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Guy GoldsteinYes/No Questions (2014)
Yes/No Questions uses a dozen amplifiers whose fronts are covered with a photographic print of drum leather, usually found on snare drums. The sounds coming from the amplifiers are those of voices repeating the words “yes” and “no” in different languages. The sound waves create ink stains on the print of the drum leather. This embroidery appears as a violent act, which injures the canvas in a desperate attempt to give form to the inherently formless stains.
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Ceal Floyer‘Til I get it Right (2012)
Ceal Floyer’s sound installation ‘Til I get it Right seems to be a comment on the artist’s strive for perfection. It’s a loop that is created from a song of the same title by the American country music singer-songwriter Tammy Wynette. Ceal Floyer just used the lines “I’ll just keep on” and “‘Til I Get It Right,” to create an endless mantra-like soundtrack.
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Kaz Oshirxvarious works (2002 - 2009)
Early in his career, Oshiro became known as a master of deception. He recreated ordinary household objects such as kitchen cabinets, microwaves, mini fridges, guitar amplifiers, and stereo speakers. What first appears to be a three dimensional object reveals itself, upon closer looking, to be a painting on canvas. Complete with markings resembling ordinary wear and tear endured by objects that figure into everyday life, Oshiro’s works are made using a realist technique, which is so convincing that the paintings can be easy to miss as they blend into the environment. Assembled from stretched canvas, Oshiro’s paintings are complete with painted fixtures, which aid in the deception. The unraveling of deception only happens upon inspection behind the façade and through openings in the back of the work.
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Maya DunietzThistle (2016)
Thicket is a tangle of thousands of iPod ear buds that reverse the music listening experience they usually offer from the intimacy of the individually chosen stereo sound to the public space of the installation that they form. The multichannel soundtrack with which the digitally steered amplifier creates a sound landscape that the visitor can wander around also serves as a second experiential layer that abstractly overlaps the invisibly reverberating matter of this work. This work of art, thus, explores the common ground between sound art and art installations. Its ephemeral sound patterns also escape categorization, as one’s trajectory through the space of this work creates a largely random, individual hearing experience of a modulated, elusive score made of musical citations and found sounds.
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Byoungho KimThree Hundreds Silent Pollens (2009)
aluminum, piezo speakers, microspeaker, condenser microphone, mixer, amplifier, 600 x 900 x 450 cm
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Alberto TadielloMelisma (2014)
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Banks VioletteSunnO))) / (Repeater) Decay / Coma Mirror (2006)
At the Maureen Paley Gallery in London, June of 06, Violette created sculptural representation of SUNN O)))s entire backline in cast resin and salt, including amplifier stacks, instruments, effects & accompaniments. In addition, black laquered stage platforms and sound panels were created as a basis for the groups actual backline setup, and a selection of drawings were presented within the context. The result of this performance and collaboration, which was conducted in a sealed gallery space, was intended to generate a feeling of absence, loss and a phantom of what once was’.
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Gyula VárnaiThe Form of Thought (2001)
sound installation wood, cloth, cables, 2 amplifiers, 8 speakers, computer, sounds of arrows shot and hitting the target), 180 × 1500 x 110 cm
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Ariel BustamanteVolumen Sintetico (2011)
The work is composed by 1629 earphones embedded in a 180 cm diameter wooden parabolic antenna and 24 electronic boards that distribute sound from a mp3 player to each earphone. The parabolic geometry allows for all the sound sources to coincide at a focal point one meter away from the structure's center, which results in a noticeable increase in the general volume due to the addition of each earphone's low decibel intensity. Another characteristic of this work is that the disposition of the earphones causes the sound to stop being individual and become public. This is due to the fact that the earphones are exposing their faces, or their speakers' fronts, which are usually hidden inside of the ear. This disposition of elements refers to a large speaker, a medium that reproduces sound; however, this is not a neutral medium, like the common home speaker.
