Wednesday 25 March 2009

Artist in Residence - Jan Hendrickse


Post 3

In the last few days I have been editing the sounds recorded around the site and preparing them for the installation. This involves composing the sound piece that will be played through the materials prepared in the project space. I am still discovering more about these materials and how they behave. They have their own peculiarities, like any natural product, which makes them fascinating visually as well as sonically. The paper has been absorbing moisture from the atmosphere which changes the way it hangs as well as how it responds to the sounds. So now it's a piece which changes according to atmospheric conditions! The various elements of the installation are being constructed, and I'm very much looking forward to getting it all into the space and seeing what it looks and sounds like. I am now working on composing a text for the musicians to use for their performance on Friday, so I'm hoping it will be a very interesting event. There's plenty left to do...

Monday 16 March 2009

The Drawing Room - Monika Grzymala


Myself and colleague Lizzie visited The Drawing Room's current show yesterday. 'Ruptures' by Polish artist Monika Grzymala is a site specific installation featuring 4 pieces that respond to the gallery space and its architectural wooden roof. Its the first time I'd physically encountered Monika's work and I could have spent hours there. Strips of glossy white packing tape are stretched in one corner of the gallery, from high up the wall, down to the ground in a complex web of angles and tension, interlocking with each other to create a dynamic, energetic piece. I liked the way that the white tape vanished on the wall, giving the appearance that the tape comes directly out of the wall. For pictures of the installation have a look here http://www.thedrawingroom.org.uk/
Exhibition finishes April 5th

Thursday 12 March 2009

Artist Surfaces Workshops

In 2008 we developed our first Artist Surfaces workshop for the MA Fine Art Students at Central Saint Martins. This led to a request from SPACE Studios in London to run a series of workshops for their artists. The response has been overwhelming with all workshops being fully booked. We are continuing to run workshops for colleges and studio groups across London and are now beginning to offer workshops throughout the UK.

Thursday 5 March 2009

Jan Hendrickse - Artist in Residence














Jan Hendrickse - Artist in Residence

Post 3

Since my last post Ped has helped me hang some very large sheets of paper in the project space. I have been experimenting with passing very low frequency sound through these sheets, and observing the changes. At first I used 6 – 12 Hz sine tones, but now I am using recordings that I have made at John Jones. These recordings have been processed in the computer to lower the frequency. The sound is almost inaudible, but you can feel the vibrations. The visual effect is really good when it is lit from an angle to emphasise the vibrations in the paper. There are still lots of experiments to do, but I’m really happy with the results so far. I’m hoping to make three of these pieces, each using a different kind of sound to activate it.

Paul also built the prototype pyrophones today, and they sound pretty good. They look great and I’m hoping that they will sound even better in the project space. We’ll see…. I’m also working on some minimal sounds for the exhibition space, so hopefully there will be some sound happening in there before too long.

If anyone would like to see a demo of anything I’m working on, you are welcome to book an appointment.

Wednesday 4 March 2009

Richard Galpin Elevation
Hales Gallery, London
www.halesgallery.com

Private view: Thursday 19 March 2009 6-8pm
Exhibition dates: 20 March – 2 May 2009

“Hornstrumpet! We shall not have succeeded in demolishing everything unless we demolish the ruins as well. But the only way I can see of doing that is to use them to put up a lot of fine, well-designed buildings.” - Père Ubu*

Any stumbling attempts towards a utopian future involve decisions about the destruction or adaptation of existing urban fabric - whether to conserve or wipe the slate clean. The memory imbued in the fabric of previous structures can be erased, preserved, or adapted. In Richard Galpin’s work these cyclical processes are echoed and re-enacted, with present day metropolises reworked into new forms and futuristic structures.

This exhibition shows the latest development of Galpin’s unique working process (that of cutting away with a scalpel at the surface emulsion of his own photographs). Here Galpin subjects his photographs of London and New York to a cubo-futurist vocabulary influenced by the early 20th century wartime studies of British artists Edward Wadsworth, C. R. W. Nevinson, and Graham Sutherland. Through combining this aesthetic with the reflective surfaces of contemporary cities, the works have manifested a shard-like angularity, reminiscent of science-fiction illustration, the architectural drawings of Lebbus woods, or the sculptures of Lee Bondecou. The anonymous utopian landscapes of Galpin’s previous works have given way to something more dystopian and post-apocalyptic. These are future ruins, or perhaps rogue states built from the detritus of 21st century life.

For the first time in Galpin’s work, we see the artist imposing a geometric form from which to structure the selection and removal of photographic information. The use of a diamond, circle or ellipse as a central axis creates a visual push and pull between the flatness of the incised form, and the lens perspective of the photograph. This projection of geometry into the space of the photograph results in a complex interplay of perspectives and dimensions. Galpin says: “My aim is always to get the works to function both as a representation of the ‘real’ world (albeit severely restricted), and a fabricated alternative reality - to get both these elements to coexist simultaneously within the work. Or, at the very least, for the viewer to feel that these dual dimensions are just beyond reach.”