Momentum

Nat Grant in Melbourne, Australia created daily in her project Momentum...

She explains: Every day in 2012 I worked on an experiential blogging project called Momentum, tracing the development of a cumulative, yearlong musical composition. This work, the practical component of my PhD, comprised mixing and re-mixing daily using digital, electronic processing of instrumental and found sound improvisations, field recordings, and pre-existing samples, submitted for this purpose. The project has since grown to include a month-long overseas version as well as four live performance versions.

Day 29 - marble in a ramekin in a bowl of water

Why did you decide to do this project? I have always enjoyed creating large-scale and durational sound works/installations, and the scope of the PhD gave me encouragement to attempt one of this size. Also, I wanted to spend some time reflecting on my compositional processes in order to improve my skills in this area, and I thought that a year would be a decent enough period of time in which to really reflect on my art and my processes and to be able to put into practice any discoveries I made or lessons I learned along the way.

Day 119 - kids on bikes with bells

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? Momentum has definitely affected my life and the way I approach lots of things. By practicing making my art every day for a year I have solidified technical skills, and changed how I listen to the world. I thought I already paid a lot of attention to the world around me, but by having to find something new to record every day I paid a LOT more attention and noticed so many more sounds everywhere! And by making something small every day I was able to accomplish a huge amount of work - the task of creating a 4 hour long, 12 movement sound art piece would have seemed really daunting otherwise. And now, I feel like I'm more open to trying things I never have before, like home maintenance or painting or photography, and I know that I'm not "bad" at these things, I've just never spent any time practicing them.

Day 297 - Nat with kettle

Listen to all of Nat's project on her blog HERE or on Soundcloud HERE.