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Modern Tendring Vernacular
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Stanway Mill
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Countless Edens
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Listening To The Landscape
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Transient
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Prospects
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Fonema
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Relic (Button)
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Quintessentia
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Power Up!
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Exchange
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Resounding
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Imagine A World Without Birdsong
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The River Runs Through Us
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Stour
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Touch Radio 146
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Courier
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You Are Here
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Bastion
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Resonants
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Confluent: River of Words
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Podcasts
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Chinese Landscape #2
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CLASS
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Aperture
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To The Lighthouse
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Value
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UN
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Vibe Cube
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AWSoM
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Play Your Place
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Logical Thinking
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Team Hadleigh
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High Hi Rise
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The Chatterbox Project
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On The Line
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The Butler's Portion
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Journey to the Podium
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The Duellists
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Garry
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Words From The Street
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Modern Tendring Vernacular
Colchester based sound artist Stuart Bowditch is collecting the sounds of Tendring buildings for a new project called Modern Tendring Vernacular. He’s looking for the sounds of buildings or their use, that could be from municipal or religious buildings, industrial or maritime structures, public or private houses. For example, it could be the sound of the Church bell or a service from inside, the shutter of an industrial unit or the manufacturing process happening within.
You can get involved in two ways:
- Make a suggestion of something to be recorded by emailing Stuart
- Send a recording (this could be made on your phone, or audio recorder such as a Zoom) to Stuart using WeTransfer or other similar file transfer service.
The email to use for either of these options is stuartbowditch@icloud.com
Stuart will be using these sounds to make a new album that will be performed at an event at curated by Colchester Creative on 7th March 2024.The project is funded by Creative Colchester's First Thursdays, and supported by Courier and East Anglian Noise Alliance.
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Stanway Mill
An artist residency at The Minories, Colchester, between 11th January and 11th February 2024. I will be making a new sound work in response to Stanway Mill, near Colchester engraved by David Lucas (1802-1881), and originally painted by John Constable (1776-1837).
Dates of drop-in workshops between 12 noon and 4pm:
13th workshop
14th workshop
27th workshop
28th workshop
3rd February workshops
4th workshop
10th performances 1pm and 7:00pm (End of residency late night opening with Tom Armstrong).
11th performances 1pm and 3pmRecordings and workshop sounds by myself and participants can be heard in this Soundcloud Playlist.
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I used to have the mantra of ‘You don’t get anywhere by standing still’ that is a reflection of my inner drive to be curious, listen, experience, make, and to actively take part in these things in order to grow and keep moving forward as a human being. Jung described Libido as "the energy that manifests itself in the life process and is perceived subjectively as striving and desire." My desire for being is to create and I am constantly formulating ideas, forming connections, asking questions, experimenting, making and learning.
I have approached my residency at The Minories the same way I approach many of my location based projects, in that I had no idea what the location would actually sound like. In fact, I didn’t even know exactly where Stanway Mill was located. I probably still might not, but through researching and some very useful input from local historian Patrick Denney and sound artist Matt Shenton we’ve narrowed it down to a spot near to the London Road in Copford.
Sonically each place is different, and indeed constantly changing. There are many factors to consider: is it dawn, winter, storm Isha? Is there a carnival, someone vacuuming their car, children on a trampoline? None of the above. One cannot in fact know until one arrives, sets up the kit and starts recording. I often find the arrival and setting up of kit a bit stressful, assessing a place for potential encounters, passersby, anomalous events. But once I am recording it is time to listen, relax, slow down, take notice, drink up the atmosphere, think. I noticed this most profoundly whilst working on Resounding, a project following in the footsteps of JA Baker, author of The Peregrine, where I recorded for hours whilst sitting on the sea wall alongside the River Blackwater at sites marked on one of his maps with a P*. The remoteness of the locations, the stark winter weather, the political and social situations (the beginning of the pandemic), my personal situation, all contributed to a lot of deep listening in conjunction with deep thinking. The brisk breeze on my face, the beauty of the salt marsh, the call of the curlew. Everything had heightened meaning. I felt alive.
The Stanway Mill project has proved to be difficult in regard to getting access to the exact location, as it is now in the grounds of a private house. I wrote a letter to the occupants but they have not responded. It was a strange request, I admit, so the nearest I can actually get is down an alley way next to the location. This presents other potential challenges. I think most people would question someone loitering in an alleyway in their neighbourhood, but so far that hasn’t happened.
The unknown element of this approach is a key part of my exploration and experimentation as it always leads to new directions and unforeseen results. It pushes me into new processes and techniques ensuring that I’m never getting stuck in a rut or making new things the same as previous ones. I always try to bring an open mind, to react to the sounds, encounters and emotions I experience there, and build from scratch every time. Obviously I have tools, tropes and flavours that I favour but the journey becomes its own and is never prescribed or presumed.
Performances are improvised to keep me on my toes, the give the audience something new each time, and to take a step together in to the unknown. Feel free to play some of the sounds on the iPads and guitar pedals. I’ll be making an album of tracks from the work recorded here and I’ll be performing the sounds live on 10th and 11th of February.
