creek* Instructions for Play with Biographical Notes and Score
creek: Kitchener Iteration, Page 38 of 42, 2024, 24-inch by 18-inch
bespoke embossed St-Armand cotton paper, commissioned hand-made coloured ink by Jason Logan.
Instructions for Play with Biographical notes
creek* is of indeterminate age. They would have come into becoming from springs and seeps underground, sipping as they were pulled along the earth.
They grew as they meandered, braiding their Element Occurrences.
They slit the earth, slicing rocks to make themselves more comfortable. Snipping through soil when necessary, slashing when overwhelmed.
They cradled their allies; fed them and provided shelter.
Their currents carried and countered, sliding more quickly just below the surface, quicker still in the middle. They parsed out what laws are important, finding balance in opposing directions.
Complications arise from time to time, unrecognizable obstacles destabilizing their who, what, where.
Sometimes, they are close to unbecoming.
*creek tells their own story here, translated by musician-alchemists. The stories about creek that you may have already heard are the stories told from the human point of view, such as the destruction caused by floods, and remediation of creek channels.
creek* is of indeterminate age. They would have come into becoming from springs and seeps underground, sipping as they were pulled along the earth.
They grew as they meandered, braiding their Element Occurrences.
They slit the earth, slicing rocks to make themselves more comfortable. Snipping through soil when necessary, slashing when overwhelmed.
They cradled their allies; fed them and provided shelter.
Their currents carried and countered, sliding more quickly just below the surface, quicker still in the middle. They parsed out what laws are important, finding balance in opposing directions.
Complications arise from time to time, unrecognizable obstacles destabilizing their who, what, where.
Sometimes, they are close to unbecoming.
*creek tells their own story here, translated by musician-alchemists. The stories about creek that you may have already heard are the stories told from the human point of view, such as the destruction caused by floods, and remediation of creek channels.
Cabinet with Inks, 2023-2024, commissioned hand-made coloured ink by Jason Logan, found object. Installation View, FLOW Exhibition at Inter Arts Matrix, Kitchener, Ontario.
About the creek* Score
The original creek* score consists of forty-two 24-inch by 18-inch pages of bespoke embossed St-Armand cotton paper, presented in portrait orientation with the score rendered in custom-made coloured ink.
Jason Logan, of The Toronto Ink Company, was commissioned to make ink from materials foraged from urban waterways. No particular colour palette was requested. A list of word prompts was provided to him. A unique ink was created for each of these: shopping cart, wet, moist, concrete, moss, weeds, duck, logs and vines, bathtub. Two different iterations of “creek” ink were requested.
These foraged inks have fugitive colours; they will change colours or act in otherwise unpredictable ways over time, not unlike creek themselves.
Because of this, the score should be re-photographed if more than a month has gone by since the last performance, since the copies made for a prior performance may no longer be an accurate representation of creek’s story.
The number of musician-alchemists can be extremely variable.
This piece was originally conceived of as having a minimum length of 42 pages; one full iteration of Pages 01-42 is required for a performance.
One-page flows onto the next.
Whatever motifs are being explored at the bottom of a given page should therefore continue onto the top of the next page.
Page 42 continues onto the top of Page 01.
As such, creek* may be played for an indeterminate length of time as a durational performance, and the video score may be looped.
The original creek* score consists of forty-two 24-inch by 18-inch pages of bespoke embossed St-Armand cotton paper, presented in portrait orientation with the score rendered in custom-made coloured ink.
Jason Logan, of The Toronto Ink Company, was commissioned to make ink from materials foraged from urban waterways. No particular colour palette was requested. A list of word prompts was provided to him. A unique ink was created for each of these: shopping cart, wet, moist, concrete, moss, weeds, duck, logs and vines, bathtub. Two different iterations of “creek” ink were requested.
These foraged inks have fugitive colours; they will change colours or act in otherwise unpredictable ways over time, not unlike creek themselves.
Because of this, the score should be re-photographed if more than a month has gone by since the last performance, since the copies made for a prior performance may no longer be an accurate representation of creek’s story.
The number of musician-alchemists can be extremely variable.
This piece was originally conceived of as having a minimum length of 42 pages; one full iteration of Pages 01-42 is required for a performance.
One-page flows onto the next.
Whatever motifs are being explored at the bottom of a given page should therefore continue onto the top of the next page.
Page 42 continues onto the top of Page 01.
As such, creek* may be played for an indeterminate length of time as a durational performance, and the video score may be looped.
creek* Excerpted video score with audio
THE PERFORMANCE OF creek* BY THE NU EARS ENSEMBLE AT THE OPEN EARS FESTIVAL COINCIDED WITH THE EXHIBITION OF THE SCORE AND STUDIES IN THE FLOW EXHIBITION.
I would like to acknowledge Inter Arts Matrix in supporting this project.