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Paul KosThe Sound of Ice Melting (1970)
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Richard GaretBefore Me (2012)
Garet’s work takes many shapes, from sculptural installations to digital projections to live performances. Before Me fits into the first and last categories: it is a sculptural assemblage of outmoded technologies, and the spinning marble amounts to a live performance of sorts. The work’s centerpiece is an old LP record player with its platter upside down and revolving at 33 ½ revolutions per minute. The marble at the upturned edge can advance only slightly before its momentum is overridden and it rolls back to its starting point. This action continues endlessly, suggesting the plight of Sisyphus, a king in Greek mythology who was compelled to push a boulder up a mountain only to have it repeatedly fall back to the mountain’s base. Garet explores what is often considered background noise, and here the background (the platter on which a record is typically placed for playing) is central to the piece, the director of the marble’s fate.
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Michelle Jaffé Wappen Field (2011)
Wappen Field is a sculpture and sound installation comprised of 12 chrome plated steel helmets resembling face guards. Each helmet’s dedicated speaker transforms the sculptural installation into an immersive audio environment. Vocal recordings originally created by Ayelet Rose Gottlieb, culled from seven diverse performers, are composed by Michelle Jaffé & spatialized algorithmically by David Reeder in SuperCollider.
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Jeroen DiepenmaatOde ... (2015)
“Ode…” consists of 83 music boxes in a forest in Diepenveen in the Netherlands, all playing two notes when a cord is pulled. When multiple boxes are activated, the noted come together, creating a melody. Just like two people can meet each other coincidentally, and can become inseparable.
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Omar VelázquezPariah (2015)
Pariah explores the origins of noise and power through chaos theory elements, and how these may relate to the practice of art and rock n’ roll aesthetics. On opening night, several guitarists performed and took part of the work. A metal barricade with LED police traffic light bars ghostly lighted the space as they played cathartic riff rituals. During museum hours, visitors can freely manifest themselves physically and mentally by playing an A minor-tuned custom made guitar at a low 432hz frequency.
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John WynneUntitled installation for 300 speakers, player piano and vacuum cleaner (2010)
John Wynne's installation is at once monumental, minimal and immersive. It uses sound and sculptural assemblage to explore and define architectural space and to investigate the borders between sound and music. The piece has three interwoven sonic elements: the ambient sound of the space in which it is installed, the notes played by the piano, and a computer-controlled soundtrack consisting of synthetic sounds and gently manipulated notes from the piano itself. Because none of these elements are synchronised with each other, the composition will never repeat. The music punched into the paper roll is Franz Léhar's 1909 operetta Gypsy Love, but the mechanism has been altered to play at a very slow tempo and the Pianola modified to play only the notes which most excite the resonant frequencies of the gallery space in which it is installed. Sound moves through the space on trajectories programmed using a 32-channel sound controller, creating a kind of epic, abstract 3-D opera in slow motion.
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Sergei TcherepninMotor-Matter Bench (2013)
Rigged with transducers, Sergei Tcherepnin’s Motor-Matter Bench (2013) welcomes sitters, and then, through bone conduction, they’ll hear a composition. Their bodies will actually transmit sound.
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Darren BaderAntipodes: Parmigiano-Reggiano (detail, 2013)
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Wei-Hao TsengTalking Forest (2016)
In his project, Tseng tries to unite the consciousness of the audience, image, and sounds in order to complete an artwork with motions, image, and sounds. He uses electricity conducting inks and pencils as mediums to create sounds from the resistance noises generated by feedback loop of amplifier. The unique sounds made by the mediums are their ways to communicate and transfer. In fact, Tseng’s work has transcended the pure exploration of sounds, bodies, technology, and interaction. His work brings us to the ground of new media art, showing a distinctive art form and expression belonging to this era.
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Martin KerselsBuoy (1999)
mixed media including a mirror ball, a Walkman, an amplifier, a speaker, a tin can, a flashing light, and a motor.
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Lisa KirkUntitled (Speaker) (If You See Something… Say Something… soundtrack included) (2011)
maple, oak, 24.75 x 16.25 x 12.25 in.
