This curatorial text was published as part of the vinyl multiple for the Sound Proof 2 exhibition held in London November-December 2009.

 

The Sound Proof project is to run for 5 years up to 2012 and features artist responses to the Olympics site in Stratford, London as it is increasingly transformed in preparation for the Olympics in 2012. Last year's Sound Proof focused on the theme of sound as cartography - the soundworks existed in terms of time in the gallery and the multiple consisted of a folio of maps created by the artists. This year's thematic focus is archaeological, with an emphasis on the artefact. 

Artists have been invited to explore the Stratford site and to capture it through objects and visual representations, as well as sound. While the site is still in development, what could constitute such material fact? Is it only objects found in the site itself? Or is it the objects and images projected in our consciousness of Olympics past and the hopes of the future that we can hold on to in the run-up to 2012? 

For John Wynne and Daniel Jackson, the artefact in 2010 is extracted, not from the physical site, but from public consciousness. John Wynne investigates meaning in the visual form of the Olympic logo and through that uncovers an alternate reading to that supported in the popular media. Subversions of the Olympic symbol manifested in graffiti, stickers, banners and blogs. Legislation enacted to bottle up voices of protest. Battles waged for right of use and ownership of lands. As Wynne states, "the starting point for this piece is visual rather than sonic", and through that approach he creates a soundwork that builds a sense of expectation and anticipation, much like the projection of the five rings onto collective consciousness. 

For Daniel Jackson's conceptual soundwork, the physical site exists in terms of its statistical data and numerical reference points. The bone structure - invisible but holding the whole project together - is the physical site in Stratford. The visual manifestation is a play on the word represented through the five rings - olympics. The word was taken apart and put through a filter that imposed a rhythmic structure determined by statistical data about the Olympics construction site. And thus an inversion takes place in this work where the physical becomes a hidden structure, the logo and its meaning become deconstructed, and the tangible object, in the end, is the vinyl record itself. 

For Isha Bøhling and Sheena Macrae the archaeology is personal. In 'Prize', Isha Bøhling excavates a family history to evoke both the historic and individual sense of loss that accompanies an Olympic competition. Bøhling’s grandmother Ruth Bøhling (née Lange) was the Danish Open Water Kayak Champion for the eight years leading up to the 1936 Olympics and was to represent her country. She relinquished her chance to compete in Berlin under the Nazi regime and joined the boycott. Bøhling evokes this atypical narrative by transforming her grandmother's cabinet of prizes, accrued during her competitive career as a kayak champion, into a musical instrument to create ‘Prize’. Bøhling has rung the prizes like chimes, the recorded sounds layered, reconfigured and interwoven with the artist’s voice to form a melody. This delicate gesture recalls the joy of winning, and the melancholy of loss. 

Sheena Macrae has a personal history sited at the centre of the future Olympics complex, as she lived in the Pudding Mill Lane area for some years. Working with composer Paul Robinson, Macrae examines her personal sonic signposts - like ruins from a former time - by compressing and intertwining sequences from his compositions for silent films and using these time-based plot points from the cinematic lexicon to convey a folding over, multiplying and layering of time and change in her own personal narrative. Her sound piece "Beginnings, Middles, and Ends" layers ten of Robinson’s film compositions simultaneously, stratifying the cinematic coding into a phonic range of poignant moments, a quintessential film score to punctuate a personal history. Collapsing all beginnings, middles, and ends into one composition, Macrae extracts a core sample finding of her excavation of the Pudding Mill Lane site. As she states, "soon my studio will be floating somewhere above seat 64 in the stadium". 

There is a real, physical site in existence at this time in Stratford, London - one populated by bulldozers, cranes, metal, trucks, and a lot of dirt. It is a transitory space, waiting to be filled and completed by an event yet to take place. The search for material fact at this point takes place in our minds - through our understanding of what came before the site was designated Olympic and in our ability to foresee what is yet to come.

Monica Biagioli

2009

 

 

 

 

The vinyl multiple, in an edition of 300, consists of a 10" vinyl recording containing works by the four artists in Sound Proof 2 and liner notes consisting of this essay and information about the recordings and the artists. Front and back cover artwork is in full colour with a matt finish and the vinyl is yellow with full colour labels on both sides. The multiple is designed by BAR projects and is distributed by Art Metropole in Canada.

 

 

 

Link to Art Metropole website