From dark to light

Here I am back in 2022, stumbling around in the dark in front of a night-vision camera, hoping to receive a signal. It was part of a field trip to Durlston Country Park in Dorset with Megan Calver - and it's found its way into our new moving image work The Signal and the Noise.

Recent years have been quite a struggle for me (and I know I'm not the only one) - earning a living while sustaining an art practice, collaborating with others while holding on to some space for myself, and making endless applications for funding, commissions and shows...quite apart from the difficult life (and world) stuff that's been going on.

When I became seriously ill last year and was forced to take time out, I thought twice before re-entering the fray. But I'm glad I did because 2024 has been such a creatively enriching year. I was lucky enough to be awarded ACE DYCP funding to explore moving image practice. Over 8 months, it feels as if I've been topped up with the energy I need to create and develop new work, when previously it felt like every new project was a further drain on an almost-empty tank.

I've had amazing contributions from my long-term collaborator Megan Calver, who did a lot of the groundwork for this film with me during our previous projects Clouded Border and Delicate Instruments, as well as joining me to generate new footage and giving valuable feedback during the editing process - all this, while coping with her own challenging circumstances. Thank you, Megan.

The film has also benefited enormously from the generous mentoring and support of Luke Hagan, Liberty Smith and Kate Paxman, as well as the many discussions I had with the DOCLAB group at Exeter Phoenix and my peers at CAMP. And a special mention for Jez Riley French, who really opened my ears on a field recording course last October.

It's not all been plain sailing - from time to time, I've been very stressed, tired and lost. I also know that when the DYCP ends (soon), there are considerable hurdles ahead.

But I'm looking forward to 2025 with some personal optimism - and hoping the wider world turns out to be a brighter, kinder place too.

Sharing the time of talk

The whistle draws attention to the signal | 2024 | Work in progress, painted objects

Looking back to the group exhibition Through Line, curated by Adam Garratt, which ran 14 July to 3 August 2024 at Maltings Taphouse Gallery, Newton Abbot.

The whistle draws attention to the signal was a site-specific piece inspired by the Belgian philosopher of science Vinciane Despret and her observations on pausing and listening in birdsong. Referencing bioacoustician Bernie Krause, she says that birds are ‘sharing the time of talk'. She suggests they use territory as a pretext for making song and may sing to create ties with neighbours rather than to ward them off.

 

Megan Calver and I drew on imagery from bird identification and railway signalling manuals to reimagine human-avian interactions in the local environment. We set out to make tools for coordinating sound and movement, seeing parallels in train signalling and dispatch systems, and also the rules of sport. Our collection of objects - including bats and whistles - offered the potential for performance or play and were designed to invite reflection on ideas of joining in and taking turns.

Placed in the vast space of the Maltings Taphouse Gallery, they included symbols for the herring gull, feral pigeon, blackbird and pied wagtail - all spotted around the station when preparing for the show. There are also references to the old-fashioned 'distant' and 'home' trackside warning signals.

Some of these objects were presented close to hand, ready to put into play, and some far away across the deep, dark depths of the warehouse space. During the private view, Megan and I did a series of call-and-response tweets from our own two whistles.

Disclosing signals for DECENNIUM

Clouded Border (Gorse Cone) | 2022-24 | Detail of vitrine

 

Clouded Border (Gorse Cone) | 2022-24
3m 23s of 16:9 digital video with sound, vitrine with monoprint on paper roll, photograph, laser-cut card maquette, cricket clicker, falconry whistle, upturned glass and ampoules of gorse scent

Looking back at DECENNIUM, Hestercombe Gallery's 10th Anniversary show. which was also Tim Martin's penultimate show as curator there. Megan Calver and I showed Clouded Border (Gorse Cone), a video work made at Durlston Country Park in 2022, alongside a new collection of objects accumulated over the previous year as we reflected on the legacy of the influential World War Two engineer and paranormal researcher Alec Harley Reeves.

