I was approached by Raymond and asked whether I would like to document the live performances over 3 separate dates. This was an interesting live recording, due to the long reverb times of the gallery space, being sensitive to the live audience and musicians alike.

DPA 4060’s taped to the rear walls provide the ambience mics I felt were required without having to have massive ‘over head’ mic stands in the way, blocking sight lines and making a mess of the visuals. Spot mics covered the rest for the close ups and we were good to go.

I edited, mixed and mastered each of the sessions, at the Reid Hall Studio and what follows below is one performance taster and some further text describing more about the project.

The Running Under Bridges exhibition at Talbot Rice Gallery is the latest outcome of an ongoing collaboration between Professor Raymond MacDonald (Head of Reid School of Music) and Josephine Ganter (Lecturer in School of Art).

By co-authoring a series of original prints and musical compositions, they test the possibilities of images as conductors of sound and sound as a compositional tool for images. By trading their specialist understandings of music and visual art respectively, they explore the possibilities for creative learning and play outside conventional disciplinary boundaries.

Raymond and Josephine’s process starts with hand drawn ‘grids’ and photographs. These then form the basis for the development of more intricate images that will later become graphic scores for musicians to perform – as well as being artworks in their own right.

The images are developed in many different ways. “Sometimes we work on them together in a studio, sometimes we work through remote collaboration using scanning and digital editing, and sometimes we work on them in a live setting during rehearsals with musicians,” said Raymond, “This organic process allows both the music and the visual outcomes to vary each time the score is played.”

The exhibition traces the development of Raymond and Josephine’s collaboration and their changing approach to co-authorship. Some of their previous work will be on display in the upper gallery, which includes three graphic scores that were created by Josephine in response to existing music by Raymond and Marilyn Crispell; these scores were extended through Josephine’s creation of responsive animations.