Auxiliary Progress…

Since arriving here in Stockton my time has been spent exploring not just the local landscape but also my current limits of my practice. I came here looking to examine how I install current workings of sonic works and how I can develop or bridge the gap that I find between what I am making and what I am trying to offer.

The first few weeks were spent contemplating speaker architecture and how installing speaker drivers within a form that dissolved or collapsed whilst it functioned worked.  Drawing on the inspiration of the local area and its regeneration hopes/plans.  I have been thinking heavily about addition and reduction as methods of creation both in sound and process works.  Glitch process that I have been known to use is a perfect example of how regeneration seems to operate, existing ideology is rehashed the result is urban planning that though clearly considered it is not until it is implemented you realise the functional errors of such planning.

The focus on heritage and community, the life and death of generations that have called a place home.  The time that passes by and the marks those leave on a place last longer than structures in many cases.  Replacing old is not something that should be done without consideration and awareness for those that live within it.  The Auxiliary residency is based within a community that is exposed to many different social factors.  It is an opportunity to live within a place that is struggling to come to terms with how it should function.  The oddity is that with all the trials and time that it takes to rejuvenate a place it somehow still continues, functions without much thought.  Time will change the nature of a community however daily this is not something that is really brought to your attention as each day was like the last.

Mid way through this residency my father has a stroke which alongside my research here at the Auxiliary has given me a new perspective.  Seeing a parent go through a life changing moment in their existence brings reality home.  I have recently been back and forth between the residency and my parents to see how my father has progressed with his recovery.  Even though I have not been making as much as I would of hoped it has provided much needed reflection, thinking more about the sound works that have been started yet not finished.  The last few weeks here in Stockton I hope to realise some new works with little or no focus on completion yet more or presenting something that is mobile/fluid and evolving.  

 

 

Max for Live: Granulator

Robert Henke aka Monolake delves into granular synthesis with his Max for Live Granulator.

THE SCHOOL OF SOUND INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM 2015

THE SCHOOL OF SOUND INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM 2015

Programme of the SOS 2015

A unique series of masterclasses exploring the art of sound in film, the arts and media

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Wednesday – Saturday
8-11 April 2015
Purcell Room, Southbank Centre
London

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What is the School of Sound?

The School of Sound is a symposium created to encourage a cross-disciplinary approach to using sound in the arts and media. We explore what sound does, how audiences listen.
It is a place where for 4 days you can raise your awareness of how audio production works, how it conveys information and emotion, how you can work with it.
But how do you think about something so ephemeral? And how do you teach it? Sound always seems to be occupying areas of ambiguity – the emotional, the subtext, the intuitive, the borders between reality and fantasy, the conscious and the subconscious. And by their very nature, academia and professional practice  shy away from ambiguity and cross-fertilisation, staying within their own boundaries. But interesting things happen when you start mixing them up!
For four days, out of your usual routine, you’ll be immersed in a world of imagination, invention and innovation. Listening to presentations from a diversity of incredible talents, you will be able to disconnect from your day-to-day work, taken out of your comfort zone, to reflect on sound as something that is profoundly complex, entertaining and important.

Why attend the School of Sound?
It is not an academic conference it is not about getting a job and it is not about hardware or software. The SOS provides a rare opportunity to hear and meet 20 creatives working at the highest levels of the arts and media speaking in detail about how they think and work.
And the SOS is not about just one area of sound production. It covers film, theatre, dance, games, installation, music and radio that will expand your thinking and increase your ability to work in diverse areas of media and the arts.
At the SOS you will mix with hundreds of like-minded people – professional practitioners, educators, artists and students – with whom you can network, exchange ideas and create collaborations.

