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.
Commissioned for Signal
Angus Carlyle is curious about how we make sense of our environment, through sound and through our other senses. He edited the book “Autumn Leaves” for Double Entendre (2007), made the sound work “51° 32 ‘ 6.954” N / 0° 00 ‘ 47.0808” W” for the “Sound Proof” group show (2008), co-curated the exhibition “Sound Escapes” at Space Gallery in London (2009) and produced the CD “Some Memories of Bamboo” (2009) for the label Gruenrekorder.
In 2012 he completed a sixth month residency project called “Viso Come Territorio” / “Face As Territory”, a collaboration with 7 photographers based around a village on a Southern Italian hillside. Another project Air Pressure has been a long collaboration with the anthropologist Rupert Cox that led to an exhibition (part of the Asia Triennial Manchester), a CD/ booklet, two films and a series of papers.