SOUNDWORKS: BRRRRR BRRR BRRRR and MMMMMMMMMMMM 14 — 15 September 2012

Concluding its season on Sound, the ICA is hosting a Each part £8 / £7 Concessions / weekend exploring the sound contributions that were £5 ICA Members / Limited tickets £5 Students produced as part of SOUNDWORKS. Taking its name Weekend pass available £24/£22 from Bruce Nauman’s use of raw audio materials, Concessions /£15 ICA Members – call our box office. this programme brings together recordings from For Further Information please SOUNDWORKS in conjunction with presentations, visit www.ica.org.uk or call our box office 020 7930 3647 music performances, and screenings exploring the Institute of Contemporary Arts potential of sound in art. The Mall London SW1Y 5AH

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Part I: Luke Fowler: Notes and printed, Mai 36 Galerie, Zürich. Recent solo List of Speakers: to emphasize the fissures inherent to auditory within Vibrations (Spatial exhibitions include The Poor Stockinger, the Luddite experience as generative. Response to the ICA Archive) Cropperand the deluded followers of Joanna Brandon LaBelle Brandon LaBelle is an artist, theorist and writer. His 14 Sep 7.00pm Southcott, The Hepworth, Wakefield (made in Echo work addresses questions of sociality, subjectivity association with Contemporary Art Society, Film and and informal articulations of agency, using sound, Video Umbrella and Wolverhampton Art Gallery) and Doubling, shadowing, mirroring... all such performance, text and sited constructions. His The ICA’s most recent artist in residence, 2012 Luke Fowler with Toshiya Tsunoda and John Haynes, performances lead to the dynamics of the echo, work has been presented at Whitney Museum, NY Turner Prize nominee Luke Fowler, presents his Inverleith House, Edinburgh (2012) for which he has tuning us to the disjoined horizon of audibility (2012), Image Music Text, London (2011), Sonic project Notes within Vibrations (Spatial Response been nominated for the 2012 Turner Prize. In 2008 separate from us that also finds its way back. The Acts, Amsterdam (2010), A/V Festival, Newcastle to the ICA Archive) as the culmination of his work he received the inaugural Derek Jarman Award. echo captures the spatial complexity of sound, (2008, 2010), Museums Quartier, Vienna (2009), 7th with the gallery. The audio-visual piece, created as reverberant propagation that leaves behind its Bienal do Mercosul, Porto Allegro (2009), Center for specifically in response to Fowler’s residency at source to reflect from multiple surfaces. The echo Cultural Decontamination, Belgrade (2009), Casa the ICA, will consist of new work generated from returns sound’s propagating energy, acoustically Vecina, Mexico City (2008), Netherlands Media Art his research into the ICA archive. Over the last playing back to haunt this space, that body, with a Institute, Amsterdam (2003, 2007), Ybakatu Gallery, few months, Luke Fowler has been exploring the certain voice – who’s there? Curitiba (2003, 2006, 2009), Singuhr Gallery, Berlin recorded history of the ICA, conducting an in-depth (2004), and ICC, Tokyo (2000). He is the author of study into the Institute’s music, performance and Part II: Acoustic Ambiguities The echo thus outlines a primary figure of listening, Acoustic Territories: Sound Culture and Everyday talks programme between the 1960s and 1980s. 15 Sep 12.00pm that of othering and differentiation, which is also Life (Continuum, 2010) and Background Noise: central to individuation, of separation. The echo Perspectives on Sound Art (Continuum, 2006). Luke Fowler (b. 1978, Glasgow) studied printmaking returns us to ourselves, yet as another. Following at Dundee Art School. His films have been This part of the weekend on sound features four such echoing behaviors, my presentation will Erica MacArthur presented widely, recent screenings include, ICA presentations that focus on the gap between the examine the echo as a form of practice: of doubling, Glass music, the nervous system, and London, Glasgow Film Festival and Berlin Film origin and the location of sound. Taking a closer of twinning, of ghosting. The echo will also be the threshold of beauty and harmony. Festival (2012), and Anthology, New York (2011). look at spatially discrepant auditory information highlighted as giving radical suggestion for Major forthcoming exhibitions include the Turner the four speakers present creative musings that strategies of resistance, where the gap between The transcendental notion of the feminine comes Prize exhibition at Tate Britain, as well as group investigate the acoustic ambiguities and physical center and margin, dominant and subterranean, into