Benthic Community Flutes Sketch 2 (Snapping and Sandy-ghost Shrimp, Swamp Scrub, Mussel) for Grafton Regional Gallery 2023
Catalogue writing: 'Benthic Community Flutes Sketch 2 (Snapping and Sandy-ghost Shrimp, Swamp Scrub, Mussel) has been made alongside the inter-tidal flows of Moonee Ponds Creek and its conjunction with the great Birrarung/
Yarra River, Wurundjeri Country. This sketch includes blown glass flutes inspired by the burrows of the sandy ghost shrimp, field recordings of snapping shrimp and mussels at the meeting area of Moonee and Birrarung, beeswax flute recordings, and sand structures. Benthic communities are complex inter-tidal ecosystems of flora and fauna that live in waterways and coastal areas. The glass flutes are an expression of subterranean organisms that produce porous thresholds of ground, water, and organic matter, with the work being formed in the movement between the flutes, their sounding in different places and the forces of the creek itself. These structures are brought into proximity with sites of concreted drains which impose limits on the diverse lives of animals and microorganisms that might otherwise thrive within the site of the creek. The gravity of benthic ground is thick with forces, and the breath of these forces reverberate in figuring them.'
Video credit: Benjamin Woods, Benthic Community Flutes Sketch 2 (Snapping and Sandy-ghost Shrimp, Swamp Scrub,
Mussel), video, 2023, field recording, performance documentation, digital video and stereo audio, 14min
57sec, videography by Elena Betros-Lopez, courtesy of the artist.
Figuring Ground project is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.
Images: Katie Holmes
Little and Many Intensities, durational improvised activation of practice archives for Liquid Architecture MONO-POLY Dec 2022
Image: Ben Woods, persimmon seed carving for projection
MONO-POLY. Daytime 12-5pm. December 9, 2022.
https://liquidarchitecture.org.au/events/mega-phone-mono-poly
LIQUID ARCHITECTURE OFFICE:
Ben Woods, Little and Many Intensities, durational improvised
activation of practice archives. 12-5pm, intensity at 2 + 4pm
Forming resonant situations (PhD performance and installation)
Forming resonant situations: engaging the interval in performance and installation practices from Benjamin Woods on Vimeo.
*HEADPHONES RECOMMENDED*
This is a video and audio document of a performance that took place at MADA Gallery, Monash University on January 22, 2022. The performance occurred as part of a PhD exhibition by Benjamin Woods.
Performers:
Sarah Bunting, performing with the work 'Kelpy Cymbal (after Lygia Clark)' 2021-2022.
Niki Johnson, performing with the work 'Interwoven Pools' 2021-2022.
Meredith Turnbull, performing with works from 'Beeswax Flutes' 2018-2022.
Benjamin Woods, performing with the works 'Ghost shrimp burrow flutes' 2021, and 'Beeswax Flutes' 2018-2022.
Documentation:
Elena Betros-Lopez, performance videography.
Natalie Reed, photography.
Benjamin Woods, installation videography, sound, and editing.
DETAILS OF WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION please see Video Link
Benthic Community Flutes Sketch 1 (Sandy Ghost Shrimp)
at Study residency (Brunswick/Wurundjeri Woi wurrung Country)
May 2021
Benjamin Woods, ghost shrimp burrow flute, hand-blown borosilicate glass tube, 2021.
Benthic Community Flutes is a sculptural and sound work-in-progress.
Video and audio material has been generated during a residency at s-t-u-d-y.space, Brunswick, 4-18 May 2021.
This video is a work-in-progress, which also takes place alongside and within the larger context of the ongoing Tributary Project (Geoff Robinson, Ying-Lan Dann, Saskia Schut, Benjamin Woods). It is intended as a sketch for future group performance and sculpture.
This sketch of Benthic community flutes includes blown glass flutes inspired in part by the burrows of the sandy ghost shrimp.
Thanks to: Study, Brunswick s-t-u-d-y.space (Ender, Sophie, Dilân); staff and students at Monash University (Dale Meehan, Kate Hill, Dr Terri Bird, Dr Fiona Macdonald); folks from Tributary Project (Geoff Robinson, Ying-Lan Dann, Saskia Schut); special thanks to Elena Betros-Lopez for video production; and thanks extend to City of Melbourne, Kaylene Brooks, Riley Lee, Friends of the Moonee Ponds Creek, Dr Fiona Bird, and Moreland City Council. I acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi wurrung people of the eastern Kulin Nation as the traditional custodians and owners of the lands, waters and airs on which this work take place. Sovereignty was never ceded.
Beeswax Flutes 3
SensiLab Studio Recording and Arrangement by Benjamin Woods with 5 beeswax flutes. Video made on Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung country, near Royal Park, February 2019.
Beeswax Flutes 3 from Benjamin Woods on Vimeo.
葉（共鳴への希望) Youkobo in Tokyo, Japan
Leaves, Hope for Resonance
葉（共鳴への希望) is a sonic and sculptural exhibition produced by Benjamin Woods, January 2020.
The piece is made up from sounds and silences produced with hinoki carvings, persimmon seed carvings, leaf flutes (笹笛 bamboo leaf flute and 草笛 leaf-flute) and beeswax flutes, procured from and returned to the local area around Youkobo. Included in the sounds is a recording of drumming made down the road at Igusahachimangu Honden and Romon Shinto shrines, and the 5pm melody of the council speakers outside Momoi Daiyon Elementary School.
These sounds and images are an outcome of a 2 month residency at Youkobo Art Space, Tokyo from Dec 2019 to Feb 2020. The exhibition was presented at Youkobo Art Space from January 22-26, 2020.
This work was made possible by Monash University, Faculty of Art, Design, and Architecture, and the faculty's postgraduate research programme. I would like to extend a special thanks to the folks at Youkobo Art Space, Tokyo.
Youkobo Art Space, Event Website
Beeswax Flutes 2, for Why Listen to Plants? presented by Liquid Architecture x RMIT Design Hub, 8 Dec 2018
[Images: Keelan O'Hehir]
Beeswax Flutes 2
Benjamin Woods
Presented by Liquid Architecture x RMIT Design Hub, 8 Dec 2018
Performed by Sarah Bunting (flutes), Benjamin Woods (flutes), and Geoff Robinson (double bass and documentation).
This is the second iteration of this work performed with hand-made beeswax flutes. It took place as part of the Liquid Architecture investigation 'Why Listen to Plants?' at RMIT Design Hub, Saturday Dec 8, 2018.
Liquid Architecture
To Note: Notation Across Disciplines
edited by Hannah Mathews, published by Perimeter Books 2017.
Feeling Material (as Curator), c3 contemporary art space 2015
OSW (open spatial workshop), Glipse, part of the exhibition Feeling Material co-curated by Benjamin Woods and c3 Contemporary Art Space, 2015.
Isadora Vaughan, installation image, part of the exhibition Feeling Material co-curated by Benjamin Woods and c3 Contemporary Art Space, 2015.
Geoff Robinson, performance image, part of the exhibition Feeling Material co-curated by Benjamin Woods and c3 Contemporary Art Space, 2015.
Melanie Irwin, performance image, part of the exhibition Feeling Material co-curated by Benjamin Woods and c3 Contemporary Art Space, 2015.
high school flax weaving 2006
