Rebecca Lee

 Dream Job

Workshops and Audio work, 2021

Commissioned by Fermynwoods Contemporary Art for the Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Podcast, broadcast September 2021.

A new audio work made for the 2021 season of the Fermynwoods Contemporary Art podcast and broadcast alongside a discussion with Deputy Director Jessica Harby. The piece is made from the recordings of and in response to two online workshops with young people on the complementary education programme and is very much of that time when we were all tired out from 18 months of Covid.

We used vibrating hex bug toys and things from our houses to make as many different sounds as possible - the weirder and most unexpected, the better. We recorded these, and used a share DJ software to loop and mixing the sounds. Inevitably, during the time of the workshop, we ended up talking about all kinds of things, as well as struggling with the internet and technology.

To make the work, I applied the same method I use when making pieces Bredbeddle (a side project I have making looped collages of music). I worked with the full workshop recordings to make the piece, taking in conversations as well as our sound explorations. The final piece does not quite tell the story of the workshop, gives a sense of it and how where we were all attempting to make and connect using the things around us and the internet to do so (and failing some of the time). You’re able to come and just kind of hang out in this loopy, virtual space it for a bit.

This is the second piece I have made for the Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Podcast. You can listen to You Can Hear Wind, made in 2020 here.

Listeners were invited to participate as well and could make their own work from the sounds recorded in these workshops by downloading the sounds and some guidance on how to make loops. For links to free looping software, the recordings and instructions click here.