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SONIC ARTS The State of Affairs II: Listening to Vision - Looking at Sound
One day symposium organised by the Sonic Arts programme, Middlesex University
Saturday 4 December 10am - 4.30pm (registration from 9am), £12 (concessions £6) Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1, nearest Tube Holborn
Rut Blees Luxemburg Max Eastley John Levack Drever Conor Kelly Andrew McGettigan Dave Beech Salomé Voegelin
As a result of the interest generated and the positive feedback received after last year's symposium, State of Affairs: the relationship between Sonic and Visual Art, the Sonic Arts programme at Middlesex University stages another day of proceedings exploring the relationship between visual and sonic arts. This sequel aims to again engage artists and theorists working within the sonic and visual arts, and those moving in-between, to discuss the relationship between sonic and visual practices. In particular this year's symposium wants to engage in an exploration of visual and sonic art from a perceptual angle.
Seeing and Hearing
The perceptual processes make the aesthetic, ideological, conceptual, etc., issues involved in the production of an artwork happen: listening and viewing realises the material expression. At the same time, the perceptual process is manipulated by the artwork: its materiality, its concepts and contents, as well as its curatorial management and discursive context influence our perception. The assumption is that the perceptual processes pertaining to a particular expression influence our modes of production, the perceptual engagement in the work as well as the discourses surrounding these practices. This symposium seeks to investigate the similarities and differences of a sonic or a visual engagement and how these are theorised in concurrent discourses of Visual, Sonic and Audio-Visual Arts. The invited speakers introduce and debate their own practices and research in reference to the relationship between seeing and hearing - listening and viewing. The practice and theorisation of these two modes of engagement are scrutinised to consider the sources and consequences of their distinction. Inspired by the range of ideas and practices discussed last year, this year's programme aims to again include presentations of papers, performances and documentation of artist's work, etc. There is no one particular aim to these proceedings apart from the intention to debate and expand concepts, practices and histories via a critical discussion and presentation of material in relation to listening and viewing art. The symposium is divided into a morning and an afternoon session. Both these sessions are followed by a panel discussion, which aims to encourage the audience to participate with their own questions and opinions.
Abstracts and Biographies
Max Eastley I should like to discuss the relationship of movement to sound and vision, and its relevance to Sound Art. Max Eastley is an internationally recognised artist whose work combines kinetic sound sculptures and music into a unique art form. In 2000 he exhibited six installations at Sonic Boom at the Hayward Gallery, London and travelled to Japan to exhibit and perform with David Toop at ICC Tokyo. The previous year a permanent sculpture was installed at the Devils Glen, Co. Wicklow, Ireland. In 2002 he exhibited at the Festival De Arte Sonoro, Mexico City, and was commissioned by the Siobahn Davies Dance Company to write music for the dance piece "Plants and Ghosts" which toured the UK. In 2003 he exhibited a large scale sculpture for Art At The Centre, Reading in collaboration with the Sound engineer Dave Hunt. He is also involved in the Cape Farewell project which involves science and the arts in bringing awareness of the affect of global warming on the Arctic environment, and has visited Spitsbergen in 2003 and2004. His latest collaboration with David Toop: Doll Creature, was released in 2004.
Andrew McGettigan Noisetheorynoise was initiated in 2003. It was conceived asan ongoing series of events to address a set of problems in philosophy and philosophical aesthetics. Chiefly, the failure to engage with the transformed conditions of possibility for music produced by the technological developments of the last 50 years and the concomitant privileging of the visual arts (which proved more amenable to extant theory). I will survey the outcomes of the first two events, which both took place in 2004. My main themes will be:
Producers discussed to be taken from: John Oswald, Merzbow, Porter Ricks, Robert Hood, Schneider TM. Andrew McGettigan is preparing a PhD on Jacques Derrida in the Centre for Modern European Philosophy, Middlesex University. With Ray Brassier he organises the ongoing series of events: noisetheorynoise. http://www.mdx.ac.uk/www/CRMEP/events/noise.htm
John Levack Drever Audio-Vision: Cause and Effect? As a sonic artists, who works primarily with environmental field recording and voice, I often struggle with an essentialist reading of a recording, (as if it is indelibly linked to the event that originally caused it), coupled with a Cagian/ Schaefferian approach to sound as material. With reference to work done by the GPO Film Unit in the 1930s, this presentation will explore how this antagonism impacts on my practice. John Levack Drever is a lecturer in Music at Goldsmiths College, University of London. In 2001 he was awarded a PhD from Dartington College of Arts, titled 'Phonographies: Practical and Theoretical Explorations into Composing with Disembodied Sound'. 2001-3, he was a Research Assistant for the Digital Crowd (University of Plymouth) co-ordinating Sounding Dartmoor, a soundscape study of Dartmoor (www.sounding.org.uk). He is a director of Sonic Arts Network and co-founder and director of the UK and Ireland Soundscape Community (affiliated to the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology), for whom he chaired Sound Practice: the 1st UKISC Conference on sound, culture and environments. He has created audio work for concert hall, radio, cathedral, catwalk, classroom, devised theatre, fine art gallery, video, ice-cream van, Internet, dance, and for specific sites such as the Tower of Winds, an eighteen century octagonal tower. Much of his work is collaborative. He is a member of Blind Ditch, company in residence at Dartington College of Arts.
