Blue Topography

Blue Topography  Publication and Audio Book  To Purchase >> Is a hand cut litho printed booklet of my writing, scores and images that navigates a journey into landscape and body, through voice and the blue of cyanotype prints. Images and text Lindsay Duncanson Designed by Deborah Bower at Foundation Press. To Listen >> Blue Topography explores the interconnected processes and thoughts around photography and voice through cyanotype prints and my improvised vocal practice . The words are read over and alongside field sounds and vocal improvisations created for the ‘Animal Wife’ album and the Blue Topography project . In addition I am so excited to add the talents of three extraordinary musicians and composers Jayne Dent (Me Lost Me) , Mariam Rezaei and Cath Tyler who have re-worked deconstructed and reimagined the audio that is interspersed within the show

To get to the Quarry you have to drive to Stanhope then up and out the back onto the moor and across to Barnard Castle. The moor tops are masked in heavy fog and I drive at a crawl avoiding the cloudy sheep that wander out to great me a slightly exhausting game of chance. Ive been back and forward to this old quarry site for years.  Its the image on my website.  http://www.productofboy.net/ Sheltered in the car it feels silent and film like. Out of the car, the wind is biting and the fog is more like the finest cold rain that seeps in through my jacket. I have the Dog... I don't usually bring her as she can be noisy but we both need the walk , so she is coming.  Spoil mountains, a small pond with waders, heron, The water cascaded down the edges of rock face. I can hear gun shots in the distance.  The Guns are out. Its another planet to the day we made the print, so hot and bright.  Still / wind / Still / carry on / still water / still / be / be still Be sti

I drove late and tired to the the reactor. I had in my mind the weather, the expectation of a place I know very well. The wind, the coast, the drone of the reactor, the birds, the big sky. A busy place that still gives you a sense of solitude. Heavy industry, heavy machinery. The print I made here was with the seals and fly by planes.  As industrial as the site is, it always feels like a link to the wild . A kind of periphery; Curlews and outflows.  A kind of intersection between humankind the natural world    So I had gone with a sense of that, the energy I would bring would be a bit frenetic or have a dense energy.   But Teeside had other ideas.  Mirror calm, full tide.  It was entirely still.  And I couldn't bring myself to make the kinds of sounds I had planned, or at least had assumed I might make.  The air was still , the light was very low and grey. I had some amazing ocular migraines inhibiting my sight.  I went and sat on the very shore of the Tees, wth the re

Sphagnum We went to Tomintoul.  Just outside the village, which is past the snow gates o up the Mountain from Mums.  There is a small quarry and I thought maybe I could do a print there and maybe a recording, It was halloween and it felt like a good time to do it.  It was sunny and super cold. But worse it was windy and the wind hit the quarry straight on. It felt too observed and a kind of wind tunnel too. too cold We had a cup of tea in a cafe. It was dressed in old  fireman equipment and smelt of fry ups.  After we decided on a wee walk across some woodland towards the river.   We abandoned our walk in favour of exploring a kind of old birch wood plantation, covering a bed of spagnum moss.  Lukas is excited and makes me cover my eyes. He leads me to a fallen tree that has allowed a pool of black peat water to gather. Here is the right place! So we all go back to the car, I get my suitcase . and my wool skirt, ( its super warm and Mary made it) I go back to

    Sounds in a Cave/ and Marsden Foam Party.    I cause a dear friend great anxiety by heading off to Marsden beach in a force 5 gale.    The whole beach was a drift with Foam. ( spume) The sea was crashing hard onto the shore, the wind was high . and to add to the drama the Marsden Grotto had provided a set of lights to create a stage for me. Suite case unpacked and head phones on I had in my head  a method I wanted to try. In retrospect I think wasn't the right approach. To create a straight set of loops 4 long loops that build directly on each other. I wanted to hear the space in the mic. The Wind the waves, but it turns out the SM58 with a tiny wind sock is pretty excellent and blocking noise. I also in the drama of the weather the cold and the waves I didn't pay proper attention to my gain.. Have some supreme distortion.. Which in the making I loved, but not to be imposed on someone else's sound system I think. I think i was attracted by

Some for the Sounds. I have been missing making the sounds and the print making by necessity is busy.  It has lost a little of the silence  I love the domestic everyday nature it has taken on. and there is still quiet and stillness for me as I make the print. but a kind anxiety is there that happens when solitary becomes a group thing. I wanted the printing to feel simple and every day, even though it seems extreme, I don't think it is or should be seen as that. It should be simple and ok and fine to lie still and naked in beautiful places. Or horrible ones I suppose.  I think when I look back on it , I think about the air, the air on skin and the chemical on skin. Salt/UV/Ferric smells .  The sounds have  return a little on the solitary process even the dog has to stay away. Well mostly. Returning to old haunts, finding new ones. Exploring the possibilities with the kit I use, how it records in weather , how it responds to the spaces I am in. What will I do if I fall down