26/08/2007 Benjamin Gwilliam - The sequential silences of Dr Murkes Gesammeltes Schweigen (radio version) / improvisation for unknown forces
Dr Murkes Gesammeltes Schweigen (by Heinrich Böll) is a satire based in a broadcasting house in the 1950’s where Murke, a radio engineer, lifts above the tedium by collecting snippets of silent audiotape.
This distillation was originally conceived as a tape installation (2005), where the silence cuts from the radio play of the same book, were extracted and spliced together into one tape loop, played between several open reel tape players.
For signal I re-edited the loop, refering to the original silence cuts that were predetermined by the radio script, highlighting the lineage of events between the words of a fictious silence collector.
improvisation for unknown forces is in response to ‘Three Receivers’ by Douglas Kahn.
Recorded 12, 13, 14th April 2007, Islington Mill, Salford between the hours of 00.00-01.00.
Ben Gwilliam is a sound artist and improvising musician currently based in the UK. His work explores visual and musical processes in found-sound and resonant objects, often seeking out the present evident in the past. By re-appropriation of elements such as sound recordings, film, literature and radio works, he unpicks the relationship between these devices of memory and moments of primary experience. He views his work as a variable in relation to sound forming as installations, film & video, documentation and performances.
Since 2003, his music has been developing an improvisational relationship with open reel magnetic tape and prepared field recordings, exploring decay, silence and harmonics, in solo and collaborative arrangements.
His work has been featured on Resonance FM, the touring DVD 'codec/x: new British sound and video', and has work in several CD's and Publications. He has performed and recorded with artists such as Claus van Bebber, Espen Jensen, Helmut Lemke & Lee Patterson (duos and in the trio LPG), and Jez Riley French, Rhodri Davies, Phil Durrant, Matt Davis, and Sascha Demand. Since 2004 he has curated several experimental music and sound exhibitions including 're:sound' 2005, UK, 'Sculpting with Air' Liverpool Biennial 2006, 'then the silence increased', 2007 UK (co-curated with Helmut Lemke).
www.thosesoundsbetween.co.uk