Hannah Nicklin

Three Shorts.

These are three short pieces which appear in the half hour soundwalk I’m working on for the joint paper I’m currently working on. There’s a bit more information on the intent of the piece here. The sound work is currently finding itself structured around little snippets of story, all with the idea of looking at things as they are, without the way that expectation dulls them. As some philosophers might say, ‘un-covering’.

A story about thinking

You sit for days getting angrier and angrier at yourself. You speak sharply to your loved ones over the phone, you rearrange days with more and more unlikely workloads and cancel days off. You stop replying to emails, you fall asleep reading books and dream fitfully of not being able to speak. You feel like your eyes are swimming in vinegar and sand. And then, suddenly, you crack. You pull on you shoes, and a battered old coat, and you go for a walk.

A story about walking

You realise that you have not breathed fresh air for days. The air feels cool in your lungs. Reminds you of the first scent of winter on cold Autumn dawns. A fine mist of rain falls on your forehead, like the spray of the sea. You walk, and you realise that you have had your jaw clenched. You drift, and you notice the leaves beginning to litter the ground. You walk, and it is the movement that is important, the being-there, in context. Your forehead unwrinkles, and you close your eyes. Your mind is blissfully clear, no longer scrunched up as if un-vigilant, an important piece of knowledge could fall out your ears. You find yourself at home, walk through the door, you turn off the internet, and write 3000 words. It took a week, but also, half a day. Time skitters by. You call your loved ones and apologise.

A story about thought

There are people we send out, like scouts, into the darkness. They cannot see where they are going, they stub their toes, and walk into walls, but eventually, they know enough to construct a map. These people sometimes meet up, to discuss what they have found, and hopefully make the maps fuller; but instead of talking of the mistakes they made, and thet hings they felt on their way, they talk of the strength of their lines, and the certainty of the lettering on their drawings.

Calling All Cardiff-ians

A picture I took during the live-transmitted soundwalk Dream/Home, at Mayfest, we’re facing one of the characters as we hear her thoughts from across a shopping centre.

I need you, Cardiff dwellers, I need pictures, videos, floor plans, hand drawn maps, timings and/or descriptions of ATRium at the Cardiff School of Creative and Cultural Industries, ideally beginning in or around the room ‘CA312′ in the ATRium. I don’t need all of them from the same person, whatever you can offer. If you can help, or know someone who can, please read on.

I have returned from my first holiday in several years, refreshed, cheerful, and with a lovely big deadline looping in the beginning of September. From the 8-10th of September I will be at the TaPRA annual conference, where on the final day I will be delivering an hour-long joint paper with my supervisor, currently called ‘A Paper Without Organs’. To cut the academic explanations short, basically it aims to investigate how useful (or not useful, as we suggest) the current tools of the academy and academic thought are in examining performance, particularly as it becomes more interactive and integral… Some hints and quotes:

“it is experienced – and learned – upon the body. Its message is illegible; it is inscribed upon [the] flesh” (from a piece on Deleuze by Dan) Plato said “you learn more from somebody in an hour of play than from a year of conversation” (Coney) “new space, like new machines, can only be represented in motion” (p.19 in Deleuze and Space)

The majority of my half of the paper will take the academics on a soundwalk around the conference building, intersecting with the paper, academic questions, conference/academic space, and as my supervisor Dan Watt puts it, hopefully bring people out of the ‘academic ghetto’ from which conferences are typically received. I’ll be drawing on the work of the Agency of Coney, Hide and Seek, and Duncan Speakman.

That’s the idea, anyway.

So why am I calling all Cardiff-ians? Well, my department can’t afford to send me to Cardiff twice. I usually need to explore an area first, before writing for it, but this time I can’t do so physically. Although it fits in with the theory of the paper that I am in some ways, doing it ‘blind’ – using the re-presentation of maps in the same way as much academic thought re-presents performance – I still need something to go on.

So I need you, Cardiff dwellers, I need pictures, videos, hand drawn maps, timings and descriptions of ATRium at the Cardiff School of Creative and Cultural Industries, ideally beginning in or around the room ‘CA312′. The venue is walking distance from Cardiff Central rail station, so won’t be too far out the way. If you can help me, please get in contact, either leave a comment, talk to me on Twitter @hannahnicklin, or email me at h.k.nicklin [at] lboro.ac.uk.

And please share this far and wide, with anyone you know who might be able to help.

Thank you.

Imagine

Imagine if the land and housing in Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincolnshire, Essex, the East Riding of Yorkshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Cumbria, and Durham was entirely wiped out by flooding.*

That’s what Pakistan is dealing with, 1/5th of it, “ravaged by floods“

“The water was up to my neck, then my nose, I only survived because our men took me by the arm and lifted me up,” she told me. “We walked for two hours like this. Ever since the running away my belly has hurt all over. I don’t know if the baby inside me is alive or dead.” Saeed Bibi from the Punjab

DONATE HERE

Meanwhile the hottest weather on record in Russia has wiped out ONE THIRD of their grain crops.

They’ve had to impose a ban on grain exports, which will raise prices across the world, hitting the poorest, hardest.

That previously linked article comes with a handy explanation on how both are caused by a shift in the jet stream, the instability of which has been linked to climate change:

“The World Meteorological Organization says this “unprecedented sequence of extreme weather events … matches IPCC projections of more frequent and more intense extreme weather events due to global warming.”  NASA says July 2010 is “What Global Warming Looks Like.” ” (source)

Even the DAILY FREAKING MAIL has changed it’s stance to ‘global warming is happening, and it is our fault‘

Donate to Pakistan relief efforts, because you should. Donate, because you can. Donate, because this will soon be us. Donate because Western lifestyles have contributed directly to this. For whatever reason, whatever you believe, please, reach out, £5, whatever you can. Donate.

And all this comes as the so-called ‘green’ Coalition government are side-stepping their promises on climate change action, including an incredibly damaging broken promise RE power provision, and the mooted selling off of our conservation land and country side. Not only will reneging on green policies like this mean being hit severely by EU penalties, if the coalition government carries on like this a greater cost will soon be at their feet. The sooner and better we act, the lower the human and monetary cost the world is hit with. The later and more half heartedly they act, the greater the risk that  it’s not long before we won’t have to do any imagining.

*that’s one fifth of England, mind, I don’t know how many counties there are in the UK. Also, it’s 1/5 of counties, not of land, I did try to pick coastal ones, as we’re more likely to be affected by storm surges and sea level rises. They’re also mostly low-lying. But I will freely admit this may not be exactly 1/5 of land or population. I hope you accept it as a quick way of making a point, if not, feel free to do the maths and I’ll happily amend it.

[images off the BBC, via the linked articles, I always try to use CC images, hopefully these will be seen as 'fair use' as quoting the referenced articles, however I will take them down if wished]