*Some of these recordings will be part of ‘Restless Brilliance: The Story of J.A. Baker and The Peregrine’ exhibition at Chelmsford City Museum later in 2024. -
Countless Edens
Countless Edens is a body of photographic work by Mark Edwards, made over the course of three years, in the house and garden of the writer Ronald Blythe. Both house and garden were formally the house of Blythe’s close friend, the painter John Nash. Countless Edens draws upon the rich English landscape traditions of both literature and painting. The pictures depict a garden that was initially planted by Nash when he first moved to Suffolk in the mid-forties. The garden was established in order to supply source material for both his paintings and illustrations. He bequeathed the house, situated on the Suffolk/Essex border, to his close friend, the writer Ronald Blythe. Blythe lived there until the end of his life, and continued to cultivate and attend to the garden. This intimate space, and the landscape beyond, forms the fulcrum to much of his writing. The interior photographs extend this discourse to allow the viewer to examine the relationship between Nash and Blythe through objects, possessions and personal motifs that also allude to the paintings and writing of both. Viewed as a body of pictures, the photographs contribute to the work of both painter and writer in a response to place and history. With Ronald’s encouragement, Mark Edwards began to explore the outdoor and indoor space. The exhibition includes a sound recording made at Ronald Blythe’s garden by sound artist Stuart Bowditch.
Exhibitions:
2024 - Benham Gallery, Cuckoo Farm (May-June 2024)
2024 - The Minories, Colchester (11th January - 11th February 2024)
15th September to 15th October 2023 - Primeyarc, Great Yarmouth. Curated by originalprojects. -
Listening To The Landscape
A series of mentoring sessions on sound recording in the field with artist Matthew Shenton for his project 'Listening To The Landscape', funded by Arts Council England. More information soon.
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Transient
A sonic performance using only sounds donated by the artists. Transient, a group show by tenants at Cuckoo Farm Studios, featured a talk by Dr. Matthew Bowman, and time based works by Hanne Mannheimer, Jevan Watkins-Jones, Tom Armstrong, Kay Phillips, Maggie Leggoe, Susie Scott, Hanna Stageman, Linda Theophilus and Becky Jordan between May and October 2023. The exhibition closed with an evening of story telling and a one-off sonic performance by Stuart Bowditch.
transient -
Prospects
Prospects is the first new publicly available poem by Stuart Bowditch since 2018. The concept had been in his mind for a long time and he gathered the street names used in the piece over several years whilst on journeys around the UK with his travelling companion. The theme for groving 2023 seemed to be a perfect fit for the idea so he wrote the poem with this in mind.
Stuart always seeks out stickers upon visiting new places, as stickers on lampposts and other street furniture are an indicator of social, cultural and counter-cultural activity in the area. This format therefore provided a perfect vehicle to display the poem in public spaces whilst accommodating the small parameters required by the commission.
https://www.groveprojects.org/groving.html -
Fonema
Fonema
A site responsive project for Sluice/PADA in Lisbon, Portugal in November 2022.
A What3Words map plotting the locations of recordings, only works in the app, not in a browser (yet). The work was exhibited between 10-13th November 2022 as part of the Lisbon Art Weekend. The finished audio works was released via Courier on limited edition LP/2CD/DL.
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Relic (Button)
Relic (Button) comprises a very short composition made from MIDI data algorithmically extracted from a field recording of a specially composed bell peal rung by bell ringers at St.Edmundsbury Cathedral on the Queens Platinum Jubilee on 4th June 2022. The data is used to trigger a sample of the bell used by Town Crier Tony Appleton in Bury St. Edmunds to recreate a section of the peal played on the Jubilee day. The brevity of the piece was dictated by the digital limitations of the sound button hardware on which it resides. The sound button was placed in a rose garden at Abbey Gardens in Bury St.Edmunds, Suffolk as part of the project groving by curator Barbara Dougan, and was removed by an inquisitive member of the public never to be seen again. The project also featured a written response by Urve Opik.
Peal Press
http://www.groveprojects.org/blog/hearing-things
A modest thumb’s worth, a full round
netsuke, smoothly toggling the invisible
strike and clamour of metallic sound
into binary code. Memento Digital
of pull and swing, pressed into zero/one.
A caught phrase, a meme for void and spire
mutter-full of dusty prayer, flinging open
centuries of vaulted, buttressed air.
Gusts of chimes handed up the ropes
and down the years, poise, ardently intent
to make a reliquary of your palm, their notes
will sound or mute by click of your consent.
Urve Opik
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Quintessentia
Meditative films of quintessential scenes, a balm for your eyes and ears. Take a moment from your hectic digital life to rest and replenish. Available on the Rarible platform.
The full films films are now streamable from the Quintessentia Youtube Channel.
https://rarible.com/quintessentia -
Power Up!
Live musical vinyl only accompaniment to a performance by Extinction Rebellion Red Rebels at Power Up! exhibition organised by Green Fuse Collective at Shoe factory in Norwich 10th July 2021.
A recording of the set can be heard on Mixcloud and an interview with Bev Broadhead is over here.
https://powerupnorwich.wordpress.com/home/news-and-events/ -
Exchange
Sound composition created from a field recording made in the exhibition space 8 months prior to installation, and accessible by dialling a number found on the exhibition floor. The 'Here' exhibition was curated by Jane Watt and Clare Palmier at Art Station, their repurposed 1950's building previously housing the Post Office and telephone exchange in Saxmundham, Suffolk.
Audience members could phone 03332 470402 (now inactive) to hear the work which was heavily affected by the telephony system. The exhibition ran from 26th June and has been extended until 26th August 2021. More information at Art Station, including a brief interview.
https://theartstation.uk/exhibition/here/
https://theartstation.uk/exhibition/here/ -
Resounding
Project following in the footsteps of J A Baker, author of The Peregrine (1967), making field recordings around the River Blackwater in Essex and deriving work from those recordings.
There is a project website and blog, recordings can be heard on Soundcloud, a map of locations can be found here, and a broadcast on CAMP Radio here.
Funded by an Arts Council England 'Develop Your Creative Practice' Grant 2019 - 2020.
