The History of StrataVarious: The Introductory Preamble

In the early 1980's I coined the name StrataVarious as an umbrella term to cover a set of modular audio component sculptures. I was going to Emily Carr College of Art and Design (now ECU) and although I had an intuitive grasp of my own art I had difficulty with the language of Art. 

Then and Now.

 Perhaps language in general.

 StrataVarious was the name of a series of Installations that often included a performance aspect. 

The idea here is to give a brief overview and then do a series of blogs which chronologically detail how I got to where I am now. 

 StrataVarious: The Sound Studio Permutation 

StrataVarious: The Interdisciplinary Permutation 

StrataVarious: The Bar B Q solo Permutation 

StrataVarious: The Noisy Hallway Permutation 

 StrataVarious:Stairwell Permutation (Hellen Pitt Award Winner) 

StrataVarious: Including the Sink Permutation (Grad Show 1984)

 StrataVarious: Tonight 1984 Permutation(Whiterock) 

StrataVarious: Autoguitar Permutation (Gastown) 

 

 The root concept was to create a sound sculpture by playing a number of unsynchronized

tape loops simultaneously.

The location of the sounds origin also changed constantly by

Connecting the tape machines to the speakers through

Both manual and automatic “switch machines”.

Turntable based speaker/source switcher

 Bar b q motor based speaker/source switcher 

Plastic cup speakers 

Stripped Cassette decks running custom tape loops 

 1/4" mild steel rods with custom 90 degree clamps 

And ,of course, the Noddaguitar.

Recently I've noticed a slow increase in  intrest in 3d sound, 

analogue/digital hybrid modular 

 and of course the term "Circuit Bending" has been around since 1992. 

So perhaps the language has caught up or at least some visible references to point at.

Time dictates another new beginning

I just checked the date on the first entry of this blog - sept 15 2008 - ! That's almost 13 1/2 years ago. Several ideas and new starts have occured in that time. It was going to be Flash, then the red border visual serch meta-Nav. Having retired from my Post Secondary Instructional Associate Phase I feel another phrase weighing heavily upon my conciousness - 'End Game'. In the past there always seemed to be plenty of room/time (Spacetime?) to experiment. R and D being my natural resting place. To not put too fine a point on it - I age. With age memory degrades. Also physical abilities. And, perhaps most cruel of all, time itself seems to pass more quickly. A short, indulgant, story to illuminate the concept and then I'll let it go. I promise. In 1965 or so I remember being in Trout Creek Elementary School. I looked at the clock, 2:03, I looked outside through the expansive glass windows at the hills in the distance. An amazing place to hike and explore. Especially in the Summer when the world became a magical place, free of the interminable boredom of school. I concidered many exciting plans for next summer. The clock said 2:04, the second hand seemed frozen, moving so slowly. And now Breakfast bleeds so easily into Lunchtimeforafternoon snack oh why bother just get dinner. Another day over? Whatever happened to accomplishing something in less than a month? It's perception, not time itself. I must appear to be moving in slow motion. Now that time is Free it melts away like ice cream. How unfair that the currency of life isn't dealt out in the same denominations now that I am able to spend it as I will Daily.