Further Artist Context-March 12th (53)

More Artist context March 10th,

Sound Art-

I began looking at more artists who link with my balloon art or the idea of presenting the use of sound.

Steve Reich a well known American composer born on October in 1936 created a piece in the 1960’s called Pendulum, it was not recorded but the ‘Avant Garde Group,’ re-created the same version and recorded this.

http://karlrecords.bandcamp.com/track/pendulum-music-i  -this can be viewed on this link.

Another version that Joan Cerveró, Víctor Trescolí, Isabel León,Estefanía Sánchez participated in uploaded by Philippe Langlois. ‘The recording of this piece was held on October 18th 2012, was held at the center warrior jose granda.

The piece consists of people swinging a microphone that would swing back and forth picking up the audio sound of the vibrating speakers, its a unusual sound but watching the rhythm of motion is quite calming and soothing. It’s creating a slow harmonic rhythm that compliment one another that slowly came to a stop.

Laurie Anderson

A well known sound artist who performed at the MoMa born June the 5th 1947 a famous piece by her which reached the 2nd in the Uk chart was called ‘O Superman,’ a piece with electronic qualities to it with her speaking and singing in parts produced in 1981. It involves a narrative piece from phone calls to her mentioning superman. It has many visual elements to it from her with a light bulb in her mouth to using light to project her body and from in her work.

The Bashet Brothers-

François Baschet was born on 30th March 1920 and died in 2014 Feb 11th, Bernard Baschet born the 24th August 1917 their work does not directly corresponds to my own, though as a sound piece piece of art explores the use of instrumental sound produced from a crystal organ. The music is very soothing and beautiful in the terms to relax, he demonstrates his use of piano skills in various speeds.

There are water droplets on the crystal which I think emphasis’s the sound, many musicians have played it.

A artist that really links with my sound piece of balloon themes is a artist named Judy Dunaway born in Mississippi in 1964 bases her work mainly with sound in performance.

Her most known work is the use of latex balloons, she would rub them to create high pitched sounds. I find people with a balloon phobia find this more frightening than a balloon popping sound as its the anticipation of the balloon popping.

Here it looks like shes using sexual vibrating instruments to create the vibrating sequence on the balloons.

Judy Dunaway

This piece lasts over 5 minutes and 20 seconds. It almost plays a violin musical effect with the motion of her moving back and forth over it which leads to constant construction work like the sound of a drill. Sound wise I need to explore a place that with echo accordingly as something like my bedroom does not have the acoustics to carry it out.

Bill Fontana-born in Ohio on April 25th 1947 explored various sounds and his most known was a piece that was displayed at the Tate Modern in 2006. He recorded the vibrations of sound of people moving on the metal bridge that crosses the river nearby.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2KO38Z-2SU

These are considered as sound sculptures.

Another interesting artist is Terry Fox (1943 – October 14, 2008)he also exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1984 he was a artist who combined multiple sounds in his work. A lovely calming piece is the soothing sound of cats purring in The Labyrinth scored for the purrs of 11 different cats,. I’m finding myself listening very carefully to the different breaths and vibrations of the purrs though there is also muttering in the background of a voice which was intriguing as I found myself concentrating what was being said.  I think I am drawn to this piece was of the idea of how a sound can effect your mood and reaction, such as the soothing lullaby of a cat reflecting its happy mood and emotions.

Cat video-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6zbhRFdaXI

One artists that really caught my attention was Christina Kubisch a German composer and performance artist, born January 21st in 1948. Her work usually explores sound installation and a famous one a electronic magnetic field within headphones, wearing them when approaching electricity would produce noise such on withdrawal cash machines, lights in shops etc.

I particularly like the idea of it being very interactive, its suggesting to wear the headphones and leaving them to their own accord to participate. Its more to link with curiosity here to explore with using the sense of sound as they walk various places in shops interacting in the community.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tCphr8pbFk -her video

Headphones

Watching the video of the participants taking part and exploring the city on of their own accord, you can see the enjoyment and curiosity its allowing them to be within their own bubble in many ways by shutting off the world and following the sound.

It’s a care free simple way to allow to participate in art its something that’s on a day to day biases,  I shall take this into consideration for my balloon piece.

A artists I saw a few years ago in the 2011 Venice Biennale was Christian Marclay his is more of a visual factor but his piece that I watched for awhile consisted of a real time 24 hr video that had a scene from a film that contained a clock somewhere in the shot, it was captivating that it seemed to contain one long film that somehow flowed. He won the Golden Lion award for this piece, the room was actually had sofas like a cinema for people to sit in comfort, but the room was freezing which I assumed it was designed for people to leave and not get too comfy to sit there all day.