The SOS is delighted to announce the first details of the 2015 programme. Speakers include

Choreographer SIOBHAN DAVIES in conversation with composer/performer MATTEO FARGION 
Opera and theatre director PETER SELLARS
Sound artist and Foley specialist NICOLAS BECKER
Artist, filmmaker and writer JOHN AKOMFRAH 
Installation artist IMOGEN STIDWORTHY 
Radio producer PIERS PLOWRIGHT
Performance artist DICKIE BEAU 
Sound/music composer GERHARD ECKEL
Filmmaker and composer NADIM MISHLAWI 
Sound designer RANA EID
Interactive games sound designers MARTIN STIG ANDERSEN, JOANNA ORLAND with composer, audio director and consultant JOHN BROOMHALL
and yoiker ÁNDE SOMBY …
with more participants to be announced in the coming weeks.

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NICOLAS BECKER
The renowned Foley artist (Gravity, Wuthering Heights) who has now turned to more abstract, space-based sound work, describes his techniques and methods.

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SIOBHAN DAVIES and MATTEO FARGION
Hearing Movement
The relationship between sound, movement and performance is the focus of this conversation between Davies, one of Europe’s leading choreographers, and collaborator Fargion, a composer and performer whose works have been performed around the world. Looking and listening to excerpts of their own work, they examine the process by which movement comes out of audio and, specifically, the differences between working with music and soundscapes. And following from that, they will question the varying effects of recorded or live music, analogue or synthesised, acoustics and the influence of an audience’s proximity to the performance.

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JOHN AKOMFRAH
Director, writer and theorist, Akomfrah’s body of work embraces documentaries, feature films and exhibitions that have garnered international critical acclaim. In this presentation he explores how sound adapts to the requirements of different media and content.

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JOHN BROOMHALL, composer and sound creative (Forza Motorsport 5, X-Com, Transport Tycoon) and founder of the Games Music Connect conference, brings together two leading sound designers in  this session exploring the ways sound is evolving across the range of interactive entertainment. WithMARTIN STIG ANDERSEN
Sound designer for the acclaimed Limbo, by Playdead, Andersen analyses his techniques for creating soundtracks in the indie-game environment, looking forward to his next release, Inside.

JOANNA ORLAND
Having worked at EA Criterion (Black, Burnout) and currently Senior Sound Designer at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe with credits that include Wonderbook, Diggs Nightcrawler and Project Morpheus, Joanna describes the level of research and conceptualising required for AAA games.

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PIERS PLOWRIGHT
The Tallatchie Bridge and Other Mysteries
Broadcaster and writer Piers Plowright explores the pictures that sound creates and considers the silence that surrounds the best music and words. His starting point is Bobby Gentry’s 1967 hit, Ode to Billie Joe.

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GERHARD ECKEL
The Choreography of Sound
Eckel presents his work, Zeitraum (German for ‘timespan’, literally ‘time space’), a sound environment exposing the interrelation of time and space in acoustic communication. “A central finding of the project was, that sound can also be understood as a choreographic device. The project started out with the idea that sound would be the object of choreography, composers would move ‘bodies of sound’ around in space. Towards the end I discovered this other reading, where sound choreographs the audience, especially in installation situations.”

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DICKIE BEAU
Memory and Lip-sync
Dickie has gained notoriety as a pioneer of “playback” performance: the uncanny embodiment (or “re-memberment”) of found sound – a style of performance that emerges from the drag tradition of lip synching. He positions the body as an archive, especially of the “missing” – re-visioning and playing back voices from the margins: voices of figures we might not normally hear in the mainstream, in ways that we might not be accustomed to hearing them.

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RANA EID and NADIM MISHLAWI
The Soundscape of Conflict
Images of car bombs, assassinations, armed conflict, protests and fiery politicians are the world’s postcards from Beirut. And over time, these images have come to trigger hatred, superiority, racism and, most importantly – fear. It is through listening to Beirut, or any city for that matter, that one can overcome the prejudice of these images and create a subjective affinity. And it is through sounds that we can identify and empathize with events that at first seem strangely alien to us.

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IMOGEN STIDWORTHY
Stidworthy will be discussing the voice at the borders of language through her most recent project, Balayer – A Map of Sweeping (2014) – a three-screen installation with ambisonic sound (see Speakers’ Biographies for more details), and a number of related works.

