blatant self-promotion #243

for those who are heading to melbourne any time soon, i have a solo exhibition at bus gallery. listening and being is a simple installation and a series of performances about the act of listening and reflecting.

i will be doing a performance on opening night, plus on the 24th and 28th june. and it's the kind of installation that i encourage gallery-goers to interact with. it's a massive mirror that disects the space, and expect loads of ear-prints on it.

you'll see what i mean when you go there.

there'll be a little catalogue you can pick up at the gallery, but if you can't make it, and would like one - leave a comment, or email me lauren [at] sheseesred [dot] com and i'll send it to you.


here's a little reference material [heidegger warning]
and an earlier version
and a map of where the gallery is

deets

listening and being

where: bus projects
basement
673 bourke st
melbourne

when: 21 june - 9 july, 2011
opening: 21 june 6 - 8pm
gallery: wed - sat 12 - 6pm
performances: 21, 24 and 28 june

OE

i just got back from a roaring trip to sydney and brisbane. sucking in as much art catch-up as i possibly could in two days for each city. easier said than done.

olafur eliasson at the MCA was a massive drawcard and, thanks to sydney's terrible public transport, and my awful time management skills in the face of such chaos, i didn't get to the gallery until friday morning.

funnily enough, it was exactly the kind of exhibition i expected it to be. usually i like surprises in my blockbusters, but there was something extraordinarily comforting about this sense of familiarity.




the mirrored window extension as you first walk in, with its tunnel of one thousand reflections, was perfect for the vista over circular quay and his spectral mirrored architectonic passageway into some of the main galleries was just beautiful. that colour reflective acrylic is an amazing material that seems to be made for OE and his light/colour spectrum schtick.

on either side of the entranceway were two moving light-based works, both reminiscent of film history (especially hitchcock) - one created spaces using the angles of 7 massive quartz light cans and the other used the combination of filter and refraction to create a revolving light/colour installation.

i have seen the lego room before, so didn't participate, but i wasn't surprised to see it filled with teenage boys, building their koolhaasian architectural monuments to the phallus. it was so cliche, that it took the glee out of it for me. although i was pleased to see the one asian boy building a great wall-esque extension - going for span rather than height. interesting ethnographic studies in that room abound!

bracketing the lego room were two spaces that investigated pure colour and light. the circular reflection cylinder was dreamy - on a slow time-loop which graded the colour from one end of the spectrum to the other, slowly moving through from violet to red and every shade in between. as i overheard, at no time, were you ever a witness to a single pure colour - always moving from one to the next.



the other colour-light room was all pure colour. yellow (which, strangely, is the single colour i have always associated with OE. probably because of his sun work, but maybe even before that..). whilst loads of visitors were all freaked out by the purple compensation sensation, i enjoyed the strangely flattened depth of field. it was beautiful to just watch the human form in an altered palette - all nostalgic and dreamlike. i could have actually stayed in that room for a really long time, but sadly i had time constraints.

tracking back through the gallery, past the entrance to the southern wing i flicked past the photos of geological colour samples. i kind of found it boring, although it certainly put his practice in to context. and i went straight into the model and print room, where i fell in love with his 3-part colour wheel/palette prints. they were embossed and layed over each other so that the colours were in a wheel, created by an overlapping triptych of prints - with a perfect triangle of space in the middle. oookkkaayyy, so it does sound pretty simple, but my colour/shape/math geek self went a little weak at the knees.

which was backed up by the part of the show that made me go quite silly with love. i call it the tessellation station.

the first room was lined with his moss wall. by this stage of the show, it was whitey-yellow, all the chlorophyl having been drained out of it. in fact, it reminded me of how the great barrier reef is going to look in the not-too-distant-future, will all the coral being bleached out of existence by the lack of ozone.




in that room was the coolest kaleidescope object - aluminium cones joined together to create a myriad of facets and reflections that produced such simple, but beautiful shapes of reflections. these were visible either through being inside the space and looking out through the cones, or from the outside, looking into the cones. even the structure itself, with its quasi-industrial connections and materials. and, at the same time, the whole thing reminded me of something out of Dragonball Z. or something like that.

