Traditional music, specifically the making of it, is one of the few things in our hyper-capitalist world that is truly owned by the people (universally), it is written and performed by the people (communally and over many decades) and it is deeply connected to everyday working life. My work is also often inspired by (and I am occasionally involved in) the contemporary experimental music and improvisation scene in London and at home in Manchester. This music has no singular form until a person, or a group of people performs it, giving it this collective nature that allows no piece of music to be itself without every single performer and every single instrument/voice in attendance. This process of instantaneous composition can also be an example of true collective ownership of labour, no single person ever taking all the credit. These outcomes are so fragile and so powerful. Whether they lean into foley, unpredictable polyphony or cacophonic walls of noise, the audiences are placed in a moment of sacred otherworldliness. Choral music also transports us in this way too. To sing with a choir is to forget the self and to become a single body or hive mind with a hundred others. I have found his sensation to be constant no matter the level of formality and expertise at play. It is the same in an Irish pub singing session, in a church service, in a Sacred Harp singing, in my band at a folk festival, in ‘world leading’ symphony choirs, there is no difference.

It is these effects that occur during the performance of music that I am always striving towards when considering how I can build my design/drawing practice to become a communal and collective activity. If audio can help us achieve this sense of ethereal togetherness, it is something so much rarer (that I don’t think I have ever experienced myself) for any visual medium to evoke this same feeling, but it is not impossible. Throughout this research I will develop a practice of collective/communal drawing that brings experimental visual communication closer this effect.