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PETER SELLARS
Opera, theater, and festival director Peter Sellars has gained renown worldwide for his groundbreaking and transformative interpretations of artistic masterpieces and collaborative projects with an extraordinary range of creative artists across three decades. Whether it is Bach, Mozart, Handel, Shakespeare, Sophocles, or the 16th century Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu, Peter Sellars strikes a universal chord with audiences, engaging and illuminating contemporary social and political issues.

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ÁNDE SONBY
The animals inside the man and the man outside the animals
Are we simply humans? Or are there animals inside of us? Plants? Landscapes?
This is the underlying question in Ánde Sombys preformance. During the performance there will be given “yoik-impersonations” of birds, insects and animals.
This is influenced by the idea of transformation in the pre-Christian Sámi religion – that a human could transform into an animal and back to a human again. And the inspiration is that in our modern day many birds and animals are threatened. How would they feel about pollution, for example?

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The SOS 2015 programme is subject to change. The School of Sound reserves the right to make changes to the content, schedule, list of speakers, topics or venue. All updates will be listed on this website.

BEYOND TINTED – 19-23 NOVEMBER MODERN ART MUSEUM YEREVAN

Beyond Tinted – Մգեցված ապակիներից այն կողմ

Beyond Tinted
Dickie Webb

A new body of work by artist Dickie Webb brings together intermedia works that investigate our current connection to the Yerevan landscape and beyond. These experimental works draw from liminal sites and objects that are used to manage space. Webbs’ process abstracts and subverts these findings, utilizing photography, sculptural elements and new media technologies; it is the anthropomorphic qualities that underscore the works. Just like liminal space these works exist in an unknown state, straddling both real and virtual, Webb does not imply directly what they mean rather he suggest they are a means to reflect on the potential of what could be. These works challenge especially that part of local people that have to reconsider their present landscape and gain some form of clarity out from behind their tinted view (tinted glasses of the big cars of nоuveau riche). The final works vary in fabrication and are part of a wide palette that enables Webb to present intimate moments, to view our present existence from an altered perspective and reflect on our own being.

Artist Statement:

Dickie Webb operates his art practice from the position of a wanderer, moving consistently over the years, dislocating himself from societal norms. With few constants Webb’s peripatetic lifestyle means he has had to adapt and rethink our connection to landscape, altering his comprehension of what is considered home and the role of society’s expectations.
Examining our existence Webb questions that which is real and what is otherwise virtual within our landscape, utilising Marc Auges’ “non-places” and Michel Foucaults’ “heterotopias” as initial starting points. Webb uses these imaginary and transient sites as a means to reveal anomalies, inaccuracies similar to those displayed within human personalities.
This connection to space through its anthropomorphic qualities prompts Webb to consider space as representational of current issues experienced within both the individual and collective. Using space as a metaphor and as a medium Webb looks past the architectural structure and explores the liminal qualities, discovering this blurred arena from an outsider’s perspective.

Processes:
Interactive installations, Arduino, photography, site-specific installation, sculpture, print, sensory based media light, sound and scents, interventions, casting, drawing, constructive and destructive processes.
Materials:
Paint, plaster, bronze, aluminium, soap, salt, concrete, sugar, ice, glass, steel, wood, resin, ink, milk and wax.
Objects:
Cardboard boxes, furniture, envelopes and car windscreens.

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Born in 1979, in Oxford, United Kingdom. Dickie Webb currently divides his time between New Zealand, USA and the UK. Webb studied for a BA Honours in Intermedia at Edinburgh College of Art; part of his degree was spent at the State University of New York, Purchase College. Prior to his degree Webb studied at Oxford Brookes University, UK. Since graduating Webb has continued travelling working in Japan, New Zealand and Chile whilst also undertaking artist residencies in Athens, Greece (SNEHTA) and currently here in Yerevan (ACSL). He has exhibited works in the UK, USA and Greece.

