{"id":7890,"title":"ACCOMPANIMENT TO REDACTION","description":"ACCOMPANIMENT to Redaction, Volume 3, is an experimental soundtrack created to echo the meaning and experience of contemporary visual artist Ruth Jones\u2019 work, Redaction, Volume 3. The soundtrack, designed as a 12. 45 minute loop, is largely created from recordings taken in Jones\u2019 studio","content":"

DURING summer 2020, I was asked by contemporary artist Ruth Jones, if I would be interested in creating a soundtrack for her work Redaction. I was honoured and excited. Not only is Ruth\u2019s art incredible and fascinating, but I\u2019d become aware of her heavy involvement with the Agency of Visible Women - an organisation which champions and questions the role womxn have in the arts world - with much admiration and respect. As a woman, how could I not be enthused by her ideas?

Redaction is an ongoing series of works, which explores how women take space in public, how we are redacted from space as fast as we claim it. Among the work created thus far, three parts are currently exhibited\/just come off exhibition. Redaction 2019 - nine incredibly detailed pencil drawings of lips or mouths - is currently on display in the Beecroft Art Gallery, Southend-on-Sea; Volume Two is in an art exhibition in Canterbury, and Volume Three has just been exhibited at Safehouse 1, in Copeland Road, London, as part of a larger show featuring 10 artists, called Between Walls.<\/p>

Accompaniment to Redaction ( (c)(p) 2020 Kelly Ann Buckley ) is an experimental soundtrack I made, based on her work so far, created to echo the meaning and experience of it. It\u2019s based largely on the ideas and materials used in Volume 2 and 3, and also picks up on Ruth\u2019s ongoing conversations about the subject of how womxn take up space, for instance, how we may behave (or feel we need to behave) overtly sexually to be heard.<\/p>

Ruth was keen for me to incorporate my own ideas into the piece as well as her own. We discussed my creating a loop that lasted several minutes, something that would hold interest for the amount of time people were experiencing the work in a gallery setting, and something that could be further picked apart and developed for potential use in her ongoing works. I created the first version intending it to be a short test, something to play to Ruth to be sure we were on the same page, but I had become so engaged and inspired by Ruth\u2019s ideas by then, as I sketched out the melody and arrangement, I found I couldn\u2019t stop and ended up creating almost 13 minutes.<\/p>

I sent her the unmixed and mastered version assuring her we didn\u2019t have to use it, but luckily for me, she was thrilled, and wanted to play it at the Between Walls exhibition in London, where she\u2019d be showing Redaction, Volume 3.<\/p>

Redaction: Volume 2<\/em> as a choice for the title plays with volumes of space and density, things fat bodies can be violently accused of taking too much of. The redaction in this instance of the humanity of the subject, the remaining body parts.<\/p>

Critical of the body positive movement, mindful of how we take space, how we take too much, how we\u2019re supposed to take care of ourselves, how our bodies are sectioned off, the headless, dehumanized fat people on TV, representative of the obesity epidemic: these were all considerations during the making of this piece.<\/p>

This drawing is a soft and kind rendering of flesh on translucent paper, a chance to slow down the process of the images consumed of our bodies. Soft colours, soft lines and marks, sheer and fragile paper. Gentle layering and attention to detail. I have been thinking about fatness and softness and the violence\u2019s conducted towards and against fat bodies in online and IRL spaces.\u00a0<\/p>

This piece is over scale, a comment on the contested space taken by fat people in public. The piece is held at torso height within a welded steel frame, with clear reference to idealistic and \u201cmasculine\u201d minimalism as an aesthetic language, but softened with colour. Taking colour cues from its sister piece, (Redaction<\/em>, 2019) Redaction: Volume 2<\/em> echoes the use of pale pink as a symbol of redaction of the visceral red of woman-hood, sanitising and purifying with the introduction of white cleanness, the sealed vessel, the infantilised, tractable, pliant colour of girlhood.\u00a0<\/p>

