Listen up! In a world of encroaching noise, of forest felling (River Red Gum the latest), the grind of failed mining ventures, of wars and demagoguery, sound art can take us into places of mindful attentiveness to the environment.
Sound artist Philip Samartzis heads this E-dition with his engrossing account of a visit to Antarctica. You can hear some of the sounds he recorded. We’ve also provided links to other polar artistic ventures, should you feel tempted to explore.
Sounds are precious, especially those of challenged environments; but so are instruments with which humans make sound, not least a generation of analogue synthesisers. Rapid technological progress constantly banishes equipment to the rubbish tip and diminishes the arts archive by leaving many works unplayable. However, sound artists Robin Fox and Byron J Scullin are keeping a huge collection of such machines alive and available, preserving the past and opening up sonic possibilities for the future of Australian art. Virginia & Keith
MESS Robin Fox and Byron J Scullin tell Gail Priest about the huge collection of analogue synthesisers and other instruments they’re about to make available to sound artists and musicians. Listen to some of those machines.
PLEXUSDancer Kaori Ito’s fraught entanglement in the thousands of strings of director Aurélien Bory’s design for Plexus, in the 2016 Perth Festival, conjures for Jonathan Marshall a contemporary sense of existential being.
SURVIVAL ARTS Nerida Dickinson witnesses 2016 Perth Festival performances in which artists deal with violence, religious attitudes to disability and how to manage in a collapsing cash economy.
RealTime E-dttions are published by Open City an Incorporated Association in New South Wales. Open City Inc is supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding body, and by the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy [VACS], an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments. RealTime’s Principal Technology Partner is the national communications carrier, Vertel.
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