Dr Ruth Lee Martin & Monachopsis
Drifting with Ruth Lee Martin and Hilary Wardhaugh
Composer Dr Ruth Lee Martin (on the left) and artist Hilary Wardhaugh (on the right)
2pm-3pm Sunday the 24th March at Manuka CCAS Furneaux Street. Tickets ($10) can be purchased HERE
A interactive and performative experience of Monachopsis at CCAS Manuka.
Guy Debord defined the concept of the ‘Dérive*’ is distinguished from flânerie /stroll primarily by its critical attitude toward modernity and markers of privilege such as class, gender, race, sexuality, etc.
The participants of a Dérive must ‘let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there.’ so with this, I’m adapting the dérive as a way to experience and explore the exhibition…
Definition: Letting go of the usual reasons for walking – and being drawn by the affordances and attractions of the place. One or more persons, during a certain period, drop their relations, their work and leisure activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain, and the encounters they might find there.
Best with groups of between three and six people…. (Although we may have a few more..)
There should be no destination, only a starting point and a time. A journey to change space, not march through it. (The starting point is within the gallery and we will start at 2:15pm sharp!)
To drift, something has to be at stake – status, certainty, identity, sleep, our planet.
In a drift, self must be in some kind of jeopardy. (The ‘self’ I am defining at our planet)
There may be a theme: responsibility to our environment
The drift is guided by atmospheres not maps; here we have new music composed by Ruth Lee Martin that will guide and accompany our ‘drifting’/dérive
A static drift: stay still and let the world drift to you. (Lie down, sit down, slow repetitive movements)
When you drift, use wrecked things you find to make new things (this is called détournement – using dead art and uncivil signs to create unfamiliar languages). Make situations: build miniature objects using the found objects and the images on the floor, giant insects from branches. Just build!!!
“Considering the critical stance of the dérive, go for a walk and record where you feel drawn to certain places and repelled by others. Why might you be experiencing those emotions and behaviours? How did the architecture, topography, and space affect your experience? How does that relate to class, gender, race, ability, and other markers of identity? How could you imagine a better experience of the route you walked for the planet?”**
ABOUT RUTH
Ruth is a Canberra-based composer who studied composition at doctoral level at the Australian National University, where she also taught for many years. Ruth has worked with many of Australia's finest performers, have had numerous commissions through the Australian Council for the Arts, and was awarded an ACT Creative Arts Fellowship.
Ruth has worked on a television project with award winning New York (and more recently Melbourne) film director, Emma Watts. A Diary From the Frontline is a documentary series on COVID-19. It documents the lives of those on the frontline during the pandemic including Global Health Reporting Center in NYC (and Cape Town) and doctors and nurses in Philadelphia, Regional England, Cape Town, Vicenza (Italy) San Diego and a South African township. This series went live on PBS Newshour in the US.
Ruth composed the music for Tales from Tinder, and the multi-awarded series, No Strings Attached (Raindance Film Festival Official Selection, Orlando Film Festival Official Selection, Vancouver Web Fest Best Documentary, DubWebFest Winner Best LGBT, Melbourne Web Series Festival Best Australian Non-Fiction, Bushwick Film Festival Official Selection, Brooklyn Web Fest Official Selection).
Other film composition includes music for House on the Hill for the Electra String Quartet (Sydney), Phil South percussion and Mark Atkins dijeridu. This was commissioned by the House of Parliament for both a documentary on the building of the House (Ronin Films) and for a live performance at the 20th birthday celebrations of the building. Learning about the symbolism in the House from the incredible architect, Romaldo Giurgola, was a privilege. Ruth was honoured to have a one of her compositions performed in APH at Romaldo’s memorial service in 2016.
Music for ‘A House for the Nation’ commissioned by the House of Parliament for a four-part documentary on the House of Representatives (Ronin Films) was a project she worked on in 2004.
Her compositions for performers include:
Slàn (Farewell) for Scottish Voices with Director, Graham Hair. This work will be premiered in the first half of 2022 in Glasgow, Scotland.
The Winter it is Past for solo piano, for Joanne Polk, Manhattan School of Music, New York. This work premiered in both New York and Canberra via video conferencing.
Choral and vocal music has been a passion, including the composition of set of sacred choral works performed and recorded by the Trinity Choir, Melbourne and the talented Sydney ensemble Halcyon on a setting of the poet, Kevin Hart’s, evocative Wimmera poems. It was an inspiring experience working with such great musicians as we fine-tuned this compositional cycle.
She has always enjoyed crossing boundaries and my project, ‘Circadian Rhythm’, commissioned by Research School of the Humanities for the event ‘Fusion’ held at ANU gave me the opportunity to work with a string quartet, a choreographer, a dance troupe and a DJ. I composed the music for a thirty-minute ballet choreographed by Solon Ulbrich (Adelaide) danced by Quantum Leap (Australian Choreographic Centre) performed by students and staff from School of Music, ANU.
She is a fully represented composer at the Australian Music Centre and you can hear some short excerpts from some of her works as well as scores on their website. Some of her scores are also in the National Library of Australia.
Ruth’s work can be seen here on her website
2pm-3pm Sunday the 24th March at Manuka CCAS Furneaux Street. Tickets ($10) can be purchased HERE
The theory of the dérive as described by Guy Debord first published in Internationale Situationniste #2 (Paris, December 1958)*
**https://teaching.ellenmueller.com/walking/category/derive/