The paper is not fixed at the bottom, giving it the opportunity to move with the passage of the audience, emphasising the fluid process of space that womxn\u2019s bodies are permitted to occupy and holding it in a precarious state. Further highlighting its precariousness, the drawing element took a number of months to complete, on and off.\u00a0<\/p>

There is something in the high stakes element of offering up such a clear example of womxn\u2019s labour to the precarious position of a work that could fall victim to an inconsiderate audience. The piece could be knocked and fall, tear, be walked through. Whilst this is not invited, it is considered as a possible outcome and holding my nerve in leaving it vulnerable in a space is part of that consideration. It seems so emblematic of the disregard for the unpaid, laborious, care-work to which womxn are so frequently resigned.\"<\/p>

-- Ruth Jones<\/p><\/blockquote>

\"\"
Ruth Jones' Redaction, Volume 2. (c) 2020. - Photo by Anna Lukala<\/em><\/strong><\/p>

Redaction, Volume 3, was a hand drawn development of Volume 2. However, Redaction Volume 3 , instead on being hung on the metal frame, was hung in the space of what may have been a door or window, at Safehouse 1, a derelict house used for film shoots and art shows, in Copeland Road, London.<\/p>

\"\"
Ruth Jones'<\/em><\/strong> Redaction, Volume 3, at Safehouse 1, Copeland Road, London. Photo by Anna Lukala.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>

\u201cFor Between Walls, Jones is exhibiting Redaction, Volume 3.<\/p>

Jones\u2019 work plays with the fluid process of taking, holding and acceding space as a womxn. The visibility of the piece is dependent on lighting and viewpoint, representing the tenuous hold womxn have over their bodies and the spaces they occupy.<\/p>

The repetitive nature of womxn\u2019s labour is echoed by sounds sampled directly from the materials of the Redaction series and has been woven into an ambient loop by Kelly Buckley, to accompany the experience of the work.\u201d<\/p>

-- Extract from the programme for Between Walls.<\/p>





<\/p><\/blockquote>

The soundtrack, Accompaniment to Redaction, is largely created from recordings taken in Jones\u2019 studio.\u00a0I was keen to use both recognisable, organic sounds within the piece, as well as manipulating them into notes and beats that mightn\u2019t be so obvious to the listeners ear. Not only is my style to use field recordings within my music as much as possible, but also I felt the idea of being both 'obvious' and 'disguised', reflected the idea of redaction. The raw recordings were of Jones at work, and include her making pencil markings and shading; of pencils being dropped and picked up; the rolling and pealing of different sized tracing paper of the large works but also of small studies, which she hangs at her studio window to get an idea of how the light works within the pieces. The recordings also included sounds of her footsteps and movements around the studio as she prepared her pieces, clipping them together, weaving string and attaching bulldog\u00a0clips of varying sizes; her working with foil; building the metal structure which holds part of her work and the rustling of polythene materials. To represent Jones\u2019 pencil drawings of the curves and lines within her back, I recorded myself stroking my own skin, smoothing over the curves, tapping and slapping the flesh.\u00a0<\/p>

All the individual recordings were sliced and sampled into notes, chords and beats from which I created drum and melodic patterns, as well as adding sounds of some traditional instruments.<\/p>

The track is in B minor, but at the start - a section which reflects the artist preparing her work - is a mix of layers, one part not in key, which therefore,\u00a0sounds uncomfortable. This section takes up too much space, there are too many layers to it, and it goes on a little too long.\u00a0 It is all a bit 'too much'.\u00a0<\/p>

The sound of rolling tracing paper comes in, again, too loud, a little too big, awkward, unfeminine, harsh, brash.<\/p>

\u201c Redaction, Volume 2, plays with volumes of space and density, things fat bodies can be violently accused of taking too much of. The redaction in this instance of the humanity of the subject, the remaining body parts\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>


