Gender Research Group (Newcastle) and the Military, War & Security Research Group (Newcastle).

Conference Organisers: Stacy Gillis & Emma Short

Download a PDF version of the Call for Papers here.

First World War Symposia at Newcastle University

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On 15 and 16 April 2015, Newcastle University hosted two very successful events showcasing First World War research, which were attended by over 70 people across the two days. The events were presented in association with Living Legacies and the AHRC, and were both generously supported by the McCord Centre for Historic and Cultural Landscape at Newcastle University, alongside the Newcastle Institute for Social Renewal and the Newcastle Humanities Research Institute.

The first of the two events, on Wednesday 15 April, was a First World War Postgraduate Symposium, at which postgraduate researchers from 9 institutions across the UK presented their research on the First World War and its legacies. The speakers covered a wide range of fascinating topics, from literary and artistic responses to the First World War to the role of women in both war and pacifism, and from military technologies and empire to activities on the home front. The final programme for the event can be found here.

The second event, which took place on Thursday 16 April, was entitled ‘Connecting Communities Through Researching First World War Heritage’, and brought together community and academic researchers working on projects during the First World War centenary commemorations in the North East of England. The projects showcased at the event approached the war from a range of different perspectives, and through a variety of different methods. These included the artistic and creative responses of Applied Comics Etc. (Newcastle University), Wor War (YMCA North Tyneside), Wor Women on the Home Front (Tyneside Women’s Health & Curiosity Creative), and Decoded 1914-18 (Newcastle Institute for Creative Arts Practice and Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums). Alongside these, several projects focused on using digital technologies to either map the impact of the First World War on the region, to digitize and preserve archival materials, to investigate and record the lives of those featured on local war memorials, and to preserve the memorials themselves. These projects included: Durham at War (Durham County Council & Record Office); Tynemouth World War One Commemoration Project; Northumberland at War (Northumberland Archives); The Universities at War and the Armstrong Memory Book (Dr Jane Webster of Newcastle University); and CARE of War Memorials in North East England (Dr Myra Giesen of Newcastle University). In addition to detailed and informative presentations from representatives of these projects, the event also featured a presentation from Dr Keith Lilley and Dr Paul Ell, PI and Co-I of Living Legacies at Queen’s University Belfast, as well as a stimulating keynote on non-invasive landscape archaeology of the First World War in Flanders from Professor Veerle van Eetvelde of the University of Ghent. The event concluded with a lively roundtable discussion in which community and academic researchers developed initial plans for future collaborations. The final programme for this event is available here.

First World War – Postgraduate Symposium

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15 April 2015 @ Research Beehive, Newcastle University

The centenary of the First World War has prompted an immense amount of research investigating the events of 1914-1918 and the legacies of the War. Postgraduate research in particular is at the forefront of new and exciting directions in First World War studies. This interdisciplinary symposium showcases some of the fascinating work being undertaken by postgraduate researchers  on the First World War and its aftermath.

This event contributes to the AHRC-funded Living Legacies 1914-18 Engagement Centre programme, in which Newcastle University is a partner organisation. The Newcastle event is supported by the McCord Centre for Historic and Cultural Landscape (http://www.ncl.ac.uk/mccordcentre/), and the Newcastle Institute for Social Renewal (http://www.ncl.ac.uk/socialrenewal/).

Please find a draft programme for the event here: First World War PG Symposium – Draft Programme. Attendance at this event is free, and a complementary lunch will be provided. Please register here by Tuesday 7 April 2015.

Connecting Communities Through Researching First World War Heritage

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16 April 2015 @ Research Beehive & Great North Museum, Newcastle University

A one-day symposium to be held at Newcastle University on Thursday 16 April 2015. This event brings together community projects and academic researchers working across the North East, and features a keynote address from Professor Veerle Van Eetvelde on her work on First World War landscapes in Belgium.

We invite anyone interested in the First World War and its heritage to join us at the event. Attendance is free, and lunch and refreshments will be provided. To register, please contact Emma Short by Tuesday 31 March 2015.

This event contributes to the AHRC-funded Living Legacies 1914-18 Engagement Centre programme, in which Newcastle University is a partner organisation. The event is supported by the McCord Centre for Historic and Cultural Landscape, and the Newcastle Institute for Social Renewal.

Please find a draft programme for the event here: Connecting Communities – Draft Programme.

Decoded, 1914-1918

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Decoded 1914-18 is a two-week programme of AV installations and events across 16-28 February 2015 that explores the First World War and its effect on those living in Tyne & Wear. Seven artists have taken inspiration from Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums collections to create artworks and performances which examine and interpret Tyne and Wear in the First World War in innovative ways. From recreated soundscapes of civic life to a reinvention of communications technologies. The installations and performances explore a range of themes including the role of women in the First World War economy; Wartime communications technologies, particularly radio; the impact of War on folk traditions in the region, and Armed Forces recruitment.