Recent Exhibitions:
2014 THINGS ARE DIFFERENT NOW – Art Athina, Athens, Greece
2014 Boundaries – Artscapes, Athens, Greece
2013 Unsettled Certainties – Aghias Zonis 1 Space, Athens, Greece.
2013 One Action, Ones Actions – Cultybraggan POW Camp, Perthshire, UK
2013 Newhaven Station – Edinburgh, UK

The exhibition is organized by the Art and Cultural Studies Laboratory (ACSL). This project is realized at the [Art Commune] International Artist-in-Residence Program (ACSL)

This project is funded by European Cultural Foundation

Special thanks to the Yerevan Modern Art Museum, director of the Museum Nune Avetisyan and its staff.

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Մգեցված ապակիներից այն կողմ
Դիքի Վեբբ (Անգլիա)

Արվեստագետ Դիքի Վեբբի Հայաստանում իրականցված այս նոր նախագիծը քննության է առնում Երեւանի շրջակա միջավայրի, դրանում առկա այլ քաղաքատեղերի հետ հընթացս կապերը: Բազմամեդիական եւ փորձարարական ոգով տոգորված աշխատանքները մտորումներ են քաղաքի կազմավորման շուրջ, սակայն իրերն ու դեպքերն այստեղ լիմինալ նշանակություն ունեն՝ նրանք գտնվում են իրականության նմանակումի եւ վիրտուալի, վերացականի սահմանin: Արվեստագետի մոտեցմանը բնորոշ է քաղաքային տարածքներում ամեն հայտնաբերվածի աբստրահումը, կամ տրոհումը՝ հիմքում պահելով մարդակերպական (անտրոպոմորֆական) որակները՝ դա է հոդավորում աշխատանքների շարքը. իսկ այս նախագծի իմացաբանական ըմբռնումը ամբողջությամբ թողնված է հանդիսատեսին:
Նախագծում տեղ գտած առանցքային աշխատանքներից մեկը՝ վիդեո-սլայդ-ձայնային ինստալացիան առաջին հայացքից “անշառ” քաղաքային դրվագների հերթափոխ է, որը սակայն գաղափարաբանական դասավորություն ունի՝ տեղի (տոպոսի) կարեւորությունը կապվում է “ու-տոպիական” մտածողությանը, եւ վերջինիս հետ սերտ առընչվող երկու այլ մոդուսների՝ դիս-տոպիային եւ հետեռոտոպիային: Վիդեոշարքի պատկերները, ըստ արվեստագետի, դասավորված են վերը նշված մոդուսների եւ ամեն մոդուսին ներհատուկ ձայնային կոմպոզիացիայի համաձայն: Այստեղ էլ հանդիսատեսը պիտի փորձի “ընթեռնել” ներկայացված տոպո-գրաֆիայի “փիլիսոփայությունը”:
Վեբբի պնդմամբ՝ նախագիծը մարտահրավեր է հատկապես ետ-խորհրդային տարածքներում գոյացած նոր հարուստների խավին, ում hամար շուրջ կյանքը երանգավորված եւ սահմանափակված է սեփական մեքենաների մգեցված ապակիներով՝ նրանք անհաղորդ են հանրային կարիքների նկատմամբ, եւ քանի որ նախագիծը հղում է կյանքի ավելի լայն “ներկապնակին”՝ Վեբբն իրավունք է վերապահում բռնվել հանդիստաեսի հետ մտերմիկ խոսակցության մեջ՝ ներքաշելով նրան գոյության շուրջ խորը մտորումների:

