Art
Installations and Events
Films
Automated Noise Ensemble
Contextual Information
Essentially a temporal and audio-visual practice that recognises the politics of aesthetics, the materiality of experience and the precariousness of the encounter.
… Noises In
…Noises In are a series of sited ‘live’ works that dislocate what is seen from what is heard. Particular attention is placed upon acoustics and distance, the immediate and the mediated. The first of these, Sea Noises In (2013) for Transition residency at Newlyn Art Gallery transmitted a live image of the sea together with motorised guitar and ambient sounds to the gallery, at set times an improvised performance took place alongside a re-projected image of the sea. The issues of simultaneity, the incidental and inconsequential that came out of this work were explored further in Not Seeing What is Heard | Not Hearing What is Seen for a conference presentation for 1913 / The Art Of Noises / 2013 at University College Cork. Commemorating and following Russolo’s manifesto, the presentation sought to demonstrate the problems of perception of incidental sounds (noises) in visual / aural practices and in particular to contest the diegetic / non-diegetic binary dominant in media studies. For Embedded at Enys House (Penryn), a mixed group show in the grounds and house, Ring Noises In, alluding to the old servant bell-call system, installed acoustic bell-like percussion in first-floor rooms played using timed electric motors. The ringing was sent to the hall, where it was quietly amplified and heard in combination. The mediated amplified sound being separated from the immediate acoustic sounds. The acoustics of the house and where the work was heard, physically affected the experience of the work. For Interplay/CMR Inland Festival, Redruth, Yard Noises In consisted of a live video image from the outdoor yard (buddleia, rubble, pigeons) projected onto a wall indoors with sounds from automated percussion and strings. The image was re-projected with the sound from outdoors (rustling, ringing, cooing) onto a different wall. Images and sounds were simultaneous but incidental and displaced.
Collaboration
It could be said that there can be no individual practice as many agencies (objects as well as people) become involved. Like feature films it is more a question of the hierarchy of credits though in playing music, collaboration is the norm. Collaboration therefore denotes an equality of the primary producers (the artists). Regular collaborators are Joanna Millett and Ruth Levene (Automated Noise Ensemble). Others have included: Pete McPartlan, Ben Gwilliam, Gina Czarnecki and Mike Stubbs.
Film & Video
The body of work between 1976 and 1990 centred on single-screen and double-screen films for a cinematic environment, occasional expanded works and some video for gallery type spaces. The work was (and essentially still is) concerned with image and sound relationships; between music, sound and noise; the fluctuation between depiction, abstraction and its material construct through various camera strategies including focus, superimposition, flicker and re-filming off the projection screen. The imagery and sounds used do not deny subjectivity but hopefully enable some personal reflection on the part of the viewer/listener.