Excited about our latest SAW project. Here’s some more information. Please check it out if you haven’t already.
Artist collective Seven Art Writers is pleased to announce the launch of #dawnchorus365 – a yearlong collaborative artwork commissioned by Fermynwoods Contemporary Art.
Launched on 15 November 2013 at http://www.dawnchorus365.com, this online artwork reinterprets the dawn chorus, every day for a year. Each morning #dawnchorus365 will perform a ‘chorus’ of tweets during the dawn hours. The tweets combine with a visual representation of the changing light conditions and the locations of the SAW artists.
#dawnchorus365 reinterprets birdsong at dawn, which is thought to be for defence of territory, redrawing boundaries after the cold night when many birds perish. The work is an artistic intervention into Twitter and its relationship to public space, geography and identity.
The artwork will perform the tweets to fit the precise timings of dawn on each day of the year. On 15 November 2013 the work will begin with first light at 5.25am and conclude with sunrise at 7.25am; on 15 May 2014 it will play from 1.54am to 5.09am.
In addition to the SAW artists, anyone with a Twitter account can contribute by tweeting to #dawnchorus365. Their tweets will then be accumulated into the online artwork the following dawn. As a result, the project will build an international and virtual performed text that explores the meaning of dawn in the digital environment.
“The content of the writing will shift with the light; we’ll be making live observations about the time and place where each of us is situated. We will be in different cities and rural locations spread across the UK – Sheffield, New Forest, London, Oxford, Dunfermline and in Fermyn Woods. We will watch, listen and sense the environment out of hours, and craft tweets from our observations and explore language in relation to this. At other times we will respond to each other – stealing phrases from each other’s tweets and reworking them live,” said Natasha Vicars from SAW.
#dawnchorus365 was commissioned by Fermynwoods Contemporary Art as an individual work for their fourth annual online exhibition, this year exploring different ways that we engage with our own social, urban and rural environments.
The online artwork will use colour, space and text to present the ‘chorus’ of tweets. Each daily performance will only be visible during the hours of dawn GMT. SAW collaborated with creative technologists Wired Canvas to develop a dedicated microsite to present the artwork.
#dawnchorus365 will be online from 15th November dawn at http://www.dawnchorus365.com
For more information on SAW please see www.sevenartwriters.co.uk, or contact info@sevenartwriters.co.uk
Editors notes
Seven Art Writers collective (SAW)
SAW is a collective of seven practitioners who draw on disciplines of art writing and live art and address the qualities of Twitter as a creative tool for writing and a space of public discourse. They are Joanna Brown, Tifffany Charrington, Eddy Dreadnought, Sally Labern, Tamarin Norwood, Mary Paterson and Natasha Vicars. http://www.sevenartwriters.co.uk
#dawnchorus
The artwork is the latest development of #dawnchorus, a series of live, collaborative performances devised by Natasha Vicars as part ofthe SAW collective (Natasha Vicars, Mary Paterson, Tamarin Norwood, Sally Labern, Eddy Dreadnought, Tifffany Charrington and Joanna Brown).
#dawnchorus was first developed in 2011 with support from the Live Art Development Agency and Text Festival, Bury, and has since been commissioned by Vox Populi, Chelsea Fringe, and the National Trust’s London Project. In June 2013 SAW performed #dawnchorus at six National Trust properties across London and Keats House, and included contributions from the first official Canal Laureate, Jo Bell. In October 2013, two transcripts of previous performances will be published as original texts in forthcoming editions of The Live Art Almanac (Live Art Development Agency and Oberon Books) and Performance Research Journal, On Writing & Digital Media.
Fermynwoods Contemporary Art
Fermynwoods Contemporary Art is an independent arts organisation that works with artists and audiences to develop a programme that explores and reflects on art and ecology to enhance understanding and engagement with these environments. The project has been funded by Arts Council England. http://www.fermynwoods.co.uk
Wired Canvas
Wired Canvas are a small but perfectly formed design studio based in London. We come from arts backgrounds and pride ourselves in providing a unique insight into design for the creative industries. http://www.wiredcanvas.com