with visuals by Additv

Live electro-acoustic audio/visual improvisation derived from bees and other insects. Video clips and info at www.sarahpeebles.net/smash.htm

This work was recorded live in performance at I/O Media Aboveground at InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre, Toronto, January 19, 2007 (Audio recorded and mixed by Ted Phillips).

Bee Space was the first in a series of collaborations involving real-time improvised video by Additv (Rob King). The audio is our human response to the visuals and to eachother; the visual material is generated using audio input from the performers in the moment. “Bee space” is the measurement of space — the width of a single bee — which honeybees will allow to exist in their hives and which they will not seal with wax or propolis (e.g., the space between frames in a managed honey bee hive).

0:00 — 7:00 Peebles uses mixing bowl amplified by a speaker driver (which had no microphone) instead of regular loud speakers in the beginning, therefore:

0:00 — 3:00 is very soft,
3:00 — 7:00 is soft becoming louder,
7:00 — 7:10 mixing bowl transitions to regular loudspeakers (Peebles),
7:00 — end is at a substantial volume