The video records the intervention of a paper cone in the landscape that both amplified the interaction between gorse and wind, and drew the attention of passing bees. We were responding to the site’s history as a lookout and World War II signalling station. Traces of the wartime ground station with its large receiving dish have all but disappeared. The work reflects on the layers of history that lie over and under the site and discloses signals from the more-than-human that might pass beneath normal human perception.

DECENNIUM ran from 23rd March to 7th July 2024 at Hestercombe Gardens, Cheddon Fitzpaine, Taunton, Somerset TA2 8LG. It also included work by Tania Kovats, Helen Sear, Simon Faithfull, Alex Hartley, Mariele Neudecker, Philippa Lawrence, Sarah Bennett, Trish Morrissey, Susan Derges, John Newling, Feral Practice, Brendan Barry, Sophy Rickett, Liz Nicol, Jo Lathwood, Lucy Soni, Fiona Hingston, Simon Bayliss and Rebecca Partridge.

Feasting on Film

I've been at the 2024 Aesthetica Short Film Festival, running all over York, trying to see as many screenings as possible. Over two days, I managed to cram in a total of 34 from the Artist Film, Experimental and Documentary categories, plus four more at the Listening Pitch event, which included the premieres of Liberty Smith's Greensound and Ornella Mutoni's The Things We Don't Say.

I feel very lucky to have been able to immerse myself in so much amazing work by so many truly talented film-makers. Difficult to pick favourites from such a diverse range of films, but I loved Tender Loving Care by Katrina Pulit, Don't Tell Peanut by Marc Horowitz, Eternal Father by Omer Sami, The Ban by Roisin Agnew, Thirst by Kristina Norman and Patient by Lori Felker.

This trip followed close on the heels of the Purbeck Shorts Competition in Swanage on 3rd November, where my favourite among 17 films (though not a winner) was Nothing Odd About That by Olof Berghe.

Thanks to Arts Council England for enabling the visit to York as part of my DYCP funding to inform and develop my moving image practice.

The Art of Located Sound

Field recording with omnidirectional mics (mounted on a coat-hanger)
 at West Dean College

In an attempt to tune into more-than-human sounds and signals (and maybe even record some usable audio material) I've been on a field recording course run by the brilliant Jez riley French at West Dean College.

Field Recording - The Art of Located Sound was an intensive, practical introduction to sound art with a focus on listening and intuitive approaches rather than technical mastery. That said, I managed to try out omnidirectional, parabolic and contact mics as well as a hydrophone and an electromagnetic coil. I learned the basics of making a good quality field recordings and came away with a whole list of artists, kit, software and ideas to follow up. 

I'm starting to think more deeply about the audio elements of the artist moving image work I'm making with Megan Calver as part of my ACE-funded professional development.  The subject of our film, Alec Harley Reeves, developed a World War II radio navigation system that guided pilots to their targets by sound alone - so paying keen attention to the audio elements of the work feels important.

It was a challenging weekend, but I've learnt so much. I first came to West Dean a couple of decades ago when I was trying out lots of different art processes ahead of embarking on a fine art degree. I loved it then and I love it still. Thanks to the Edward James Foundation, artists and art students are able to study in the extraordinary setting of the West Dean Estate.  It was a treat to return to these idyllic surroundings and open my ears to them - from bird song and passing planes to singing fences and crackling grass clippings. 

Studio Kind Summer Open 2024

 

The Studio Kind Summer Open in Barnstaple is now closed but you can take a virtual tour

Megan Calver and I showed Salt cat (keeps them at home), which concerns the breeding and keeping of pigeons, and seemed appropriate to a gallery housed in a former corn store. 

This screen print draws on a site-specific installation created for Open-Up at Hestercombe Gardens 2020-21. Salt-cat was a type of cake made by pigeon breeders to entice their birds to stay or return home. The installation included 16 fragments of text relating to this historic practice, three of which are included in this print. The edition was printed by George Barron at Double Elephant Print Workshop in Exeter.

Copies are available from my online shop for £60 including UK postage and packing

Signal and noise

 

Work in progress | 2024

After a six-week break preparing and installing for the Through Line exhibition, I've now re-immersed myself in film-making - learning to edit as I edit for a forthcoming moving image work. I've decided to take an organic approach to editing - putting things together to see how they work rather than following a precise pre-arranged plan. 

