Film Music
The Alluvium (2020)
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Music commissioned by Erin Coates and featuring percussion performance by Louise Devenish
A film by Erin Coates Composed by Stuart James Percussion performed by Louise Devenish HD video with sound 9:30 minutes |
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Alluvium is a part of the Alluvial Gold project, spanning drawing, sculpture, video and performance, which has been commissioned by Goolugatup Heathcote for their Tilt residency and exhibition program. For this major new body of work, Coates delves into the often-forgotten world below the river surface to explore the changing ecology of the Derbarl Yerrigan / Swan River. Informed by marine biology, historical research and her experiences free-diving in the river, Coates looks at the transference of matter into and out the river.
In the film Alluvium, Coates brings a visceral drama to the biology of the Derbarl Yerrigan, a salt wedge estuary flowing through Boorloo / Perth. The film alludes to the complex hydrodynamics, biology and chemistry of the river and the ways these have been changed in the 200 years since the establishment of the Swan River Colony. Nutrient loading caused by runoff from residential fertilisers and upstream agriculture increase the phosphorus and nitrogen in the water, thus promoting algal blooms and low oxygen conditions. The shellfish reefs were dredged from the river and invasive species like the white colonial sea squirt (Didemnum perlucidum) and mermaid’s hair (Lyngbya) compete with native sea grasses. In recent years there have been unusual mortality events among the resident dolphin population. The dolphins that have died all showed signs of tattoo skin disease (Cetacean Morbillivirus), a virus that causes circular skin lesions. Alluvium provides a dark speculation on the transformation of river ecosystems while highlighting the fecundity and resilience of life forms within this urban waterway.
Percussionist Louise Devenish and composer Stuart James have created a musical score for this film, by exploring the instrumental potential of Coates’ oyster shell and metallic sculptures.
In the film Alluvium, Coates brings a visceral drama to the biology of the Derbarl Yerrigan, a salt wedge estuary flowing through Boorloo / Perth. The film alludes to the complex hydrodynamics, biology and chemistry of the river and the ways these have been changed in the 200 years since the establishment of the Swan River Colony. Nutrient loading caused by runoff from residential fertilisers and upstream agriculture increase the phosphorus and nitrogen in the water, thus promoting algal blooms and low oxygen conditions. The shellfish reefs were dredged from the river and invasive species like the white colonial sea squirt (Didemnum perlucidum) and mermaid’s hair (Lyngbya) compete with native sea grasses. In recent years there have been unusual mortality events among the resident dolphin population. The dolphins that have died all showed signs of tattoo skin disease (Cetacean Morbillivirus), a virus that causes circular skin lesions. Alluvium provides a dark speculation on the transformation of river ecosystems while highlighting the fecundity and resilience of life forms within this urban waterway.
Percussionist Louise Devenish and composer Stuart James have created a musical score for this film, by exploring the instrumental potential of Coates’ oyster shell and metallic sculptures.
Open Water: The Offering (2017)
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Music commissioned by Erin Coates and Anna Nazzari and featuring performance by Tristen Parr and Eduardo Cossio
Erin Coates and Anna Nazzari, 2017 HD video with stereo sound duration 4:45 minutes Composer: Stuart James Taking a true event as a starting point, Open Water: The Offering is based on an incident that occurred in 1965 in the coastal town of Albany when a well-known whaler and gunner on The Cheynes III (a whale chaser) |
lost his leg after it became entangled in a rope attached to a harpoon fired at a whale. The film charts the imagined journey of a detached human leg, gifted to the Southern Ocean and its inhabitants by an otherworldly cetacean. The bloated, grotesque leg is gradually colonised by endemic marine species of fauna and flora, transformed into a dark, phantasmagorical island.Shot entirely in the coastal waters off Perth, Open Water: The Offering merges nature documentary with Cronenbergesque body-horror. It offers a darkly magic realist version of maritime history in regional Australia, considered from the perspective of the ocean and its inhabitants.
Driving to the Ends of the Earth (2016)
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Audio/music commissioned by Erin Coates
video with sound, duration: 11:22 mins composer: Stuart James camera: Sohan Ariel Hayes gaffer: Dion Borrett Driving to the Ends of the Earth continues Coates' ongoing interest in urban and automobile space and specifically the relationship between cinematic vision and the moving image seen from a car. Our experience of cities – especially car-centric ones like Perth – is strongly shaped by seeing and moving |
through them inside of cars. Acting as a wrap-around cinema screen, the car window provides us with a seated, glassed-in view of the landscape that strongly shapes our ideas of it. Driving to the Ends of the Earth was shot against a green screen to create the illusion of a stationary car moving through space, and also references the pre-CGI cinematic technique of rear projection. The car windows act as screens, through which a continual stream of catastrophic events play out, appropriated from footage caught on dash cams and uploaded to news and You-Tube channels. Seemingly oblivious to the scenes of disaster, the driver and her dog carry out everyday tasks, safe in the autonomous zone of the automobile to eat, clean, exercise, urinate and listen to music. The car, which is packed with supplies, equipment and decorations, acts as a kind of flamboyant mobile biosphere, hurtling through the impending yet surreal doom of climate catastrophe, civil unrest and minor apocalypses.
