Channel Weather Symmetry : I recently gave a talk on the project’s progress at the Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol, where I’m a resident. Here I am flapping my arms around trying to explain something. The Rhossili half of the project was recently tested in a howling gale by a hardy bunch of walkers, and I’m planning a test at Brean Down soon which will hopefully coincide with heavy snowfall – get in touch if you’d like to come along and test.

I’ve been Tumblrblogging the Channel Weather Symmetry project for a while now, documenting field visits, stories, music composition, photography, daft stories … anything goes. I find Tumblr ideal for doing this, it’s like a digital scrapbook to throw ideas and thoughts into.

50: 50 tracks produced between 2002 and 2008. 4 hours and 6 minutes of idyllic electronica, mangled disco, unpronouncable song titles, synths rescued from skips, recycled folk melodies, bad production, hidden Wu-Tang Clan references, and gutwrenching puns (‘One Man And His Bog’, ‘Bear In A G String’…). The tracks are ordered from Z-A, just for the hell of it, so you’ll find beautiful quiet tracks rubbing shoulders with hugely uncomfortable slabs of noise. If you’ve enjoyed this free album please consider donating or purchasing a paid-for download or physical CD as a mark of your support and to help keep me producing creative things.

Pervasive Media Studio residency: I am currently resident at Bristol’s Pervasive Media Studio where I’m working on the Channel Weather Symmetry project until the end of 2011. The studio is a unique and inspiring mixture of businesses, artists and academics, all doing extraordinary things with pervasive media. Here’s my page at the studio, and here’s my project there.

PRS Foundation Award: I’ve been commissioned by Local Journeys and the National Trust to create a series of locative aware music compositions for their ‘Channel Weather Symmetry’ project, which is grant funded by the PRS Foundation and others through the Beyond Borders scheme (more information here). The project will be based at two National Trust locations either side of the Bristol Channel – Rhossili (Wales) and Brean Down (England). The project will culminate in free public events taking place at both sites in Spring 2012 to launch the series of musical and film works.

Channel Weather Symmetry is a series of location aware music and sound compositions I’m currently working on at two National Trust sites, Brean Down in Somerset and Rhossili in the Gower, South Wales. The work was commissioned by Local Journeys and the National Trust, and is grant funded by the PRS Foundation and others through the Beyond Borders scheme.

‘Location aware music’ is music that changes depending on your location. Using a GPS-equipped smartphone and a pair of headphones, listeners walk around a particular area to hear the compopsition, the musical changing depending on where exactly they are.

My friend Alistair Banks has Motor Neurone Disease, an incurable disease which will eventually kill him. For the past few months he has been fronting the MNDA’s awareness raising campaign as ‘Alistair The Optimist’, recording an album and raising money through various activities including driving a milk float to the Dorset coast and back, just for the sheer joy of it.

Here’s a short film I made of Al and his band recording the album at a beautiful farm studio in Somerset. I’m currently putting the final touches to another short, this time documenting the making of a video for one of the album’s tracks.

I’m currently working on a short documentary film that aims to reflect the solitude of the half-derilict ‘lost’ village of Rhiwddolion, high up in a hidden valley in Snowdonia. Although I grew up barely ten miles away I didn’t know the place existed until a couple of years ago, since when I’ve been a regular visitor thanks to my friend Chris who has a cottage there.

Ar hyn o bryd dwi’n gweithio ar ffilm ddogfen bach sy’n myfyrio ar atmosffer arbennig pentref ‘colledig’ Rhiwddolion yn Eryri. Er i mi treulio fy mhlentyndod dim ond deg milltir i ffwrdd doeddwn i ddim yn gwybod fod y lle’n bodoli tan cwpl o flynyddoedd yn ol, ers pryd dwi wedi ymweld a’r lle yn aml diolch i fy ffrind Chris sy’n berchen a bwthyn yno.

Rhiwddolion from Geraint Ffrancon on Vimeo.

Rhiwddolion from Geraint Ffrancon on Vimeo.

An ongoing project close to my heart is some work I’ve been doing on promoting greater use of the Avon Cycleway, a fantastic 90 mile circular loop through the countryside around Bristol.

The website aims to provide a shrine for all things Avon Cycleway – scenery, villages, natural history, pubs, cafes, bike shops, and weird stuff along the way. The website is very much a work in progress at this point in time, with plans for expansion over the coming months.

‘Ffflag’ was created as an alternative version of the Welsh national flag. It is both a riposte to the cliched overuse of the red dragon in Welsh souvenir tat made in China, and also a reclaiming of the sheep as an iconic symbol of the country. The green of the land and the white overcast sky remain.