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Christian SkjødtIllumination (2014)
Illumination is created specifically for an 18th century wine cellar in University of Latvia’s Botanical Garden in Riga. The work is an examines the translation of the outer circumstances, harvesting the energy from the sun (via 100 solar modules), and bringing this into the cellar in the form of sound (via 10 autonomous analogue systems). Here the sounds are spatialised, where it investigates the special acoustics of the dome shaped wine cellar. Each system/speaker is tuned to the Concert A (440 Hz) under optimal sunlight conditions, resulting in microtonal cluster-type texture due to the weather conditions and the rotation of the planet.
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Anthony JohnsonMemoirs of a Wall (2012)
As my day-job over the past fifteen years, I have worked in behind-the-scenes roles within the art industry, predominately installing and de-installing artists‘ works and exhibitions in galleries, museums and other public and private spaces. In the process of developing the idea of Memoirs of a Wall, I followed a line of thought that started with the chronological gap in between exhibitions on a gallery's annual calendar. The role of exhibition installer entails operating within the fallow grey zone on the exhibition calendar, and within the non-exhibited gallery site as a space of labour, when it is in-between exhibitions, and neither here nor there. These notions of inter-state times and spaces were given further form by the given architecture of the Carnegie Gallery, where a façade of white gallery walls stand autonomously within the large heritage-listed council building. I think of it as a room trying to disguise itself as another — architectural cross-dressing, if you like. Between the original walls and the display walls, there runs a long tight corridor only forty centimetres wide, along the longest wall within the space, and accessible only by ladder. I began thinking of this difficult to access passage as an analogy for the grey area I occupy in my roles as an artist and an exhibition installer, to that chronological gap between exhibitions – the space of nothing. For the work, Memoirs of Wall, all the pre-existing anchor point holes of the longest wall in the Carnegie Gallery were re-perforated from the back of the wall to the front. As you'd expect, the vast majority were in a central horizontal band along the length of the wall. Then with a hammer, I punched out two eye-holes for myself in the centre of the wall. Throughout the exhibition opening, I wore the wall like a mask, with my eyes visible to the audience from within the gallery space, who could then visually engage with me. Within the gallery, a microphone on a stand was adjusted to touch the wall at the point where my mouth would be relative to the eye- holes. This microphone was 'live' and connected to a small amplifier positioned next to the stand. However I remained mute throughout the performance, but the volume on the amplifier was tuned relatively high, to pick up on sound within the gallery. The monotonous drone of the crowded space resulted in a low pitch drone, but at times it neared a point of high-pitch feedback. The shriek of feedback never quite happened, but the immanent threat of the wall screaming created anxious moments within the crowd, and groups would pause conversation to quieten the threatening din. This reflexive adjustment occurred numerous times throughout the performance, the amount of noise in the space shifting, particularly in relation to people's proximity to the wall. The work thus introduced a participatory element, which established a spatial audial rapport between the audience and the wall I occupied.
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Tim BrunigesMIRRORS (2014)
Acting as “sound mirrors”, these curved surfaces collect, compress and amplify all sound occurring in front of them. When received, sound is pushed outward along the edges in the opposite direction. Because the two slabs are placed in front of each other, sound is being transmitted back and forth over a ~8 meter distance, constantly amplifying the sound in the room. This all is supported by a second layer of sound: two speakers and a microphone embedded in the parabolic reflector, amplifying the sounds in the room and playing them back with different layers of digital delay, creating a tension with the purely acoustic “delay”.
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Nicky TeeganPrayer Battery (2012)
The cult demands complete fanaticism and dedication to these devotional objects. These objects are charged with a spiritual dimension. They are mystical beings. This is a space of worship, fetish and indulgence for the cult. A shrine is built in which all of the objects are directed towards. It is a void, a cite of incantation or prayer. A drone plays towards the void, it is a charge, resonating throughout the space, generating a state of hypnosis. The drone is powered by a another devotional object, a prayer battery, containing the charge of chants and rituals powered by the cult. Footage of a ritual is played in the corner of the room looping eternally. The figure is shrouded by protective material. Canonised, it holds a relic of the void and performs a ritual of devotion towards the poster on the wall that depicts a utopian world in which these mystical objects originate from.