It's a significant challenge, requiring days of intensive effort - and plenty of trial and error.  Especially error. I've had some amazing input from mentors including Liberty Smith and Luke Hagan, my peers at DOCLAB, as well as my collaborator Megan Calver. But in the end it's just me and the footage, and I have to find a way to make sense of it. 

We have a complex story to tell about the engineer Alec Harley Reeves and his invention of a ground-breaking radio navigation system that allowed World War II pilots to navigate by sound alone. Reeves took an unconventional approach to solving engineering problems, which included taking long walks and consulting with the spirit of Michael Faraday. 

Reeves spent his professional life in radio communications trying to extract signal from noise: he invented pulse code modulation, the foundation of digital communications. However, in his parallel but equally rigorous psychical investigations, he set out to generate random noise, in which signals from the more than human could - he was convinced - be found. 

Megan and I both have strong attachments to Purbeck, where Reeves worked during 1941. We've been looking for signals that might point at past activity there, even though the most of the physical remains of its WWII history are lost. 

Following our shoot in Purbeck in May, we have budget for one more bout of filming and then it will be be case of working with what we've got. It will move from being the film that I have in my head to being the film that we've actually made. I'm trying to be kind to myself and say as it's a first attempt, it will inevitably be a little bit creaky. But having the DYCP funding is a great privilege - and I want to make the best of it.

Through Line

I'm delighted to be showing some new site-based work made with Megan Calver alongside other Exeter colleagues from CAMP.

Through Line brings together 14 members of CAMP who live in or near Exeter. It presents an opportunity to make new work or finish an existing work with group dynamics in mind. The exhibition space sits trackside to Newton Abbot railway station, a physical through line between Exeter and Plymouth that connects two of the larger cohorts of CAMP’s activity in Devon.

Adam Garratt | Alice Clough | Catherine Cartwright | 

Erika Cann | Frances Williams | Francesca Giuliano | 

Gabrielle Hoad & Megan Calver | Jane Jobling | 

Janet Sainsbury | Penny Simons | Sarah Bennett | 

Stella Tripp | Sue Wyllie

Curated by Adam Garratt

Saturday 13 July - Saturday 3 August
Opening Event Saturday 13 July 1500-1900

Maltings Taphouse Gallery, Teign Road, Newton Abbot TQ12 4AA

Sound and vision

Gabrielle Hoad & Megan Calver | Work in progress - Swanage Town Beach | 2024

Just back from an exhausting few days at Durlston Country Park in Dorset, creating footage for a forthcoming artist moving image work.  I had high hopes but, at the same time, didn't dare expect too much. It was a small crew - me, Megan Calver and Tim King - and it was also my first time setting out specifically to gather material for editing rather than just to document activity.  It requires a very different mindset and real persistence when the light or the weather (or sometimes the kit) don't behave as planned.  

It was gruelling. We would be up early to catch the tide or weather and still be reviewing footage and planning the next day's activity right up until 10 or 11 at night. But that sort of intensity also has advantages, firing off new connections between ideas and allowing you to start to see the shape of your future film. 

After a slightly shaky start we quickly became absorbed in the process and more confident in handling the equipment. The point where the kit stops being a hurdle and becomes a tool is a magical one.

There is also the chance of happy accidents, such as conversations with curious passers-by that suggested new ideas. And on one occasion, a pod of dolphins coming into view as we filmed out to sea. I was reluctant to pack up the camera and come home.

Taking time

I feel immensely grateful to have been awarded a Developing Your Creative Practice grant by Arts Council England. This funding is specifically to allow individual practitioners to take time to focus on their creative development. I will be using mine to feed my growing interest in moving image work. Until now, I've used digital video in a very simple way, and primarily for documentation. I want to master more complex recording and editing techniques and to 'play' with the technology.

I'll be developing material and footage for a film that draws on the the legacy of Alec Harley Reeves (1902-1971), the influential inventor and psychic researcher. This will include looking at the potential of technology to generate ‘supernatural’ phenomena (eg interference and ghosting). Above all, it's a valuable period of risk-taking and experimentation where, for once, I'm accountable but I'm not working to the deadlines of an exhibition or commission.

