Commissions + Exhibited Works

/

Commissions + Exhibited Works /

‘Unseen Happenings’ (Commissioned by Garter Lane Arts Centre)

Audio Visual Installation Piece / Short Film / Musical Composition
(Filmed February 2022, Installation On Display and Online Film Released in March 2022)

  • ‘Unseen Happenings’ is an audio/visual piece by ‘Waiting Space’ - commissioned by Garter Lane Arts Centre in Waterford, as part of their ‘Courtyard Calibrations’ programme.

    In early 2022, as re-openings and easings of restrictions began to occur in Ireland - Garter Lane Arts Centre commissioned Waiting Space to develop a piece, with the theme of ‘light at the end of the tunnel’.

    In response to the brief, Waiting Space wrote a musical composition - blending programming, synthezisers, and felt piano - with suggestive

    melodies and dynamics, that fluctuate between cautious optimism, and relief, before reaching a crescendo of overwhelming sounds and frenetic movement.

    This musical score is set against a video produced, directed, and edited by Waiting Space, and filmed in February 2022 with the assistance of Katy Flynn of Waterford design studio ‘Haboo’ (www.haboo.ie) - which depicts key spaces in Garter Lane Arts Centre, lying quiet, still, and empty at night-time, before those same spaces become awash with an animated projection created by Waiting Space, of architectonic cubes and lines of bright colours, that interface with the angles and shapes of Garter Lane Arts Centre’s beautiful Georgian building.

    Named ‘Unseen Happenings’, the piece aimed to show the ‘life’ that continues to happen in a cultural building, even when there is no one there, and also the work done by people behind the scenes, to make things happen - while the crescendo of the musical score, and sudden interjection of the colourful animation on the space, alludes to the sudden ramping up and preparations that the culture industry had made when learning that their doors were initially closing, and then, reopening.

    As part of the commission, the short-film was made available to watch online on YouTube, and on Garter Lane Arts Centre’s website (garterlane.ie), from Tuesday the 8th of March 2022 - while the musical score was played at 13:05 and 17:05 daily, Tuesdays to Saturdays, for the month of March 2022, in Garter Lane Arts Centre’s courtyard, at 22 O’Connell St, Waterford.

‘Generation Loss’ (Commissioned by the Luan Gallery)

Musical Composition / Video Score
(Accompanied Video by Luan Gallery Released Online in July 2021)

  • ‘Generation Loss’ is a musical score composition, commissioned by the Luan Gallery, in Athlone, Ireland - as a musical accompaniment to a ‘virtual walkthrough’ video of the Colm Mac Athlaoich Exhibition, at Luan Gallery, Athlone, Ireland, in July 2021. The musical piece attempted to reflect themes in Colm Mac Athlaoich’s work - by including some very clear melodic ‘outlines’, that sit on top of murkier elements that bleed into each other. Falconer also used a technique of ‘rerecording’ elements to create different saturations and warping audio, which is called ‘generation loss’ - to reflect Colm’s process for recreating elements of found photos. - View the ‘Virtual Walkthrough Video’ made by the gallery, at: https://youtu.be/rNKrwlj5bsE

‘Luan’ (Commissioned by the Luan Gallery)

Audio Visual Piece, and Musical Composition / Video Score
(Composition Accompanied Video by Luan Gallery and Separate Audio-Visual Piece & Single, Released in September 2020)

  • The 'visualiser' for 'Luan' (Released Friday 02/10/2020) - the new single from 'Waiting Space' (the audio & visual project, and alias, of musician and creator, Chris Falconer, from Waterford, Ireland).

     

    'Luan' was initially commissioned by the Luan Gallery, in Athlone, Ireland - as a musical accompaniment to a ‘virtual walkthrough’ video of the gallery's spaces, which was hosted online for Culture Night 2020 - and created to allow audiences to 'visit' the gallery from a distance, during a time when COVID-19 restrictions continued to limit movements.

     

    While the original 'gallery walkthrough' video by Louise King, can be seen on YouTube at    • Culture Night Luan Gallery 2020   - for the video above, Waiting Space has created this new visual to accompany the piece. In the video, the letters that make up the song's title, drift in and out of focus in an imaginary space - inspired by the rotations of a 'hanging mobile' which sits above Waiting Space's studio desk. Each letter bears a distinct, strong colour - which are based on the colours of Ireland's Culture Night festival - and as the song progresses, focus continues to blur, and the colours begin to bleed into each, and the screen is overtaken by iridescent motions.

