Bigger Than Words, Wider Than Pictures invitation

After answering the call for submissions, I've just received notification that I have been invited to participate in the Bigger Than Words, Wider Than Pictures conference. So I'll need to think about exactly what I'll be delivering there. One more recent development has been the news that it won't be partly curated at Islington Mill (as previously suggested) due to it seemingly following Central Library's example and closing for refurbishment.

I'm also looking into the potential for external funding/sponsorship so that I can produce something even more ambitious for July's event. Perhaps an installation or have the findings culminate in a publication that could be printed and distributed in significant numbers. However the hand-in date for this project is in May so any additional work would be for myself (i.e. it wouldn't be assessed as part of this Masters work) but I guess the development of the ideas would be part of my conclusion. The real concern would be whether this could become so all-consuming that it would be too distracting at a time when I'm supposed to be working on my major dissertation work. Unless, of course, I work this into that (as yet unspecified) project.

Stadsbiblioteket in Malmo

Another day, another country and yet another library. This one was just a short train journey from Copenhagen in Malmo, Sweden. Again, it was a calming space despite [because of?] its cathedral-like proportions.

One especially nice aspect of the architecture was the small study booths almost assembled like book cases along one side where people worked in relative seclusion whilst stacked up - three units high. Another clever addition was the checking in system which takes the books on a conveyor belt to be put back on display. To get there they travel under the floor with the publications visibly moving through the building under a glass panel.

We also got the wrong train on the way back. We mixed up 'Helsingor' and 'Helsingborg' and, instead of heading back to Denmark, we got to see some very grey Swedish countryside.

The Black Diamond

I'm in Copenhagen for the weekend so thought that I should check out the city's landmark Black Diamond: a bold extension to Denmark's Royal Library.

It is a great building and one that - even despite its cavernous, semi-industrial interior - feels particularly serene. Maybe the Danes are better behaved but it also seemed to be less noisy than some of the other libraries I've been investigating in the UK. Also being a design-conscious, cultural nation, the elegant gift shop was stocked with a selection of beautiful but sometimes weighty publications devoted to such subjects as furniture design, typography, interiors, architecture and music [the Black Diamond also hosts performances]. It's just a shame that everything is so expensive here.

However it wasn't the favourite location that I experienced yesterday. That honour has to go to Arne Jacobsen's Nationalbank headquarters with its breath-takingly modernist - yet proportionally almost ecclesiastic - foyer. With the current British Library-linked project for the 3Dmax class, I have actually turned my attention to staircases [sort of considering them as metaphors for how sound moves spatially through an environment] so this one located, within an almost silent space, proved interesting. Lovely use of text on the outside too.

Noise #1

The Sound Extraction video from Andrey Bogush on Vimeo.

"The extraction of natural resources distorts the landscape; the human being exploits the planet as much as the technological progress enables him to do so. The extraction of sound is like a recurrent form of consumption. The chosen method of the sound extraction do not bring the use; it is not left anywhere except the ‘miners’ testimony and in the corrupted sounds recorded by unprofessional fixing device.

The sound waves diverged by the ice surface and come back with the echo from every quarter of the former sand pit. We were throwing ice pieces. We had to find those winning trajectories, which brought the better sound. The glade, not frozen yet, was the target. Our actions brought us a joy but sounds disappeared too quickly, we were not able to collect or to reproduce them. The process took more and more ice pieces, which almost were not remain on the shore, and the November twilights get into the night."