Chris Davies asked me to do something at Bleeding Hearts Club in February, and I decided to try out my new setup which includes a contact mic’d metal tray, Raspberry Pi with a Pisound HAT, small mixer, and the usual array of effects. Here’s a picture of it:

I like this setup as its nice and compact, it all fits in a small suitcase so I can take it on the train to performances.

I’m a big fan of Chris Marker and have been wanting to do something related to his work for a while. I chose Theorie des Ensembles, and An Owl is an Owl is an Owl with a view to improvising a new soundtrack to them.

In Theorie des Ensembles two owls explain set theory to Noah on his ark. The images were made in an early version of multimedia authoring tool Hyperstudio, and have a fantastically odd texture. The original soundtrack is a piece by Alfred Schnittke.

An Owl is and Owl is an Owl is the third in the series Chris Marker’s Bestiary and is a series of shots of owls looking slightly mysterious.

The performance went pretty well, Matt Benzie made a nice recording of it which I laid over the visuals. I’m pleased with the result, here it is: