Tuned City

Tuned City

Tuned City - Between sound and space speculation is an exhibition and conference project planned for July 01.-05. 2008 in Berlin which proposes a new evaluation of architectural spaces from the perspective of the acoustic.

The project draws the traditions of critical discussion about urban space within the architecture and urban planning discourse–as well as its strategies and working methods–into the context of sound art. This expanded discussion reenforces the potential of the spatial and communicative properties of sound as a tool and means of urban practice.

At the foundations of this event are artists’ works and theoretical approaches which examine in a critical and sensitive way the given urban and architectural situations alongside their resulting socio-political implications, that re-use existing spaces or that conceive and open new spaces.

A dialogue will be built at the intersection of both disciplines which traces out the complex relations and interactions of space-sound, both presenting and testing new strategies, methods, possibilities and potentials of sound work within the artistic and applied context.

Tuned City is structured in two main segments – symposium and site-specific installations.

On the individual days the symposium will approach the topic from five different theoretical and spatial perspectives. Spaces built for the production and reception of sound or acoustically flawed or impossible spaces, public and semi-public urban space, finished and planned spaces, wasteland or cultivated spaces, indoors and outdoors – the chosen venues correspond with the individual topic of the day and offer plastic illustration and demonstration. Tuned City will try to break down the conventional conference format and to catalyse the discussion via the space in a mixture of academic talk, artistic presentation, performances, reports from working practice, demonstrations, and walks.

The five days will be accompanied by a dense workshop programme and a performance programme corresponding with the individual topics.

Workshop with Martin Howse

Demons in the Aether

A three day workshop at HMKV in Dortmund led by Martin Howse, on the practical aspects of circuit building, EM theory and the uncovering of the EM substance by way of sound.

Read about the workshop.
Martin Howse
HMKV

Dial a Diva September 2007

Negative Visibility September 2007

CRAIGOWL HILL TOUR

Sneha Solanki and fellow Maxwell City participant, invited me to collaborate with her on a Craigowl Hill Tour. Craigowl Hill is a present day British Telecom microwave relay site based on the highest summit of the Sidlaw Hills near Dundee, Scotland.The station was originally utilised for top-secret intelligence gathering purposes from the early 1960’s for the United States National Security Agency (NSA). It is unknown if this is still the case. Speculation suggests that like other dual commercial and Ministry of Defence (M.O.D.) controlled stations within the U.K, the Craigowl Hill site could also serve the M.O.D. and the privatised economy in parallel.

The tour to Craigowl Hill was a walk through the geographical terrain up to the station summit whilst simultaneously seeking (or avoiding) the invisible electromagnetic emissions from the site. There were three stopping points on the tour, where new topics of discussion were introduced, such as boundaries and tresspass, particles and waves, positive and negative space as regards electromagnetic radiation. At the summit, the group collaborated in an attempt to create personal and communal Faraday Cages, which are shielded areas free from EM radiation; in effect creating an ‘invisible’ radio space whilst ironically because of the sheilding materials used, remaining highly visible.

A DVD of the Craigowl Hill Tour was edited by Sneha Solanki and was shown as part of the University of Dundee’s Multicultural Day in December 2007.

Tour 1 Tour 2 Tour 3 Tour 4 Tour 5

Radio Men June/July 2007

Radio Men was a collaborative week-long residency at Limousine Bull Artist Collective in Aberdeen. This was part of Nexus Communities, a series of four week-long back to back residencies that paired artists from the West Coast of Scotland with artists based on the North-East coast. My partner for the week wasLisa O Brien, a media artist originally based in Sheffield, whose predominant interest is sound.

Working collaboratively, we produced Radio Men, an ‘Exhibition of Makeshift Technology and Other Consequentials’, which included radios, speakers, antennaes and a documentary-style video of our travels with our homemade radio. On the open day, we also incorporated the performance ‘Short Walk Radio’, where we took our rotary clothes drier radio out into the streets to find an earth.

Project Space  Materials  Lindsay  Lisa  Open Day Exhibition  TV Detector Van 

Tanera-Mor Artist Residency June 2007

Twenty artists invited by Triangle Arts Trust and Gasworks gather on the small island of Tanera-Mor in North-West Scotland. We spend two weeks together talking about and making work; this of course is helped along by humour, music, outdoor persuits and the odd ‘wee dram’. Click here for my residency blog and further images.

Maxwell City May/June 2007

A workshop to investigate the electromagnetic environment in and around the city of Oslo, Norway. Please see links.   eh???!!!@ speak to me

City Function Suite February 2007

Test projections and other pieces at Dundee Visual Artist Website launch at the City Function Suite. Live music by the Hazey Janes and Gavin McGinty.