Gradually the thick paper sounds soften, the rolling becomes more \u2018curvy\u2019 as opposed to \u2018chunky\u2019. Sounds of the beautiful pink lightweight crinkly polythene seen in Ruth\u2019s work, replace the harder paper. The atmosphere becomes kinder, softer.\u00a0 Sensual sounds of pencil drawings appear, individual strokes panning from left to right in the mix, notes covered in shimmering effects, caressing the listener\u2019s ear.<\/p>

\u201c\u2026This drawing is a soft and kind rendering of flesh on translucent paper, a chance to slow down the process of the images consumed of our bodies. Soft colours, soft lines and marks, sheer and fragile paper. Gentle layering and attention to detail. I have been thinking about fatness and softness and\u00a0fatness and softness and the violence\u2019s conducted towards and against fat bodies in online and IRL spaces. \u201c<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>

The beats enter the piece. They are spacious, somewhat carefully and laboriously placed, with emphasised industrial echoes, taken from recordings of the metallic elements within Jones\u2019 work. The repetitiveness represents Jones\u2019 discussion of woman\u2019s work.\u00a0<\/p>

A melody evolves, with chosen instruments which have rounded sounds, full, bubbly, bouncing, pretty. There is space between them as they cascade. The melody overrides the initial sense of discomfort.<\/p>

The beats occasionally change in resonance and frequency during the track. This is a result of lines being plotted via automation within the arrangement to alter and control sounds. The lines were marked to resemble the curves within Jones\u2019 pencil drawing.\u00a0<\/p>

\u201c The piece is held at torso height within a welded steel frame, with clear reference to idealistic and \u201cmasculine\u201d minimalism as an aesthetic language, but softened with colour. Taking colour cues from its sister piece, (Redaction, 2019) Redaction: Volume 2 echoes the use of pale pink as a symbol of redaction of the visceral red of woman-hood, sanitising and purifying with the introduction of white cleanness, the sealed vessel, the infantilised, tractable, introduction of white cleanness, the sealed vessel, the infantilised, tractable, pliant colour of girlhood.\u00a0\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>

Recordings of the pink and white steel frame being put together by Jones in her studio were among those sampled into notes. At points during the soundtrack, chords are held, long enough to allow for the listener to clearly hear the frame being dragged and bumped across the floor.\u00a0<\/p>

In addition to this, smaller sections of the same recording were sliced into single notes, and a melody created from them.\u00a0<\/p>

Played alone, this melody, due to the steely sound, is rather minimal and \u2018masculine\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>

To oppose this with the idea of a purer sound, of \u2019woman-hood\u2019, I chose to duplicate the melody with flute, also a metallic vessel with a hollow inside, as is the frame, but with much lighter, more typically \u2018feminine\u2019, natural connotations.\u00a0<\/p>

The overall melody was composed with dual considerations and aims.\u00a0<\/p>

One was to evoke the sense of walking, stroking, teasing and provoking, to conjure the idea of women and how they do or are expected to behave, at times having to build themselves up to appear or behave overtly sexual in order to be heard, (as represented in the crescendoing elements of the piece).\u00a0<\/p>

The other was also to act as a sonic companion to an audience, serving them with a cool, confident, striding, phat vibe as they experience the artist\u2019s work.\u00a0<\/p>

\"\"
Ruth Jones, contemporary artist<\/em><\/strong>


You can listen to the full soundtrack - Accompaniment to Redaction (c)(p) 2020 Kelly Ann Buckley - in two ways, or indeed both.<\/p>

Below is the piece laid over manipulated footage I captured on an iPhone of Ruth in her studio, working with some of the materials used. The film quality isn\u2019t fantastic but it serves as a visual relation.<\/p>

Alternatively, you can stream or download the track HERE<\/a>, close your eyes and conjure your own thoughts and questions, hopefully as inspired as I have been by Ruth\u2019s work.<\/p>





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