ten types of elsewhere, line records nyc 2005

Topology is a branch of mathematics concerning possible spaces and spatial objects - curves, surfaces, knots, manifolds, phase spaces, symmetrical groups, etc. The work explores a link between objects and alterity through spatial and temporal deformations, twistings, rotatings, reflections and stretchings. Here spaces and objects are not self-evident and singular, but multiple, irregular, anomalous.

The work began as a documentation of recent installations – some in public spaces, some gallery works, some large works, some small etc. Inspired by the problems brought up by this activity, instead of using recordings to document these, ten processes came about each of which relates to the spaces and works in a different way - a recording, or system used to run the work, a pattern, a method or technique, a way of working, a name, or a reference point outside the work.

released on line http://www.12k.com/line/ ltd to 500 copies, all gone

the mutant offspring of a brief encounter between Autechre and Parliament. A distant groove lurks, forgotten in the endlessly folded moments of the opening movement's 23 seconds - short, sublime and absolutely captivating. review: cm, fallt

Hi Richard,
I know I said I would do a cd which was a documentation of the installations ive done. But once I started doing this I just kept hitting a dead end - the recordings were ok, but really I just felt that they would not make a very interesting release. Mainly because the work isn’t just the sound, but there’s often interaction and mostly the spaces they are in are important. And it all seemed to be a very one dimensional idea of what the work was. So I was just thinking about what to make of this project. Initially I had decided to document ten works, these were installations I had made at various places – some big projects that took ages, some small projects that were made in a matter of days. And with all this work I had a massive pile of documentation – photos, recordings, plans, schedules, systems and so on. So what I decided to do was to make ten new pieces each of which related to aspects of the original projects but each in a different way - in some cases this might be a field recording of the work, or in others it might be one of the systems that I made to run the work, but just making a pattern to make something else. In some cases it might be a name that is the same, or a reference point or a method and in other cases a collection of sounds. It’s important therefore to be aware that the ten sections don’t refer to ten separate works, but to different features and relationships to different works. And the titles of the tracks don’t have any bearing on that relationship. Next it occurred to me that instead of trying to make ten totally sorted tracks, it would be better to have ten sections each containing different versions or bits of the track that I could have made. Its like sometimes when you make a track you follow a certain direction and it end up being a certain way, but then when you have done it you think – oh there was this bit or this possibility that wasn’t explored, and in making the track a certain way you have left out lots of other bits that were really good but just didn’t fit. So here I have tried not to do that, and instead of making one thing, I’ve made lots of different versions of it. And that reminded me of this temple in Hong Kong that I have written about on the sleeve notes. This was part of the reason for making it in sections of smaller bits, the other reason is that I hate editing stuff and structuring things. Part of my problem is an attention span thing, but then I can spend ages making something like a system. So I think part of my attention span problem in this respect is also an aesthetic problem with that kind process. This problem is in most of the things I’ve made. Like for example when I did the first snd album with Mat, and at the same time the first shirttrax album with Jez, both are totally different reactions to the fact that I don’t like structuring things. So one is totally linear (snd) and the other is totally erratic (shirttrax). And the starting point for both these projects was not to work with timeline based applications or methods.