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Imagine A World Without Birdsong
Mark Edwards and Stuart Bowditch began working collaboratively in 2018 exploring their shared interest in encountering beauty in the unremarkable whilst exploring the contemporary landscape of East Anglia. Each new piece is a still picture with an audio recording coinciding exactly with the length of time the film is exposed, ranging from two – fifteen minutes, and made together at the same location at the same time. This duration of time is part of the experience of the landscape when making a work and whilst the pictures' sound is normally absent, and the recording devoid of image, these new pieces merge both processes together forming a new experience of the landscape. The resulting works aren’t stills but images that show movement and a passing of time, breaths of wind, birds passing through the frame, recorded as ghosts by the long exposure and present in the sound recording through their birdsong, alongside passing cars, distant conversations, aircraft, muffled music and a host of ambient sounds. A single moment and place in time, shared.
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The River Runs Through Us
Field recording, public walks and swim, film and tour, text installations in collaboration with Ruth Philo for The River Runs Through Us, and project funded by Arts Council England and Dedham Vale AONB 2017-18.
The River Runs Through Us is a project by Stuart Bowditch and Ruth Philo with the people and communities along the River Stour, which flows through Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Essex. Building on their previous collaboration To The Lighthouse, a film about the decommissioned Orford Ness Lighthouse, sound recordist Stuart Bowditch and painter Ruth Philo were awarded funding to work on their next film, The River Runs Through Us.
Ignoring the notion of the river as a boundary, in this age where increasingly borders and divisions are drawn, the artists discovered a deeper connectedness and the primitive co-dependency that exists between people and water. The artists hosted a series of walks-and-talks and a swim through the Stour Valley during the summer of 2017 with local experts on the river's connections with ecology, literature, wildlife, writers and artists.
The film was screened at pub and galleries alongside the river and the project culminated in an exhibition at The Boat House Gallery (NT) at Flatford, July to August 2018.
This project was the seed event for the inaugural year of the River Stour Festival that took place in 2018.
Exhibitions
http://www.theriverrunsthroughus.uk/
17-18th November 2018 - Sluice, Kuhlhaus, Berlin
6th October 2018 - Village Hall, Sturmer
25 September - 12 October 2018 - Biennial Sino-British Contemporary Art Exhibition, Yantai Art Museum, China
11th August 2018 - The Alma Inn, Harwich
29th July 2018 - The Swan Inn, Stratford St.Mary
28th July 2018 - The Anchor, Nayland
21st July 2018 - North House Gallery, Manningtree
8th July 2018 - Henny Swan, Henny
7th July 2018 - Barnardiston Arms, Kedington -
Stour
Stour is an A5 publication of writing and illustrations on culture, wildlife and place, celebrating the Stour Valley and providing a legacy artefact for the River Stour Festival and The River Runs Through Us project. It features new and previously published works by Ronald Blythe CBE, Stuart Bowditch, James Canton, Simon Carter, Justin Hopper, Hilary Owers, Ruth Philo, Jules Pretty OBE, Susannah Robirosa, Matthew Rooney, Alison Rowlands, Darren Tansley and John Thornes.
This book was published by Estuarine Press on 15th June 2018. Edition of 500. £5 each.My contribution (below) is a poem made from quotes taken from conversations with people met in the Stour Valley whilst working on The River Runs Through Us. I saved them up in my notebook and then assembled them for inclusion in Stour.
Stream of Words
Painters talking painters talk
http://www.estuarinepress.uk/stour.html
Texture of the real world
Radical, not chocolate box
Pause on a wall
Long views
The world looks more like a painting than a photograph
Wherever we stroll the way belongs to us
The Judas Gap
Langham Flumes
Ha’Penny Pier
It’s a tidy step to Wormingford Mere
Willy Lott’s House
The magic cottage, a camera obscura
Walk for ten minutes and you’re somewhere else
By-the-by
Hemlock smalls like a mouse nest
Rewilding the landscape
The rain came down like sheets of sea
Thick on the ground
Slow the flow
Riparian rights
It’s like riding a bike, but on the water
He’s a lovely chap, but take your own mug!
The cow hide he wants is walking about in a field
Railway track (dismantled)
A patchwork of jobs
It’s a shame it fell over as Constable painted it -
Touch Radio 146
A collection of field recordings made of Sicilian Churches in February 2018 and presented as a Radio Broadcast / Podcast on Touch Radio.
Whilst on holiday in Sicily Stuart wanted to capture the sound of the local church bells. Choosing to record at 12 noon every day seemed a reasonable way to record more elaborate bell combinations whilst also fitting in other holiday plans with his travelling companion.
An edit of ten minutes from each location is included here, with 12 o’clock being positioned in the middle at five minutes to afford some context of the local area. Sicilian dialect has been used to indicate each day. Church names have been used to indicate location rather than street names, and bells from nearby churches can also be heard as the timing on each church is slightly different. Some churches ring twice, and one church not at all. The bird sounds were made by an old man hiding behind the tree that I was recording under.
Recorded using a Sound Devices Mix-Pre 6, and a stereo pair of LOM Uši omni-directional mics attached to a coat hanger.
Màrtiri – San Francesco di Paola, Palermo
https://touchradio.org.uk/radio146.html
Mèrcuri – Cattedrale di Palermo and Parrocchia Ss Maria Assunta
Iòviri – Parrochia San Girolamo, Mondello
Vènniri – Chiesa di San Domenico, Palermo
Sàbatu – Cattedrale di Monreale
Dumìnica – Chiesa del Gesù, Palermo -
Courier
Micro label started with Graham Boosey in 2010 for a one off event at Southend Planetarium, but now working with Nick Dawson to slowly grow a catalogue of hand assembled releases on CD, vinyl and cassette, all housed in covers individually cut from recycled card stock. Supporting emerging and more established artists.
