18.40, Sunday 12 May 2002

Highlight of the trip so far has to be Audium. It's a 70 minute sound performance in a pitch dark theatre, a mixture of abstract and found noises moving in the space all around, part recorded, part improvised. The lights went down gradually and as they did I gradually moved into a state where the samples were solid, I couldn't tell what size I was or my orientation; the hallucinations were vivid (a like-being-there marching band, an abstract microscopic soundscape like Tron). At one point during the second act I felt as though I was plummetting for what seemed like forever. At another point I was close to tears. At others I didn't completely realise how visual my thoughts were, only coming to later and being aware of where I was. (Previously any visualisations I've had have been from outside looking in, almost isometric, like a tele infront of me. By the end of this piece they surrounded me. Not something I watched, but my environment. My dreams have probably been changed forever.) At the end I swear I was in a tent on the African savannah at night, contemplating the [unspecified in my head] events of the day [being, that which had taken place over the last two acts], as the lights came up. And I'm now aware of the tiniest things, a distant humming, the chugging and clicking on my hard drive, the rippling reflection of the ceiling fan on three keys of my keyboard. Spectacular. (In a non-spectacle way obviously; there was nothing to see.)