pin_lane

Gus Cummins Pin Lane: Dub in Liminal Space and its Trans-Media Development

DUB IN LIMINAL SPACE AND ITS TRANS-MEDIA DEVELOPMENT dub2 • verb (dubbed, dubbing) 1 provide (a film) with a soundtrack in a different language from the original. 2 add (sound effects or music) to a film or a recording. 3 make a copy of (a recording).

• noun 1 an instance of dubbing sound effects or music. 2 a style of popular music originating from the remixing of recorded music (especially reggae).

— ORIGIN abbreviation of DOUBLE. liminal /limmin’l/ • adjective technical 1 relating to a transitional or initial stage. 2 at a boundary or threshold.

— DERIVATIVES liminality noun.

— ORIGIN from Latin limen ‘threshold’. space • noun 1 unoccupied ground or area. 2 a free or unoccupied area or expanse. 3 the dimensions of height, depth, and width within which all things exist and move. 4 a blank between typed or written words or characters. 5 (also outer space) the physical universe beyond the earth’s atmosphere. 6 an interval of time (indicating that it is short): forty men died in the space of two days. 7 the freedom and scope to live and develop as one wishes.

• verb 1 position (two or more items) at a distance from one another. 2 (be spaced out or chiefly N. Amer. space out) informal be or become euphoric or disorientated, especially from taking drugs.

— DERIVATIVES spacer noun spacing noun.

— ORIGIN Old French espace, from Latin spatium. trans• prefix 1 across; beyond: transcontinental. 2 on or to the other side of: transatlantic. 3 into another state or place: translate.

— ORIGIN from Latin trans ‘across’. medium • noun (pl. media or mediums) 1 a means by which something is expressed, communicated, or achieved. 2 a substance through which a force or other influence is transmitted. 3 a form of storage for computer software, such as magnetic tape or disks. 4 a liquid with which pigments are mixed to make paint. 5 (pl. mediums) a person claiming to be able to communicate between the dead and the living. 6 the middle state between two extremes.

• adjective between two extremes; average.

— ORIGIN Latin, ‘middle’. development • noun 1 the action of developing or the state of being developed. 2 a new product or idea. 3 a new stage in a changing situation. 4 an area of land with new buildings on it.

— DERIVATIVES developmental adjective developmentally adverb.

(Oxford English Dictionary, 2010)

introduction At the University of Plymouth I am researching ways to represent gaps in consciousness. I am concerned with data visualisation and sonification.

PIN LANE In Plymouth’s Pin Lane, I found a small car park, rubbish bins, a few passing people and pigeons. The cars in the car park, the rubbish, the people and the pigeons were all transient. I photographed them, and made short audio recordings. I arranged the photos in grids - like storyboards.

Next I photographed my route to Pin lane, constructing photocollaged panoramas. I omitted parts which wouldn’t work, creating a time line with absent moments.

The storyboards and time lines could function as graphic scores, making the omissions equivalent to a dub reggae producer’s mix down.

While investigating dub I encountered the term ‘liminality’ (Navas) and applied it to Pin Lane, referring to the transient nature of what I found there.

Pieces were fitting together: • • • •

Arrangements of images captured elements of time Gaps in time represented gaps in consciousness Gaps in the image sequnences corresponded to gaps in dub tracks Pin Lane is, or represents, the liminal space in which dub thrives

I devised: Project 1 - apply the principles of dub audio mixing to arrangements of images of Pin Lane and its environs, and develop the results.

Project 2 - further develop the idea by applying the dub principles, and principles derived from Project 1, to an audio project.

Project 3 - an audiovisual project.

Project 4 I can use sensory devices in Pin Lane to provide data, along with archived past work.

1. Pigeons in Pin Lane, Plymouth 2. EEG recording of 5 seconds of my left temporal lobe brain activity

Pin Lane

Halfway along Pin Lane is an entrance to a small trader’s car park. Double yellow lines ensure no cars stop in the lane.

At one end there is a Spar on a corner, at the other end the road stops and a flight of steps ascends. Mostly the backs of buildings are visible from the lane. There are windows to residencies, but most of the entrances must be in other streets. There is one door and a panel of doorbells to flats - short term dwellings.

There is a feeling of transience to Pin Lane.

Opposite the car park is a back entrance to the Spar.

Discarded packaging, trolleys and large rubbish bins compete for space with a car and a metal staircase.

Looking for some history for the lane I found that 130 years ago 3 fishermen lived at number 4. The lane is only a few metres from the harbour. Now, the most life I find here on my visits is buddleia, lichen and pigeons.

I search for photographic subjects in Pin Lane, and en route back to my University.