Interview with James Norman of Brian Records.
'Beautifully presented and ever reliable' Freq Mag
Stocked at Norman Records and on Bandcamp.
https://couriersound.bandcamp.com/ -
You Are Here
Over the course of one year, Stuart travelled the length and breadth of Essex in search of the sounds that make his home county unique. He collected sounds associated with specific places or locations, sounds of today and yesteryear, traditions and events, local accents, and followed public suggestions as to what constitutes an Essex Sound. Stuart also made recordings in the same locations as archival recordings as a comparison to how the county sounded decades ago. All of the recordings will be available in the ERO sound and video archive for perpetuity, and many of them feature on the Essex Sounds online map.
Download
Publication - Interference Journal 2019Links
Essex Sounds
Essex Record Office -
Bastion
Artist residency and installation, Landguard Fort, Felixstowe [Suffolk Coastal District Council] 2011
In January 2011 Stuart was awarded an artist residency with Landguard Arts in Suffolk.
He spent 8 months visiting Landguard Fort and the surrounding peninsular (a Grade 1 listed building and Site of Special Scientific Interest) to collect sounds from the many and varied activities and spaces there. These became the only source material for the resulting 35 minute soundscape. Found materials were transformed in to an interactive sculptural speaker through which the sounds were played.
Exhibitions:
1-30th October 2011 - Landguard Fort, Felixstowe
Sound Walk:
9th July 2011 - with members of the public and Sarah Wynne, the Ranger at Landguard Point Nature Reserve
Release:
19th October 2015 - cassette on Awkward FormatsReview:
By David Valentine, 23rd December 2011Sound artist, composer and DJ Stuart Bowditch is well known for using found sounds – noises recorded in their natural environments – in his work, whichever professional hat he may be wearing at the time. It is a technique he has employed for single releases, albums, live performance, art installations and even soundtracks for short films and dance. What sets Stuart apart, as an artist, in this field is the way he offers these recordings back to audiences with creative and unusual installations that generally employ at little bit of maker-style home electronics and some Linux friendly open source software. His previous installations (some made in collaboration with profoundly deaf artist Damien Robinson) have used weather to trigger sound playback, or have made use of vibrational speakers to make sound a touch sensitive experience.
For this solo piece entitled Bastion, Stuart has combined sounds collected in and around Languard Fort in Suffolk with a sculptural speaker fashioned from some simple audio electronics and a found object from within the Fort – creating a piece that is integrally related to the space environmentally, physically, historically and atmospherically. Languard Fort is an English Heritage site, maintained and run by a mostly volunteer team – all keen and enthusiastic supporters of this individual, iconic building from England’s naval past. There has been a fortification of some sort or another on this location for the Coastal Artillery since 1543, now decommissioned the fort is a popular tourist attraction for those interested in military history.
The sounds Stuart has collected at this historic location include visitors, wildlife, Morse code, tug-boats, a minute’s silence, historical re-enactment of battles, the Lord’s Prayer and even ghost hunters late at night in what is a rather creepy, eerie building after dark. These sounds have then been reassembled to create an ambient soundtrack that itself feels like a ghostly presence as you approach it through the corridors of the fort. Visiting the installation on preview night only added to this feeling, as shadows combined with sounds and an active imagination to bring the past, once more, to life. One sequence in particular aroused the atmosphere of pre-battle anticipation and the steeling of nerves, segueing seamlessly through the point of no return to when men throw themselves into the fight.
In an upper chamber of the fort, in a numbered room, was the source of the sound. An old wooden shelving unit, usually used to display pamphlets and brochures had been transformed into a speaker unit by an octopus mass of cables running across its surface, connecting vibrational devices to an arduino unit hidden inside a cigar box. This strange intermingling of wood and electronics sited within the heavy stone walled room was a curious but candid approach to presentation, creating a sculptural identity that marries different eras without integration but at the same time communicates a sense that the object is far less important than the soundscape it delivers.
Bastion is a piece that successfully adds to the atmosphere of the building from which it was created, recalling the ghosts of its past, combining them with the present, and steering the audience to reflect upon the many lives that have passed through there.
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Resonants
Resonants follows on from work conducted with deaf artist Damien Robinson, in which we investigated the resonant qualities of different materials to use in our tactile sound installations (see Vibe Cube, Signpost). This line of interest in accessibility to sound, and the varying ways in which we all experience things, stemmed from Damien's heightened perception of vibrations and gave us new ideas through which to experience (our) sound works.
Concurrently, my investigations into the resonant qualities of inanimate objects has been the focus of my musical output for several years, with releases and performances.
Resonants is the first time that these two trains of thought have been brought together, to discover the resonant qualities of objects, and for them to be displayed as installations where the vibrations and sounds can be experienced.
As an extension of these ideas, I have also worked on a number of collaborative performances with Jonathan Kipps. We have been experimenting with combinations of static sculptures, transducers, contact mics and different environments in which these collaborations can be experienced. We believe that by giving a duration to static artwork and introducing sound as a physical element, viewers will be able to gain a greater understanding of the object than if they had encountered it in an art gallery. In turn, there will be a heightened sense of the full depth of the soundscape due to the focussed environment created by the presence of a still object.
Release:
7th August 2017 - 12 Inch Polycarbonate Disc (Courier Sound)
Exhibitions:
10-13th November 2022 - Fonema @ Territory @ Lisbon Art Fair, Portugal.
