Hannah Nicklin

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.

After Images

See above (or click here) for images taken of The Smell of Rain Reminds Me of You by my lovely friend Rowena Scott, and see:

http://twitter.com/thederminator/status/18781755974 http://twitter.com/danpyt/status/18778361379 http://twitter.com/fribbletheatre/status/18777877251 http://hannahnicklin.posterous.com/some-awesome-rainreminds-feedback-to-round-of

for some interesting reflection and nice things said about it, although there are critical things to say about it too (and nice polite people are less likely to direct those responses at you). I’d call it 65% successful, which I reckon is not too bad for the first test of a piece that so directly involves an audience. Blog post and video to follow, as well as other posts long overdue, over this coming week or two.

The cast (touch wood) should come off my arm on Tuesday, so I will be trying to use it more to get back in the swing of typing. I have my first year progress panel this Friday, a kind of mock (and much nicer) viva that means I can move onto my second PhD year, so some of them might come after that, but either way I intend to begin to get caught up on write-y things again.

You have been warned.

#RainReminds Taster

(This is best heard through headphones.)

(Youtube link here)

So, a couple of days writing, recording, and editing later, here’s a quick taster of the first minute and a half of The Smell of Rain Reminds Me of You.

The Smell of Rain Reminds Me of You is happening (rain or shine) at 5PM on this Saturday 17th of July, at Piccadilly Gardens, in Manchester. For more info go to rainreminds.tumblr.com and join the facebook event at bit.ly/RainRemindsFB for a reminder when the MP3 and instructions are live.

Follow or discuss it on Twitter with the #rainreminds hashtag.

The soundwalk is part of the Hazard Festival, Manchester hazardmcr.org/