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WHAT: SOUND OF FAILURE: Experimental Music in a Post-digital Era
WHEN/WHERE (TWO VENUES):
Saturday August 25, 6pm:
Petersham Bowling Club (Performances)
77 Brighton St, Petersham, NSW Australia
Hosted by the irrepressible Schappylle Scragg.
Saturday/Sunday August 25/26 11am-5pm:
DON’T LOOK Experimental New Media Gallery (Installations)
419 New Canterbury Rd (Near Marrickville Rd), Dulwich Hill, NSW Australia. Endurance performances at Don’t Look Gallery from 12pm Sunday.
WHO:
PERFORMERS (Petersham Bowling Club):
Est Et Non, Tom Hall (Brisbane), Lecter Macabre, Marquis De Sound, Glen Remington, Starella, Vilhelm the Tortoise & Friends (Belgium), Alex White, Wun Thong
INSTALLATION ARTISTS/ENDURANCE PERFORMERS
(Don’t Look Gallery):
Catfingers, Cleaninglady, Gregory Chatonsky (Canada), The Contingent Ensemble, Wade Marynowsky, Lecter Macabre, Marquis De Sound, Monoperro, Eva Mueller, Vienna Parreno, Cara-Ann Simpson, Subscape Annex (USA)
CONTACT: Greg Shapley – Ph: 0401 152 434
EMAIL: dontlookgallery@gmail.com
WEB: http://soundoffailure.com for a complete program.
COST: $10 (Bowling Club), FREE (Gallery)
SOUND OF FAILURE
Experimental Music in a Post-digital Era
We live in an era of failure. On the global stage, the President of the most powerful country on earth has overseen thousands of deaths in two failed wars. In the third world the stench of poverty seeps through the pores of humanity in the guise of genocidal skirmishes, starvation and disease. Fundamentalists of all creeds goad each other like contestants on some new deadly reality TV show. And the optimism of the ’90s is washed away in a tide of apathy, indifference and hopelessness.
So where does this leave culture? If art is holding up a mirror to society, how long before the mirror shatters in sympathetic resonance to the horror it beholds?
A couple of months ago Don’t Look Gallery put out an open call to sound artists to propose a piece for an event called the ‘Sound of Failure’. From dozens of responses, 20 artists have been chosen to perform at Petersham Bowling Club on Saturday August 25, or to install works at Don’t Look Gallery, Dulwich Hill over the weekend of August 25/26.
These works generally employ technological failure, both as a euphemism for the state of the world, but also as a way of exposing, exploring and problematising the digital façade. These artists have attempted transcend the small rectangular screens and the latest Microsoft releases, opting instead to look at unintended consequences of technology – when it misbehaves or just gives up the goat.
Some artists use humour. Starella, for instance, juxtaposes ‘instruments’ such as ‘old wine bottles’ with digital technology and lyrics written on the backs of beer coasters. The failure in her musical sound comes from spending her life slipping through the gaps of every system she has known: family; society, and professional systems. In her performances she feels her way through drunken rants and musically attempts to determine what went wrong.
Others employ the literal failure of the technology itself. Tom Hall, a sound artist from Brisbane, uses the degenerate sounds formed from the destruction of flimsy CD media combined with the glitch/skip/malfunction from ageing and damaged CD players. These form the basis of a live performance that combine in a progressive and layered manner, juxtaposing the usual frustration experienced when one strikes this inferior malfunction.
A detailed program is available from http://soundoffailure.com