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Դիքի Վեբբի արվեստագիտական պրակտիկաներում ներկա է թափառականի հայացքը՝ երկար տարիների հետեւողական տեղարշարժերի ընթացքը մղել են նրան հասարակական նորմերից դուրս: Գտնվելով ապրելակերպի պերիպաթեթիկական (արիստոտելյան) մի քանի ձեւերի մեջ՝ նա հետազոտում է շրջակա միջավայրի հետ մարդկանց կապերը՝ ձգտելով փոխել պատկերուցումները “տուն” եւ “հասարակության սպասումներ” եզրերի մասին: Քննելով այժմյա գոյության խնդիրները, Վեբբը հարցի է դնում քաղաքային լանդշաֆթների իրական եւ դրան հակադիր վիրտուալ գոյությունը՝ հիմնվելով Մարկ Օժեի “ոչ-տեղերի” եւ Միշել ֆուկոյի “հետերոտոպիաների” տեսական պնդումների վրա: Երեւակայված, կամ
չ-անձնավորված, անցողիկ տեղերը նրա համար անոմալիաների եւ անճշտությունների բացահայտման միջոցներ են: Տարածության գաղափարը՝ օժտված մարդակերպային հատկանիշներով, դրթում է Վեբբին դիտարկել այն որպես ընթացիկ խնդիրների ներկայացման հարթակ՝ թե՛ անհատականի, թե՛ հավաքականի դիտանկյուններից: Վեբբը օգտագործում է տարածության գաղափարը “միջավայրի” ասածի տեսանկյունից՝ հաճախ ներկայացնելով այն փոխաբերական լիցքերով լի: Նա բնավ տարված չէ ճարտարապետական կառույցներով, այլ հետազոտում է տարածքների անցումային, լիմինալ որակները՝ բացահայտելով այդ մշուշոտ արենան աութսայդերի հայացքով:

Դիքի Վեբբը աշխատանքները հիմնականում վերածվում են ինտերակտիվ կամ տեղին հատուկ ինստալացիաներ, թվային աուդիո մանիպուլացիաների, լուսանկարների, քանդակի, տպագրության, սենսորային լույսի միջամտության, ձայնի, բույր, գծանկարի, կազմման եւ ապակզմման ընթացքների եւ քաղաքային տարածքներում ներխուժումների
Օգտագործվող նյութերն են՝
ներկ, բրոնզ, ալյումինիում, սապոն, բետոն, աղ, շաքար, սառույց, ապակի, մետաղ, փայտ, բլեկնախեժ, թանաք, կաթ, մոմ
Օգտագործվող օբյեկտներն են՝ ստվարաթղթե արկղեր, կահույք, ծրարներ, ավտոմեքենայի առջեւապակիներ

Դիքի Վեբբը ծնվել է 1979թ. բրիտանական Օքսֆորդ քաղաքում: Մի երկրից մյուսը հաճախակի տեղաշարժերի հետեւանքով՝ նա բնակվում է ներկայում Նոր Զելանդիայի, Միացյալ Նահանգների եւ Միացյալ Թագավորության միջեւ: Վեբբը բակալվրի կոչում է ստացել Էդինբուրգի Արվեստի քոլեջում՝ համատեղելով ուսումը Նյու-Յորքի Պետական համալսարանին կից գործող Փրչեյզ (Purchase) քոլեջում՝ մինչ այդ նա Բրիտանիայի Օքսֆորդ Բրուքս (Oxford Brooks) համալսարանի շրջանավարտներից էր: Վերը նշված ուսումնառության տարիներից հետո նա սկիզբ է դնում շարունակական ճամփորդությունների եւ աշխատանքային այցերի դեպի Ճապոնիա, Նոր Զելանդիա եւ Չիլի՝ հընթացս ներգրավվելով արվեստագետների կացարանների ծրագրերի մեջ Աթենքում (SNEHTA կացարան, Հունսատան), այժմ էլ Հայաստանում գործող “Արտ կոմունա” արվեստագետների միջազգային կացարանում (ԱՄՀԼ):

Վերջերս նա մասնակցել է մի շարք ցուցահանդեսներում ԱՄՆ-ում, Միացյալ Թագավորությունում եւ Հունաստանում, որոնց թվում են՝
(2014) ՀԻՄԱ ԲԱՆԵՐՆ ԱՅԼ ԵՆ, Արտ Աֆինա, Հունաստան
(2014) Սահմաններ-Արվեստատեղեր, Աթենք, Հունաստան
(2013)Չամրագրված փաստեր, Aghias Zonis 1 Space, Աթենք, Հունաստան
(2013) Մեկ հայտարար, միանվագ հայտարարներ, Cultybraggan POW ճամբար, Փերթշիր, Միացյալ Թագավորություն
(2013) Կանգառ Նյուհեվանում, Էդինբուրգ, Միացյալ Թագավորությւոն

