Projects

Printing the Past

The physical condition of many of the instruments prohibits playing. As with many types of cultural artefacts, the benefits of using ancient or delicate objects is countered by the need to conserve and preserve them. In the example of musical instruments, there is often an immediate response of "what a shame it can't be played", when visiting musical instruments caged in museum cases. It is true that all objects only make sense when placed in their cultural context and the human processes which they originally inhabit. With musical instruments, perhaps the different media involved makes the decontextualisation more pronounced – they are transformed from being an audio-visual object, to a silent visual-only one.

The advance in 3D printing has been utilised to great effect in the museum world. Damaged objects can be restored, incomplete items can be completed, and replica instruments can be produced. 3D printing can provide replicas which not only look the same, but can be used in similar ways to the original too. (…although the context still is not the same!)

My experience of 3D printing so far is an experiment into the sound-producing qualities of 3D-printed wind instruments. This is with a view to creating replica instruments of some of the instruments, to enhance education and community work and explore performance possibilities.

Deuawdau Distaw / Duets with Dead Instruments

This project involves performances which utilise the music of the ancient instruments without using the objects themselves. The first performance of Duets with Dead Instruments was by the Marmaladies, and featured wind instruments of various materials (including bone, wood, and pottery), Susan Rawcliffe's recordings of the actual instruments from the collection, and live electronics.

The next phase in the experiment is to explore the acoustic properties of some of the instruments, via electronic amplification of air currents in and among the objects.