Falling asleep in Scunthorpe (2019) Stereo Fixed Media 7:26
This piece is an ode to the times, in the 1970’s and 80’s, when I was lulled to sleep by the dulcet tones of microwave radio transmissions and the UK steel industry.
Looking at a map from the period, most of Scunthorpe sits on a plateau at the top of the Lincoln Cliff. There are the floodplains of the River Trent below it to the west and the steelworks bordering the town to the north and east with hills rising beyond, which eventually become the Lincolnshire Wolds. This means that the sound of the steelworks travels for miles over the flattened plate of the town and out over the flood plains with extraordinarily long reverberations produced by reflections returning from the eastern and northern hills and the slight gradient of the plateau.
It is eerie. Large industrial complexes like this, and their support industries, produce incredibly alien sounds. I clearly recall a night when I thought a spaceship had landed in my back garden, but it was probably the batteries of Coke Ovens at the Appleby Works being emptied, or a gaseous discharge from the nearby British Oxygen Company refinery.
At the same time, I regularly experienced a phenomenon called Radio Frequency Hearing, a condition where the cochlear is vibrated by microwave radio frequencies. The subject ‘hears’ raw data, which sounds similar to a fax machine data streams or the sound emanating from a speaker that is too close to a mobile phone. I would usually hear these microwave transmissions in the quiet of the night, when trying to sleep. Of course no one believed I was hearing microwave transmissions in my head.
Ten Years (2019)
CD/Download fixed media audio anthology of some of the studio works and live recordings from the last ten years listed below. Released on the OBS label September 2019. https://obsmusic2.bandcamp.com/album/ten-years
Order Of Limerent Monks (2019)
A Duet that explores ways of engaging with an audience using the familiar, the ritualistic and the totemic. We do not control anything, instead we are but two intrinsic elements in an amorphous acoustic feedback loop which affords collaboration and intimacy. At the centre is the use of evocative objects, rituals and moments of absurdity that are bound together by a collection of minute movements, each one of which holds the intertwining relationships between the audience, performer, sound and instrument in the air as if they were supported on silken spider-webs.
Our work is a personal ritual and coda, finally confronting the controlling relationships and obsessions that have plagued us through our lives. An inward reflection on the self and why we do the apparently stupid things that we do.
It is a response to works by Dorothy Tennov, Susan Forward, Lindsay C Gibson, Susan Anderson, Jan Jun, Leigh Landy, Hayao Miyazaki and Nicholas Bullen.
Convolve (2019)
Absurdist Audio Video work exploring drone, micro movement and the experience of time. https://vimeo.com/336416671
Ariel Ariel (2018)
A Dance and Noise Sculpture collaboration with choreographer and dancer Danai Pappa which explores connections and boundaries, distance and intimacy, noise and silence. https://vimeo.com/289081467
Transfer of Power (2016)
A solo work and continuation of my research from ‘One Knob To Rule Them All’ (see publications) that investigates and develops movements that convey the themes of physicality, labour, transfer of power, totemism and the contrary (or not?) dualistic application of didactic and trance like performance states. https://vimeo.com/238065645
Noise Loop Boot Strap Paradox (2016-17)
A solo work that focuses on the absurdity of assuming ones work is original through inappropriate spoken word and sound artefacts created by an ‘un-wearable wearable’; an electromagnetic lampshade boot. It is a [probably innacurate] response to Jan Jun’s essay ‘The Laundromat by the Sea’. https://vimeo.com/400746260
Crafting Anatomies (2015)
Fixed media sound commission for fashion designer Ania Sadkowska used for Crafting Anatomies Exhibition, Nottingham Trent University 2015 and Dis-comforting Fashion film which was FIRST PRIZE WINNER POLIMODA & ASVOFF Video Contest For IFFTI2015 (International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institute) annual conference in Florence, Italy which is organised by the international fashion institute, Polimoda: MOMENTING THE MEMENTO.
I also composed sound for ten other fashion films that were directed and produced by Ania Sadkowska and edited by Fraser West for her PhD and MA work:
Peacocking (2015) Pioneering (2015) Presenting (2015) Re-Materialising (2015) Un-Fashioning (2015) Peackocking (2015) Distancing (2015) Dis-Conforming (2015) Mirroring (2015) Dys-Appearing Body Project (2012)
https://soundcloud.com/nealunreal/sets/the-sadkowska-commissions
Pensile Decumbent (2015)
A Filmed Performance demonstrating the Pensile Decumbent wearable sculptural instrument in an industrial landscape. https://vimeo.com/121329885
New Track of Unknown Terra II (2015)
A Filmed Performance demonstrating the Beast sculptural instrument in an industrial landscape. https://vimeo.com/119637453
New Track of Unknown Terra (2014)
A Filmed Live Art Performance demonstrating the Beast sculptural instrument in a public space. https://vimeo.com/100417982
Cold Papaya (2013)
Collaboration with choreographer Danai Pappa – A Live duet for Speaker Bra with Wireless Shovel. SHORTLISTED for the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space in June 2015. https://vimeo.com/101931339
Frozen Venus (2013)
Collaboration with choreographer Danai Pappa– A live piece for two dancers and six electronic Plungerphone Instruments. SHORTLISTED for the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space in June 2015. https://vimeo.com/71087869
Ode to the Hedonistic and Utilitarian Carnival Children of the Constructivist Revolution (2012) –
For five Plungerphone instruments. Composed for and performed by the Dirty Electronics Ensemble at Phoenix Square, Leicester. http://snd.sc/1ajd34I
Scratch and Sniff (2012)
Composed with John Richards and the Dirty Electronics Ensemble.
sib Conduit (2011)
Collaboration with choreographer Danai Pappa– A live piece for two dancers and two Electronic Dumbell Instruments.http://youtu.be/a1VbmyUH9lM
You Play Together but Act Apart (2009-10)
Composed for and performed by the Dirty Electronics Ensemble at De Montfort University in 2009. http://snd.sc/OppfUX
Commercial CD album ‘SUGAR’, (2009) With The Screaming Banshee Aircrew
Twelve songs (Being Alison, Circles, Cool Ghoul Band, Promised, Kind of Crazy, Shutter, Silence, Falling Down, Sugar, So Sorry, Saharan Stars, What I Want, The Birthday Song) on Resurrection Records, recorded and engineered by Jim Spencer (Cribs/Johnny Marr/Damned/Black Grape) at Chapel Studios, Lincolnshire, UK. Published in Europe through Plastic Head Distribution
Neal Spowage 