About us

This is a project between Scott Mc Laughlin (composer), Shelley James (glass artist), where the complex structures of glass and sound are revealed, magnified, and interlaced in performance by interpreting them as dynamic graphic scores. Initial development was with cellist Seth Woods, and more recently with bassist Dominic Lash. By shining focussed light through complex glass structures, we reveal the grain and cording of the glass, amplified by light refraction, producing beautiful caustics on both surrounding walls and on sandblasted glass 'scores'. The glass rotates very slowly to allow a dynamic shifting of patterns, which is then interpreted by the performer as a quasi-graphic score. One approach to this interpretation is to consider the spectral splitting of sound as analogous to the caustic/refractive splitting of the light through the glass. Seth's performance refracts the cello string by splitting the spectrum of the sound, revealing its own inner partials and structures as a reflection of the visual.

Our current phase of the project is carry out some formal investigations on the behaviours of our existing glass, and formalise the musical mappings, towards designing and making some new bespoke glasswork for this project that explicitly affords musical structures. This phase is supported by an award from The Exchange.

Contact us at s.mclaughlin@leeds.ac.uk

http://lutins.co.uk/glass.html