Last Friday I decided to take a second visit to the Kinetica museum based on Ian’s description of Ray Lee’s and Jim Bond’s interesting sound experiments. Below are some photos I took, they didn’t come out that well due to the lack of light. I also took the liberty of recording some of the sound being produced by the exhibits, they came out relatively well considering I was using my phone.
01 JimBond_runningman.jpg 04-Apr-2007 02:54 72K 02 RayLee_soundmachine.jpg 04-Apr-2007 02:54 253K 03 RayLee_soundmills.jpg 04-Apr-2007 02:54 164K 04 RayLee_soundorgan.jpg 04-Apr-2007 02:54 158K 05 Recording (1).amr 04-Apr-2007 02:54 9.5K 06 Recording (2).amr 04-Apr-2007 02:54 24K 07 Recording.amr 04-Apr-2007 02:54 83K
Here is a description of the files:
01. A Jim Bond sculpture. I like this work, all the lines of the body blend into the wires holding the character up which double up as indications of movement.
02. Part of a Ray Lee sound sound piece. This machine produces Dr. Who-like sounds depending on the disruption of the field produced by the antenna. Ray Lee has built automated arms that disrupt the field. You can hear this clearly in the file ‘Recording (2).amr’.
03. This is a fantastic Ray Lee sound sculpture. Structures of various heights emitting a variety of tones from speakers mounted on rotating arms produces an eerie atmosphere in the dimly lit space.
04. This is the whole piece of which photo 02 was a part. The other part seen in this photo is an organ being played by robotic fingers controlled by electric motors and cams.
05. A short recording of a mixture of the exhibits.
06. A good recording of the piece in photo 02.
07. A fairly lengthy recording of the sound sculpture in photo 03. About two thirds of the way through I walked over to another Dr. Who-like sound machine that was on display.
This would have been a great place to take a binaural sound recorder. It would have been a really interesting experiment to record the sounds in this exhibit binaurally, then produce a 3d anaglyph animation that represents the sounds visually.
Related Links:
I decided to go down to Aldgate East and see if I could find the Janet Cardiff walk that I mentioned in an earlier post. When we got there it seemed as though the library was closed, so we decided to have a look in the gallery and ask if they knew anything about it. The whole building was going through refurbishments, there was only one video exhibit in the gallery. We asked the woman at the desk and she said they they were still doing the walk from there. £135 x2 deposit later on my credit card and we were off. Due to the fact the walk is supposed to start in the library, we had to wait outside the library doors until the walk caught up. What followed was a wonderful journey around Aldgate East / Brick Lane / Liverpool St from the unique perspective of Janet Cardiff. It was really difficult to tell sometimes if what you were hearing was from the street around you or the recording!
It is definitely something I would recommend to anyone. Notes: Bring the best quality headphones you can find, also you get your deposit back, so it is really free.
Filed under: Events
Yesterday I went to Spitalfields Market to check out the current Kinetica exhibitions and attend the Sam Buxton talk.
Below are some photos and videos I took there:
01 dollhouse.JPG 267K
02 faces.JPG 1.0M 03 goingthere.JPG 297K 04 jimcamp01.JPG 196K 05 jimcamp02.JPG 345K 06 jimcampbell.3gp 626K 07 lightball.JPG 182K 08 lightcircle.JPG 1.2M 09 pendulum01.JPG 930K 10 pendulum02.JPG 966K 11 strobe.3gp 451K 12 strobe01.JPG 349K 13 strobe02.JPG 1.1M 14 printwall.JPG 251K 15 uvspinner.JPG 1.4M
Here is a description of the photos and videos:
01. A coin operated dolls house situated as you walk in. A useful reference to my Double Project.
02. Diane Harris. Three dimensional face sculptures with real faces projected on top. Another good reference for my Double Project.
03. Janet, Natalja and I on the tube going to Kinetica.
04. An interesting Jim Campbell piece. It involves a still image of a building with moving shadow people walking around in front. It works by the material that the picture is printed on diffusing the light from his usual simple LED screen behind. A good effect.
05. Another interesting Jim Campbell piece, although at first I thought it was strange that it is situated in the lift.
06. A video of Jim Campbell’s famous LED man walking work.
07. Some beautiful play with light and colour.
08. Another shot of the light and colour display.
09. A great interactive piece which invites you to play with the pendulums. The pendulums hover over some light sensitive paint and draw a line as they move. This piece is (I’m assuming) by rAndom International.
10. Another shot of the pendulum piece.
11. A video of Gregory Barsamain’s great animated sculpture exhibit. Although this piece is amazing to watch, I recently went to a Pixar exhibition at the science museum where they ripped off Barsamain’s idea, but did it better in my opinion.This works just like an ordinary animation. Each segment is one frame of the animation, the sculpture is then spun at a speed so that with each flash of the strobe you only see the segments in the same position as it’s predecessor, thus giving the impression of motion just like watching a film in the cinema.
12. A photo of the animated sculpture.
13. Another photo of the animated sculpture.
14. Another rAnfom International piece that continuously ‘prints’ an image onto a photosensitive wall with a LED ‘printer’.
15. A photo of Peter Sedgley’s UV spinner. An interesting use of ultraviolet paint. Looks like something from the 70’s.
The talk with Sam Buxton was really interesting. He basically talked about the progress of his entire career and was completely open and honest with the description of how he has experienced being an artist. An RCA furniture design graduate, Buxton has a great variety of work under his belt. Currently he is collaborating with Reebok on an advertising campaign along with other miscellaneous projects and installations.
Related links:
Sam Buxton Design Museum Collection
We also briefly visited the WhiteCube gallery while waiting for the Sam Buxton talk to start, it was ok if you like that sort of thing.