26-28th August 2022 - Duration @ Cuckoo Farm Studios, Colchester
6th July 2018 - May Projects, London (with Jon Kipps)
19th April 2018 - Sonorities Festival, Belfast (with Jon Kipps)
30th October 2015 - PolyphonyX, Green Lanes, London
29th September - 3rd October 2015 >> Bear Pit Residency, Focal Point Gallery, Southend
26th June 2015 - News of the World Gallery, Deptford (with Jon Kipps)
24th June 2015 - The Outsider (with Jon Kipps), Prague Quadrennial
21st February - 22nd March 2015 - TAP Gallery Wall, TAP, Southend
14th April 2014 - Proscenium (with Jon Kipps), Camden People's Theatre, London
15th Nov 2013 - UNderstated (with Jon Kipps), University College London
12th Jan - 24th March 2013 - Resonants 2, TAP Gallery, Southend, Essex -
Confluent: River of Words
As part of the River Stour Trust’s 50th anniversary celebration in 2018, and funded by the Dedham Vale AONB Sustainable Development Fund.
Confluent: River of Words collects and preserves first and second hand accounts from the people who contribute to the conservation and preservation of the river to make the valley an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Stuart presents them as a series of podcasts and text installations at the Granary Tea Room, Sudbury, Suffolk and the RST boats 'Rosette' and 'Edwardian Lady'.
The project launch was on 31st March 2019 at The Granary Tea Room, Sudbury.Contributors
Robert Erith, Robert Baker, Tony Platt, Lesley Ford-Platt, Catherine Smith, Simon Amstutz, Emma Black, Martin Gosling, Brenda Gosling, Sally Bartrum, Nigel Chapman, Dave Dignum, Cat Burrows, Arthur Studd, Mark Prina, Will Akast, Ben Norrington, Adrian Walters. AONB Volunteers: William Ford, Bob Smith, Lorna McGain, Howard Leader, Will Eden, Peter McGain, David Dale, Ian Thompson, Steve Pritchard, Deena Harding. RST Volunteers: Jim Lunn, Paul Roberts. Text contribution: Susannah Robirosa
https://soundcloud.com/stuartbowditch/sets/confluent-river-of-words -
Podcasts
My podcasts are primarily field recordings made locally but also from my travels around the world, from China to Spain, from Palestine to rural Essex. I also make podcasts for others that include interviews with people from all walks of life including allotmenteers, people who work the land, volunteers, crafts people and artists.
Subscribe to my channel using the links below or search for Stuart Bowditch Podcasts in your favourite podcast app.
Apple Podcasts | Tune In | I Heart Radio | Spotify | SoundcloudAlso, listen to podcasts made for Visit Stour Valley.
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Chinese Landscape #2
15 minute field recording of Yantai Zhifu Fish Market, Yantai, Shandong Province, presented as an installation at Between Us: Biennial Conversations and Exchanges - An ongoing dialogue between artists from China and Britain. A Yantai Art Museum, China initiative with originalprojects; Great Yarmouth and University of Suffolk, Ipswich, UK.
Exhibitions
Wednesday 18 September 2019 - Great Yarmouth - Exhibition open, 12 to 6pm, Thursday to Saturday, Ex Marks the Spot, 3-7 King Street, Great Yarmouth NR30 2NF
Wednesday 18 September 2019 - Ipswich - Exhibition opening: 1.30pm, Open: 9am to 4pm Monday Friday, 10am to 4pm Weekends, University of Suffolk, Waterfront Building 19, Neptune Quay, Ipswich IP4 1QJ -
CLASS
Sound design for Scottee & Friends production CLASS, performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and HOME in Manchester 2019.
Scottee grew up around mould, mice and clothes off the market. After a chance meeting with some posh kids, his Mum teaching him to talk proper and him successfully persuading his parents to take him off free school meals Scottee knew he didn’t want to be common.
In his final solo show Scottee uncovers what it is to be embarrassed about where you’re from, how you can pretend to be posher than you are and explores why we all get a thrill playing god with green tokens from Waitrose.
This is a show for the middle classes.
https://www.scottee.co.uk/post/scotteeclass -
Aperture
Part of the InSite public arts programme run by Francis Knight for Medway Council, Christopher Sacre is a visual artist specialising in sculpture, he was paired with Stuart Bowditch a recordist, artist and musician specialising in sound.
During their research time Christopher and Stuart led a series of walks around the Rochester Riverside development site gathering contributions from participants on the sights seen and the sounds heard, which has informed a detailed map of the site and surrounding area.
http://sacrebowditch.tumblr.com/
Their project 'Aperture' is an ear trumpet and and eye lens, one end for listening and one end for looking through. With an accompanying map (available from the local shops and library) of 15 locations indicated by yellow place marks, the public are guided to vantage points to explore the site.
Work was available to the public on Rochester Riverside between 20th June - 15th August 2015 with some installation components remaining until 2019. -
To The Lighthouse
In collaboration with Ruth Philo, a film and two light installations as part of a residency at grove projects, Bury St.Edmunds, Suffolk 2015
Inspired by Virgina Woolf's book of the same name, 'To the Lighthouse' is a new collaboration between painter Ruth Philo and sound artist Stuart Bowditch. They were attracted to Orford Ness, and the lighthouse, as almost mythical places, and were keen to discover what lay inside before the building is lost to the sea. The film brings together their two practices for the first time, as an experiment, and has tried to capture the sense of being safe inside the protective building whilst also being surrounded by the forbidden and wild ness on which it sits. A world within an underworld.
Supported generously by grove projects, the first exhibition of the works featured a film in the main gallery and light based installations in the shed and pantry.Exhibitions:
April - July 2016 >> The Big Screen, Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea
19th September 2015 >> grove, Bury St.Edmunds -
Value
Inspired by discussions with Laura Keeble, and her work 'What is an Artist Worth?' I have begun developing a series of works about my own artistic pay, value and worth.
