|
| Slow
spun song Chris Ulbrick h Project October 22 - November 16, 1997 Melbourne |
||
Documentation of Slow
spun |
Slow spun song
is composed as a rotating beam of light inside an
ellipse of sound. The light component is simple; a
Flavinesque double tubed florescent, slowly spinning
belly-up on the floor. It looks as if something foreign
has been put on a turntable originally intended for a
vinyl recording, a kind of displaced domestic object made
oblique by placement and motorisation. Consider it the
constant; a recurring stanza which is visual rather than
aural. Then there is the ellipse of sound, which switches on as you step into it. Physically, it is a curve marked out by several speakers on the floor, and the black speaker wire that links them. Aurally, however, it constructs sound like the whirl of a bullroarer, as it runs from one speaker to another in relay, around and around the ellipse. The sound is slow, but perceptible, even recognisable to those who know it: the lament "Thy hand Belinda/when I am laid in earth" from Henry Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneus. Though beautifully performed by soprano Merrilyn Gates and pianist Sean Ross, it is slow enough to nearly dissolve in its own sorrow. The other component of the installation is the use of computer programming, which is a recurring feature of Ulbrick’s oeuvre. Ulbrick has often addressed the role of "intelligent" machines and how they affect our perception of time, space and locale. But sound is foregrounded as his tool of dissection of our love/hate relationship with technology. Recent Ulbrick exhibitions include Hum Phase at Linden Gallery in Melbourne, and the group show Ruins in Reverse at RMIT’s Storey Hall Gallery. Both of these used the subtlety of repeated, static or vibrating sound to construct an aural space. Ricocheting around or phasing in and out of perceptible coordinates, these aural spaces are nearly always mobile. Physical elements may also move, trembling with their own voice or, in this case, simply cycle. These repetitions both soothe and irritate, and their duplicitous nature creates an environment that immerses the audience in fluctuating dualities. Slow Spun Song is not the most elaborately researched or technically laden of Ulbrick's works, but it is the most emotive. The combination of aural and physical elements does not reduce one to the other, but skirts this point of collapse, teetering on an exquisite tension exacerbated by the sadness of the music itself. In this regard, it seems as though the work may reveal a new parameter of practice for Ulbrick, one just beyond the reach of that previously inscribed.
|
|
Marie Sierra © The artist and |
||
