Thinking about how to progress with my piece. Thinking about containment (pipes and shower curtain?) against the uncontrollable (sound emitted from the cannisters?) , proximity (close to the viewer), yet separateness (sheet acting as a barrier. This is all to encapsulate failed attempts at containment; containment of anxiety, containment of the pandemic, containment of hysteria, containment under an autocratic, failing(?) government etc.

The sculpture could be contained by a curtain which the viewer can just about see through- or perhaps opaque paynes of glass/windows or doors? There but hidden; allusive and obscure. It is at once both certain and unstable.

I recorded some sounds produced by (1) hitting the canisters to create an echo and (2) rolling the canisters to evoke a sense of weight and heaviness. I then edited the sounds by overlaying them, adding artificial additional echos, changing the pitch and making them reverb. These sounds, if I were to use them, would be played on repeat in the gallery space to produce a sense of all consuming disarray, confusion, and to hypnotise the viewer. Perhaps they could be played from a speaker placed inside one of the canisters- perhaps to produce more immediate and natural echos, to make the piece more menacing and enlivened. The repetition would infer an endlessness which aims to reflect how the current pandemic seems to be, itself, unending. Restrictions seem to be dragging on and hope is diminishing… Perhaps the sound could get louder towards the end of the display time- to emphasise a sense of panic and anxiety and produce similar feelings within the viewer themselves?

Unfortunately the araldite solution didn’t work- the mixture either wasn’t strong enough or I didn’t mix it properly! So today I went to N.01 to glue gun the canister to the metal plate. However, this too was not strong enough. I may have to, on the day of construction, glue the canister last minute on to the pipes- so that I use the weight of the cannisters and gravity to help hold it in place as well. In the meantime, I need to Cut another pipe to connect the two white canisters and will hopefully be able to book in to the metal workshop soon!

On Friday I welded a two metal plates and a nut and bolt to the end of a pipe to which I could attach the smaller blue canister. This was because I was apprehensive as to whether all the gas had been removed from the canister (You could hear a certain something when you held it to your ear, could still smell some residue) and drilling a hole in to the bottom would thus prove quite dangerous (boom!). I am really pleased with the welding, however- Im certain it will attach well to the canister with araldite (a really strong glue used for metal).