Susan Philipsz - 'Lowlands'

Susan Philipsz - Lowlands

Installation view at Tate Britain, 2010

Scottish artist Susan Philipsz won the 2010 Turner Prize with the re-staging of her audio work 'Lowlands'.

The empty gallery space was equipped with three speakers each playing a different cappella recording of Philipsz singing a 16th-century Scottish lament 'Lowlands Away'. Somber and haunting the work resonated around the empty space creating an eery calm. The work was previously played under the arches of the George V bridge by the River Clyde in Glasgow.

Roman Ondák - More Silent Than Ever

Roman Ondák More Silent Than Ever

2006

In Roman Ondák's More Silent Than Ever the viewer is confronted with a seemingly empty room. The piece's material composition is in fact listed as an 'eavesdropping device hidden [a] room'. Typical of Ondák's work - this subtle intervention at first seems innocuous though on closer inspection places the viewer in a precarious position. 

Haroon Mirza - 'The National Apavilion of Then and Now'

Haroon Mirza - 'The National Apavilion of Then and Now'

2011, Venice Biennale.

Made for the ILLUMInations exhibition at the Arsenale at years Venice Biennale, 'The National Apavilion of Then and Now' is a cube shaped structure with a slice cut from one of its sides leading the viewer round into a small anechoic chamber. Padded with acoustic foam, an anechoic chamber is designed to stop reflections of sound or electromagnetic waves. Once inside we find a circle of LED's gradually getting brighter as a drone noise gets louder, eventually cutting off plunging the viewer into silence and darkness.

Mirza won the 2011 'Promising new artist' Silver Lion award for for this work at the 54th Venice Biennale.

Steven Dickie - The Calibration Of We

Steven Dickie The Calibration of We 2010

Steven Dickie's The Calibration of We provides the visitor with a place of solace, cut off from contemporary noise in all its forms - a faraday cage protects you from electrical signals, sound proofing foam creates a geometrically patterned shield, blocking out ambient sound. Within this sonic environment is a sound field created by 2 sound waves, the pitch of each determined by the physical position of the viewer/listener allowing him/her to control the pitch and create harmonies and discords. With convergence achieved, calibration is complete.

João Onofre - 'Box sized Die'

João Onofre - 'Box sized Die'

(featuring DARKMOON, Basel 2008)

'Box Sized Die' is a 183cm black metal cube padded with acoustic foam. Referencing a minimalist sculpture by Tony Smith, Onofre gets a death metal band to perform inside it. First performed in Basel with DARKMOON in 2008 the work has no fixed duration, instead the band performs until they feel that the oxygen is running out and ends their set due to fear of asphyxiation.

Lustfaust

As Lustfaust.com introduces them: "Lustfaust was an experimental noise band active in West Berlin during the late seventies and early 1980s whos combination of an aggressive on-stage presence, found object instrumentation, and the use of an anti-capitalist community-based model of distribution (send the band a blank cassette and they would return it with their latest release) spawned the Dadaist Geniale Dilettanten movement of the early 1980s and pioneered the burgeoning cassette culture of the late seventies."

 

Lustfaust.com guides us through the history of this almost-forgotten band and tells their tale through the relics of its DIY fan base - home made merchandise (shirts, pin badges and shoes (above)), home recorded tapes, and amateur photographs are all that survives of these once-loved icons of a once-important and exciting scene. 

Perhaps it's worth pointing out, if you are not familiar with this body of work, that Lustfaust is in fact an ongoing project by Jamie Shovlin; an artist who specialises in the detail- and pitch-perfect simulation of pop-cultural ephemera, home-spun histories and faked artefacts. Explore the website for videos, recordings, the full history, and a link to the former fan club site.