Texts

Siege culture: SonicDifference conference

Gail Priest

Discussion of sound and its place in the hierarchy of arts practice frequently takes the position of an artform under siege. Despite or because of the fact that hearing is considered our most constant sense–the first developed in the womb, and that which we can not shut out through physical means–artists who choose to focus on sound as their primary mode of expression spend a lot of time defining and claiming ground, snatching priorities back from a visually focused culture. With the title SonicDifference: Resounding the World it is not surprising that this conference traversed this well trammelled territory, however the resulting discussions were intriguing in the depth and diversity of the positions taken.

A deep vibration: A small migration

Lizzie Muller
Standing in Shawn Decker’s sound installation A small migration is like being inside an exploded piano, or more precisely it is like standing inside the moment of explosion. The component parts of the work are suspended around me as though frozen in time. Still, yet full of potential movement; they generate a physical sense of imminence. At either end of the gallery large wooden frames support scaffolding bars rigged by chains from the ceiling. Piano wires are stretched across the gallery between the frames. At one end small striker motors are positioned alongside each wire; the installation responds to a series of computer-generated algorithms which trigger the motors that strike the wires.

A sound cause: Endangered Sounds

Jasmin Stephens

Dr Garth Paine’s highly conceptual installation, Endangered Sounds, raises the alarm concerning the implications of the increasing practice of trade marking and patenting sounds. His serious and meticulous enquiry urges vigilance should the air we breathe and through which sound travels become privatised.

Helyer’s progress: fusing art & science

John Potts

The tape was in the recorder, and it was a long tape. I knew Nigel Helyer would have a lot to say, because even before winning the Helene Lempriere National Sculpture Award earlier this year, he had been busy. And since taking out that prize he’d been overseas, interstate, here and there, on the move, working on projects, collaborations, schemes and dreams. So I came equipped with my trusty mini tape recorder.

Seeking resonance: Interview: Nigel Helyer: SonicDifference

Bob Percival

I had been looking forward to meeting Nigel Helyer; sculptor, sound artist and currently an Artist in Residence at the Paul Scherrer Institut in Geneva. Anyone whose reputation precedes them with such enthusiasm, respect and good humour must be special and, it has to be said, Dr Sonique is a great a.k.a.

Nigel has enthusiastically agreed to an interview and we meet over coffee in an appropriately noisy café in inner city Perth. Nigel is the curator of Sonic-Difference: Re-sounding the world, one of five exhibitions that make up BEAP 04. In the interview I was keen to explore his thoughts on the current developments in sound art as well as his curatorial thinking in his selection of works for the exhibition.

Magnus-Opus (Nigel Helyer, Jon Drummond. Australien)

Phone users be warned. Each time you dial a number, you have performed a musical piece and may have infringed the international copyright of the composers.

ISEA 2004 Layers of Performance
By by Stanislav Roudavski

People play with “the algorithmically controlled quadraphonic soundscape and its visual manifestations” in Sonic Spaces, an installation by Shawn Pinchback. Photographs by Stanislav Roudavski.

Aboard flight 18.45, London – Helsinki, people scan each other for the happy signs of genius. And no wonder. According to the unflinching authors of the official introduction to the 12th International Symposium on Electronic Arts, “ISEA2004 CRUISE is a great party where you can talk, dance, drink, eat, sunbathe and relax with the most innovative group of people that have ever set on sail.” Modest and convincing if you ask me.

Architecture does sound

Douglas Kahn

The cross talk of the title no doubt refers to the way sounds from the different pieces ‘bleed’ (ouch!) into one another when placed in close proximity. Often, in exhibitions involving sound, ‘cross’ could apply to the antagonism of competing sounds, but here there is no anger, no claims staked, nobody out of control, no rude interruptions. The installation strategy of Cross Talk is to only include works that are so gentle and unobtrusive that, even as they share the same space, they don’t get in each other’s way.

Echigo-Tsumari Triennial 2003, Japan

The recent Documenta 11 and 50th Venice Biennale exhibitions spawned a plethora of critical articles intensifying debate round the phenomenon of globalism – on the one hand the global rise and rise of large-scale biennale/triennale exhibitions, on the other globalism as both curatorial theme and format of these exhibitions. 

Education feature:
training the sound artist

A thrilling sono-cranial re-wire

Bruce Mowson
Nigel Helyer (see interview), whose sound sculpture Meta-Diva won the 2002 Helen Lempriere National Sculpture Award, questioned whether there were any courses in Australia which allowed for the study of sound in proper depth, responded by asking “Is there anywhere that teaches [among other sound subjects] psychoacoustics, soundscape concepts and electronics?” Given Australia’s predominantly deaf visual culture, it is typical that sound not be resourced at the level of other cultural practices.