the WRAP| John Sturgeon

the WRAP

John Sturgeon's four poetic texts & voice inclusions published in the

WRAP were primarily derived from four hours of live-streaming

audio over two days, entitled: From the Attic & From the

poetic and sound work - live mix/performance, (collaboration with

Steve Bradley), for ROOT-X Festival, Hull Time Based Arts, Hull, England.

Similar in approach to From the Attic & From the Basement this live-
streaming audio performance for the ROOT-X Festival focused on

a combination of poetic voice utilized as part of a defused or

looping mix along with a host of percussive and complex sonic improvisations.

These two streaming performances formed the raw material for the

WRAP. Both were collaborations by: Stephen Bradley & John Sturgeon

created for ARS Electronica, "art@radio" with Radiotopia and broadcast

RadioFRO/Kunstradio, Wein, Austria and the ROOT-X Festival, Hull, England.

4 poetic & sound works, produced/published by Steve Bradley & John

Sturgeon: streaming collection on Bandcamp app & via Urbantells: https://urbantells.bandcamp.com/album/the- wrap, release date 12.29.19.

the Gnaw, 4:57 minutes, ©Bradley/Sturgeon 2002

Best of Times, 18:39 minutes, ©Bradley/Sturgeon 2003

Turn Again in the Wrap, 3:00 minutes, ©Bradley/Sturgeon 2003

Dotted Lines, 22:07 minutes, ©Bradley/Sturgeon 2003

Hull Time Based Arts, Hull, England

the WRAP

Stephen Bradley and John Sturgeon

Stephen Bradley and John Sturgeon are both time-based and multi-media artists, who have collaborated on producing several streaming sound performances and audio CD works, beginning in the spring of 2002 with a five-minute work, the GNAW produced for radio. Since then they have performed live utilizing the internet as a conduit for live net.radio performance. In the September 2002 Bradley/Sturgeon performed remotely from their studios in Baltimore, Maryland streaming to Linz, Austria as part of the ARS Electronica festival in conjunction with Radiotopia, which was picked up and broadcast on RadioFRO/Kunstradio, Wien, Austria. In October they performed another net.radio performance to the ROOTX Festival located in Hull, England.

Bradley/Sturgeon's performance work is a melding of various techniques utilizing technology, acoustic objects and spoken word to create a subtle but electrified space. Bradley employs small found and constructed objects enhanced with contact microphones, amplified and processed using MAX/MSP. A wireless microphone is often placed outside from where he performs capturing sounds in and around the surrounding neighborhood creating a layer of chance sounds of traffic, people, birds and planes. Sturgeon’s poetry is often performed live, utilizing a BOOMERANG digital synthesizer, which loops and layers textural readings, while integrating it with sampled sound and pre-recorded text.

Evident in their work, is an emotional resonance and a shared passion for socio-political content as well as expansive, suggestive sound-scapes. The final work becomes a thick carpet of slowly undulating sound, which the vocalization further activates this space with poetics and utterances.

For over 23 years Bradley and Sturgeon’s collaborative work has created sound art works, as well as streaming events and performances – exhibited or heard both nationally and internationally. A mutual interest in the spatial aspects of sound, the communal storytelling and a history of creating unique sonic environments within a historical context - inform both the content and structure of their works.

the Gnaw,

4:57 minutes, © Bradley/Sturgeon 2002

Steve Bradley & John Sturgeon, a collaborative sound composition CD, that mixes performed sound, pre-recorded audio and excepted audio from video recorded in Rome, Italy, with computer synthesis and poetic text. An emotionally theatrical work, the Gnaw echoes some sense of recent world events and the universal dilemma of violence and strife.

the Gnaw

Willful descent

of collective urgency

to control – to own, profit

no matter what the imbalance.

Step down into the conundrum

there it is

scraping at the skin

finally, a decisive question –

not flesh for the hunt,

but the gnawing appetites

of possession -

flesh for use.

Caught between twin towers of decision

we do not resist the hedonistic desire for this odyssey.

All critique eludes the blade

of an inevitable surgery:

Knowledge of a precise

understanding eludes

the moment of incision

of clarity, as if

the whole is a goal

flung too far beyond

hearing / seeing / sensing / knowing / believing

A question that we do not expect

foils the pressure of the pushing will.

Quit looking for holes!

it doesn't have anything to do with holes.