Rut Blees Luxemburg RBL will introduce the collaborative opera "Liebeslied/My Suicides". Taking at its starting point the still image, the project was elaborated by Text and sound. The construction of the opera reflects this creative process, as it foregrounds the relationship between an artist and a writer, which is interrupted, frayed and de-stabilized by the entry of the third "collaborator": the lover. RBL will explore the process of making the opera and show extracts from the recent world-premiere at the ICA. Rut Blees Luxemburg was born in Germany. She studied Political Science and Photography. Her work is regularly exhibited both in London and internationally and has been included in a number of key exhibitions of contemporary photography. Recently she showed her series Phantom at the Tate Liverpool and To Delphi at Union Gallery, London. Monographs by Rut Blees Luxemburg include: London - A Modern Project, and ffolly.
Conor Kelly Conor Kelly is an artist and composer based in London. He recently had solo shows at Fordham Gallery and Peer in London. Although primarily known for his use of sound, Kelly has increasingly involved film and video in his work. He has also shown work at CCA Glasgow; Cornerhouse, Manchester; Ffoto Gallery Cardiff; On Gallery, Poznan; La Friche Belle De Mai, Marseilles and Frunde Gutter Music, Berlin. He has collaborated with many artists and filmmakers as a composer and sound artist, with work presented at the Venice Biennale, Toronto Festival Of Moving Image, Tate Britain, London Film Festival as well as on BBC Radio 3. With music collaborator Sam Park, (under the name Bell Helicopter) he has composed extensively for theatre and contemporary dance; including work for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon; The Royal Court Theatre, London; Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh; Lyric Theatre, Belfast and Abbey Theatre, Dublin and Purcell Rooms.
Dave Beech Following the Dada concept of anti-art, which continues to inform contemporary art practice, I am interested in the negation of established formats (and their implied social relations) for culture. Around the same time during WW1, Tristan Tzara developed the idea of an unpoetic poetry, Duchamp's Readymades established the practice of an unsculptural sculpture, Francis Picabia explored a range of possible unpainterly painting techniques. Shortly afterwards noise was presented as music but the art of noise did not negate musical composition in the same way as the Dada artists negated art. What interests me, as an artist, is how sound can be used unmusically. I do not mean by this that sound can be used as an anti-aesthetic in which noise extends the range of musical tastes. Sound in contemporary art can be used for completely unmusical ends, such as facilitating certain forms of hospitality, as an alibi for socialisation or as the signifier of care. In this sense, I am not interested in sound, I am interested in what sound can do. Dave Beech was a prominent member of the young London art scene in the mid-90's, working closely with BANK in exhibitions such as Zombie Golf, Cocaine Orgasm, BANKTV and Dog-u-mental. His most recent exhibitions include a solo show at Sparwasser HQ, Berlin in which he invited Berliners to convert their daily routine walks into marches for their favourite historical political slogan. He was also in the Futurology exhibition at the New Art Gallery Walsall and recently recorded 20 songs of from friends' lyrics for "Radio Radio" at International 3, Manchester. He is a regular writer for Art Monthly and other art magazines such as Untitled and Mute, and has contributed to several books, including the Verso anthology dedicated to his writing with John Roberts and selected responses "The Philistine Contoversy". He has written a chapter on Leonard Cohen's song "I'm Your Man" for the forthcoming anthology "Pop Fictions", a book about songs in the movies and guest edited a special issue of Third Text entitled on political art. He is currently the Subject Leader of Fine Art as Social Practice at the University of Wolverhampton after having taught on the MA Fine Art course at Chelsea College of Art. He is a Director of FLOATING IP gallery, Manchester and was nominated this year for the Paul Hamlyn Award for Artists. http://www.dave.beech.clara.net/
Salomé Voegelin 'I spy with my little eye something beginning
with s' - This presentation proposes to investigate the scope and motivation to challenge perceptual (visual) norms via sound. The idea is not to set up or confirm a dialectical conflict between sound and image, nor do I wish to reverse a perceived preference for the visual. Rather, I seek to challenge the conventions and framework that determine and restrict perception to a normative expectation in sound and image alike. The suggestion is that the sonic extends the visual: stretching its periphery and bloating its centre, ultimately bursting the limits of visuality we might attain the vision of Ray Milland's character Dr. Xavier in 'X' - the man with the x-ray eyes. Salomé Voegelin is a Swiss artist and writer based in London. Her work encompasses single screen and installation video and audio work as well as radio productions and sonic pieces for CD. Most recently her work has been presented as part of MIMA's (Middlesborough Institute of Modern Art) QSL project. She is currently preparing the first solo show of her work for UNIT2 Gallery in London. Her theoretical enquiries focus on the Aesthetics of Sound Art: strategies of production and perception and its consequences for visual theories and subjectivities. She writes regular articles and reviews for the sonic arts network, other texts and articles are published in a variety on contexts. In addition to her practice, Salomé is an associate lecturer on the Sonic Arts Programme at Middlesex University.
How to get to Conway Hall: Conway Hall is situated in Central London, three minutes walk from Holborn Underground Station (Piccadilly and Central Lines). Buses: From Oxford Street: 8, 25, 55, 98 (terminates
Red Lion Square) Parking: There is metered parking available in Red Lion Square and adjacent streets, unrestricted on Saturdays after 13:30.
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