Ցուցահանդեսի կազմակերպիչն է
Արվեստի եւ մշակութային հետազոտությունների լաբորատորիան (ԱՄՀԼ)
Նախագիծը իրականացվել է [Արտ Կոմունա] Արվեստագետների միջազգային կացարանի ծրագրերի շրջանակում (ԱՄՀԼ)

Նախագծի հովանավորն է Եվրոպական Մշակութային հիմնադրամը

Աջակցության համար հատուկ շնորհակալություն ենք հայտնում Երեւանի Ժամանակակից արվեստի թանգարանին, թանգարանի տնօրեն Նունե Ավետիսյանին եւ անձնակազմին

Understanding Some Of My Process.

Here is a post by The Creators Project which outlines some of the techniques that I am employed to make my recent digital works.

Here’s What Happens When You Edit Photos Like Music

By Emerson Rosenthal — Jul 24 2014

Re-post from The Creators Project – click here for original post.

What’s known is that all digital files are made up of raw data: open any image, sound, application, or otherwise in a program like TextEdit, and you’ll see the Unicode alphabet representation of your chosen file. What’s unknown are the results of opening, say, a .txt file in a video program, a sound file in a word document, or playing an image file in a sound editor… More often than not, importing files into applications they’re foreign to will produce an error message and possibly crash your open application. Sometimes, however, using applications to manipulate non-native files results in beautiful art.

Masuma Ahuja and Denise Lu, of the Washington Post, put these ideas to the test by editing images in Audacity as if they were sound files. It’s called databending— the process, according to Ahuja and Lu, “of manipulating data in an editor traditionally used to edit media of another format,”— and the simple results are as colorful and sublime as they are inspiring.

Seen with an echo effect, the Eiffel Tower lives up to Paris’ name as “The City of Lights.” With fades and a reverse effect, the bleak southwest Iceland seaside becomes awash with cotton-candy waves. With a little reverb, the Brooklyn Bridge gets a throwback to the color stylings of Do The Right Thing. Below, Ahuja and Lu’s results are as mind-bending as they are data:

Ready to try databending your own image files? Check out Jamie Boulton’s tutorial on using effects in Audacity, andAntonio Roberts’ beginners tutorial on importing image files into the free sound editing software. Share your artworks with us in the comments section below! h/t FlowingData

The Bug “Function / Void” By Factory Fifteen (Music Video)

Taking The Time – Upcoming ACSL Residency In Yerevan, Armenia

On the 1st of October I will be heading to Yerevan, Armenia for two months to partake in an art residency program operated by Art and Cultural Studies Laboratory.  This is an exciting opportunity especially after my experience in Athens previously I feel more than ready to make the most of my time there.  It is a place that I have not experienced before but sits in an important part of the world.  Its rich history and current economic state will provide many new thoughts and ways to reflective current thoughts and perceptions.

This year has seen me move quite a bit and most of that time I have been immersed in countries where I speak little of the language.  This isolation in my nomadic practice really plays on my current thoughts of what home means to me.  My projects tend to start from a personal response but then tend to be expanded to become works that others can reflect on and read in their own light.  However I feel also whilst in Armenia I need to document the daily emotional attachment I have to what I deem as home, the never studio or practice nomadic..

I am also grateful for the funding that has been provided for this time I will spend in Armenia.  The ECF Labs and their Step Beyond Bursary has made this time one which I can devoted solely to furthering my research and creating new works.