Running from April to December, it's a self-designed package of hands-on 'learning by doing' supplemented with mentoring from experts and peers. Megan Calver will act as a creative consultant on the film, collaborating with me to utilise our joint research and practice to date that's focused on revealing hidden signals beyond human senses.

Having been rejected by ACE far more often than awarded, I'm only too aware of how defeated some other artists will be feeling right now. If you're one of them, I hope you manage to pick yourself up and try again. Funds are short, competition is fierce and no matter how good your application, you also need a big dose of luck. It was my turn this time, and I'm very grateful.

DECENNIUM

Gabrielle Hoad & Megan Calver | Clouded Border (Gorse Cone) | 2022-24

I'm really pleased to be part of Hestercombe Gallery's 10th Anniversary show - DECENNIUM - alongside Tania Kovats, Helen Sear, Simon Faithfull, Alex Hartley, Mariele Neudecker, Philippa Lawrence, Sarah Bennett, Trish Morrissey, Susan Derges, John Newling, Feral Practice, Brendan Barry, Sophy Rickett, Liz Nicol, Jo Lathwood, Lucy Soni, Fiona Hingston, Simon Bayliss and Rebecca Partridge. 

Megan Calver and I will be showing Clouded Border (Gorse Cone), a video work made at Durlston Country Park in 2022, alongside a new collection of objects accumulated over the past year as we've reflected on the legacy of the influential World War Two engineer and paranormal researcher Alec Harley Reeves.

DECENNIUM runs from 23rd March to 7th July 2024

Hestercombe Gardens, Cheddon Fitzpaine, Taunton, Somerset TA2 8LG

More details at https://www.hestercombe.com/whats-on/decennium

(Notes Towards) A Natural History of War

Gabrielle Hoad | (Notes Towards) A Natural History of War | 2024

“Perhaps the most striking aspect of the outdoor world is its peacefulness. Wander where you will along country lanes and footpaths, through deep woodlands or on the dunes and beaches of the sea coast, you cannot fail to notice the absence of organized hostility and open strife. Yet this apparent peace is in truth superficial. It cloaks a never-ending conflict, a relentless struggle to the death…”

The Wonders of Nature illustrated by C.F. Tunnicliffe (1940)

I encountered The Wonders of Nature during a residency with Megan Calver for our project Clouded Border (2021-22). Published in 1940, it turned out to be a useful signpost for a body of work that brought together the World War II landscape of Durlston and its current peacetime status as a National Nature Reserve. This extract, from a chapter entitled ‘War and Peace in Nature’, is attributed to Harold Bastin (1875-1962), a British entomologist, botanist, zoologist and photographer.

I remain curious about the effect of war on nature writing and how far authors writing during, between and just after the two World Wars saw the environment around them through the lens of conflict. The images above are extracted from a new short text that draws on accounts of the behaviour of wildlife during wartime as well as the frequent appropriation of terminology from the natural world to name military hardware and campaigns. It’s a work in progress that might become a publication – a sort of ‘bestiary’ perhaps – or part of the text within a collaborative moving image work.

 

Thanks to Lizzie Lloyd and my Camp Kin at the recent Camp Membership Writing In/As Art workshop for prompting me to take the plunge and make a proper start on this text, which has been hovering around me for a quite a while.

Curator Space Artist Bursary Award

Gabrielle Hoad & Megan Calver | Clouded Border | 2021-22

I'm pleased to announce I've been awarded an artist bursary by CuratorSpace. It will go towards developing a new moving image project built around research and work I've done to date with Megan Calver on the paranormal experiments of World War Two engineer and inventor Alec Harley Reeves.

https://www.curatorspace.com/about/news/curatorspace-artist-bursary--gabrielle-hoad/318

Delicate Instruments | Vitrine | 2023

 

Visitors to Delicate Instruments (Vibrating Stillness) at Vitrine, Exeter 2023

“A vibrating stillness like that in a vitrine”

Edmund de Waal quoting Rilke in ‘The Hare with Amber Eyes’ (2010)

Shifting between scientific and psychical thinking, Delicate Instruments suggests new ways to tune into hidden signals from the more-than-human.

