This was the first week of the Collaboration module, so it was more or less just establishing what is expected of us this term and laying out the foundation for what we should be thinking about throughout. It was also my first time being taught by Hannah who has a very different approach to teaching than other lecturers, in that she teaches in a more hands-on, less theoretical way, which might take some getting used to. She laid out 3 possible pathways for this project, the first being a collaboration with a UAL student in the visual arts departments, mainly focused on animation and virtual reality experiences but seemingly encompassing other areas. I found this first pathway intriguing as it would be a good way to diversify my practice into creating more of a product than the usual jam-based fare most of my practice circles around. It also helps that I have a pre-established love for animation already (I wanted to be an animator as a kid!), so it would be great to get involved with something within the medium.

The second pathway was to work on an instrument design for a disabled performer, which would be in collaboration with Drake Music, who specialize in that area. I don’t find this pathway particularly interesting as I don’t feel as if I did so well in the instrument-building module last term, so taking something even further that I’m not so confident in already could be a good way to gain skills in that area, but most likely it would just be me stretching myself too thin. Not that the time frame wouldn’t allow for more trial and error, with the deadline being in a few months rather than weeks, but with already too much going on right now outside of Uni, I would rather not overreach.

The third pathway is to create a collaborative piece independently from another discipline, so, for example, working with dancers, painters, poets, etc. I think this pathway would be realistically the most comfortable for me, as I am very much into the attitude of improvisation and live interdisciplinary group practice anyway, with most of the “bands” I am in being with people from non-musical/sound-related practices as I like trying to get friends into things that I like. The choice between these pathways then becomes dependent on if I have a good idea for any, and whichever I feel would be more successful in these upcoming weeks, but as of now, my mind’s a little blank and not fully registering the possibilities presented.

In class, we were presented with some past work that we were to go through and judge the merits of, and I was given a short film that had a bizarre collaged soundtrack to accompany the scrolling text narrating a kind of romance story, presumably written by someone well-versed in narrative writing. I liked the dynamic of the collaboration more than the actual product; it felt like a group of friends went on a night out and added their own creative input afterwards. I’m not sure if that’s a dynamic that would be ideal for the project, as I see Uni work as striving to be something more introspective and thoughtful than merely pleasant. I am already seeing though that most likely if I were to go down this pathway for this project it would end up something with a similar kind of dynamic, I like to work with my friends and I like to prioritize fun in making work, so unless I think of something that would run contrary to that and I would want to take that further, then the idea is still to do whatever seems the most fun.