INCONSISTENCIES WITHIN THE KNOWN – Nicolás Lamas

The practice of Nicolás Lamas is full of playful process based works.  Using process, objects and a systematic use of language to explore the gaps within what others see as certainties.  The inquisitive nature of his various works explore past the obvious, simple techniques alongside conceptual installations allow your mind to wander.  Little gems of information are offered which allow your understanding to enquire as to what further levels of information Lamas is presenting.  It is good to see an artist who does this allowing a viewer to become engaged through entry points whilst also taking them on a tour of further concepts that could be over looked without this engagement.  Click here for his Website.

Nothing comes from nothing?

2013

Method

Todas las palabras que no entiendo de la versión alemana de la Teoría de la Relatividad de Albert Einstein, son lijadas y sus restos son acumulados al lado del libro. A través de este método intento simplificar y acceder de manera absurda al contenido de las ideas expuestas en el texto. Todas las palabras que quedan en el libro son perfectamente entendidas por mí, pero el sentido y la complejidad de las ideas planteadas originalmente en el libro han sido deformadas a través de este ejercicio.21,5 x 15 cm (libro).

My limited knowledge of a language (German) is taken as the starting point for this work, where I sand all the words and mathematical equations that I don’t understand in the book of the Theory of Relativity of A. Einstein. The result of this action is a disjointed text where I can understand each word of the book but not the meaning of the ideas in the original version. The sanded words and equations become a mound of remains next to the book.

20 x 16 cm (book).

Layers of meaning

2012

Proyección de collages digitales realizados a partir de la documentación fotográfica de diferentes exposiciones encontradas en internet. Dimensiones variables.

 

Projection of digital collages made ​​from photographic documentation of different art exhibitions found on the Internet. Dimensions variable.

 

FINDINGS FROM THE MOJAVE

An Excursion Into LA’s Mojave Hinterland at the CLUI Desert Research Station

Kim Stringfellow

Re-blogged from KCET

The Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) has always occupied a somewhat paradoxical space–one that is informatively neutral but at the same time also subtly provocative. This aspect allows its organizers to penetrate often, impenetrable places such as the Nevada Test Site. Indeed, the CLUI is as well known inside the art world as it is outside of it. It is in fact one of the more internationally well-known and respected interdisciplinary entities in contemporary art that often does not appear as an arts organization at all but instead as a highly creative interpretive center for some institutional-like agency.

Founded in 1994 by the Center’s director, Matthew Coolidge along with various CLUI associates as a research and educational organization whose mission is “dedicated to the increase and diffusion of information about how the nation’s lands are apportioned, utilized, and perceived.” The CLUI stipulate that “the manmade landscape is a cultural inscription, that can be read to better understand who we are, and what we are doing.” The Center is interested in multiple interpretations of landscape from a variety of perspectives and points of view.

The Center supports and presents a variety of exhibition programs at its main exhibition and office location in Culver City, CA adjacent to another SoCal gem of hard-to-classify arts practice–The Museum of Jurassic Technology. The Culver City location also features a bookstore where one may sign up for the Center’s newsletter, The Lay of the Land and purchase various Center produced publications. The CLUI also organizes highly popular bus tour trips. Its years of research have been organized into a publicly accessible online Land Use Database. On occasion, the Center hosts outside researchers though its Independent Interpreter Series.

The Center for Land Use Interpretation Desert Research Station. | Photo: Kim Stringfellow.

The Center’s American Land Museum is a group of associated satellite locations including the Wendover facility located deep within the Great Basin at the Nevada/Utah border adjacent to Utah’s Great Salt Lake–home of land speed records and Robert Smithson’sSpiral Jetty. Here resides the Center’s Wendover artist residency program at a former WWII training airbase whose claim to fame is its role supporting the first atomic bombing missions dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Wendover visitors may casually visit the Enola Gay hanger that housed the B-29 bomber that forever sealed Hiroshima’s nuclear fate, later immortalized in early Richard Misrach photographs.

Other field office locations and facilities include the Gulf States Field Office in Houston, TX; the Northeast Field Office in Troy, NY; the New Mexico Field Site outside of Albuquerque, NM; the Central States Exhibit Unit in Lebanon, KS and the Desert Research Station located in Hinkley, CA.