Value Map is a variant of an ever expanding visual representation of my life's work. Several years ago my website was modelled on the National Rail website, with lines representing type of work, stations being projects, my CV the timetable...you get the drift. This map is the only remnant of that idea.
For Value Map I replaced all project names and with the amount of money I had earned for them. Some projects are ongoing, such as my musical releases which sell slowly after the initial glut, so this offers a snapshot in time with values earned up until that moment (November 2014).'Value.gif' takes the focus on earnings a little further, exposing the details of who I worked for, what the job was and how much I earned for that job, during teh financial year 2014-15.
Yes, I earned under £8,000 for that year. It hasn't been the first time. I'm going to expand on those details next.Exhibitions:
21st July - 19th September 2015, Graphics Interchange Format: 25 years of Focal Point Gallery, Southend (value.gif)
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UN
UN (Stuart Bowditch and Jon Kipps) invite artists and musicians to come together in new collaborations and create new work inspired by a series of UNexplored spaces.
Can you think of one piece of artwork that you really know? …REALLY know? Have you ever spent enough time with an artwork to really know it? Some things can only be realized with time. How long did it take for you to realize something about it you never noticed in the first instance? Was someone else’s reaction the same? How did it differ? What did you, and they, struggle with? What if someone was there to guide you through the piece? What if you were being guided not with words but with sounds? What would that change or accentuate about the piece? What space would be created? What if this all happened in a place you had never been to before? What if it happened in a place you would probably never return to either? What if every element of this equation was a one off?
The events will enable audiences to spend a short and intimate time in a space that has inspired the collaborative works they are experiencing. Taking place in undisclosed venues, the events are to be as ephemeral as the histories of the spaces they inhabit.
At the event all doors will be shut, mobile phones switched off and the artists are encouraged to make the most of a captive and undistracted audience.
This project has no funding attached. All the venues, sound systems, lights etc have been sourced for free. The events are purely about giving the opportunity for people to get to know an artwork and a sound piece, enjoy the relationship between the two and experience it all in a place that has a day to day function of neither gallery nor concert venue. Each event only takes an hour of your day and you will experience something genuinely unique.
There have been four events so far. More are anticipated in the future.
https://unhyphen-blog.tumblr.com/ -
Vibe Cube
Vibe³ (Vibe Cube) is a sound installation incorporating collected, donated, and archived sounds that express the “spirit of place”. Part of the Genius Loci/OpenSpace Programme, it was commissioned by Essex County Council.
Between January and September 2009, residents of Colchester, Harlow and Basildon were invited to submit both recordings and ideas for recordings which reflect the history, character, and the unique feel of their area – anything from wildlife to nightlife. As well as the public submissions, artists Damien Robinson and Stuart Bowditch collected foundsounds and researched the sound archives at Essex Sound and Video Archive. The recordings were collected and redeveloped into an ever-changing sound mix, which was played back via the Vibe³ itself. The Cube was exhibited at locations in the towns and extracts from the work have been uploaded to the Vibe³ website. The Vibe³ itself is not just a sound experience; using an innovative form of technology, it becomes a resonating instrument where sounds can be experienced by touch as well as heard.
At the close of the original project (09-10) we donated all the collected recordings to the Essex Sound Archive, to help to form a more detailed historical picture of our county, capturing it's essence during the project period and showing how it is changing.Exhibitions
2009
14 - 18th May > Basildon Centre (Foyer area) St. Martin's Square, Basildon
25th - 28th June > Harlow Library (exhibition area), The High, Harlow
23 - 27th July > Colchester Library (Les Livres Gallery), Trinity Square, Colchester
20th - 24th August > Essex Record Office (home of Essex Sound Archive) Wharf Rd, Chelmsford
11th - 13th September > Vibe³ was shown alongside our derivative version Vibe³ C, commissioned by Cuckoo Farm Studios for Outside 092010
20th March - ambient.tv, London
28 - 30th May - Accidental Festival, Battersea Arts Centre
2011
15th June > National Sensory Conference, Stansted2013
20 - 28th September > Chelmsford Sensory Festival, Anglia Ruskin University
2017
Vibe Cube CD on Essex Sound Archive's dedicated soundcloud page. The Vibe³ CD was acquired by the British Library in 2017 as part of their collection. -
AWSoM
AWSoM (Ambient Weather Sound Machine), site-specific sound work in collaboration with Damien Robinson and the MediaShed.
AWSoM is a 'free media' artwork integrating meteorological sensors (temperature, windspeed, direction and motion, barometric pressure) to trigger and manipulate sound samples, creating ambient sound and music responding to changing environmental patterns.
Created with the support of the Mediashed, it was first shown on Two Tree Island in the Thames Estuary. Reclaimed from the sea in the 18th century when a seawall was built around the saltmarsh, it was used for rough grazing until 1910 when a sewage farm was built on its eastern tip. In 1936 Southend Borough Council acquired the whole island and used it as a rubbish tip until the 1970s. Now an Essex Wildlife Trust nature reserve, as a site with a history interwoven with rubbish and reclaimation, it challenged us to consider relationships between site, natural environment and trash consumerism.
AWSoM requires sounds to be recorded in the locale where it is exhibited; the relationship between the site and the sounds recorded there give each version of AWSoM a unique signature. Additionally, the dynamic weather data of each “performance” means that even shown on a single site, AWSoM is ever-changing.2007
April > Presentation at Enter_Unknown Territories: International Festival for New Technology Art, Cambridge
May > AWSoM launch and live performance, Two Tree Island, Southend
June > Exhibited at Bang & Olufsen, Leigh on Sea (Leigh Arts Trail)
July > Live performance and exhibition at Sutton with Shopland Festival, Essex
August > Live performance and exhibition at Banff New Media Institute, Canada, as part of Interactive Screen 0.7 -
Play Your Place
Sound design for Play Your Place computer games devised in Southend Westminster.
