January 23, 2006
Thomson & Craighead
Audio and Visual Machines
January 26 – March 3, 2006 at Mejan Labs: Akademigränd 3, SE-111 52 Stockholm, Tel: +46(0)8-796 60 30; info[at]mejanlabs.se Open: Tue-Fri 11-17, SAT-SUN 12-16, closed Mondays.
At Mejan Labs Thomson & Craighead present two installations; Decorative Newsfeeds and Unprepared Piano. Decorative Newsfeeds could be described as a digital automatic drawing -a sort of contemporary update of Jean Tinguely’s drawing machines perhaps, but in this case with readable authentic up to the minute news headlines gathered in real-time from the web. The headlines are updated continuously and projected in evolving trajectories that weave and intersect each other according to a simple set of rules.
In Unprepared Piano, a Yamaha Disklavier grand piano is connected to a database of music MIDI files appropriated and compiled from all over the web. This library of found data is then “performed” automatically in the gallery with the full authority one associates with a concert grand piano. Each MIDI file contains an electronic score for a whole piece of music with different tracks for different instruments. When the piano plays one of these scores, it switches between the tracks randomly, which means it will sometimes play a piano part correctly but may also render drum parts, string sections and marimbas etc. in awkward configurations and combinations. On a monitor it is possible to see real-time information about what is being played.
The title Unprepared Piano specifically references the composer John Cage and his method of preparing a piano by fastening nails, coins and so on directly onto the strings inside the instrument, and in doing so to change the sound of it when played. But the title also refers to the piano being unprepared for the information it accesses and with no human performer and no way of knowing exactly what might be performed, Unprepared Piano becomes an endless generative mechanism for the performance of unique musical improvisations.
Thomson & Craighead: British artists Jon Thomson and Alison Craighead have been working together since the early 1990's. They are considered to be among the leading artists on the British new media art scene. Much of their work to date has paralleled the development of Internet technology by way of more traditional media such as video, sound and gallery installation, and they began working with electronic networks and communications systems when the world wide web first appeared in the mainstream around 1995. As this technology has improved and internet connections have become faster, they have begun to re-combine internet technology with their gallery work exploring the consequential possibilities of linking the internet to these kinds of physical spaces.
Thomson & Craighead often use the web as a gigantic database, procuring and reconfiguring existing material in real-time to offer new meanings and perspectives on the way in which we all might perceive the world around us. This kind of approach is in keeping with many methods used across the whole canon of contemporary art: real-time and generative processes, randomness, the recycling and misuse of information and technology and a process based flow that goes from one stadium to another.
Posted by jo at January 23, 2006 10:13 AM
