The Magic Box sonic toy I’ve been building with Leafcutter John this week as part of my residency at Access Space in Sheffield. There’s a lot of experimenting with what sounds good through the box (we made a contact mic and glued that into the lid). When you open up the box all the joyous sonic objects will be revealed. These are then processed through Ableton Live with various parameters and effects for manipulating the sound and creating harmonies, textures, rhythms and awesome sounds. This is a time lapse of the build over five days. Still going and in some ways, it’s a never ending project. But gotta draw the line somewhere! The residency was November 3rd to November 10th 2022. I’m writing this on the eve of the work in progress sharing (7pm at 20-32 Fargate) at Access Space’s temporary home at Event Central smack bang in the middle of Sheffield on Fargate. Lots of people curiously looking through the windows at us bowing rubber bands, hitting small dishes with chopsticks and endless rearranging of nuts and bolts! This is R&D funded through Arts Council England and the DYCP fund. Special thanks to Jake and John at Access Space for hosting and being such legends! And of course to Leafcutter John for his mentoring and wisdom!
Simon Roth 