The project is a collaboration between Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums and the Newcastle University Institute for Creative Arts Practice, a contemporary hub for the creative arts at Newcastle University with a remit to explore ideas and challenge perceived boundaries between academic disciplines.

Details of the events (along with opportunities to meet the artists) are as follows:

Sing and Dance for King and Country: An audio-visual installation exploring the experiences of the people of Tyneside during the First World War, through the lens of local folk traditions and practices. It will explore how various folk practices – including rapper dancing, clog dancing, and folksong – can be used to investigate the experiences of war of three groups of people: the rapper dancers of the North East, female munitions workers, and children. Move through the installation in the footsteps of the singers and dancers of 100 years ago, uncovering forgotten and untold stories of how the ordinary people of Tyneside danced and sang their way through the First World War.

The artist, Rachael Hales, is a sound artist, composer and performer, currently studying for a PhD by composition at Newcastle University. Her work investigates ways in which environmental and everyday sounds can interact with musics of place, particularly folk and traditional music, to perform, represent or portray a sense of place.

Venue and date of installation: Discovery Museum – 2nd Floor Balcony: Monday 16 – Saturday 28 February 2015.

Meet the Artist: Wednesday 18 February, 2-4pm and Saturday 21 February, 2-4pm (installation space).

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Shiver the Flowers Like Fear: A sound installation of spoken word, music and sound design framed around the wartime diaries of Gateshead author, playwright and social activist Ruth Dodds. The piece offers insight into Dodds’ experience of the First World War, from working twelve-hour shifts at Armstrong’s munitions factory to finding solace in literature and the Northumbrian countryside. The installation aims to provide a fragmentary portrayal of the everyday struggle to come to terms with senseless, unthinkable circumstance, and the crucial efforts to maintain some semblance of everyday life on Tyneside in such turbulent times.

The artist, Phil Begg, is a musician/composer from Newcastle, who since 2007 has predominantly recorded and performed under the moniker Hapsburg Braganza. He also oversees the genre-defying Tyneside big-band studio project ‘Midnight Doctors’ – with which he has worked with over 30 musicians to date. His music spans and bridges a range of styles including instrumental guitar pieces, electroacoustic composition and improvisation, scored works for instrumentalists, sound collage, ambient music and sound design.

Venue and date of installation: Shipley Art Gallery – Lounge: Wednesday 18 – Saturday 28 February 2015.

Meet the Artist: Thursday 19 February, 2-4pm (installation space).

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Parade Ground: A digital artwork referencing traditional regimental photos on a very large scale. The piece attempts to bring home to the viewer both the terrifying scale of the region’s contribution to the war and the very human and individual nature of this contribution.

The artist, Guy Schofield, is an artist and researcher based at Newcastle University’s Culture Lab working mainly with video, game technology and 3D graphics and animation. He has a BA and MA in Fine Art. His work involves examining the relationship between space and narrative in time-based media: a concern which explored in a number of interactive and video art works, exhibited both in the UK and internationally.

Venue and date of installation: Parade Ground is on display at 3 different venues:

Discovery Museum – When the Lights Went Out Exhibition: Monday 16 – Saturday 28 February 2015.

Gateshead Interchange: Monday 16 – Friday 20 February 2015.

King’s Gate, Newcastle University: Friday 20 – Saturday 28 February 2015.

Meet the Artist: Friday 20 February, 2-4pm (Discovery Museum, When the Lamps Went Out exhibition).

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The Handmaidens of Death: An audiovisual experience which focuses on the role of women in Tyneside’s First World War industrial economy and how these changing roles affected their lives and their perception of themselves. An intimate performance, The Handmaidens of Death uses archival images of female munitions workers on Tyneside from the First World War, archival dramatic and documentary text along with current creative writing to create a looped audio-visual experience that will be projected onto walls and floor to surround the observers.

The artist, Tracy Gillman, is an actor, writer and director currently engaged in doctoral studies in Creative Writing at Newcastle University. Her PhD work-in-progress The Disappearance of Spoons has been given readings, funded by Newcastle University Institute of Creative Arts Practice, at Live Theatre, Culture Lab and Newcastle Centre for Literary Arts. Elements of this work will be used in The Handmaidens of Death.

Venue and date of installation: Tyne & Wear Archives – Education Room: Friday 20 – Monday 23 February 2015.

Meet the Artist: Saturday 21 February 2015, 2-4pm (installation space).

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Tuning In – Listening Back in Time: A reconstruction of time distant voices and personal accounts of events on Tyneside during the First World War. The work will be presented using period audio technology in a science and technology basement store. Listening stations which were based on our North East coast during the First World War were designed to pick up long distant sounds and communications to understand what might happen in the immediate future. These stone and concrete structures may also have recorded powerful memories and events. Tuning In – Listening Back in Time is a reconstruction of those time distant voices and personal accounts of events on Tyneside during that traumatic period. The work will be diffused and realised through the period technology within a Discovery Museum basement tour.

