Alucita 
ame research & development residency 02
Andie Brown : Exploring glass as material

ame is honoured to present Brown’s residency with us, Alucita. Her residency has been an in-depth examination on glass as material in relation to her PhD research. In collaboration with James Bradbury, she has developed new tools to investigate how wine glasses could resonate in specific places. In light of the new national lockdown, we are sadly unable to host an exhibition of Brown’s work in Dai Hall but check out the video made by the artist and Stephen Harvey.

Meet the artist Andie Brown zoom presentation is on 13th November 18:00 – 19:00
(sold out – to be on the waiting list)

artist residency with ame : by Andie Brown

‘I began to work with glass around 2007, experimenting with different sizes, shapes and amplification techniques. At the time, I hadn’t considered that I would carry on working with it much beyond a one off recording or a gig or two but 13 years later I am still experimenting and finding new ways to work with the material. Between 2012 and 2016 I undertook an undergraduate degree in Music Technology and Sound for Media, where I started to work with max msp and made my first sound installation. In 2017 I moved from London to Huddersfield and started a PhD, which has allowed me the time to really focus on my practice and carry out further research in this area. The residency with ame allowed me to focus on making a new piece, working in a more collaborative way with composer-programmer James Bradbury to develop a specific set of tools for harmonic processing and automation of the instrument, based on my previous work and research.

I’ve always been interested in the way you can hear the harmonics of the glass when played by hand or with a bow and I wanted to find a way to enhance and control these with the automated glass harp. I explored this earlier this year with my work Alucita I (an audio visual installation for one glass) and worked with James who built a set of max patches which allowed me to track the fundamental frequency of a sounding object (the glass) and manually control the harmonic partials. Using this work as a prototype, I decided to carry forward these ideas into a larger installation with James again building modules for me in max. Each glass is sounded by a transducer which emits a sine tone at its own resonant frequency, causing the glass to vibrate and ring. The resulting audio signal is sent into a max patch which takes the fundamental pitch of the glass and allows control, automation and playback of the harmonic content.

In past installations, I coded every part of the score into the max patch so that every compositional decision was pre-determined. However, in this installation I decided to give the patch a number of options which would then play stochastically, for example, two glasses out of eight might play in unison, followed by one playing solo, followed by four glasses etc. Each set of instructions was designed to be harmonically sympathetic to any of these combinations, through the selection and tuning of the glasses themselves. When I was thinking about how I wanted this installation to sound, I imagined a giant wheezy glass organ and I think I achieved that.

The installation was due to be exhibited in November at ame’s Dai Hall but unfortunately had to be cancelled due to the ongoing pandemic. In place of an exhibition, I recorded and filmed the installation at my home studio and the resulting film was edited by Stephen Harvey. I’d like to thank Ryoko, Stephen and Charlotte at ame for their support, and James for his work and patience.’

Andie Brown 

is a musician, artist, maker and researcher who began her music career as a bass player in her teens. In 2007 Andie began performing and recording as a solo artist under the name These Feathers Have Plumes.

Over the last 12 years Andie has been experimenting with glass and electronics, creating what she has termed an “augmented glass harp”. Andie has performed extensively as a solo artist and has collaborated with a diverse range of artists in ensemble works including at Tate Britain and White Cube Gallery. Andie also performs and records with artist and vocalist Sharon Gal.

Since 2016 Andie has been working with sound installation, which is now the focus of her work. In 2017 she began a practice-based PhD at CeReNeM, University of Huddersfield and in 2019 Andie was one of six recipients of the annual PRSF Oram Awards.