the final space was the water-room, which was preceeded by an earthenware brick corridor, floor to ceiling, which modulated temperature, insulated the space and acoustically deadened it. although most treated it as an interstitial space, i loved that in and of itself.

so much so that i forgot to go back into the cloud room. d'oh! if you're going to the show in the next 4 weeks, don't do that. go all the way to the end and into the cloud room. especially if you don't have the chance to go back. like i don't. boo!

anyway, the OE show is fantastic. i was a little concerned that the show might end up being an extension of ego and i would end up hating mr eliasson, or at least feel slimey afterwards. not so - its timbre is so perfectly weighted that i could go back again and again and again.

bravo!


image credits: all pinched from the mca site.

melbourne fringe: the lure of echo

before i left for newcastle, i made a point of cramming in a bunch of melbourne fringe shows to see, including a work by sarah duyshart, lure of echo.

this one i liked. a lot. it's at donkey wheel, which used to be called the melbourne wine society, in the underground cellar space. the only other time i have seen this particular space was as the venue for the rockin’ wedding reception of dear friends. and believe me, this work has utterly transformed the space – which is what i love in an installation piece. especially one that focuses on a highly aural sensory experience.

the work absolutely echoes – both acoustically through the space, and visually – the image of the sand on the floor and above it provide a sharp visual feedback loop, which doesn’t smack you in the face with a thousand references, but perfectly accompanies the glitch soundtrack.

the darkness of the space (which i’m hoping was intentional and not just me being super early on a saturday morning) was spooky, comforting and a well-employed mask, allowing the artwork to reveal what needed to be revealed. nothing worse than a space showing your petticoat :)

i recently heard that repetition is the mark of repression, and given the multiple archways, the loop of soundtrack and the obvious feedback echo repeating in that acoustic environment, the choice of an underground – recessed, if not strictly repressed- architectural context was perfect too.
plus, you know that whole schtick about melbourne being the city of the hidden discovery, well, it resonates here too.

great show and nice use of a space. you should go check it out before the festival ends. check out the deets here.

phew!

well, the cone of silence is in. or up. or on. or whichever preposition is most appropriate for the work, really.

i was sleep-deprived, strung out and starving at the opening, so if you came and i ignored you, or looked at you funny, please forgive me, it was a night of little dramas.

but it was also a pretty successful night.

success. that's a word i've never used with a work before, but there, i said it. it feels pretty good to say that, actually.
maybe that makes me a bit of a wanker. *shrug*

loads of people were into the work - in every sense of the term - people were queuing up to get in and have a go. and most people had a pretty positive experience of it too, which is always ace.

it's at first site gallery (on swanston st in melbourne) until the 26th september, so feel free to pop in and get cosy. i'll be there on the 24th and 26th september, so do pop by and say hey.

quick! to the gallery!

holy happenings batman! in my masters-inspired self-absorption, i almost forgot to remind you about a fantastic show by an awesome australian artist, whose work has been more influential on my own than he probably realised.

lucas ihlein, lucazoid to some, has been exhibiting the 'sham piece at george paton gallery and it closes today! it's the work which resulted from his residency back in 2006, in which he didn't leave the boundaries of petersham, in sydney. the suburb in which i last lived in sydney.

anyways, lucas blogged the whole process of really inhabiting his local neighbourhood, highlighting the goings-on of this funny little suburb and focused on the process of action and occupation as an art practice. his blog became one of two that properly elevated blogging as an aspect of practice (that, and the art life back in the day) and he continues to use it as one of the tools for action/process/fluxus works.

today is the last day of his show, so you really should go to the gallery. end of story, really. check out the 'sham blog (in zine format, that you can make yourself) and his totally beautiful prints - done on the big fag press, you know - and feel good about the rest of the day, knowing that you can tell your grandkids that you saw lucas ihlein's the sham when it came to melbourne.