focus through the glass instruments of the shows including Documentary methods in art, inconsistencies of sound production, dispersion and offers opportunity for movement. In this way, 1800s, whose cold ghostly tones were linked to both Dokumentarfilminitiative im Filmbüro NW, Cologne consumption. the echo supplies us with a platform by which healing and hysteria during their short fashionable period. Benjamin Franklin’s glass Armonica was of the exhibition of the same name held at the Linda Christanell, (Wire Magazine), and Tim Burgess. thought of not just as a very becoming instrument Victoria and Albert Museum in 1988, and ultimately All can become a rose (1992) for the ladies of the era, but a later poetic symbol at Parco department store in Tokyo in 1990. In 1990, Over the past two years, Factory Floor have of feminine liminality itself. The effect the acoustic he set up FUSE with Neville Brody, a critical forum All can become a rose in the fire of the mind’s eye emerged as the most potent and original live force resonance of glass upon the inner workings of for the impact of digital media on type and visual – Christanell’s semiotic associations begin where in contemporary British music. Based in their own the body raises further questions of the physical communication. In 1982 Jon Wozencroft founded “every web of thoughts is an invitation to continue studio in a former sweat shop in North London, effect of listening, and the possibility to arouse the the audiovisual publishing company, Touch, to push weaving”: a red tiger skin, jewellery, a black corset – the trio of Gabe Gurnsey, Dominic Butler and Nik vulnerable and stir the delicate. the powerful chemistry between sound and visual all objects that evoke eroticism. (G. Szekatsch) Colk Void construct a new form that builds on the media. Alongside Touch, Wozencroft’s photography A cinematographic game with fetishism and desire. pioneering rhythms and sonic textures of early Glass might be thought of as a kind of musical and design work has appeared in a number of industrial groups, the heavier end of techno, and ‘other’ which in its transparent purity was thought publications, including Fax Art, Sampler, G1, Merz to Peggy Ahwesh, The Third Body (2007) contemporary electronica. to create a bodiless sound, leaving the act of Emigre and Beyond and most recently Cover Art By. performance to a phantom body. In 2008 he was named ‘Music Designer of the Year’ An appropriated film, portraying the arrival of Peter Gordon studied with Robert Ashley and Terry in the Qwartz Awards, Paris.Wozencroft has taught at Adam and Eve to an exotic Eden, is intercut with Riley at the Mills College Centre for Contemporary Erica MacArthur is a writer and musician completing Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design, The appropriated videos of virtual reality demonstrations, Music, as well as working solo and with Love of the MRes at the London Consortium, a multi- London College of Printing, and has given lectures among them a human hand shadowed by a Life Orchestra, with whom he released monumental disciplinary programme in Humanities and Cultural at numerous art colleges and universities around computer-generated rendering, medical robots recordings like the Casino 12” & the Extended Studies formed of a collaboration between the the world. He is presently Senior Tutor in sound and conducting a virtual surgery, and people dressed in Niceties EP. He has also previously collaborated with Architectural Association, Birkbeck College, the moving image in the School of Communication at the bulky headgear navigating virtual spaces. As the title Laurie Anderson, David Byrne, Arto Lindsay, The Institute of Contemporary Art, the Science Museum, Royal College of Art. suggests, cyberspace adds to the Genesis legend a Flying Lizards, and Arthur Russell. and Tate. After playing synthesizers for industrial third possibility, a virtual existence that challenges pop band White Rose Movement, Erica studied natural and social definitions of gender and morality. Michele Di Menna, Performed Rigorous the History of Art and developed an interest in Lines Framed in Cool-Toned Symmetry architectural modernism, nostalgia and otherworldly Ahwesh writes, “The tropes of the garden, the (2009) universes of submersion. Her current research originary moment of self knowledge and gendered dovetails her musical experience with themes of awareness of the body (what is traditionally called a wall of light a window between time fluidity, the etheral and the psycho-acoustic. Part III: Sound Shaping sin) is mimicked in the early experiments with virtual in n’ out 15 Sep 3.30pm reality. The metaphors used