Opened in 2000 as part of the Museum of Contemporary Art’s exhibition Flight Patterns, the Desert Research Station (DRS) focuses on the California Desert region, specifically the Mojave Desert extending from Los Angeles outward fringes within the Antelope Valley eastward into Las Vegas, Death Valley, and the Mojave National Preserve–essentially “the desert beltway around the hinterlands of Los Angeles.” Exhibits are open year-round to the public and are accessible as self-guided gallery walk-throughs (visitors must access the facility through the combination keypad after phoning the CLUI during regular business hours for the access code; call-in information is located at the door). The DRS grounds include interpretive walking trails with signage exhibits. Additional facilities on site are available for researchers conducting operations with the CLUI.

Walking Trail. | Photo: Courtesy of CLUI.

Recent projects include several sound installations “related to spatial dynamics of the ground.” Steve Badgett and artist and interdisciplinary artist, Deborah Stratman produced the Desert Resonator, a 75-foot long aeolian harp which reacts and interprets the wind movement’s over the ground into sound, using a spherical acoustic resonator. This permanently installed sonic sculpture’s “six 75′ long strings pass over dual bridges and produce multi-harmonic drones contingent upon the force and consistency of the air currents”–effectively translating the wind.

Desert Resonator (Steve Badgett, Deborah Stratman). | Photo: Deborah Stratman.

CLUI associate, Steve Rowell explores the phenomenology of sonic booms linking sky, sound, and ground in unexpected ways. Due to the DRS’s proximity to Edwards Air Force Base and Naval Air Weapons China Lake Facility makes it a perfect location to research and collection of such sonic phenomena.

Wendover artist residency program participant William Lamson ended up staging his Line Describing the Sun project in the winter months of 2011 on nearby Harper Dry Lake when the originally intended site conditions at the Bonneville Salt Flats near Wendover proved inadequate. Using a Fresnel lens apparatus mounted onto a mobile unit Lamson inscribed a 366-foot burn arc other the course of one day onto the lakebed. The concentrated intensity of the 1,600-degree point of light melted the lakebed’s dry surface, “transforming it into a black glassy substance.” When the project was later exhibited in NYC the project prompted the NY Times to comment, “Mr. Lamson can’t go back in time, but he can still go to the desert.”

 

William Lawson executing ‘Line Describing the Sun.’ | Photo: Courtesy of CLUI.

Other current projects include a collaboration with University of Southern California art curatorial graduate students that is studying and documenting experimental aircraft crash sites found throughout the region.

Future research projects include those supported by independent/autonomous solar power systems, an underground bunker space, additional sound/space projects, and one concerning DIY low altitude aerial photography. The walking trail is scheduled for completion by January 2013 with a combination gate to allow public access.

For more information visit the Center’s website.

The street address for the DRS is 40083 Hinkley Road, Hinkley, CA 92347.
Directions to CLUI’s Desert Research Station: From downtown Los Angeles, take I-10 east, to I-15 north towards Las Vegas/Barstow. Just before Barstow, take Highway 58 west. Proceed approximately 9 miles to Hinkley Road, which is sometimes indicated with a “Hinkley 1 Mile” sign. Turn right on Hinkley Road and drive north 4 miles to the DRS, located on the east side of the road. Phone the CLUI at (310) 839-5722 for combination access code during normal business hours.

Top Image: Using the horns at the DRS, acoustic “binoculars” on the walking trail. | Photo: Courtesy of CLUI

La Vitesse Et La Pierre – Igor Zimmermann

La Vitesse Et La Pierre An epic 12-minute short film made of stills, shot in Western Sahara and Norway. Play a short extract here above.Stills:                                             DIRECTED AND PHOTOGRAPHED BY: Igor Zimmermann, Frode & Marcus SCRIPT & EDITING Igor Zimmermann MUSIC WRITTEN & PRODUCED BY: Yourhighness SOUND DESIGN: Mattias Eklund SET DESIGN Malin Gabriella Nordin       BACK