Subsonic: sound art in the bunker
The Subsonic programme
Simon Kong
Occasionals in the fire (2009) [47:44]
Christchurch-based sonic artist Simon Kong explores the various sonic characteristics of sound waves when they travel within confined interior spaces.
Kong has worked as a sound engineer for more than eighteen years and many of his live performances revolve around knowledge of the physics of sound.
In 2004 he devised the concept of the .3rd Space – an alternate sonic layer that is expressed in and around an existing sound event using equipment as varied as domestic stereos, underwater speakers, sine wave generators, field recordings and digital effects.
Previous Subsonic artists
Richard Neave
Sound Install [43:11]
Until 5 October 2009
One of Christchurch’s noisiest guitarists, Richard Neave’s approach to the instrument is unrestrained and spontaneous. His sounds are often intensely abrasive as he manipulates feedback and overdriven guitars onto themselves. In this piece Neave combines field recordings taken at various art gallery openings with a variety of unrelenting guitar noises, which thread and intertwine amongst the conversations of art gallery visitors. Neave has performed and recorded solo and collaboratively with the likes of Lynton Denovan, Adam Willetts, LA Lakers and Lee Noyes.
Sound Install was originally commissioned by High Street Project in autumn 2009.
Julian Dashper (b.1960)
New Zealander
Blue Circles #1–#8 (2002–3) [18:16]
Until 1 August 2009
Sound has been present in Julian Dashper’s art since the early 1990s. The artist has collaborated with musicians such as Michael Morley (The Dead C) and Hamish Kilgour (The Clean) as well as making his own field recordings. Currently playing are Dashper’s Blue Circles #1–#8 – eight separate yet consecutive recordings taken at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra in front of Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles: Number 11, 1952.
Dashper’s sequence of recordings captures time and life elapsing around the static painting; the sounds of echoing footsteps, children talking and laughing, hushed comments and conversation, continuous white noise from air conditioning ducts, and reverent silence fill the empty space surrounding the painting. The eight recordings reflect the eight vertical poles in Pollock’s infamous action painting.
The Gallery owns a complete set of Dashper’s Blue Circles #1– #8 (2002–3) 12” records.
Michael Morley
There is a party here and you are not invited (2009)
1 April to 3 May 2009
I [17:57]
II [16:23]
III [15:57]
IV [16:55]
One of New Zealand’s leading exponents of sound art, Michael Morley first began producing sounds in the mid 1980s, both in collaboration with Bruce Russell and with experimental band Wreck Small Speakers on Expensive Stereos. In 1987 he formed The Dead C with Russell and Robbie Yeats; the band’s unique, often spontaneous approach to traditional rock instruments has since come to be cherished by fans around the world. Morley has also performed as a solo artist and collaboratively under the guise of Gate. In these solo pieces he explores the melodic and rhythmic charm of overdriven, distorted keyboards, digitally enhanced recordings and a drum machine.
Campbell Kneale
First Titan (2009)
2 March to 5 April 2009
Based in Lower Hutt, Campbell Kneale is today widely regarded as one of New Zealand's most prominent sound artists. He began producing experimental music in the mid 1990s and has worked under a number of guises, most notably Birchville Cat Motel. His most recent project is titled Our Love Will Destroy The World.
Kneale has toured extensively throughout Europe and North America and is currently touring Japan. Kneale's drone-like sounds are created with a variety of instruments, including guitars and synthesisers, which are often overlaid and manipulated with other electronic and digital devices.
Paul Sutherland performing with Into The Void at the Media Club, 2006. Photo by Chris Andrews
Paul Sutherland
Deutsche Kirche (2009) [25:19]
2 February to 1 March 2009
Sound artist Paul Sutherland has been at the forefront of sound art production in Christchurch since the mid 1980s, performing with early Christchurch experimental groups including The Incidentals and Don't Make Noise as well as occasional solo performances. He has been producing live sounds using debris and gramophones with local band Into The Void since 1987. He has also collaborated with artists as diverse as et al. and Nathan Pohio. In Deutsche Kirche Sutherland reflects on the German Church that once stood on the very site of the Subsonic bunker, and the fate of its bells. Felt to be symbols of German nationalism that therefore posed an 'affront to the allies', they were ceremonially broken up in 1918. Sutherland brings field recordings taken in the region of the church into the bunker and overlays them with a machine-generated voice recounting aspects of the history of the site.