Originally shared at the Devon & Exeter Institution as a public participatory event, this iteration was made specially for Vitrine, a shop display cabinet c. 1900 which hosts a series of occasional installations by UK and international artists in the Exeter home of artist and arts educator Sarah Bennett.

Obscured by a veil, the vitrine initially withholds its contents. A closer look reveals them as objects held in unstable equilibrium and sensitive to the slightest stimuli: from trembling paper cases balanced on the points of nails, to indigo carbon paper primed to register subtle touch. The cabinet also contains a number of found objects with the potential to make a sound in response to vibrations in the air – an oboe reed, a lead whistle, a tuning fork.

Some of these instruments are drawn from the realm of psychical experimentation, where they might have been placed in a sealed cabinet to isolate them from air currents and other physical influences. However, on the lowest shelf we set up a miniature electric fan that disturbed the air inside the cabinet sufficiently to cause lighter objects to tremble and spin. It also vibrated quietly, filling the room with a just-audible hum.

We took our title from a description of the famous medium Eusapia Palladino (1854 –1918). Oliver Lodge, who went to investigate her for the Society of Psychical Research, told colleagues it was better not to think of her as a person but as "a delicate instrument". The idea of “unstable equilibrium…sensitive to the slightest stimuli” comes from Richard Noakes quoting William Barratt (1867) in ‘Physics and Psychics’ (2019).

Delicate Instruments (Vibrating Stillness) was made In collaboration with Megan Calver. It was installed at Vitrine, Exeter 25th November - 21st December 2023 and shared with visitors by invitation and appointment on 25th November, 5th December, 9th December and 19th December, as well as informally with Sarah Bennett's family and friends.

What kind of an artist am I?

 

What kind of an artist are you? It’s a question people often ask me, and one I struggle to answer. These days I mostly make sound and moving image works, installations and publications - and organisations and funders sometimes even pay me for it.  BUT I have no one craft skill, no postgraduate qualifications and no studio. 

I tend to learn skills as I need them and if I can't learn them well enough to fulfil a specific project, I hire people to help me out. I did not do an MA, even though I have a research-based and critically engaged practice. Having an MA may suggest you’re more serious about your profession but, in my view, it’s an expensive and time-consuming way to make the point.

But now the question of artists and studios has come up. And that is harder to come to terms with. An artist new to my city has initiated a series of studio visits between Devon artists. It’s a great low-cost, easy-to-manage idea for self-development and networking. But what can I offer if I don’t have a studio?

The city of Exeter is well-known for its dearth of studio space, and it’s always concerned me because it makes it more difficult for artists to settle and thrive here. So, back in the day, I made a genuine effort to address it.  For two years I worked really hard with other artists on setting up a shared studio building in the city centre and a Community Interest Company to run it. But, after a strong start, the project quickly foundered and I didn’t have the energy to start over. I managed to secure space in the city’s only other dedicated studio building. But after about 7 years that was sold off and, struggling with my finances,  I decided I would have to manage at home.

Having no studio has now become normal for me. I work on location, on my computer and on my kitchen table. I’m lucky: I’m not in a tiny flat or house share. I have my own home and in it there’s a small spare room where I keep my materials, kit, research, stock, documentation etc but I have no dedicated space beyond my computer for working. 

The artist new to Exeter said ‘Why not share your inspiration shelf? Everyone has one of those, right?’ Er, no! (She was joking - kind of.) I have a folder on my PC.  That’s my workspace, my headspace.

But it made me think. Should I be content with my unconventional approaches (I seem pretty productive) or should I be concerned about disadvantaging myself?  Am I taking my practice seriously enough? Does the lack of physical space I devote to my art practice reflect the way I squeeze it in around earning a ‘proper’ living? Why do I beg other women artists to take up more space with their work in galleries when I can’t even find proper space for my own practice in my home?

Yes, really, what kind of an artist am I?