Jul 2019

Foos yer Doric min? Interact with our digital exhibit, ‘Glisk’ during Look Again Festival 2019

Words by Sabine Bein

For the 2019 Look Again Festival with the theme “New Narratives”, we were invited to provide visuals for the floor to ceiling screen located in the entrance of Aberdeen Music Hall.

Born in 2015 to celebrate and support visual art and artists in the region, Look Again is now part of Gray’s School of Art at Robert Gordon University (RGU) and is firmly established as a year-round presence.

We chose to showcase the Aberdeen Doric dialect in collaboration with talented local poet Jo Gilbert and renowned London based artist Morag Myerscough.

Jo hosted a workshop that Team DAC participated in, creating a Doric poem called “Dear Aiberdeen”. Morag, who has a connection to the city through her Aberdeen-born mother, held a workshop demonstrating her unique use of colours and shapes that resulted in a range of custom patterns. The patterns were inspired by her large artwork installation displayed at the Aberdeen Castlegate during the Look Again Festival.

Taking part in Jo’s poetry workshop

We combined Jo’s poem and Morag’s patterns into a series of animated landscapes illustrating lines from the poem.

Additionally, we created an animation for another one of Jo’s poems called “Love at First Sight” featuring psychedelic shapes and colours.

Visitors to the Music Hall had the opportunity to submit and vote for some of their favourite Doric sayings on a bespoke website. The most popular phrases were also animated and added to the screen during the Look Again Festival in June 2019.

Jo Gilbert at the Music Hall entrance screen, photo courtesy of DC Thomson

Jo Gilbert at the Music Hall entrance screen, photo courtesy of DC Thomson

The final three-part piece was titled “Glisk”- a Doric word meaning ‘passing glance’ – and remained live at the Music Hall for a month after its initial release.

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