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Interview with Ellen Moffat: How did this research impact your work as a creator?

As a creator, my core research focus is sound, space and language using objects, materials, and physical interfaces in multi-channel sound installation and performative work. My production spans independent, collaborative and interdisciplinary projects.

Nightswimming’s Pure Research was a rich opportunity that expanded my exploration into interdisciplinary collaboration with dancer, Kathryn Ricketts. It was my first collaboration with a dancer as a 2-person project. Many of our interests and vocabulary overlapped – the body, movement, voice and space - although differences in assumptions became evident in the studio. For me this became fodder for the creative process. It made me more attentive to the dynamics of collaboration and creative energies, my own expectations, the need to be responsive to unexpected circumstance and the shift between a written proposal and studio work.

The impact of this project on my work has been positive. The experience spawned new ways for me to think about and to experiment with sound and sound making using objects, materials and improvisation. It heightened my appreciation of the inventiveness and interpretation potential of Stein’s text, of the multiple interpretations within a text, and of the fluidity of experimentation. It also made me more attentive to the language of the disciplines, of the creative challenges of interdisciplinary work, of communication within collaboration as well as my own assumptions. This has already impacted on my subsequent work.

Did you continue to develop this topic of research after Pure Research?

Pure Research was the initial project in what has become, for me, an extended exploration of sound using Stein’s poems as a source of inspiration in interdisciplinary collaboration and independent production. After the Pure Research project, I continued to work with the Stein text as source material using physical interfaces for sound making and projection with analogue and digital technology. I have developed and presented three subsequent projects; another is in progress.

In 2014, I collaborated with vocalist and composer, Lia Pas, in a new multi-media performance for voice, electro-acoustic instrument, oboe and double-bass. The spoken word recordings of the Stein text became the rhythmic structure for a new composition; the electro-acoustic instrument doubled as a glass/light table with capacity for sound making and live projection of image. We performed the new composition with members of the Saskatoon Symphony in two public performances in the Core Series at PAVED Arts in Saskatoon (Nov 2014). Subsequently I developed an installation during a co-production residency with New Adventures in Sound Art and Charles Street Video in Toronto (Jan/Feb 2015). The installation, presented at the Wychwood Barns, included sculptural and interactive elements with live sound, sensors and projection. I also developed a solo performance of one of the poems for presentation in J’Acousmatic at Club Saw in Ottawa (2015). Another iteration is in progress using sound feedback to activate objects.

What do you think is the importance of a space like Nightswimming´s Pure Research?

Nightswimming’s Pure Research is invaluable. The physical space and funding are essential and pragmatic elements that allow for experimentation, exploration and risktaking. As such, these elements are critical for creativity. They enable the mess of new work without the pressure of resolution for production or presentation to a public. For me, the importance of this element cannot be overstated; limited production time or public presentation often result in repetition of what one already knows and does, resulting in work which is safe. The mess is the beginning of creativity. What ideas are valid to test?

What ideas work? What ideas fail and need to be discarded? Evaluation is part of the process of creativity. Risk-taking with success and failure reveals parameters and limits of personal or creative activities. I sincerely thank Nightswimming’s Pure Research for the opportunity to participate in such a valuable program. The program is essential for artists and their creative development.