Conflux Coldwell

A key investigative aspect of The Remote Viewer than many people missed was the examination of different materialities of the image and how they haunt one another. At several points the digitised artefacts break down revealing their underlying fabric and the illusion of presence that this sustains

Where am I? Lost in the future… from Dismantle the Sun (2015) https://www.instagram.com/p/CrwAjzOMPyD/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

THE REMOTE VIEWER (INSTALLATION) MICHAEL C COLDWELL This work presents two different views of a city which no longer exists. Using archive images of Leeds, the installation explores the photograph as representation of loss – the impossibility of time-travel, despite our saturation in pictures and traces of the past. By placing these artefacts back in the scenes in which they came from, the modern city is re-haunted by a change we can no longer fathom, by the scale of urban transformation which has taken place. Two views of the same city are contrasted. Godfrey Bingley’s vision of a bucolic Headingley, just before its rapid urbanisation, and Leeds Corporation’s record of a condemned slum on Quarry Hill. All of the original images used were taken between 1888 and 1910, but the lost cities they represent seem very different – which is not to say they can be easily categorised – urban or rural, rich or poor, heaven or hell. Rephotography usually tries to take exactly the same photo again, so we can compare then with now. But all these locations have transformed beyond recognition, so here the images of past and present cannot be reconciled. In attempting to take the rephotographs anyway, the form deconstructs itself. Further deconstruction is provided by the accompanying sound, recorded at various stages of the image-making: scanning the glass plates, walking the two areas looking for the disappeared streets, and the sound of the camera itself, recording the new views of Leeds. Quarry Hill is being developed again. We can hear the sound of construction in the background, haunting the old images from the future. #hauntological #installation #rephotography #ambient #noise #fieldrecording #spectrality #cityscape #archive #timetravel #lost #projection #lightnight #leeds #videoart https://www.instagram.com/p/Co6qeKxs_a3/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Just a few hours left to grab yourself a free copy of Music for Installation. Image taken from my Residuum exhibition @leftbankleeds https://www.instagram.com/p/CnUu51dMgz-/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

The Remote Viewer (2018) was a multi-screen video installation for Light Night exploring the lost landscapes of Leeds, through rephotography, archival plundering, projection and field recording. The ambient sound design aimed to capture and defamiliarize the real sounds involved in bringing these views back to life: field recording from the many photography expeditions around the city is mixed and processed with the internal sounds of the cameras, scanners, computers and projectors used to digitise and reanimate the crumbling old magic lantern slides. The original work lasted several hours with each element looping at a different rate so the experience was always different. A long excerpt of the original audio is presented here… Music for Installation is out tomorrow. It will be “pay as you feel” first few days, then £5. You can preorder now. Link in bio ;) https://www.instagram.com/p/CnKjwLMss6v/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Music for Installation is out on Monday. This new retrospective is certainly not your typical album. Each track is almost an album in its own right! The material sees CC at his most experimental, stripped back, noisy and immersive. Following on from last year's Music for Documentary Film, this collection gathers together some of Michael C Coldwell's sound art work and music written for exhibition and gallery contexts. https://www.instagram.com/p/CnEaQ2UMIpC/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

New Conflux Coldwell release, Music for Installation, is now available for preorder from Bandcamp. The album collects together pieces I’ve done for exhibitions and video art over the years… Link in comments #experimentalmusic #installationart #ambient #drone #noise #soundart #hauntological #immersive #longform https://www.instagram.com/p/Cm8-eIosfAf/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

https://confluxcoldwell.bandcamp.com/album/music-for-installation

The Remote Viewer (2018) by Michael C Coldwell https://www.instagram.com/p/CkJWaansGzh/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

(Re)Sounding the City, Light Night 2017. Contributed #timelapse footage to this performance installation with @mugloch https://www.instagram.com/p/CcIgQg0MuqL/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

The Remote Viewer (2018) This short documents a video installation exploring the disappearing landscapes of Leeds, by Michael C Coldwell https://vimeo.com/294192976

Compound Eye / Toy Camera #trippy #spectrality #hauntology #videoexperiments #muckingabout https://www.instagram.com/p/CIbig9bnbm9/?igshid=166tr8z0w96tu

The last CC vid I’m adding to Bandcamp is an excerpt from AM. This is still my most successful project: personally, critically and financially! The music explored the #hauntology of #shortwave, made using only broken #analogue radios, hunting illusive #numbersstations in the endless #static. The video was made shooting photographs off a monitor using #vhs - the noise and interference on screen, a visualisation of the invisible signals all around us https://confluxcoldwell.bandcamp.com/album/am https://www.instagram.com/p/CDZqRtGH8m8/?igshid=2m71vnrusk4k

The next CC video I’ve added to Bandcamp is an excerpt from my live AV performance of Zoetrope at FUSE Art Space in Bradford, 2019. A recording of this show was released as part of #Phenakistoscope last Halloween (which also happened to be my 36th birthday). The video is now on that release page. #hauntological #videoart #noisemusic #ambient #tapeloops #experimental #audiovisualart #plunderphonics #vhsaesthetic #memorymusic #mnemonics #paramnesia https://confluxcoldwell.bandcamp.com/album/phenakistoscope https://www.instagram.com/p/CDPfln2n4JE/?igshid=eshlc0dquaw2

The next video to emerge from the archives onto Bandcamp is Alternating Current (2013), taken from my first album as Conflux Coldwell, under the same name. The short film was shot in one take by the #Leeds Liverpool canal and features a partially abstracted #pylon reflected in the rippling water. I wrote the music to the video rather than the other way around, jamming with field recordings and some #doepfer modular bits to make the soundtrack. This project became the album Alternating Current, in which I attempted to channel and evoke the #electricity underlying electronic music. It paved the way for further explorations of machines and their hidden #ghosts, and while the production/concept seems a bit basic to me now, there’s some pretty good atmospheric tracks on here which stand up to my current output #fieldrecordings #noise #electronica #ambient #videoart https://confluxcoldwell.bandcamp.com/album/alternating-current https://www.instagram.com/p/CCt7XjNn49s/?igshid=1u85ufd9w1bdg

I’ve now uploaded the video for Dismantle the Sun (2015) to Bandcamp. This is the piece that set me on the #hauntology path five years ago, which has resulted in several albums, two exhibitions and a PhD. It was originally conceived as a projection work for condemned buildings and is a meditation on transience and memory of place. The film can be watched alongside all the other CC vids on my new Bandcamp video page here: https://confluxcoldwell.bandcamp.com/video #memoryofplace #time #changingcity #spectrality #fieldrecordings #ambientnoise #videoart #abandonedplaces #soundscape https://www.instagram.com/p/CCs9Vtonhzy/?igshid=jqzcmagxwx81

"Blue Window Memory" CC - Zoetrope - https://confluxcoldwell.bandcamp.com

www.zoetrope.space 

All that is solid melts into... #videoart #abstractfilm #spectrality #rain https://www.instagram.com/p/CCUPwDvnWXj/?igshid=y2gx8mjf5qjo