(google map, 2010)

Pin Lane pigeons Scanning Pin Lane for points of interest I focused on pigeons, photographing them with approximately one second shutter speed. I found the resulting images intriguing - Turneresque. I gridded them, arranged them in rows and layered them in Photoshop to obtain deep and rich frames. Vector graphics sit sweetly on top of these images.

As with my previous temporal images, I am interested in preserving qualities of time in still images.

audio visualisation I made a 55 second audio recording at Pin Lane, of passing cars, people chatting and background noise. I visualise the data using some simple techniques available as part of Adobe Audition software. This is my first brief foray into trans-media work with Pin Lane data. The visualisation is more impressive than the audio.

55 second audio recording in Pin Lane Above; top & bottom left, bottom right: Spectral Frequency Displays secs x Hz, resolution varied. top right: Waveform Display secs x dBs. Below: Frequency Analysis Hz x dBs

images & time Contact sheets, story boards, graphic scores and choreographic plans: all place images on time lines one way or another. So do electroencephelographs, traces of brain activity.

While constructing photocollages of my route to Pin Lane, I switched off layers in Photoshop, and liked the effect. This is how it feels to make a dub audio mix switch off a track and enjoy the effect.

The missing layer was also able to represent the missing moments caused by a partial seizure. The person having the seizure may continue to walk the route but will not experience any sensations for these moments, or in another case, maybe distorted sensations.

Left: Photocollage of University of Plymouth Top: ‘Seizure Map’ - manual motion capture from video of body motion during secondary generalised seizure Above: Electroencephelograph of brain activity at seizure onset

liminal space Liminal space is primarily defined as transitional space, between places or states, where boundaries break down and ambiguities set in. It includes borderland, airports and hotels - places that people pass through without staying pemanently.

I found transience in Pin Lane. This hybrid of alley, road and cul-de-sac isn’t a stopping place. Pin Lane is only metres from the coast, it is borderland.

Liminal space was introduced to anthropology by Arnold Van Gennep (1909) in ‘Les rites de passage.’ Van Gennep deconstructed the African ritual of obtaining manhood into three phases, the second phase being the transitional phase; liminal space.

Van Gennep’s studies were expanded by cultural anthropologist Victor Turner (1974) who noted that during the transitional phase male teens are not part of society but dwell in communitas, where social hierarchies dissolve.

Post colonial theorist Homi K. Bhabha defines liminality in terms of cultural hybidity: By “liminal space,” Bhabha means the site of conflict, interaction, and mutual assimilation that every encounter between cultures involves. (artandculture 2009) DUB IN LIMINAL SPACE Eduardo Navas (2008) claims that Dub thrives in ‘liminal space’, as defined by post colonial theorist Homi K. Bhabha as transcultural space.

dub

The dub genre has evolved since it began in the late ‘60s. It originated simply as B-side versions of Jamaican reggae songs on 7” singles with the vocal track removed. At the beginning of the 1970s sound engineers began to add sounds back into the B-sides • key words or phrases from the vocal track with added delay and reverb • accentuation of the bass and drums with delay added to snare drums and high hats • percussion and sound effects Dub singles were widely played by sound systems (groups of DJ’s with large speaker stacks) who toasted back over the tunes, and tracks were released with toasting incorporated. Sub genres have developed since the 1970s, including spacious minimal recordings, tracks saturated with effects and sounds, and dub from many countries.

Dub engineer and producer King Tubby A DJ and MC on the Coxsone Sound Sytem

DEVICES IN A KING TUBBY DUB MIX Opening bars have intact vocals and melodic instruments, which then get taken down in the mix with lots of repeat delay on the final syllable, note or beat. Drum and bass are accentuated, with delay on snare and hi-hat. Key words or phrases are brought back in, with lots of delay upon removal. Guitar is brought in and out, lots of reverb, often lots of delay on removal.

Removal of vocal or guitar often leaves very stark ‘spacious’ drum and bass passage, with delay or reverb on drum strikes. Sometimes passages with bass only.

Opening bars with vocals which end abruptly leaving only drum and bass create high contrast, as does guitar repeat delay coming to an end to leave drum and bass. Sometimes the vocals or guitar are cut off part way through a word or phrase, creating a glottal stop effect, other times the cut off is saturated with delay which fades to an end revealing the drum and bass.

King Tubby: ‘He is often cited as the inventor of the concept of the remix’

(wikipedia 2009)

project 1 phase 1

visual dub

I photographed the route from Plymouth Uni to Pin Lane, getting these pictures by ‘shooting from the hip’ - a way to keep my camera out of sight and get less planned compositions.

I arranged this suite in a 3 x 3 grid, making no selective decisions. When I began to consider transfering dub devices to other disciplines this was available.