Bekah Carran
Crystal and me
2008
[4:47]
Dunedin-based visual artist Bekah Carran is well known for her installation work, which she sometimes accompanies with sound recordings. In Crystal and me, Carran uses the delicate chiming of crystals clinking into each other to create a startling contrast with the austerity of this severe concrete environment. Drifting gently in and out of audibility, Carran’s seemingly random chiming sounds provide an ethereal background to the car park and stairwell bunker.
Alastair Galbraith and Matt De Gennaro playing long wires in 1999
Alastair Galbraith and Matt De Gennaro
Long Wires in Dark Museums Vol. I 1999
1st December 2008 to 1st January 2009
Comprised of three tracks:
Autahi [12:15]
Rehua [8:16]
Antares [13:23]
These tracks were recorded in mid-1999 while Alastair Galbraith and Matt De Gennaro were collaborating on a unique sound installation project that toured galleries throughout New Zealand. The project involved stretching wires across rooms at the various venues, and the haunting resonant sounds you are listening to were created by the artists simply running fingers along the wires. In essence Galbraith and De Gennaro transformed the very buildings they were performing in into musical instruments, the physical proportions and dynamics of the various rooms in which the performances took place contributing uniquely to the sounds achieved.
Callum Morton
Monument #19 Sexy Beast (2008)
Site 424 Cashel Street, Linwood
Callum Morton (1965)
Monument #20: Rat a Tap Tap
2008
4:42 minutes
The footsteps travel up and down the carpark staircase, rising and falling at various speeds from a tired lope to a furious run and back again. Like a group of Sisyphean ghosts at a bootcamp in Hades, these figures never stop, condemned as they are to repeat the exercise for all eternity, although it remains unclear whether they are descending or ascending.
Planted in the middle of this procession is the sound of a speeding car approaching from a distance circling the car park in steady acceleration, careening ever closer and louder before rounding another corner and speeding away.
The Donkey's Tail performing live at the Toff, Melbourne, 2007. Photograph by Warren Taylor.
John Nixon (b.1949) & Matt Hinkley (b.1976)
The Donkey’s Tail
2007
67 [9:30]
68 [9:28]
69 [5:09]
The Donkey’s Tail was first formed in early 2007 by Australian visual artist John Nixon as a recording project and can consist of up to five members for any given performance.
The Donkey’s Tail approach involves experiment and improvisation.
This is anti-music: members are unrestrained by traditional musical practices such as keeping time and structuring their songs around choruses and versus.
These three tracks were created by Nixon and Matt Hinkley using a variety of musical instruments, both acoustic and electric.
Rob Hood (b. 1973)
15 Art & Automotive Lessons
2008, 60:30 minutes
Rob Hood is known primarily as a visual artist producing video, photography and installation based work. His interest in sound as an art-form has led to several installations incorporating his own field-recordings. With the sound recordings used in 15 Art & Automotive Lessons Hood combines the dialogues of 15 artists, mechanics and documentary makers who discuss the two separate cultures of fine art and the automobile within the space of the bunker, bridging the gap between the two worlds of the Art Gallery and its car park.
Bruce Russell and Greg Malcolm performing live at the Christchurch Art Gallery, July, 2007.
Bruce Russell and Greg Malcolm
I'll come following you...
2007, 39 minutes
Canterbury sound artists Bruce Russell and Greg Malcolm have been interested in sound improvisation since the 1980s, and have established successful international careers.
They have collaborated on several projects recently, including this piece recorded live at the opening of Bill Hammond's survey exhibition ‘Jingle Jangle Morning' at Christchurch Art Gallery in July 2007.
The improvised sounds you are listening to feature Russell performing with three analogue tape recorders and various electronic equipment and Malcolm playing several guitars.
Rosy Parlane performing live in Brisbane, October, 2007.
Rosy Parlane
Iris
2004, Part 1: 19:06; Part 2: 18:10; Part 3: 12:11 minutes
Rosy Parlane is an Auckland-based sound artist who has been experimenting with sound since he first played with the avant-garde rock trio Thela in 1993. Today, Parlane is widely respected in New Zealand and internationally for his innovative use of layered textures of sound, combining sample-loops, keyboards, guitars and field recordings, all manipulated on his laptop computer.
The three tracks included on Iris combine soft, droning layers of keyboard chords that drift between quiet, restrained periods and louder, intense patches – all overlaid with occasional waves of various static sounds, reminiscent of running water or falling rain. Combined, these elements create subdued and often contemplative sensations.