The postproduction of this video work by Erin Coates required me to create sound design and foley, and then mix these in context. What eventuated was a complex intersection of layers: the protagonist, the dog, the car, objects inside the car, the radio, weather, and a sequence of disasters that occur during the short film. The work was screened in the Success Gallery in Fremantle between 3rd September and the 2nd October 2016.
The postproduction of this video work by Erin Coates required me to create sound design and foley, and then mix these in context. What eventuated was a complex intersection of layers: the protagonist, the dog, the car, objects inside the car, the radio, weather, and a sequence of disasters that occur during the short film. The work was screened in the Success Gallery in Fremantle between 3rd September and the 2nd October 2016.
Thigmotaxis (2014)
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Thigmotaxis from Erin Coates on Vimeo. |
Audio/music commissioned by Erin Coates
EHD video, 5.1 surround sound, duration: 9 minutes, Sound design: Stuart James Climbers: Erin Coates, Shevaun Cooley, Ally Glaser, Jarrod May, Jon Marsh, Ning Tan, Rodney Tan, Brian Tan, Peter Zhang. Parkour traceurs: Grant Webster, Matthew James Drone pilot: Captain Jon Marsh Technical consultant and colourist: Sohan Ariel Hayes The term 'thigmotaxis' is used in biology and behavioural studies |
to describe a response to the touch of the external surface of an object. Thigmotaxic movement involves skirting the periphery of spaces whist using touch and haptic awareness to navigate. It is the movement of climbers and parkour traceurs. Erin's film Thigmotaxis is a manifesto of city and suburban transgression through bouldering and parkour - which plays out to heart-racing effect with a polyrhythmic percussive soundscape. Coates draws on her background in urban climbing and her interest in architecture to provide new perspectives into Perth's built environs. Filmed over a series of early-morning guerilla-style interventions with the city's public art and architecture, Thigmotaxis brings together collaborations with climbers, parkour traceurs, and sound and video artists.
~ Leigh Robb, PICA
~ Leigh Robb, PICA
The Last Climber Alive Must Keep Herself Fit and Ready (2014)
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Audio/music commissioned by Erin Coates
video, duration: 5:41 mins composer: Stuart James climber: Shevaun Cooley Erin Coates' video practice has long been concerned with sci-fi literature, cinema and post-apocalyptic landscapes. The Last Climber Alive Must Keep Herself Fit and Ready, is set amidst a desolate megalopolis within which roams a lone female athlete on infinite loop. We watch her stretch, train, accrue muscle and strength in preparation for a battle with an |
unknown assailant who may never arrive to test the power of this lean and agile urban warrior. The set is the largest architectural model in the world, a miniature replica on a 1:1750 scale of the city of Beijing, housed in the Beijing Urban Planning Museum in China.
~Leigh Robb, Kinesphere publication, 2014
~Leigh Robb, Kinesphere publication, 2014
Merge (2013)
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Merge from Erin Coates on Vimeo. |
Audio/music commissioned by Erin Coates
HD Red video, with surround sound ambisonic installation by Stuart James duration: 10 mins In Merge the confined space of a mindlessly generic sedan interior is slowly consumed and eventually merged - through violent rupture - to the outside, by an overactive, nippled, red 'horror-airbag'. The intense, ambisonic score for this film heightens the menacing yet oddly comic transformation taking place. |
- James, S. (2020). The Alluvium [soundtrack] for Coates, E. (2020). The Alluvium [film].
- James, S. (2017). Open Water [soundtrack] for Coates, E. & Nazzari, A. (2017). Open Water: The Offering [film].
- James, S. (2016). Driving to the Ends of the Earth [soundtrack] for Coates, E. (2016). Driving to the Ends of the Earth [film].
- James, S. (2016). Eternal Boglap [soundtrack] for Coates, E. (2016). Eternal Boglap [film].
- James, S. (2014). Thigmotaxis [soundtrack] for Coates, E. (2014). Thigmotaxis [film].
- James, S. (2014). The Last Climber Alive Must Keep Herself Fit and Ready [soundtrack] for Coates, E. (2014). The Last Climber Alive Must Keep Herself Fit and Ready [film].
- James, S. (2013). Merge [soundtrack] for Coates, E. (2013). Merge [film].
- James, S. (2012). Thirst [soundtrack] for Coates, E. (2012). Thirst [film].
- Messer, J. (Producer). (2016). It's Not Just Me [Motion Picture; Sound design by James, S.]. Perth: Independent.
