15/07/2007 Angus Carlyle - Søndagsmaler
Søndagsmaler involved crossing a series of stepping stones, the first step a response to the project’s evocation of empty spaces. Empty spaces led to the ‘dead air’ of a channel of transmission temporarily unoccupied by any signifying event.
‘Dead air’ suggested R. Murray Schafer’s proposal for a radical radio. And then I wondered how Schafer’s invocation of the auditory space of streaming soundscapes could itself be emptied. Faltering mid-crossing, uncertain which path to take, I remembered the Danish artist – and one-time Situationist – Asger Jorn retrieving Sunday paintings from flea markets and covering them in forms rendered from gloopy gouache.
To develop the acoustic equivalent of a Sunday painting, I sought out the twee and the sentimental, a palette of children at play, birds billing and cooing, leaf rustle and aircraft circling overhead. And then I really got stuck, water lapping at my shoe, the other bank receding: how to do the gloop? I tried Foley work on everything from porridge to paint, tried audio modelling, synthesis and processing. Nothing worked, nothing gave the right coat to cover the Sunday sounds that were to lie beneath. Looking over my shoulder, I saw a route back to where I started and decided to take it, abandoning the remaining stepping stones and leaving the flea market ambience as the track itself.
Angus Carlyle works at the University of the Arts, London. His research is animated by a curiosity about sensory engagement and artistic representation. He has written for the ICA, The Wire, Black Dog Press, Hotshoe International, Eyemazing, Photoworks and Creation Books amongst others. His work has been translated into German, French, Hungarian, Portuguese and Japanese. He edited the book Autumn Leaves: Sound and Environment in Artistic Practice for the Paris publishing house Double Entendre. He has exhibited sound art at the DCA Gallery in Tucson and the Zeppelin Festival in Barcelona, in the High Desert Test Sites in Joshua Tree Valley, on ResonanceFM and on the M25 motorway. He is a researcher on the EPSRC funded Positive Soundscape Project.