Drawing and Painting Sound
As Form part 3
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
A Sound Portrait
During his artist residency at The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Gino created improvisational Sound Portraits of the Royal Conservatoire building, its function, its inhabitants and the diverse creative activities that embody the spirit and vitality that exists there.
Pythagoras declared "The eyes are made for astronomers, the ears for harmony, and these are sister sciences" Gino reflects on this approach and creates works which are about the relationship of the senses. He uses basic human senses of taste, touch, smell, hearing and sight and the lesser-known senses of spatial awareness and balance to make his work. The senses send information to the brain which inform an individual reality, it is this interpretive individual reality Gino portrays, creating a conversation for his work.
Gino painted and drew, translating the sound environment he heard within the building into visual documentation. He was the recording device, rather than use technology to record the sound he wanted to be the live interface. The visual response the recording.
Through Performance Drawings, live visual sketches, Gino creates visual Compositions representing the multilayered sounds that portrays the RCS and it's a vibrantly animated integrated world of sound. He composed sound in a book to be used for graphical notation and improvisational playing. The interpretation of the sounds in the book by successive musicians to be a new a new form of collaborative expression.
Gino collaborated with the Department of Music and Dr Simon van der Walt. He went onto work with American pianist Maria Sappho on a project titled "Tonotopy" where Maria took the drawings in Gino's book "45 Drawings "Sound" GSofA" representing the inorganic and organic sounds emanating from the Mackintosh building, and made them into sound compositions, "echoing" the rebirth of The Mac after the devastating fire in 2014.
Tonotopy
Sound _ Art _ Sound
Gino Ballantyne
Maria Sappho
New York pianist Maria Uses Gino's graphical notation and performs musical collaborations.
During his residency at the RCS Gino a Visiting Artist at the Glasgow School of Art exploring the organic and inorganic acoustic frequencies he experienced emanating from the Macintosh during its restoration following the devastating fire in 2014. For Tonotopy Gino used the drawings he made at GSofA as Graphical notation and in a collaborative partnership with Maria who reimagined them for piano creating new sound compositions of the GSof A and the RCS. one of these was premiered at The Stevenson Hall, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
The Stevenson Hall, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
Below are a few sample interpretations of Gino's drawings by Maria Sappho
Stations of The Cross in Three Acts
15th November 2019
Buckingham Parish Church
Stations of the Cross is sound piece and performance drawing created by Maria and Gino. Using Gino's drawings Maria composed a new piece titled Stations of the Cross which Gino will improvise to on the night.
This is its world premiere.
Stations of the Cross in Three Acts
by Maria Donahue
Maria Donahue: piano
Gino Ballantyne: charcoal on cotton
“Enactment” concert and live drawing.
interval
“Departure” concert and live drawing
Mixtape Drawings
Gino has been using Maria's interpretation of his visual scores to create mixed tape sound drawings which he is currently working on, below are two finished drawings.