Initially I just looked for equivalents to accentuating the drum and bass; the central structure of the piece. I decided to accentuate the lowest and highest tonal values; like the bass guitar, snare drum and high hat.

This tonal adjustment eliminated most of the subject matter (narrative) of the images, equivalent to the vocal track of a song being removed.

Next I applied directional blur to the high values in reference to reverb, as well as pasting the high value areas back into the image slighlty offset from the original position to suggest delay. It seemed natural to work in a left to right direction for these time related effects.

At this point I wanted to drop some selected subject / vocal back into the mix, but here I stumbled.

Up to now I had been happy with the results from my randomly selected images, but I couldn’t get an aesthetically pleasing result bringing them back in. So I decided to follow a different route - to dub in the style of Adrian Sherwood (producer and sound engineer of On-U Sound records.)

I played with the image I had at this point, and distorted it beyond traceability. I then used some circles to suggest extended delay, and dipped into my archive of images to find some Seizure Mapping graphics, which I overlaid.

SUMMARY I have taken drum and bass from one piece of work - the route to Pin Lane minus its narrative, and used this as the central structure. I have added ornamentation, and highly developed elements from another project, Seizure Mapping, that were put to one side and not exhibited, that work well with this project.

EVALUATION I think I failed in that I set out to apply Tubby’s devices to a visual work, and abandoned this aim when it became difficult, opting to work in a more Sherwood style. However, this was due to selecting the wrong starting material, and I developed a working procedure. It can be developed.

I like the fact that a social artwork has been inserted into an aesthetic artwork, somewhat parallell to toasting over a musical drum and bass rhythm - albeit far less accessible or readable. This quality can also be developed.

project 1 phase 2

co-op dub

project 1 phase 3

liminality of nocturnal travel

excursions in versions

project 1 phase 4

conclusion SUMMARY I am interested in digital photography which captures the essence of time in still images. While photographing Pin Lane I used long exposure, series of images presented in grids and rows, and photo collages to achieve this. When I removed elements from these pieces, I saw parallels to musical dub remixing.

In dub, vocals and melody are often removed at the mixing stage, and reinserted in fragments with audio effects applied.

New sounds are also introduced.

While researching dub, I found the work of Navas(2008), who referred to dub thriving in transcultural liminal space, as defined

by Homi K. Bhabha (artandculture 2009). I found that liminal space is also defined as transitory space, a definition which I felt fitted Pin Lane.

The essence of the project lay in exchanging the transcultural and transitory definitions of liminal space, and applying the dub remix crossdisciplinarily to the visual data I had compiled in, around and en route to Pin Lane.

EVALUATION I feel positive about Liminal Space Dub. I have developed a technique for manipulating and combining digital photographs which I shall continue to use. There is a tendency in digital photography to take lots of photos. This is a way to distill these suites of images into single pieces of work.

I like repeating key elements in images, in the way that sounds have the delay effect applied in dub. Multiple versions can be produced, and presented in series within a single piece, or as a series of works - paralleling the dub tradition for many versions of songs, songs built on the same rhythm, and elements from songs occurring in other works.

As Liminal Space Dub proceeded it became a dub project itself, with a complex beginning, proceeding to a minimal mid section and finally a summary/conclusion which recalls much of what has gone before.

References: artandculture (2009) http://www.artandculture.com/users/518-homi-k-bhabha, accessed 3rd Jan 2010.

Navas, E. (2008) Dub, B Sides and their [re]versions in the threshold of Remix, http://remixtheory.net/?p=345, accessed 3rd Jan 2010.

Oxford English Dictionary (2010) http://www.askoxford.com/?view=uk, accessed 15th Feb 2010 Turner, V. (1974) Drama, Fields and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society, Cornell University Press Van Gennep, A. (1909) Les rites de passage, University of Chicago Press Wikipedia. (2009) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Tubby, accessed 3rd Jan 2010.

Bibliography: Author unknown (2009) http://borderpoetics.wikidot.com/liminality, accessed 3rd Jan 2010.

Author unknown (2009) http://parole.aporee.org/work/hier.php3?spec_id=19650&words_id=900, accessed 3rd Jan 2010.

La Shure, C. (2005) http://www.liminality.org/about/whatisliminality, accessed 3rd Jan 2010.

Perloff, M. (1998) http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/perloff/bhabha.html, accessed 3rd Jan 2010.

Smith, C. (2000) Looking for Liminality in Architectural Space. Catherine Smith, http://limen.mi2.hr/limen1-2001/catherine_smith.html, accessed 3rd Jan 2010.

Trubshaw, B. (1995) http://www.indigogroup.co.uk/edge/liminal.htm, accessed 3rd Jan 2010.

Wikipedia. (2009), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homi_K._Bhabha, accessed 3rd Jan 2010.