public space has a soundtrack now

apologies for the lack of posts on this blog of late. i've had a big project hangin' over my head, causing me a whole swag of stress. and as much as i love procrastinating in times of stress, i really haven't been able to justify blogging :)


as i keep alluding to, my masters research this year is focusing on sound in the public space, especially within increased urbanity. i'm specifically investigating the divide between public and private sound - the choice over the kind of 'noise' you hear, through the groovy development of headphones, and what it is in public that we don't hear when we choose to wear them.

the research i've done so far has involved a couple of smaller projects which are starting to flesh out the crux of what i'm looking at. and the main thing i've learned is that, actually, the crux is a whole lot further away than a final year's project. which means two things: that i'm going to be presenting more of a 'study' rather than a final 'masterpiece' and, that both mayhem and lucazoid's evil suggestions that i do a PhD is looking scarily feasible.


mobile privacy units




these are headphone-based objects that play on the social codes and language surrounding the wearing of headphones and their role in creating acoustic privacy in public space.

Headsets have been augmented with art materials also associated with soundproofing/creating quiet: cardboard, felt, cotton wool (in your ears, mate) and take on the oversized form of DJ heasets. And a range of text has been added to state explicitly the kind of language and messages that are often and/or unsconsciously conveyed through the wearing of headphones in public whilst listening to portable music..

Just the image of headphones over ones ears can be enough of a ‘do not disturb’ sign.

These MPUs shout this need for acoustic privacy:‘sssh!’; ‘private’ ; ‘!sssh’ (in arabic); ‘quiet time’; ‘mon moment tranquille’ (‘my quiet moment’ fr. trans); ‘please leave me alone’.


the measure of the public soundtrack



Psychoacoustics, or the perception of sound, has links with psychogeography as one way to map, or
experience the city and die Öffentlichkeit (the public sphere). This project measured public/ambient and
private sound taken into the public space - primarily music through headphones and externalises this
liminal space through drawing.

Images were made by occupying a selection of public spaces and mapping the ambient sound using a variety of capture technology. The primary device was the online Voice Drawing Tool by ze frank, which responds to sound through basic form from a laptop in-built mic: low volume curves counterclockwise, medium volume is straight, high volume curves clockwise. HD Video, Microsoft Word and still images were also used to record sound environment.

The iphone/ipod touch application, Wide Noise was intended to be used, but didn’t function without an external mic on the ipod touch.

This has become a comparitive study of place through its sonic output and the images represent the nature - aural and otherwise - of these places in visual form. The drawings also mapped the conceptual action of being in the public space, listening and measuring sound through drawing and technology.


listening and dancing to the city



This project aims to draw attention to all of sound in the public space, the action of listening and headphones-as-device through the process and/or performance of actively listening to sites and their rhythms in the CBD.

By performing the acts of listening and then dancing to places in the city, over a reasonably prolonged period of time (well, an hour), the artists involved will become attuned to the city and its soundtrack. Passers-by will also notice the sustained process
of engaging with the sound of the city and question their own engagement or response to sound, listening, dance and the ‘soundtrack’ of the urban environment, both public and private.

This project also uses the artists’ occupation of space as a vital basis from which to make observations and to elicit change within the public realm. It places itself within the ‘political’, people-focused, process-based aspect of arts practice.


audio guide (test project)

using the mobile privacy units, i made an 'audio guide' for the underground art space at collingwood housing estate, during their Living Art project. the work, which caricatures gallery audio headsets, encourages the viewer to note what they see in the gallery, and what they hear. and when i say 'note', i mean it - the work comes with little cards with a list of 5 things they've seen and 5 they've heard.

whilst it wasn't an absolute hit in this setting, i think i'm going to push it a little and see where it goes, in terms of gallery settings - maybe even public gallery settings.


the next lot of projects are slated to include:

emergency dance zone: public permission to rock out. for when you've got a killer track in your headphones and you've just gotta dance. kind of like a porta-loo for dancing. changes afoot, dates and locations TBC.

the listening to the city XL. i think i'm going to work this one up into a larger scale - 20 or so artists in a smallish city block.

