Tidal is a location specific collaboration between composer Graham Fitkin and visual artist John Keys focusing on the interaction and evolving symbiosis between sea and land, and the metaphorical significance of this precarious ‘edge’. The resulting installation will include large animated projections and 28 minutes of new music which will tour to UK coastal venues, starting at The Exchange in Penzance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Visual and aural data was collected from a specific beach location in West Cornwall: the sandbar at Treen beach (OS point SW403227), during low spring tides at strategic points throughout 2009.   There were four 7 day periods of intensive site research during which the artists collected and generated material including sequential drawings of the tide line, timed audio recordings, pertinent tidal data (including lunar and solar phases) and meteorological observations.

 

 

 

 

 

Graham created a 28 minute piece of music presented through a 7 speaker spatially separated audio system. The music is divided into 4 sections of 7 minutes each, reflecting the 4 specific periods of time spent at the site. Graham used John Keys' sequential drawings in conjunction with the recorded data to start the process of composition. Line played a significant role in the musical composition. The process of layering, fracturing and distorting line is one of the key dialogues between the artists. The music manipulates, augments, inverts and interferes with line to create harmonic junction points, which in turn direct the flow of the music and its overall structure.

 

John Keys used his sequential drawings of the incoming and outgoing tides as the basis for a 28 minute animation spread over three screens. Each screen shows a series of drawings of the sand bar from a specific viewpoint, spanning the four week research period. Superimposed on top of these hand drawn images are visual interpretations of technical data referencing tide times and currents during the research period. The selection and editing style of these animation sequences is informed by Graham’s musical composition and its structural pacing.