New Work Friday #139

“A place prepared for sleep / Staður undirbúin fyrir svefn. Kinetic sound installation and performance piece. Icelandic wool, found wood and iron. As part of the Summer We Go Public program at NES, Iceland. While in Iceland I really started to explore liminal spaces, and in A place prepared for sleep this manifests in drawing out and making visible the space between sound, air and the ground. Yogan Muller (pictured) and I began by walking the work from the residency studio to the cliffs at the edge of the village. We installed it over a space where I had previously camped out. The strings extend seven metres and when you lie underneath they move and coalesce in the wind. As the work is situated on a peninsula the wind can have a strong affect on the waves of the sea. A stronger wind produces vibrant movement by the strings, and also a corresponding louder soundscape from the sea. In time the sounds and the movement of the strings start to share a symbiosis.Through this work I am looking at how making liminal spaces habitable may generate different experiences of collectivity. How might we share liminal spaces with others and what would this look like?”

A place prepared for sleep / Staður undirbúin fyrir svefn from Marlaina Read on Vimeo.

“Film excerpt: This film shows the delicate nature of the piece, specifically how each string corresponds with its neighbour – coalescing, diverging, moving in accord with the wind. In the background you can hear the waves of the Greenland Sea and birds calling – Marlaina Read.