in our cutting edge enhances the room Joe Banks on Rorschach Audio future are restagings of our cultural memory of the with depth and detail Art & Illusion for Sound garden. Wonderment regarding the self in space, kind of elaborate The third part of this weekend dedicated to boundaries of the body at the edge of consciousness giving a semblance of caressing “Rorschach Audio - Art & Illusion for Sound” is a SOUNDWORKS brings together a selection of films and the inside and outside skin of perceptual an open space recently published book which presents results by Peggy Ahwesh, Edgard Varèse, Iannis Xénakis, Le knowledge.” Music: Morton Feldman. structures for maximum comfort from a more than decade-long study of illusions Corbusier, Beatrice Gibson and Alex Waterman, and with strategic placement of sound. In this talk author Joe Banks discusses Linda Christanell, and a performance by Michele Di R.H. Quaytman To the German Language customized solutions Electronic Voice Phenomena recordings, which EVP Menna. Contributors to the SOUNDWORKS project Video lecture in collaboration with beauty and functionality researchers believe are literally recordings of ghosts, as well as other positions negotiate the question Jeff Preiss, Dia, 2012 performed rigorous lines demonstrating a range of sometimes bizarre sound of how sound can structure our perception of framed by cool toned symmetry illusions, which show how EVP recordings can be space, time, and form. Taking a closer look at the “To the German Language.” is a video lecture I misinterpreted as proof of supernatural phenomena, relationship of unstructured ur-sound and ur-matter delivered at Dia Art Foundation on Dec. 20, 2011. It Text by Michele Di Menna and which, by analogy with various visual illusions, with disambiguated sound and composition, the was made in response to an invitation to present a show how audio illusions form as by-products of works share a struggle for solid representation talk as part of the “Artists on Artists Lecture Series. processes of perception which critically influence and appear continually threatened to give way to “ Customarily invited artists to this series choose artistic creativity and perceptions of and reactions to ambiguity and imagination. to lecture on one particular artist represented in creative art. the Dia Art Foundation collection. I chose instead “Rorschach Audio” author Joe Banks is a former Works included: to focus on the institution itself, in particular its Visiting Fellow at City University, an AHRC founders Heiner Friedrich and Philippa de Menil. Student Forum Salon: sponsored researcher at Goldsmiths College and Edgard Varèse, Iannis Xénakis, and Le The video lecture is comprised entirely of the voices Sound Curating and The University of Westminster, and founder of the Corbusier: Poème électronique (1958) and opinions of white males with the exception of Imaginative Engagement art project Disinformation. The Guardian wrote “I will not make a pavilion for you, but an Electronic some tearful excerpts from Andrea Fraser’s powerful 14th September 3.00pm that “Disinformation combine scientific nous with Poem and a vessel containing the poem; light, lecture delivered on Fred Sandback as part of this poetic lyricism to create some of the most beautiful colour, image, rhythm and sound joined together in same series in 2004. Dia’s pounding masculine installations around”, sci-fi author Jeff Noon wrote in an organic synthesis.” – Le Corbusier ideology seemed to demand my silence and I In conjunction with the program there will be a The Independent that “people are fascinated by this complied by not using the first person. But if I don’t Student Forum Salon on Friday at 2:30pm. The work”, Art Monthly described Disinformation exhibits A collaborative work bringing together the music of have a voice other than intermittent ‘ah’, ‘yeh’ and salon will consider the way in which sound is notably as “distinctive and intelligent”, novelist Hari Kunzu Edgar Varese and architecture of Iannis Xenakis, ‘you’re right.’ – I do have vision and vision has the present in contemporary art, whether in the form of described Joe as (the) “poet of noise” and The Metro under the management of Le Corbusier, Poéme uncanny ability to talk back. This is why film rather voice recordings, music tracks, skilfully constructed described Disinformation as “the black-ops unit of Électronique was created for the Philips Pavilion than lecturing, seemed the best vehicle to converse interventions or specific sound art pieces. The the avant-garde”. at the Brussels World Fair 1958, constituting a with my subject. mixing of the immaterial heritage of sound and http://strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/ spectacular multi-channel, multi-media production. I chose a poem “To the German Language” by the its materialisation in an exhibition, is an integral rorschach-audio/ While its original site specific format is now lost to Russian poet Osip Mandelstam to help navigate a element of curatorial practice of Daniel Muzyczuk. http://rorschachaudio.wordpress.com/ history, the work is considered a seminal piece of route through this expansive landscape. Finally I He dicusses this subject in the context of his recent early electronic music, using the most advanced would like to add that I use the sound and the idea project co-curated with David Crowley Sounding the Jon Wozencroft technologies available at its time. This screening of the nightingale. The nightingale or Nachtigall in Body Electric at the Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz. Landscape and Perception comprises of a combined version of the original Mandelstam’s poem has been used since antiquity In addition, Morgan Quaintance, a writer, musician sound and visuals. to invoke poetry however it is a bird not found in the and curator will discuss the complexities of using For the past five years Jon Wozencroft has been Americas. And like the American Poet Jack Spicer sound in a gallery space. Specifically in relation working with artist/author/researcher Paul Devereux Beatrice Gibson and Alex Waterman, wrote: Why can’t we sing songs like nightingales? to his recent article in March 2012’s issue of Art on a project that investigates the role of sound as a A Necessary Music (2009) Because we’re not Nightingales and can never Monthly in which he makes the case for ‘imaginative key element in the designation of certain landscapes become them. The poet has an arid parch of his engagement’ with a piece of art as an important and man-made constructions in the UK as being A collaboration between artist Beatrice Gibson and reality and the others. Things desert him. form of participation in contemporary practice. The “sacred sites”. The main area of study, the Preseli composer Alex Waterman, A Necessary Music is a discussion will be moderated by the ICA Student Hills of South-West Wales, is known as the source science fiction film about modernist social housing. Forum members Jacob Meyers-Belkin and Sylwia of the bluestones that were transported to Salisbury A musically conceived piece, referencing the video Serafinowicz.£5 / Free to ICA members Plain in c.2500 B.C. to form a significant part of the operas of Robert Ashley, the film explores the social monument of Stonehenge. Most researchers have imaginary of a utopian landscape through directed since dedicated their efforts to understanding how attention to the voices that inhabit it.Treating the they were transported across such a distance. Few medium of film as both a musical proposition and Part IV: Factory Floor with have investigated why they were chosen forsuch a a proposal for collective production, A Necessary Peter Gordon (LOLO) purpose in the first place. One significant clue is to Music employs the resident of New York’s Roosevelt with performance by be found amongst the rocky outcrops across Preseli. Island as its authors and actors, gathering together Michele di menna Jon Wozencroft and Paul Devereux have established texts written by them and using them to construct 15th September 8.00pm that many of the supposedly inert lumps of spotted a script for the film. Framed by a fictional narration dolerite stones on the range are in fact lithophonic, taken from Adolfo Bioy Casares’ 1941 science producing a range of tones that thus far defy fiction novel ‘The invention of Morel’, the film self- As part of their residency and the ICA Factory scientific explanation.The Landscape and Perception consciously dissolves from attempted realism to Floor are curating four live events. For their first project is both an attempt to cast new light on this imagined narrative; what begins as a enthnographic performance as part of the weekend on sound they aspect of our heritage, and a more contemporary study becomes instead an imagined fiction and an will be playing live in collaboration with New York take on environmental awareness and experience. investigation into the mechanics of representation composer and Love of Life Orchestra founder Peter Jon Wozencroft is the author of The Graphic itself. Narration by Robert Ashley Gordon with visuals by Peter Gordon’s long-time Language of Neville Brody 1 & 2, published by collaborator Kit Fitzgerald. The performance will be Thames & Hudson in 1988 and 1994, and a curator followed by DJs: Planningtorock, Frances Morgan