Signal Chain — Season 2 — Episode 3
Signal Chain — Season 2 — Issue 3
Welcome to Season 2 of Signal Chain. This pop-up newsletter is a creative collaboration between generative musician Duncan Geere and photographer Oliver Holms.
We’re taking turns to send new work to each other. Each new piece is inspired by the piece before. We’re building a chain of influence together and you’re along for the ride. New instalments are released on the 1st and 15th of every month, and you can unsubscribe at any time using the link in the footer.
::SC-S2-E03::
Hi Duncan,
Happy New Year!
Hope that you had a wonderful evening seeing out 2022 and welcoming in 2023.
As usual, I’ve left this way too late and I’m sat at my kitchen table on New Year’s Eve typing feverishly in a bid to get this done before dinner. Perhaps a New Year’s resolution to leave more margin is in order…
I was all set on a picture that I took the morning after your previous email. The snow was still thick on Hampstead Heath, and as I walked over Parliament Hill the strange texture of the snow caught my eye. On closer inspection, I saw that the smooth, undulating surface of the snow that had fallen a few days before had transformed into a jagged landscape of ice crystals.
As a child I used to play with toy soldiers in the family Christmas tree, imagining it to be a colossal jungle in which my forces were doing battle. The repetition of the branches and pine needles blurred my sense of scale in much the same way that I felt looking at this field of ice crystals. The crystals were so small that I had to crouch down low in order to see them, and yet I could imagine myself as a tiny creature picking my way through the vast glacier field that they resembled. The photograph exaggerated this effect further as I cut out anything that would give a clue to the true size of the subject.
I thought this image would speak to the fractal structure of the beautiful track that you made and its delicate and spacious sound. But as I looked back through my pictures another frame kept pulling me back… I think that it better represents the mood of your track and does so in a less literal way. Perhaps it offers more to chew on for your next piece too?
The picture I chose instead has the same cool and crisp feel as the first image but has more layers. It’s beautiful, but also a little surreal. An island of green pushes back a sea of white snow — a visual metaphor for the cyclical patterns and seasonal changes that are such an important part of both nature and the creative process. Like your track, these patterns are always repeating, and ever-changing.
I’m wishing you and all the readers a 2023 filled with courage, contentment, and creativity.
Oliver.
P.S. As a little bonus, I have attached the crystal image here too.
