Packaged like an LP, this is a visual and aural catalogue of Christof Migone’s 2008 exhibition Disco Sec—a self-portrait made up of his own record collection. The package serves up a lush documentation of the artwork in the show, including Rimmed Record, a series of rims from the outside circumferences of vinyl records, the partContinue reading “Christof Migone. Disco Sec.”
Genre Archives
Ross Bolleter. Night Kitchen: An Hour of Ruined Piano.
Australian Ross Bolleter has devoted himself to ruined pianos: instruments found exposed—in different degrees—to the elements, having in that exposure developed a quirky originality, radically at odds with the piano’s usual ideal of uniformity. Cracked soundboards vibrate with strings that have wandered wildly out of tune, a string resonates, sounding through different pitches, seemingly atContinue reading “Ross Bolleter. Night Kitchen: An Hour of Ruined Piano.”
Binatone Galaxy
Binatone Galaxy is an installation for used cassette players that looks on their obsolescence not as an ending, but as an opportunity to reconsider their functional potential. Superseded by digital audio players as recording and playback devices, cassette players become, in this work, instruments in their own right. The piece takes irreverent delight in disposingContinue reading “Binatone Galaxy”
Paul Walde Subverts Nature as Culture
The column of light is beamed directly into the sky. As if intended to summon some celestial visitor, the beam of photons is emitted from a circle of glowing discs, placed in the most unassuming place imaginable—a farmer’s field (don’t ET’s always land there?). This, however, isn’t some outtake from Close Encounters of the ThirdContinue reading “Paul Walde Subverts Nature as Culture”
The Swedish Sound-Art Scene
Nadine Byrne Monochrome images of two young women—evidently sisters—stare out impassively from oval apertures that resemble Victorian cameo brooches. A gauzy ectoplasmic fabric oozes from their mouths while, in an aperture between them, their faces merge in a dreamlike blur to evoke the face of their late mother. The soundtrack to this absorbing five-minute plungeContinue reading “The Swedish Sound-Art Scene”
The Combine Project
The Combine Project (2004-09) is a series of kinetic sound sculptures constructed from an abandoned 1964 Allis-Chalmers All-Crop combine harvester. I discovered it ten years ago on a property my wife and I purchased when we moved from Toronto to rural Ontario. The piece of outdated farm machinery was abandoned completely intact, and served asContinue reading “The Combine Project”
Anna Friz
Right off Yonge Street, in the midst of Toronto’s all-night Nuit Blanche art festival, I and some others found respite from the revels in the atrium of a relatively nondescript office building. After a short line-up and passage through a revolving door, we found ourselves within a captivating sound installation. Over two hundred pocket-sized radioContinue reading “Anna Friz”
