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The Prix Ars Electronica Archive is a collection enabling search and viewing of all the submissions since 1987. The award-winning projects are documented with catalogue texts and audio-visual media. All other submissions can be searched by title/artist and displayed with year, category in list form. Please cite the credits (artwork name, artist and photographer) and only use the materials if your article is related to Ars Electronica.
The Housebound Spirit
Leafcutter John
Original: Leafcutter John - The Housebound Spirit 1. 42 | 0:00:41 | 7.0 MB
Original: Leafcutter John - The Housebound Spirit 5. Walk on My Back | 0:04:28 | 45.2 MB
Original: Leafcutter John - The Housebound Spirit 11. All I Could Think of Was Nothing.wav | 0:03:59 | 40.2 MB
Original: Leafcutter John - The Housebound Spirit Excerpt | 0:02:56 | 29.8 MB
Original: Leafcutter John - The Housebound Spirit Album Artwork | 1417 * 1417px | 183.2 KB
Original: Leafcutter John - The Housebound Spirit Album Artwork 2 and 3 | 945 * 473px | 44.2 KB
Original: Leafcutter John - The Housebound Spirit Album Artwork Intray | 593 * 464px | 47.8 KB
Composing has very little to do with sound. In my work sound is a transformation of emotion, a personal projection from inner to outer. The compositions I produce are based on observing my situation and choosing the best sonic tools to examine, rationalize, and resolve my feelings.
I record the main source material for my compositions personally then treat this raw material to create further sources for my compositions. I try to record only material which is personally significant to me. Written between 2001 and 2003, The Housebound Spirit combines techniques also heard in electroacoustic, folk and electronica music.
During the writing of this work I was mugged in the highstreet near my home. I didn’t realize the importance of this event at the time. Over a period of a couple of months I began to suffer increasingly severe agoraphobia and started to experience panic attacks when outdoors. For the first time since my childhood I felt totally vulnerable and became consumed by the fear that I might die. As a result of these fears and panic attacks, I became virtually housebound and divorced from my usual range of social activities and friends. It would become clear later that I had also distanced myself totally from my own emotions in order to protect myself from the messages they were communicating. In part, The Housebound Spirit documents the gradual reconstruction of this internal, emotional communication. I found that by producing music I could examine these lost emotions and form a link between my blocked emotional world and my conscious thoughts. To be able to make my emotions into physical musical works allowed me to recognize them.
I record the main source material for my compositions personally then treat this raw material to create further sources for my compositions. I try to record only material which is personally significant to me. Written between 2001 and 2003, The Housebound Spirit combines techniques also heard in electroacoustic, folk and electronica music.
During the writing of this work I was mugged in the highstreet near my home. I didn’t realize the importance of this event at the time. Over a period of a couple of months I began to suffer increasingly severe agoraphobia and started to experience panic attacks when outdoors. For the first time since my childhood I felt totally vulnerable and became consumed by the fear that I might die. As a result of these fears and panic attacks, I became virtually housebound and divorced from my usual range of social activities and friends. It would become clear later that I had also distanced myself totally from my own emotions in order to protect myself from the messages they were communicating. In part, The Housebound Spirit documents the gradual reconstruction of this internal, emotional communication. I found that by producing music I could examine these lost emotions and form a link between my blocked emotional world and my conscious thoughts. To be able to make my emotions into physical musical works allowed me to recognize them.
Leafcutter John (John Burton, UK). After studying Fine Art Painting at Norwich School of Art and a frustrating year pursuing a career as a performance artist in London, John began to concentrate on his musical work. He quickly secured interest from Mike Paradinas (mu-ziq) and was encouraged to develop his electroacoustic-folk hybrid. That is how his first full-length release, Concourse E.E.P., was born. His second release, Microcontact, came a year later and served to further affirm Leafcutter John’s position as one of the most individual producers currently working in electronic music.