ABOUT PLAY YOUR PLACE
Play Your Place is an open artwork and game-building game created by artists, programmers, and imaginative citizens to develop a collective vision for a richer, emancipated life for all beings in all places.
People bring their expertise to game-jam events and through two imaginative world-forming activities: drawing and play. They swap their experiences and aspirations; they pinpoint obstacles to a good life, the tools by which these are overcome, and the rewards of success. In the process they create the resources and rules for polemical online platform games that can then be tested, remixed, relished and redistributed in epic play-sessions.
Where once the boundaries between the worlds of atoms and bits were marked by screens and passwords, chips and implants are now on or in our bodies, devices and appliances. The architecture and maintenance of the web, and the infrastructures of the Internet that underpin it are of consequence to us all. We are in the web, we are its users. The web is in us and upon us.
BACKGROUND TO PLAY YOUR PLACE
Play Your Place grew from conversations between artists, writers and Southend planners and residents about how people could get involved in planning decisions in their town. This formed the foundation for an artists’ residency for Ruth Catlow (Furtherfield, UK) and Dr Mary Flanagan (Tiltfactor, USA) and author Rachel Lichtenstein (UK) hosted by Metal in 2010. We have since created games about places with residents and visitors to Southend, South Westminster, Classroom N4 and the Alt_Cph ‘14 alternative arts festival in Copenhagen.
https://www.furtherfield.org/play-your-place-play-the-web-we-want/ -
Logical Thinking
Boom operator and sound recording for a short film Directed and Produced by James Wilsher of Be Good Productions.
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Team Hadleigh
Interviews and sound editing to create content for a web based mobile app, part of Team Hadleigh, 2012.
Team Hadleigh was an Essex County Council led Heritage Lottery Funded project which aimed to showcase the fascinating heritage and culture of Hadleigh, Essex, associated with the Olympics Mountain biking events at Hadleigh Country Park.
School children from Hadleigh Junior School and Westwood Academy researched local heritage with help of Hadleigh and Thundersley Community Archive. Research along with artwork and audio interviews lead directly into the mobile web app and audio guide as well as the creation of several large-scale textiles by local volunteers at Hadleigh Old Fire Station.
I interviewed a wide cross-section of the community to unearth local people's memories of the area and highlight the places that really matter to them. Local historians and specialists were also interviewed to give insights into the history of Hadleigh Salvation Army Colony, Hadleigh Castle and the Country Park to create an engaging and informative tour which was accessible on wands from the local library as well as the mibile phone app.
All design of a full suite of marketing materials for the proejct, and images supplied for this website by Front Media.
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High Hi Rise
Sound editing and post production for short film High Hi Rise, by We Are Tape (Jan Dixon and Emily Dixon) 2009.
A film about people, preconceptions and 1960’s concrete.
http://film-directory.britishcouncil.org/hi-high-rise
Hi High Rise is the first short film by photographic partnership TAPE and is shot entirely on a digital SLR.
This documentary aims to challenge preconceptions associated with tower block living in the UK and celebrates the successful community of Hornchurch Court. -
The Chatterbox Project
Sound recording, editing and installation for The Chatterbox Project by Elsa James and Sarah Buckle in 2013.
The Chatterbox Project was created working collaboratively with the pupils from Milton Hall; one of Southend’s most culturally diverse primary schools. The project brought a public awareness to the school’s thirty-eightspoken mother tongue languages by producing a large-scale sound installation to showcase at Metal’s 2013 Village Green Festival.
The festival was attended by over 20,000 visitors. Selected pupils participated in creative workshops at the school before recording individual ‘sound bites’ in their mother tongue language which related to their favourite things about Southend.
Full list of languages spoken: Czech, Bengali, Wolof, Latvian, Dutch, Swahili, Gaelic, Tamil, Iranian (Farsi), French, Cambodian, Polish, Punjabi, Portuguese, Gujarati, Yoruba, Igbo, Urdu, Shona, Kurdish, Cantonese, Somali, Italian, Hindi, Tagalog, Roma, Arabic, Greek, Albanian, Twi (Akan), Ghanaian, Malayalam, Mandarin, Nepali, Kamampangan, Thai, Chechen, Lithuanian.
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On The Line
Series of workshops with Baron's Court Infant School in Southend-on-Sea 2013, with sound recording, sampling and music production resulting in a song made entirely from the sound of trains (recorded at Mangapps Railway Museum) pressed on to a dubplate played back on a 1950's radiogram.
On The Line was an ambitious and unique arts project conceived by Metal, which took place in 22 schools along the South Essex banks of the River Thames from Thurrock to Shoeburyness. Each school was working with an artist, across a variety of artistic disciplines, to create artworks, literature and new artefacts that respond to the connection between the River Thames, the railway line and their community.
These works were brought together to create the ON THE LINE exhibition at Metal’s Chalkwell Hall, open to the public for a month during the summer of 2013 and again for 10 days in September as part of The London Mayor’s Thames Festival.
http://www.metalculture.com/projects/line-3/ -
The Butler's Portion
Live performance (with Adam Conway) for art installation by David Watkins and Josh Langan 2015
Dave David Productions presents 'The Butler's Portion' a week long residency and collaboration at Focal Point Gallery, Southend on Sea 17th October 2015.