     

    - - -

    Stream:

     

    Spotify @: https://open.spotify.com/album/1lXXMP...

    AppleMusic @:   / luan-single 

    Bandcamp @: https://waitingspacemusic.bandcamp.co...

    SoundCloud @:   / waiting-space-luan 

    For merch, including the 'Luan' signed print:

    https://waitingspacemusic.bandcamp.co...

    - - -

     

    More About 'Luan':

    'In early September 2020, I was commissioned by the Luan Gallery, in Athlone, Ireland, to create a musical score to accompany a ‘virtual walkthrough’ video of the gallery spaces – which would allow audiences to 'visit' the gallery from a distance on Culture Night 2020 - in a time when COVID-19 restrictions continue to limit movements.

     

    A quick turnaround was required in order for the piece to be included in the gallery’s Culture Night programme – and so ‘Luan’ was written and recorded within 4 days. As a result, it is probably the most organic, and honestly-recorded piece of music that I have worked on (and a great diversion from how normally find myself tweaking and reworking songs for weeks or months, before feeling ‘comfortable’ to release them).

     

    When creating ‘Luan’, I decided that emulating the feeling of being in the physical spaces of the gallery could be a leaping-point – and so I decided to place piano at the centre of the song, as I felt it was the best instrument for conveying the reverb of a ‘room’. I additionally tried to emphasise this by including the ambient sounds of pedals, and mechanics of the piano, in the recording.

     

    The piano-focus of the piece was guided by the work of some of my favourite artists – including Ólafur Arnalds, Nils Frahm, Agnes Obel, Trent Reznor, Thom Yorke, & more - and when creating the track, I tried to produce a delicate blend of sustained, rhythmic piano chords, acting as the foundation for clear, punctuating top-melodies, that evolve, and eventually blend, over the course of the song – so that the near 6-minute length of the gallery virtual walkthrough, felt cohesive (with similar re-occurring themes), but not stationary (with subtle melody changes adding new perspectives to the chords' notes).

     

    Additionally, the chords flutter between darkness and light, in order to simulate the initial intimidation which can occur when entering a gallery space – which can be relieved the eventual joy of making a connection or revelation with a piece of art on display.

     

    Occasional atmospheric synths, and musical feedback, bleed in and out around the piano at the core of the song - to reinforce the anticipation of turning corners onto new views -and  to try and reflect the movement through the gallery spaces which the ‘virtual walkthrough’ video took. I particularly allowed the electronic elements to wash over the mix, when the camera focused its intention on an incredible glasswall which the gallery building has, and which allows an uninterrupted view onto the River Shannon - making a 'artwork' of the building's surroundings.

     

    Thanks again to the Luan Gallery, and Curator Aoife Power, for including me as part of their Culture Night programme.'

‘Cocoon’ (Officially Selected for the 16th Waterford Film Festival, and Separately Exhibited at Lismore Castle Arts)

Audio Visual Installation Piece / Short Film / Musical Composition
(Online Audio Visual, and Single, Both Released May 2020. Additionally Exhibited in LCA as Part of ‘Stories from Lismore and Beyond’ - 31 Jul. - 11 Oct. 2020; and Screen as Part of Waterford Film Festival, in Odeon Cinema Waterford, Nov. 2022)

  • Cocoon is a neoclassical musical composition, that attempts to capture a hopeful, but cautious, feeling which Waiting Space (Chris Falconer) had during the pandemic. Due to a heightened-risk arising from immunosuppressing medication which Falconer takes for an autoimmune disease - like many others, he had been undertaking the practice of ‘cocooning’, during COVID-19. ‘Cocoon’ takes its name from this - and it was the first solely-instrumental release from Falconer - having decided to leave the song lyric-less, as it’s likely the most ‘hopeful’ sounding piece of music I’ve written - and thought it was timely to leave it as is’. The music scores an accompanying shortfilm by Falconer, made from drone footage he recorded within the 2k.m. lockdown limit of his home, in Waterford City, Ireland, during the COVID-19 pandemic, in April 2020 - Officially Selected for the Waterford Film Festival, 2022, and shown in the Odeon Waterford. ‘Cocoon’ was also been exhibited at Lismore Castle Arts - Lismore, Waterford, in 2020. - View at: https://youtu.be/tCNMeYz_FLs