Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
Turnpike Gallery, Leigh
15 July – 9 September
Reviewed by: Ross Dalziel
‘Playground’ could be more accurate than ‘lab’. Sound and/or technology-based artists use and at times affect the hardcore research protocols of science, and here the emphasis is on a kind of open serious play rooted in the everyday – DIY research with reverse engineered digital Black and Decker workmates. The works play with the idea of a more domestic laboratory; advanced tinkering in garden sheds; Ikea and B&Q meet programming languages like ‘OOP’ and ‘Supercollider’; when working as Owl Project the artists are well known for creating and using performance objects like the iLog and Sound Lathe, fusing high tech sound with woodwork.
The only silent work, Audio monitor by Simon Blackmore, stands out. It exploits the idea that speakers and microphones are essentially the same thing: LED counters presented as white hi-tech speaker cabinets count up when the gallery goes quiet. They listen to the space rather than fill it, without the aid of a computer. They are like anti speakers for the hi-fi enthusiast, and you can imagine them making the What HiFi? cover one day.
Kitchen utensils make a brilliant contact microphone piece by Anthony Hall, while a collection of Ikea cushions trigger responses via a firewire camera. Guitar runs and other samples trill, fold and glitch as you pick up a cushion. There is a sense that a simple process that you can’t quite grasp causes complex things to happen, and that’s the key to the success of the show and the practice at the heart of it: simple audio/tech ideas are placed unexpectedly leading to playful more complex dialogues around the nature of technology-based art, sound and music, making the domestic and banal come alive with a tinkered magic.
Writer detail:
Ross Dalziel
Venue detail:
Turnpike Gallery
Civic Square, Leigh WN7 1EB
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