Clocks

This is more of a visual element but I came across his telephone piece which regarded all sound and I realised the connection between the two pieces as the style was very similar.

It’s more of a sense of surprise I like about the Telephone piece its a startling reaction which is what I want in my work, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH5HTPjPvyE

Most have been used from many films we know such as James Bond as shown here, but every shot contains a phone ringing, some show the expressions of them jumping and others of a cool manner. This is something to take into consideration for my own work, as yes its a sound installation piece but its also a performance in many ways as the audience gets to participate in it. I am hoping the balloons piece will most likely cause a reaction of shock, but with two people are more inclined to take part and laugh at each others reactions which I think would be quite fun.

More Artist Context (51)

Workshop 6th March,

We began a workshop by Tom giving a presentation on some artist history and context, this was quite helpful in the use of artists and space regarding objects and the use of film.

Rachael Whiteread was a interesting artist whose work I have examined before born in 1963 in England she became the first woman to win the Turner Prize in 1993. A famous piece that was exhibited in 2005 in London’s Tate Modern called Embankment consisted of  her displaying thousands of boxes that was stacked upon one another as a interactive piece people had to explore for their selves. I actually remember my sister telling me about the same piece she visited. Something so simple for a idea worked beautifully here as a repetition piece, it was almost a maze to explore which started from her finding a old tatty box full of memories from her mother house who recently died.

Embankment

This really made me question how to invite someone into your space, this is something I will have to constantly question in my work. Without signs etc how do you get someone to play and interact with your work, here Whiteread allows the audience to explore between the boxes in the maze.

The second artist used something more messy to play and interact with, which involved a cannon.

Anish Kapoor is a Indian sculptor born in 1954 he explores many interactive piece though one of my favorites is of his wax cannon. A member of staff of the gallery would load the cannon full of red wax and fire it through a archway in the gallery that hit a wall. It then collected mass amounts of wax that created a painting almost against a white blank canvas.

This is a fun piece that could relate to war but childhood and playing with figures etc. The colour being of red we do relate it to blood in various ways. The crisp vibrant colour the audience feels the need to touch and interact with it, personally it does resemble blood and guts in many ways with the texture, we can almost imagine how it feels and question is it warm from being fired from the cannon. You almost want to fire the cannon yourself to create the mess, its also the mess factor and sound of the cannon and wax colliding with the wall.

Another interesting artist who lives in Germany called Karina Smigla-Bobinski displayed a interactive piece that contained a helium balloon covered in charcoal pieces that you could direct and move against the paper in the room, this then made a mark on the wall.

This piece links greatly with my own practice as I want to explore the use of balloons and how it was presented, as unlike here I will be concentrating on sound rather than any visual element.

Balloon piece

Martin Creed/ Balloon Art – March 4th (49)

Martin Creed/ Balloon Art – March 4th,

I began looking at artists and video relating to sound and visual elements that linked with balloons. I have had several people express their phobia of balloons, which was the fear of it popping and the sound it made.

Martin Creed exhibited a interesting piece in his exhibit “whats the point of it?” Called work 200, this consisted of a room full of balloons were people had to physically walk through and interact with. This played on the fear factor of claustrophobia and the idea of getting lost or trapped in the area, it had themes of child-likeness and playfulness though on the other hand the balloons could have popped causing a shocked reaction, but the idea of being trapped was more frightening at they over hung above the audience.

For my work I really need to build up anticipation with the use of sound, as unlike Creed my project needs to concentrate on sound rather than a visual element as it would not have the same effect.

Martin Creed

He also done several versions of this piece which started back in 1998, another piece concentrated on multiple rooms containing balloons of the same colours.

2012 exhibit

Looking further away from a visual element and into a audio sound theme I came across several videos on youtube regarding a laser to create sound by popping balloons.  This is something I contemplated as singularly popping balloons I do not think would be as effective as multiple so I would either have to record people popping it with myself or make devices to pop multiple balloons.

Red balloon popping

This video consists of the world record holder of popping 100 balloons with a laser Krypton (750mW – 1000mW) laser. It actually sounds like gunfire rather than balloons popping, as different speeds and the time it takes for each balloon to pop the slower it goes the balloon makes a almost twang sound than a pop.

It’s one way to pop a balloon, many others consist of sitting on it, stabbing it with a sharp device etc.

Black balloon

The hundred black balloon challenge actually works as a much faster speed and the sounds like a machine gun going off.

Laser