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Yoshihiko Satoh Present Arms (2002)
Yoshihiko Satoh takes mass-produced goods that have become part of our every day life, enlarges and/or multiplies them, creating sculptures that unleash the energy residing in their function and shape. In 2002, he won the Kirin Art Award Grand Prix for “Present Arms”, a 12-neck guitar conceived as a challenge to a rock guitarist he idolizes.
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Ceal FloyerScale (2007)
Often suffused with a distinctly wry sense of humour, Floyer’s works have an offbeat quality, with the dialectical tension inherent in commonplace representation being inserted into revelatory notional compositions. In Scale, the artist exploits the dual meanings of the title itself, verb and noun, as speakers serially mounted to recreate escalating steps play the sound of footsteps ascending and descending. The footsteps scale the speakers, while the speakers play back a new kind of “scale” – liminal rather than musical.
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p.s. Hey. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! Cool, I'm glad the documentary was interesting. Yeah, that period was kind of huge. It's so interesting and cool and, I guess, obvious that a time and phase of life that just seems, like, there, normal, what you're doing at the time, can end up seeming so vital and special later. When perspective and memory take control of the past, it's so strange and interesting. Ah, Silencio's all right. I just imagined a club designed by David Lynch (!), and my imagination ran too far away. The producer meeting was great! A lot of progress. We start applying for the additional funding we need for the film on Tuesday, and we'll be setting up a rough schedule and figuring out the budget and stuff in a few weeks. Very exciting. It did add to my already insane workload this weekend because now there's even more things we have to write and do by Monday in addition to the avalanche of TV series stuff, and fuck knows how we'll be able to do everything, but we will, and, yeah, Zac and I are very hyped and happy. Oh, is your new blog up and readable now? I've been so overwhelmed that I haven't had time to check. But if it's there, I will asap. Great! I hope today is easily as cool as your yesterday. ** Jamie McMorrow, Sunrise in the form of a sentence to you, Jamie! Yeah, yesterday was great 'cos Zac and I made big progress on our next film, and that's the project I'm most excited about, but the workload has only increased as a result. I'm really surprised that I can actually think well enough to do this p.s. right now. Yes, the guest-post! It's great and looks beautiful, and I'm totally thrilled. One thing, up to you. Because you only sent the images imbedded in the Word doc, I can't extract them, so the only way I can use them to take screen grabs of them from the doc, which, in some cases, will involve shrinking them to fit on my screen. I can do that, no problem. I just wanted to say that if you want to send me the images again separately and on their own, and I can also use them that way without any size reduction. Up to you. But we're all good, and I'll post it a week from tomorrow. Awesome! Yeah I know good anxiety, for sure. Cool. Man, have a supremely good day. Love, me. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, D. Thanks for the input for Steevee re: TD. Oh, wow, that is really, really great news about Keyframe at Fandor! Wow, thank you infinitely for that, David! I can not wait to read it, and that's just completely thrilling! Thank you so much! Zac and I are very, very honored! ** Tosh Berman, Hi, T. Yeah, trippy, right? As a BB predecessor of yours, I know exactly of what you speak. I've thought for a long time that there really needs to be book about Beyond Baroque, and an oral history book is the ideal way to do it. Plus, it would even be kind of juicy given all the rancor in the poetry community about that place and re: what you, Benjamin, Bob Flanagan, Fred, me, and others tried to do with the programming. That really should happen. I haven't been there in forever, but, yeah, it seems like an entirely different place. I feel like I also would feel very alienated being there. ** Cobaltfram, Hi, John! Well, the documentary, at least in that rough cut, isn't a very good documentary, so, in that sense, I think the degradation makes it seem more special or like there might be the potential under the muck that it's better than it seems, and that's good. Me, of course, I wish it was crystal clear so I could see everything better, but