the cone of silence - a 'silent' space in a public gallery. in september/october in melbourne.

i'd also love to do a workplace-based work, plugging into the whole culture of open-plan offices using headphones as privacy devices. but we'll have to see.




these images and some of the text are from my first publication for uni - a durable visual record - which was made in the vein of a 7" rekkid. with a DVD of 'bonus material', liner notes and a booklet. i've uploaded the main part of it as a PDF here. and as a presentation here. if you feel like it.

ah, the install.

why the hell i decided to divorce photography and take up installation art as a lover, i have no idea.

well, most of the time i do know, but the stress and anxiety of gallery installation time (especially after a year of anticipation) always trips me into at least a couple of hours of 'why the fuck did i want to do this again?'-style self-recrimination.

saturday night, after i had mishaps with both the flexicar booking and a tyre puncture, i was over it. i was peaking and it was all going to be shit: everyone would hate it, i will have wasted all my time and effort and i would end up in a crap bureaucratic job until i retired at 65 with my 55 cats and an AVO for constantly harassing ISPs to get greater net speed.

today, however, has been an ace day, where i had time for sleep, good breakfast and a pretty smooth install - thanks to my fab flatmate/studio assistant, most-excellent cordless drill (xmas present from my best friend) and my awesome install wall-plan (see below).



in fact, i had time to go to a public art panel discussion at fed square, eat properly, sign the limited edition posters and do some other project-based paperwork. i've got a few little bits'n'pieces to tie up tomorrow afternoon, but otherwise, it's all pretty hunky dory.

take that, anxiety!






as we speak, miss jones is plugging away at the candystripers foyer, but it's already lookin' so nice and luscious.... we're even thinking about doing a little performance in the space - an ode to andrea fraser and her work 'little frank and his carp' :)


shows both open on tuesday night 6pm at bus gallery: 117 little lonsdale st, melbourne. we'd love to see you there.

blatant self-promotion #232

melody ellis, who has had an awesome history of arts admin/curating/getting-stuff-done type stuff, has started a new thang in her home town of canberra. garage openings, literally in the garage of her place, shared with sarah logan, is the new site for emerging and contemporary art bits and pieces.

their first show is feathering the nest, a mail-art project, where artists have been invited to send a work via the post. 'so long as it fits in an envelope' was the primary requirement. all works will then become a 'nest' in the space - a true mashup.

i sent along some of the patterns/wallpaper works from 1300 x 740 x 47, which became bias, which has now had another cool manifestation (more on manifestation and installation another time). and getting the works back is optional (and i, for one, haven't requested mine back), so it's becomes more about the participation, rather than some kind of commodity.

so if you're in canberra , head to the opening! mel is going to send me pics, which will end up on flickr, so keep an eye out.

the deets:

feathering the nest
opening night: saturday 4 april 6-8pm

garage openings
68 hopetoun circuit
yarralumla, ACT


UPDATE: Here's the list of artists:
Marc Alperstein
Jonathan Baskett
Zanny Begg
Lauren Brown
Kate Carr
Monica Carroll
Melody Ellis
Marc Freeman
Somaya Langley & Christian Malejka
Sarah Logan
Annette Marie
Paul McGee
Brendon McKinley
Sarah Mosca
Vedanta Nicholson
Kalina Pilat
Francesca Rendle-Short
Spyridon Simotas
Peta Sirec
Richard Spellman
Alison Spence
Sarah St Vincent Welch
Casey Temby
Nella Themelios
Amy Thompson
Stedman Watts
Zuza Zochowski

image credit: nest in a tree, melody ellis.

proxy required in vienna

[click to enlarge]

could someone in vienna please go to this at MAK for me? (marita and alex?)

or even better, could someone in vienna please ship me over so i can see the show? [and pop in and see marita and alex]

NYC proxy required: scale of intervention

fuck i hate being so far away sometimes. there's an amazing panel discussion that wooster are chairing in about 8 hours' time featuring Cut-Up from London, Leon Reid IV (of Darius + Downey) from New York, Betsey Biggs from New York, and Roadsworth from Canada. It's at the new museum in on the bowery in NYC and, according to the blurb on their site, it's:

