High Reflections first night was a hoot! Many thanks to Alex & Caleb for giving us the opportunity to perform and exhibit our many, and sometimes ridiculous (I speak for myself), sonic whims over the last few years.
Here’s a shot of my oscillators in their wall-mounted glory. Sound still to come…
Most of the materials we’re using in our residency have been salvaged or recovered in some way: copper wire from cable off-cuts, circuit boards from computers that had been dumped by the side of the road, and other stuff that would otherwise have been thrown into landfill. This means that part of the focus of our work is about exploring social and cultural relationships to technological artefacts, obsolescence and redundancy, and a range of other pertinent issues about the use and disposal of non-renewable resources.
Making our work involves a kind of aesthetic reimagining of electrical components and their perceived functions and representations, sometimes by disgorging the otherwise hidden and untouchable contents of media technologies, and other times by reinterpreting and remapping conventional notions of electrical signal flow.
In other words, we find that there’s plenty of possibilities for using discarded components for investigating the material and aesthetic properties of media technologies, and also for exploring ideas of connectivity — which might be the subject of another post.
(Thanks to our friend Joel Stern for coming up with the term ‘de-waste’!)
Computer motherboards are far more interesting without that beige box wrapped around the outside.
When electrons are warm they travel faster, which increases capacitance. Higher capacitance will produce better low end frequency.
While we’re in residency at Serial Space we hope to accomplish serveral things, not the least of which is recording some of what takes place in this blog. Firstly, we are both participating in the final High Reflections extravaganza at the Red Rattler, 24-25 May, and so we’ll be working towards Emily’s installation piece for that, and also Peter’s performance.
Following that, we’ll be concentrating more on both larger installation projects and a range of smaller works, which we hope to make viewable at some stage during our time here. Finally, towards the end of our stay, Peter will be doing an extended performance on his motherboard installation, which will be open to the public. Of course, there’ll be other stuff happening, but that’s the main shape of it.
The ‘before’ shot. Never seen Serial Space empty? Well, this is pretty close (although we had already made a start when these were taken, but then again who’s counting?).
For 2011, Serial Space have overhauled and expanded their entire program which is now composed of paid residencies for artists/collectives, skills sharing workshops and unique events, with the support of NSW Ministry for the Arts. Our first on-site residency for the year is with Sydney electronic media artists Peter Blamey and Emily Morandini.
Emily Morandini has performed and exhibited as a sound-based artist in sydney and beyond over the last five years. Traversing live, improvised, compositional, and installation works, her practice is an experiment in incorporating homemade elements into the technical sound-making process. Creations include handmade magnetic tape, live razor blade audio mixes, and bobbin-lace ground-loop microphone cable.
Peter Blamey is a Sydney-based artist who has been doing performances and making works for quite a while now, and looks like continuing to do so for the foreseeable future.
His practice largely revolves around notions of what might be called ‘open electronics’, and explores ideas of connectivity, ecology, feedback and re-use, and of electricity in general. Peter’s current work uses recovered electronic components (such as discarded computer mother boards and old copper wire) that are re-deployed in simple open, short, and long-circuit formations to produce sounds, and also used as readymade materials for visual and installation works.
Stay tuned to this blog for more details on this residency.