that's natural. I know of 'Dark Souls', of course, but I don't have a PS3 or 360 -- I've always been a Nintendo-only guy for some reason -- so I can't play it, sadly. You make it sound pretty great, so if I ever have enough time in my life again to play video games, it could be the push I need to get other systems. Cool that you're so close to relocation, and thanks for sticking my oeuvre in such promising sounding ... hands, ha ha. Take care, buddy. ** Chris Dankland, Hi, Chris! So great to see you! Thanks a lot, man, and thanks for watching it. Huh, I never imagined that your time at ALG would have been interrupted by that kind of behind the scenes jealousy and spite, but, duh, of course. Yeah, from my time at Beyond Baroque, I know exactly of what you speak re: the balancing act. I remember thinking that my programming and focus choices totally made sense and that I was being fairly objective, and I would be so confused when people reacted with so much subjectivity, even though, yeah, why wouldn't they? They wanted in, and they had no feeling or interest in the place itself being the best it could be. I ended up quitting the job at BB very abruptly because I was getting so much shit from people, and the people who liked what I was doing just acted like everything was fine and weren't defending me, and I just couldn't take it anymore. Well, definitely, if you want my opinion, concentrate on your own writing as much as you can for as long you feel like you need to in order to get to a place where you can do your work and support others publicly at the same time. That said, I'm excited by the prospect of you doing that again in some new form. I did read and really loved the Jessa Crispin interview, yes. She has such a good, smart head on her shoulders. That was great and really needed, I think. Your comment was great, Chris, and there wasn't a non-riveting syllable. Right now I am insanely busy, and it's cutting severely into my ability to keep up with stuff. The sites I look at, even under these circumstances, are pretty much the expected ones: Real Pants, Entropy/ Enclave, Queen Mobs Teahouse, Dark Fucking Wizard, and a couple others. Have you found any sites or places you can recommend? Fine day to you, Mr. D! ** _Black_Acrylic, Thanks, Ben. Oh, right, yes, I need to check the UK election results today. Very curious. ** Steevee, Hi, Steve. Makes a certain sense about your decision re: Davies. Plus, I don't know how much time you have with him, but raising that topic could easily color the rest of the interview for him emotionally. Complicated with that theater working guy. I hope it sorts itself out okay. ** Misanthrope, Unfinished, ha ha, sure, that makes sense. When I see images of myself when I was younger, I feel very disoriented mostly. On the one hand, I can't imagine projecting myself into that former body because I look so foreign, but I know that if I did, I would probably feel pretty close to how I do now except more stressed or distracted or hurried or something. But I don't know. ABBA is genius. At least on that one topic, Joe knows his shit, ha ha. I haven't heard the new Beyonce, or, more likely, I have and didn't know I was hearing it. I don't care very much, I guess. ** Sypha, Hi. Good, I'm so you liked it, and, yeah, the journals at the end are amazing. I think they, or the fact that they were there as part of the novel, is what was most influential about that novel for me. ** MANCY, Hey! Good, great, awesome, I would totally love that post! ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, T. Glad you liked the doc or what it showed. I too am very excited about the New Narrative book, and I have absolutely no idea what it's going to be. I think they just finished and turned it into the publisher, which I think is Nightboat? Glad the swing of the new job is getting rhythmically synchronous with you. Ooh, great cover! Everyone, Thomas Moronic aka author Thomas Moore's upcoming new novel now has a cover designed by our own genius Kiddiepunk, and it's a sweetie, and you can glimpse it here. You may have already said, but is that title derived from the Var song title? Of course I like the idea that there would another Var-memorial title out there in addition to 'LCTG'. ** Armando, Hey, man! Yay, you're enjoying LA, and LA is enjoying you too! Fucking cool! Good, you're seeing a lot, actually. That's great. Even Palm Springs, whoa! Enjoy every tiny detail and morsel of the place, man! Love, me. ** Okay. Today's thematic is the amp. Why? God knows. Anyway, it is. Go enjoy what's up there, if you will can and if you will. See you tomorrow.