"Co-organized by Conflux, an annual festival dedicated to pyschogeography, and moderated by the founders of the celebrated street-art Web site Wooster Collective, this panel will look at possibilities for artistic disruption within urban environments. Taking its name from a film by the London-based Cutup Collective, which plays with the viewer's perception of a street scene, the panel will feature artists whose work ranges across a variety of mediums and materials. From reformulation of billboard advertisements into powerful, politically oriented collages to the subversive reformulation of street signs, such as pedestrian crossings and bike lanes, the featured artists will demonstrate how they dislodge the customary navigation and perception of urban space."

fuck it. it looks so great and i can't make it. but if there's someone in NYC who is going, could you also go for me? thanks a brazillian.

here's hoping there's a pod/vodcast of the event afterwards.

no one belongs here more than you.

her book has been out for a while (i'm yet to get it. shameful.), but miranda july's site is still active with gems like this.



the girl is brilliant i tell you.

sound and space

process from spatial vibration, pinched from spatial vibration

.

i don't know if this happens to anyone else, but you're going along, brewing on ideas, letting them simmer, then BANG!! you read/see/hear/trip over a whole stack of stuff that's about the same thing - all at the same time!

well, it happens to me. a lot. and this time it's about sound and space. i've been thinking about sound and space for a while now - in fact, since i went to the Silenzio exhibition in Torino. But more recently i did a sound-based site analysis work down at docklands last month and have been thinking about how sound defines, fills and establishes space since then.

then, last week i went to the architecture + philosophy talk at fed square, where dr michael fowler was discussing his teimu project of mapping a space via its sound. and in fact, the influence on soundscapes in japanese landscaping (specific or what!). he had a bunch of info graphics that plotted an area based on the sound of the place and referenced john cage's score work relating to zen gardens.

and then? dude, olafur eliasson has a blog. and on there i read about his new work, spatial vibration. eliasson was a legend before. now, he's wearing underpants on the outside and featuring in the superest. superhero dude. what's mine say? sweet.




sound, as the ultimate structural system (notes, pitch, waves, harmonics and pure mathematics all being very clear architecture), makes an absolutely perfect match for spatial practice. sound will fill a large space far easier than a whole bunch of tactile work will, and can elicit memory and atmosphere far better than a shitty video will. [and i like the visual image of sound filling a space - like some kind of erwin wurm piece, or violet beauregard in charlie and the chocolate factory.] interestingly enough, there's something about private sound that i'm also interested in - the role of headphones and all-encompassing sound that provides a private space and 'your own world', like in the guerilla disco work at linz.

perhaps i shouldn't have dropped out of my science degree after all.

anyway, having said all that, i'm really looking forward to dylan martorell's show at craft victoria on thursday night too - he's made instruments and scores based on plant-growth algorithms. and if that ain't sound-based geek porn, i dunno what is.

getting rid of not-sculpture

michaelangelo was famously quoted as talking about his sculptural process in terms of "getting rid of everything that isn't the sculpture". as i hit my first panic phase with this next show, a very lovely lady reminded me tonight of mr buonarotti's quote.

in terms of installation and conceptual work, this is kind of an interesting idea.

i'm spending a lot of time 'sourcing' elements for the work at the moment. in fact i feel more like a set props buyer from a film than any kind of artist, but that's the way life goes sometimes. but i guess, rather than seeing it as a sourcing process, it's interesting for me to look at it in terms of discovering what is not the installation and the process becomes something pro-active towards an anti-matter.

each time i get a knockback, or a postage problem, or a timing issue, specification glitch, financial hiccup, it's actually a positive element of the process: a not-sculptural piece of the puzzle. and, as i get less and less obstacles, less and less not-pieces, i slowly arrive at the final installation.

for some reason, this changes my perspective of the creative process and makes the idea of process less about less and more about more. or is it less about more and more about less. either way, the final content becomes less of an entitled product and more of a resulting product. i kind of like that idea.