THE PROCESSION - A SURREAL SYMPHONY
"The Surreal Symphony explores our innate need for narratives to help us understand the world and our place within it" - Steve
Recently, we struck wondrous mystery into the hearts of onlookers on our beautiful coastal esplanade in Scarborough, UK. A strange procession of our local community came together donning masks, robes and carrying Mawlog as the creature churned, plucked and struck our mechanical music machine. The momentous event raised many eyebrows and those fortunate enough to be there won't soon forget the awesome experience.
"Each of the four giant animal heads built for the Surreal Symphony were made collaboratively by volunteers in a series of papercraft workshops. We taught around 100 participants several paper modelling techniques, including the freeform sculptural method used to make these animal masks. The procession recounts a story from an imagined folk tradition in-which the animals represent the first creatures led into the world by a physical embodiment of life and death." - Steve
FLYING OUR FLAGS
"Beauty n' Grace from those growing "unfathomable complexities" we find ourselves immersed in now-a-daze."
This enchanting spectacle of visual art, music and performance would not have been possible without our creative local community coming together building, hoisting, marching and documenting with us. Combining their unique skill sets to create a whole experience was an amazing thing to facilitate and be amongst. Thank you to everyone who helped make this possible and to the hundreds of people who came to our exhibition at the OPO to explore the masks, music machine and lore of The Surreal Symphony. The positive response was overwhelming.
Gallery Photo by Paul James
DEFINING OUR NARRATIVE
"Yes, I get this – moved by the idea of a defining narrative to our lives. A reassuring mixture of our past, present and future. Love the mixed media and the use of the space."
Luckily for those that didn't witness the initial procession, we held an exhibition that was experienced by 376 people at our local Old Parcel's Office Artspace. Many more also had a hand in building the amazing masks and costumes through community workshops. It's safe to say that no one had ever seen anything quite like this before and the feedback inspires us to move forward with exciting future art projects.
MAKING A MUSIC MACHINE
"What a thing. I loved the music machine. It was certainly a conversation starter."
This completely mechanical acoustic instrument is all at once a drone, drum and strum machine designed by Steve and Graham. This machine was meticulously built, tested and refined for the performance by Steve, Fletch, Graham, Jim, Brad and Elliott. Here, we see Graham drilling holes for the hoist rods. The machine has a drone wheel that bows three cello strings tuned to a chord and fully "programmable" rhythm wheels that can change beat patterns by slotting in teeth on the 64 step wheels. This complex music machine was the centrepiece of the procession and we are inclined to take it out for another spin this coming Halloween, so keep your eyes peeled for more masked adventures in the autumnal season.
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