There is always a hole -

holes for eye sockets

mass graves,

ruts dug by armored beliefs

carved by some fixed desire

or rift in the tapestry,

no matter how well woven

or graced with magic

there is the gnaw -

Some formless, unfathomable void

whose very hollowness demands shape, volume, cost

and weights its pressure

on matter

and the heart:

Knowledge of a precise

understanding eludes

the moment of incision

of clarity, as if

the whole is a goal

flung too far beyond

hearing / seeing / sensing / knowing / believing

The cruelty of this insufferable disproportion

legislated greed and myopia fear

are disheveled titillations

a cabaret pantomime.

And what truth, if any, to humanity’s failure?

our efforts distorted by

an unrestrained seepage -

of ancestors

privilege

old blood scars

and the harsh geometry of genetic vision.

Best of Times,

18:39 minutes, © Bradley/Sturgeon 2003

Steve Bradley & John Sturgeon collaborated on an hour of live streaming audio to Hull, England as part of the "RootX" festival at Hull Time Based Arts in the fall of 2002. "Best of Times" is an excerpted work from the one-hour, live mix of performed sound, pre-recorded tape, computer synthesis and live and pre-taped poetic text. “Best of Times” marches in with industrial-like sounds and a text loop of the possibilities to be found in good relations. The piece evolves into eerie, hollow scraping overlays while the text digresses into the script for so many of the current litany of world conflicts – vindictive and un-forgiven.

Best of Times

It is the best of times

when the need for language surrenders

and gazes twinkle -

Brother embraces brother

neighbor greets neighbor

and the wind sings gentle in the branch

The deep, untended storm,

urgent at last, seizes the view

There -

hoisted in distress

tossed clouds,

flags-swollen into graves

from the bombing,

suddenly too near

An implosion of hope

on this continent, and others

which now mingles with our darker histories

coagulates transgressions,

Like a old sulk between neighbors

or, worse

foolish bravado

festered in blood -

still un-forgiven.

The earth,

This brief setting -

our table - meal and fearful glances

All our precious cargo

Whirls….

John Sturgeon 9/11/02

Turn Again in the Wrap,

Steve Bradley & John Sturgeon - a collaborative CD, “Turn Again in the Wrap”, combines sound compositions from collected field recordings, performed sounds, poetry and statistical data. The piece envelopes with an aural nether space suspended between waking and sleeping, or like an invocation from death, to “turn again in the wrap.” Layers of panned and digitally manipulated recordings form a dense shroud of sound, mixing the cries of albatross, the predawn streets, a pestering mosquito, and the drone of map coordinates.

Turn Again in the Wrap

There is a way the body learns

when it moves through this place,

where it flows down below conception -

seeps beneath pretenses -

and wanders unfettered and without fear

among the deepest of the deep

This body stuff

traverses souls

profound with the will of roots

spreads out in all directions

even the ancient lives,

hurried and painful as they were,

rush up to greet us, as old friends

Always, its a bit sad, yet so magical

that death brings us together in some further way

The racket of the everyday

cocoons our deeper connections - so completely

Now, briefly torn free from that inertia,

to acknowledge:

Turn again in the wrap

Listen –

deep ripples

murmur mummy needs

Ask - is it really you,

who now unfolds this precious garment

like a child, a lover

the self?

Dotted Lines,

Steve Bradley & John Sturgeon collaborated on two days of live streaming audio from Baltimore to Ars Electronica 2002 / “Radiotopia” on line, on air at radioFRO with simultaneous site broadcast at the Klangpark, Linz, Austria. "Dotted Lines" is an excerpted work from those four hours of streaming, which featured a live mix of performed sound, pre-recorded tape, computer synthesis and live and pre-taped poetic text.

“Dotted Lines” evokes a moody, aural vastness. Almost voyeuristically, the listener traverses a dark sonic zone interspersed with captured conversations and a text evoking separation and abuse within the human cycle.

Dotted Lines

Borders, boundaries – dotted lines

“die Mauer”

disputed territory,

no-fly zones

DMZ

There is a cleaving among the houses

the creation of mansions of abuse

built with family stone, itself

layer upon layer

in a history of folded things, laid away

embodied in the blood

settling in the dust

falling like time,

on the mass graves of our best.

Sacrifice the children

because we must...

that is how it is passed on!

generation after generation

in the circle of things –