Please note this is a 15 minute tour running on the hour 11am-3pm. Meet at Discovery Museum reception desk. Due to limited places we ask that you arrive early to avoid disappointment.

The artists are Chris Watson and Tim Shaw. Chris Watson is one of the world’s leading recorders of wildlife and natural phenomena. His sound recording career began in 1981 when he joined Tyne Tees Television. Since then he has developed a particular and passionate interest in recording the wildlife sounds of animals, habitats and atmospheres from around the world. As a freelance recordist for film, TV & radio, Chris Watson specialises in natural history and documentary location sound together with track assembly and sound design in post-production. Tim Shaw has worked internationally as a professional composer, performer, sound designer and researcher. His practice incorporates diverse approaches to sound capture and processing, and includes creating immersive and site responsive sonic installations. His compositional methods include field recordings, synthesized sounds and live electronics, providing a wide scope for creative diversity. At the heart of his work lies a concern with the auditory reflection and mirroring of real world environments through sound and technology. He is currently studying a PhD in Digital Media at Culture Lab, Newcastle University, alongside managing record label Triptik.

Venue and date of installation: Discovery Museum – Arcs and Sparks Store (basement): Monday 16 – Sunday 22 February 2015.

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War Workings: Drawing on museum and archive material, Shaw and Bowers will build a sound installation, starting from nothing. The duo invites the public to participate in making, listening to and re-inventing communications technologies from the First World War. Many contemporary technologies have their ancestry in innovations developed to support military activity in the First World War: communications and signalling systems, listening and timekeeping devices. Inspired by artefacts from the Tyne & Wear Archives, Shaw and Bowers will build a sound installation on site over a two-day period. The artists’ process will be publicly open. Starting from nothing, the duo will build, create and install the work inviting the public to join them in making, listening and re-inventing war technology.

The artists are Tim Shaw and John Bowers. Tim Shaw has worked internationally as a professional composer, performer, sound designer and researcher. His practice incorporates diverse approaches to sound capture and processing, and includes creating immersive and site responsive sonic installations. His compositional methods include field recordings, synthesized sounds and live electronics, providing a wide scope for creative diversity. At the heart of his work lies a concern with the auditory reflection and mirroring of real world environments through sound and technology. He is currently studying a PhD in Digital Media at Culture Lab, Newcastle University, alongside managing record label Triptik. John Bowers is an artist-researcher working within Culture Lab with a particular interest in the use of art and design-led methods to explore digital technologies and novel interaction concepts. He also works as a sound artist improvising with electronic, digital, acoustic and electro-mechanical devices and self-made instruments in performance and installation settings, typically accompanied by live digital image.

Venue and date of installation: Discovery Museum – Science Maze: Wednesday 25 – Thursday 26 February 2015.

Meet the Artist: Wednesday 25 and Thursday 26 February, 2-4pm (installation space).

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Sound Mirrors: A durational sound performance which re-imagines the acoustic experience of war and connects, in an act of two-way mirroring, the sonic experience of war with contemporary local soundscapes. Dotted along the east coast of England, large concrete structures were built, sound mirrors, which enabled enemy aircraft and Zeppelin airships to be heard before they were seen, providing early warning of potential attack. Many of these survive and still stand, listening to the contemporary world. Sound Mirrors is a durational sound performance which re-imagines the acoustic experience of war and connects, in an act of two-way mirroring, the sonic experience of war with contemporary local soundscapes.

The artists are Tim Shaw and John Bowers (see details for War Workings above).

Venue and date of installation: Discovery Museum – Great Hall: Friday 27 February, 2-4pm.

Entrenched (A Work in Progress) – Miscreations Clown Company

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Tuesday 9 December, 7pm @ Culture Lab, Newcastle University.

The Newcastle Centre for Literary Arts invites you to a work-in-progress performance of ‘Entrenched’, a new one-person clown show from Miscreations Theatre. The show is inspired by the First World War sketch journals of Major Guy Laing Bradley from Hexham, who fought in the front-line trenches. The performance will also contain animation and filmed elements, and will be of particular interest to writers and those working around issues of performance. As the performance is a work in progress, the director and performer will be seeking feedback and comments from, and to engage in discussion with the audience to explore the extent to which clowning can effectively interpret this kind of challenging material. Further information on the work is available here.

The performance will take place at 7pm on Tuesday 9 December in Culture Lab, Newcastle University. Entry to this event is free of charge, and includes a pre-show supper, but please contact Melanie Birch (melanie.birch@ncl.ac.uk) to reserve a place.