Last June I received a comment on a blog post I'd written years ago about sonic art:
Hi there, I've got a sonic arts exhibition in Peckham on July 16th - 18th that you might be interested in attending. I hope you can make it: www.experiment1.co.uk. Email me if you want an invite to the private view. Regards, Lorraine
I get a lot of daft comments on my blog. The last one, a few days ago, was about the BBC radio archives and concluded, "Also I missed the last episode of 'Dark Rising' in 1968: How did it end?". I resisted the temptation to reply, "Dark rose". So it's a welcome surprise to get a comment that's (a) interesting, (b) an invitation and (c) fifteen minutes walk from home.
I went to the private view. You can read about it, though I managed to avoid being in any of the photos. It's disappointing that I can't find details of exactly how the gas organ works — this page is the best I can find — but I think basically the gas flames set up standing-wave resonances in the pipes of the organ.
Through sonic art people will engage with sounds in a gallery that they would never listen to at home. I don't think many CDs were sold that evening, but they were only £5 and I bought one. I'm glad I did. In the gallery, the organ has a strong presence, and the flames together with the size make it almost threatening. At home on CD, the reverberating tones are much more humble, and quite haunting. There's a strong resemblance to the Deep Listening® approach of Pauline Oliveros and Stuart Dempster.
Obviously there's no such thing as a tune on this one 54-minute track; neither is there any real sense of development. But the length of the piece, together with the depth of the sound field, is an important 'component' that subtly shifts the frame in which ears and mind are used to operating.
The organ is being played again in a couple of weeks, but I doubt I'll go.
The edgy and demonic strains of 'The Gas Organ' will form an acoustic hub, around which darkly challenging performances, inspired by its ominous presence, will miasmically revolve. Witnesses to the scene will have their preconceptions of entertainment redefined as they are in turn beguiled and mesmerised, appalled and repelled as performers explore their relationships with beauty, pain, fetishism, romance, flame and flesh.
No, not me.
Yes you've pretty much got the idea of how the Gas Organ works... We've now changed it so that it's controlled by wii remotes.
We'll be doing another exhibition at Area 10 in Peckham in Summer, so sign up to our mailing list and come along to that if you are free.
Posted by: Lorraine Liyanage | 09 February 2008 at 09:31 AM