Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Podcast · Fermynwoods Contemporary Art

Fermynwoods Podcast 21 - A Ton of Worms

October 12, 2023·1 hr 31 min·5 clips

A Ton of Worms describes creating vibrations to 'penetrate history' like holding a megaphone to the earth and screaming into it.

A Ton of Worms starts with English yew. The host sets the work inside Fermynwoods' Forest of Xylophobia, a season of eerie woodland, dark forest, and subterranean listening. It is a strange fit in the best way. The guest, a multidisciplinary artist and writer, approaches Taxus baccata through field recordings, whittling, fermentation, propagation, and classic art forms. Decay is not scenery here. It is one of the places where persecuted wildlife, maligned plants, and overlooked species get a little room. The work listens outward, and that is where it gets interesting. During the shared playback, other beings arrive almost sideways, and the guest hears birds moving through the piece after making it. The blackbird becomes hard to ignore. What begins as an artist's composition opens up to wings, calls, exits, and sudden shifts in mood. Even the ending has a flutter to it. The host first hears the leaving bird as something larger and darker, then gets the quieter correction of a wood pigeon. That small mishearing matters. The piece lets the mind wander, but it keeps pulling attention back to the actual bodies and sounds in the landscape. The diddly bow has its own rough charm. The guest wanted the simplest instrument that could vibrate like a string, then tried making it from a fallen yew branch found by the road. The wood pushes back. Yew is hard, the branch is awkward, and the whole thing behaves differently from the easier flat plank version. That difficulty stays audible. Wind damage, handwork, and the failure of easy making all become part of what the instrument carries. The episode closes with care, naming the sound work as moving and mysterious, crediting Subterra's editing, and placing the series within Fermynwoods Contemporary Art's two-year Xylophobia program.

As heard by us

An English yew sound work that blends field recordings, craft, and decay.

A Ton of Worms is a multidisciplinary sound work built around the English yew. It moves through field recordings, whittling, fermentation, propagation, and a performance made on the summer solstice of 2023.

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Why you'd press play

For a yew-rooted sound piece where birds, handmade instruments, and decay share the frame.

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