JAMES WATKINS PHOTOGRAPHY

SIREN

Ray Lee - Creator and Performer

"Siren is a whirling, spinning spectacle of mechanical movement, electronic sound and light. A forest of large metal tripods, up to 3m tall, have rotating arms that spin around, powered by electric motors. Hand built electronic tone generators power loudspeakers at the end of each arm, creating an extraordinary sonic texture of pulsing electronic drones. Small LEDs at the end of the arms trace circles of light as the arms rapidly rotate, creating a compelling visual image. The audience, kept at a safe distance from the whirling arms by a safety barrier, can move freely about the space and experience different sonic and visual perspectives of the work. Meanwhile the performers move about within the mass of swirling metal machinery, operating their machines and tuning oscillators to change the musical composition while dodging and ducking the rapid movement of the rotating arms. This "choir of rotating sirens" creates an audio-visual spectacle that is essentially a live experience. Wherever you stand in the space it sounds and looks different. As the arms rotate, the sound pulses past the listener and a Doppler-like effect, while the cluster of closely tuned oscillators creates a rich and pervasive sound world. A minimalist phasing of the rhythmic pulses emerges as the varying speeds of rotation of the arms makes the pulsing tones phase against each other in a constantly evolving polyrhythmic structure. The closeness of the tuning of the separate tones sets off a series of amazing overtones that evoke the sense of an ethereal choir."

My fellow photographer friend Mario and I recently viewed a 'Siren' performance. We both took our cameras and took the opportunity to make some images. The ambient lights were turned on for the majority of the performance, so we only had a small window of darkness to experiment in. Interesting, the differences in our photographs.

JAMES WATKINS

MARIO GRELLER

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