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Journey to the Podium
Sound recording and composition for installation for Journey to the Podium, in collaboration with Paralympian Powerlifter Adam Alderman, and mentoring of art student Thomas Love as part of Journey to the Podium, a London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games commission by Essex County Council, 2012. Installation fabrication by Walter Wilson Reid.
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The Duellists
Sound recording and composition for film 'The Duellists' Directed by David Valentine, Choreographed by Methods of Movement, Performed by Joe Livermore and James Hall. Commissioned and screened as part of Futuresonic 2007 in Manchester.
Screenings
Nordic Art School: 17th April 2007 Kokkola, Finland unofficial preview screening of the rough cut without soundtrack at evening lecture by David Valentine for students and teachers
E²Prom, Nordic Art School: 20th April 2007 Kokkola, Finland unofficial preview screening of the rough cut without soundtrack at E²Prom digital arts event being held as part of The Gift, Talent and Creativity International Seminar
Enter_Unknown Territories Festival 2007: 28th April Cambridge, UK official preview screening with unfinished soundtrack at Arts Picture House (cinema) with introduction by David Valentine as part of Art in the Expanded Field, a Futuresonic Presentation
Enter_Unknown Territories Festival 2007: 25th-29th April Cambridge UK preview screenings with unfinished soundtrack in the temporary MediaShed in Parker's Piece as part of Art in the Expanded Field, a Futuresonic Presentation
Futuresonic Festival 2007: Art for Shopping Centres 10th - 20th May 2007 Manchester, UK first official screenings of the finished film, screened continuously (loop play) using the infrastructure and shops of the Manchester Arndale shopping centre for 10 days
BBC NW Evening News/Breakfast News: 10th/11th May 2007, interview pieces and information on Futuresonic Festival - 4 million viewers – did they show extracts from the film?
Manchester Evening News: 10th May 2007 extract from the film on MEN website to accompany on-line and print news article
Futuresonic Festival 2007: Art for Shopping Centres 12th May Manchester, UK screened inside ‘Scotts’ clothing store in the Manchester Arndale shopping centre with an introduction and Q+A by David Valentine
Lovebytes Festvial 2007: 19th May Sheffield, UK screening at Access Space as part of a Mediashed/Futuresonic workshop on CCTV filmmaking entitled Video Sniffin’
Sonar 2007: 14th-16th June 2007 Barcelona, Spain screened continuously in Futuresonic area (loop play) during the festival as part of Futursonic presence
Leigh Art Trail 2007: 9th -16th June Leigh-on-Sea, UK screened continuously at Bang & Olufsen alongside previous CCTV movies made by David Valentine as part of a presentation of work by MediaShed
Futuresonic Festival 2007 workshop: 3rd June 2007: Manchester, UK screened at Contact Theatre as part of a Futuresonic/MediaShed workshop on CCTV filmmaking entitled Video Sniffin'
E²Prom, MediaShed: 17th June 2007 Southend-on-Sea, UK screened at E²Prom digital arts event
Source Code: Eyebeam Gallery 31st May - 11th August 2007 New York, US: continuous screening (loop play) in exhibition celebrating 10 years of technology based projects
Apple Store Manchester Arndale: 23rd August 2007 Manchester UK screened at the end of a music composition workshop with the Manchester Halle Orchestra with original and new soundtrack composed by young people aged 11-18
sidewalkCINEMA: 30th August - 8th September 2007 Vienna, Austria screened on the streets of Vienna – winner Audience 3rd Prize
Ars Electronica: 26 September 2007 Linz, Austria screened as part of a MediaShed talk at Goodbye Privacy sympiosium
www.reelshow.tv September/October, on-line IPTV channel film magazine show – features interviews with David Valentine and Hybernation cut together with excerpts from the film followed by a screening of the whole film.
Video Vortex: Montevideo/Time Based Arts, Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst 20th October – 2nd December 2007, Amsterdam screened continuously (loop play)
Arte.MOV 15th - 18th November 2007 Belo Horizonte, Brazil to be screened continuously (loop play) at the international media art festival alongside access to the MediaShed website
Big Issue Film Festival, Barbican London, UK, 27th-29th November 2007, film screened on the 27th November (gala awards ceremony 29th November 2007) short listed for the Big Issue Film Festival Award
Surveillance season, South Hill Park, Bracknell, Berkshire, UK: 1st December 2007 – 20th January 2008 screened continuously with other surveillance themed films from dusk until 11pm in Atrium Bar during season of surveillance exhibitions, same set up for gallery preview on 30th November 2007 plus screening in 60 seat cinema 18th January 2008 as part of Conspiracy Dwellings symposium http://www.digitalmediacentre.org
Power & Space Conference 7th-8th December 2007 Cambridge, UK screened continuously (loop play) for the duration of the conference with a selection of other films about the usage of urban space and architecture -
Garry
Sound design, editing and music licensing for use in the play Garry, written by Sophie Treadwell in 1954 and Directed by Graham Watts at White Bear Theatre, Kennington in 2019.
Reviews
A Spy In The Stalls
The Guardian
The Plays The Thing -
Words From The Street
Words from the Street is Stuart Bowditch's second collection of poetry, written between 1999 and 2010.
http://www.estuarinepress.uk/words-from-the-street.html
The poems have been inspired by everyday scenes, encounters and observations made in the public domain, both in Stuart's home town of Southend-on-Sea, and surrounding areas: Colchester, London, Norwich, Reykjavik, Melbourne. The format of the book has been inspired by the Ordnance Survey map and is printed on a folded sheet of A1, which also includes a hand drawn map of Southend indicating the actual places where some of the encounters happened.
The book was published by Estuarine Press in February 2011. Edition of 200.