Invention booklet...the start of it it anyway

Here are some drawings I plan to put together, along with about ten others to make up a professional as possible looking booklet of inventions. Each drawing is of a sculpture that would make sound that may or may not exist/function - decide as you will!

Artist/inventordome continues...

Compilation series (clear photos)

 Just a quick post of the photos from the "Compilation" series, because the videos don't show them to their full visual capacity.

audio/visual balance?

 Audio visual crossover remains a talked about topic at the moment in contemporary art, I'm interested in how the artist and the viewer deals with it after years of debates around visual bias and value of sound as a medium. There are still stigmas around it (i.e. look to the debates around Susan Philipsz's work in the Turner Prize). With this in mind, this is the first experiment I've come up with using a computer that I took apart, so it still works, but is arranged differently to create a sculpture that I'm hoping will eventually play some interesting sounds. There's lots to play with, incl input and output jacks, a disk drive, but I'm tempted to set that stuff aside, perhaps making a turntable on top, making the needle pick up sound from a CD rom. I hope to balance sound and visual equally.

NPC

I was given two weeks to come up with some art, discovered about the neutrino particle in the news and had to do something about it. I wish I could have incorporated sound, but in this case, it didn't need it. Starting to get really interested in science/art combination. More artist/physicist experiments to come, I'm currently making a book of all of my ideas for inventions/sculptures, which is coming soon! Watch this space..

Compilation III

Third in the series - got my hands on a washing machine :D This is an edited version of the footage so I could fit it on here, so you get the most interesting bits in just two minutes. 

Ideally you would be involved in this piece, as participation is key to make it happen, BUT at least this video shows the sound and visual aesthetics. Got a lot of inspiration from Haroon Mirza for this series, loving his stuff at the mo.

Compilation II

Second in the series. Although I'm pleased with the outcome, it's probably the most "conventional" piece of sound art, given that it uses an amplifier, microphone and radio, which have previously been used by many artists to achieve interesting sounds. Saying this though, the film spool and straps of MDF do take you back to the slightly shabby feel of the other compilations.

The idea has been to deconstruct day to day objects as well, hoping to create sounds from putting them back together with other objects, testing how much sound can be made from object which we usually ignore the sound of or take that aspect of it for granted.

The quality of the videos have been a tad bit diminished through uploading them on to here, sorry!

                                          Compilation II
                                          Wood, metal, radio, film spool, microphone, amplifier
                                           (04/2011)

Compilation I

First in a series of sound sculptures called Compilations. This one took the least amount of time to create, and came, like all of these have from a pile of "junk". The role of object/audience/artist are challenged in this piece. It can be taken on various different levels: aesthetically, aurally and hopefully conceptually, depending on how you choose to view it. It's quite open to interpretation so I don't want to go on about what I think it all means, but I'd say it's more of an experience than a video, though at least you can see/hear the "performance in this small clip. 

                                          Compilation I
                                          Wood, metal, tin whistles, pendulum mechanism
                                           (2011)

sound sculpture, attempt no.million

This is the result of SO many attempts to create a sound sculpture out of various electronic devices. Initially the plan was to add on a clock mechanism (handmade) to a radio, so that when wound up the tuner would move creating bizarre static noise along with time, sadly this was impossible. Instead, having regrouped in my head, I went back to initial plans to work specifically with sound and equally importantly with audience participation, so now the viewer has to wind up the handle, then the weight pulls the cog of the tuner round slowly, so you hear the static changing at an appropriate speed. This gives the viewer a new role...you become the artist/composer and musician, fulfilling this new machine's purpose, or at least its function.

I've managed to get my hands on a washing machine, which I will be mucking around with as soon as possible, fun times ahead!

shhing people

Next step...involving the people...I went round shhing people with the sign, really quite fun. But given that it's a sound piece...it may have made sense to record the sound, but ah well, next time.

shh goes walkies

I tried taking the sign out and taking photos of it in different environments, leaving it in places and sometimes sitting far away with a camera recording people's reactions, sadly most people ignored it, but some of the photos are quite interesting. It's not quite working to it's full potential though.

SHH.

Wanting to take the humour and "shh." further out in to the public domain to get the masses involved, I created a "SHH." sign (below).

sound paintings

 Inspired by John Baldessari's word paintings, I wanted to take his idea further in to the sound realm and created these sound paintings (above). Using onomatopoeic words the idea was that the viewer reads through them, hearing each of the sounds in their heads, then the "SHH." creates a weird pause, which I feel adds a slight humour to the piece too. I tried singling out the "SHH." (below), the initial idea being to take it around places and see how people reacted, but then given that it's on a canvas, I thought people might just put it down to being a weird art thing and dismiss it, so some re thinking is it order.