Sound Proof 4

Sound Proof 4 exhibition.
Monica Biagioli curator.
Installations with sound by Leigh Clarke, Jon Fawcett, Roc Jiménez de Cisneros, and the collective work of Barbara Held, Yapci Ramos, and Matt Davis.

Interview about Sound Proof by Furtherfield on Resonance FM 16 February 2011
Performance by Leigh Clarke during private view 12 November 2011
Preview on Resonance FM: 10 November 2011
Overtime live performance by Angharad Davies: 13 November 2011
Show ran: 13 November to 11 December 2011
Show location: Unit 1A Canterbury Court, London

Sound Proof, a series of yearly exhibitions from 2008 to 2012, took the Stratford site of the London 2012 Olympics as a point of departure for commissioned artworks with a focus on sound. One year before the site of the 2012 Olympics was completed, Sound Proof amplified its reach and extended the dialogue to Barcelona, site of the Olympics in 1992. We invited four commissions for the exhibition that year, two based in London and two having links to Barcelona.

The approach that year was to create a conversation between Barcelona and London through the works presented by artists based in those two cities. The co-existing installations formed a type of environmental sculpture; projecting the voices and thinking of the participating artists, and allowing the works to speak to each other through the context of the exhibition.

Leigh Clarke's Squash, a print/performance installation created on the private view night, expressed his frustrations with sport and his passion for art. Jon Fawcett's film commission, Radiance, was the document of an action involving a group of women, creating a network of radiating energy points across London. Roc Jiménez de Cisneros' mixed media work, Continuum, expanded took György Ligeti's 1968 Continuum as a starting point, tackling questions about metrics, discreteness, time, and cultural heritage. Overtime - the collaborative work of Barbara Held, Yapci Ramos, and Matt Davis - represented the movement in time from 1992 to 2012 in a series of 5 photographic pieces and sound works intermixing footage and recordings made in Barcelona and in London.

Artists were selected during residency at Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona (MACBA) January to March 2011. During my residency I consulted works in the library and archive collection at the Study Center, visited art organisations, met with artists based in Barcelona, and did site visits in relation to development of curatorial approach and theme for Sound Proof 4. Blog archive at:
http://www.monicabiagioli.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=39:research-at-macba-for-sound-proof&catid=2&Itemid=9

Leigh Clarke
Squash
Block printing ink, squash racquet and ball
2011

Clarke's frustrations with sport and his passion for art are vented via a print /performance installation that uses the word squash as a reference to printing and the racket game. A bespoke squash court has been built with a surface of block printing ink on its far wall. As the artist plays squash with himself, the rubber ball bounces on the wall, removes the ink and on it's return leaves a print on the floor before the next swing of the racket. The removal of ink and the new imprint left by the ball, metaphorically communicates Clarke's concerns with the recent replacement of artistic communities in his home town of Hackney, with prospective temporary sporting communities due to the 2012 London Olympics.

Jon Fawcett
Radiance

XGA version of Full HD video with double soundtrack, 12 minutes
2011

with Alexey Moskvin, Aya Fukami, Ciaren Begley, Jane Cheadle, Hannah Crosson, Richard Cobelli, Michael McAdam, Judy Price, Jim Prevett, Jon Trayner, Louis Moreno, Marine Thevenet, Prashant Visweswaran, Sam Steer, Yeter Aydemir, Marjolaine Charbin, Beatrice Dillon, Charlotte Ginsbourg, Joseph Walsh, Frances Scott, Kirstie Abernathy, Monica Biagioli, Brian Reed, Jason E Bowman, Orlagh Woods, Dan Crompton, London College of Communication, New Work Network, Lanternhouse, Arts Council England

Fawcett presents a new work, Radiance; a filmic document of the creation of a huge energy network across the capital. Using walkie talkies, Fawcett simultaneously puts a group of women through a hypnotic visualisation, and the group, dispersed to specific locations across the city, create between them a system of interconnected energy transmitters. Their activities are filmed, simultaneously with the action and using telephoto lenses, and the footage captured forms the final film work. This project was developed with the support of the New Work Network, Lanternhouse Arts Centre, and the Arts Council of England.

Roc Jiménez de Cisneros
Continuum, expanded

Chrome cassette tapes (edition of 100), essay thermo-bound with acetate cover
2011

Continuum, expanded is a mixed media work that takes György Ligeti's 1968 'Continuum' as a starting point, tackling questions about metrics, discreteness, time, and cultural heritage. Ligeti's work serves as the backdrop for an essay (a free-form analysis of the composition), and a collection of sound snippets, presented in the show as a limited edition chrome cassette tape recorded in collaboration with the Scottish artist Stephen Sharp. The tape, which the visitors are encouraged to take home, contains seven short studies of 'Continuum' using the techniques and sounds that Sharp and Jiménez de Cisneros have described in previous works as 'rave synthesis'.

Barbara Held, Yapci Ramos and Matt Davis
Overtime

Inkjet billboard prints mounted on MDF, monitor, speakers
2011

Photography and video by Yapci Ramos
Sound compositions by: Matt Davis, Barbara Held, Rhodri Davies, Angharad Davies and Tom Chant

The energy and optimism of Barcelona during the 1992 Olympic games is contained for me in one joyful, almost photographic memory.  Our personal and professional connections to each other branch out from that time, a legacy of excellence of artistic practice, emotion, memory and friendship. A series of 5 photographs of Barcelona locations with personal significance interact and become part of the landscape of the construction site of the 2012 London Olympic Park.  The soundtrack of our installation recreates the recording of a concert that Matt gave in Barcelona 20 years ago as a score to be interpreted by 5 musicians. Overtime rebuilds the future reflected in the Barcelona past as in the title of one of our photographs, “I want to see you shining”.
 
Barbara Held
barbaraheld.tumblr.com

• http://www.macba.cat/en/a08470
• http://www.macba.cat/en/a08140
• http://www.monicabiagioli.com
• http://www.furtherfield.org/radio/160220...