[21.1.07] Making Sound Work: Sound art workshop

On the weekend I checked out Jason Sweeney's "Making Sound Work" sound art workshop at Headquarters Studio in Richmond, invited by Jason to drop by and talk about sound art and myself for a bit.

The workshop attracted just under a dozen participants from broad artistic backgrounds, including two guys who came all the way from Melbourne for the event! The workshop kicked off on Saturday, and I dropped by on Sunday afternoon to see how things were coming along. The sessions involved participants creating works (as individuals or small groups) with whatever materials were around, this included vintage synths, guitars, tape machines, record players, samplers, effects pedals and microphones. The works performed were more or less improvised, with a compositional and performative structure worked out beforehand (which included loose instructions by Jason.) The results were varied though mostly enjoyable with plenty of creativity, spontaneity and invention from the participants. In fact, some of the best works I heard were from the participants who were either unfamiliar or had some trepidation about using a particular instrument or device. As a result, there was refreshingly little ego in sight.

I talked briefly about how sound art is regarded as an artistic practice, giving examples of my own work as well as commenting on some the performances I had heard that afternoon. I mentioned that the predominant nature of the works (which were conceptual and process driven) had a strong tie to the aesthetic of sound art, and how the absence of a formal language (i.e. musical) dictated the works in terms of being inter-mediatory, spontaneous and in some cases, specific to particular space or object. I also mentioned how pleasing it was to not see a single laptop in sight!

I did contribute one work later in the afternoon - walking very slowly from one end of the gallery space to the other using an egg-shaker to articulate the resonances of each room.

Jason's Website

Here are some pictures I took: