Chris A. Wright

Using photography to explore ideas of the aural through the perception of what is seen to what is heard, Sur et Sous  presents an image where the perceived sound is of the vehicles on the bridge and of the estuary of the River Stour. What is actually heard, and, even then, only by stepping up closely to the image, is a recording made underwater. Recorded only fifteen centimetres under the surface from the stern of a yacht near the centre of the river, the sound is one of strangeness, of unknown and unidentifiable occurrences although birds can be heard.

 https://youtu.be/0g3BL5Z0E4k

Badedammen 2010

Selected for Cube Open, Manchester 2010 and Tarpey Gallery Open, Castle Donington 2011

 Part of the Tou Scene residency, Stavanger, Norway in 2010, this image of the Badedammen was part of a intervention, documentary work that followed the tourist guide for the sights of Stavanger. The Badedammen was located beneath a flyover and a support for the flyover was situated in the water itself providing an additional vertical play surface. The flyover could be described as a giant sunshade. This is an exert from my journal that becomes part documentation and part artwork. ‘I find the Badedammen beyond the supermarkets which compete with rival sets of flags and beneath the flyover. It has a beach with sand, a diving pontoon and a blue and yellow slide all areas demarked by different surfaces. High rises and wooden houses, the old fishing dwellings, are reflected in the water. A t-shaped platform juts out slippery with rain. I should be able to see ‘beautiful views of the Ryfylke but the area is dominated by huge concrete silos and think that they are blocking my view.’

I began looking at lay-bys as part of my interest in marginal spaces. Particular attention was drawn to a 24 hour cafe near my home. The rise in roadside trading has resulted in many more catering outlets from the trailer which is towed to the site everyday to the permanent or semi-permanent site that may be a log cabin or converted static caravan  or portakabin. Even with daily sited units, there is often a recognised place on the lay-by indicated by owner placed signs, rubbish bins, traces on tarmac. There is a particular behaviour that occurs when place is taken by another vehicle that ranges from mildly intimidating to outwardly aggressive.  Other lay-by cultures involve retailing such selling flowers, farm stalls or sexual activity such as dogging and the habitual use of particular lay-bys for overnight lorry parking where drivers go out of their way to use such a spot.

Following on from my research into lay-by’s, I noticed a huge amount of roadkill. I hope to draw attention through the documenting of my interventions such as dressing in doll/baby clothes or natural materials. This is ongoing work.

Box Studio Projects shows some of the experimental work that I have been doing in what is laughingly called the Box Studio. Lacking a proper space, I use a collapsible cardboard box to make maquettes and miniature work until I get the opportunity to develop the work further.

Shipping Lanes (Paper boats. Performance with video and photographic documentation by Michael Hobson. Exhibited PSL, Leeds)  explores the ambiguity of official borders. The border of Thailand and Laos; Laos and Cambodia is the centre of the Mekong River and marked exactly in that position on the map,. The live installation piece, Shipping Lanes was documented by video and still photographs. It used paper from Thailand and Laos guidebooks of places already visited. From these pages, origami boats were created which were then launched as close to the centre of the river as was possible. This took place between Thailand and Laos, and Laos and Cambodia. During the first sailing, the boats are not visible due to speed, wash and current whilst the second sailing shows some boats clearly. The object of the work was to allow the boats to make their own way to either country according to flow of the river. The passage of the boat itself as well as other water traffic created different flows that influenced the final destination.

https://youtu.be/9KwInHf5plI

This work was the result of a residency at Summer Lodge at Nottingham Trent University in 2019. Its aim was to look at space as duration through the use of sound. Recording the sound of humming in corners and other resonant spaces within the university, these were then transferred to a portable speaker and attached to my voice box by long threads. To remove the implication of self, a black neutral mask was used. Re-visiting these corners through a long perambulation through the building, I responded to the recorded sounds as well as to the present, again through humming. This performance was repeated at Alchemies of Research at Birmingham City University. https://soundcloud.com/chris-a-wright-917928995/resonation1

https://soundcloud.com/chris-a-wright-917928995/resonation1

Garland and Wright present collaborative performances. Exploring the creative process and the role of artists of all kinds, their new work creates a space to let go of mistakes and move forward with the Creative Confessional. By unburdening, a textual penance is received to stimulate new thoughts. A confidential act based on the traditional religious confessional, Garland and Wright present readings, live and recorded, in addition to their bespoke service of receiving confession. 

As a live art experience, Creative Confessional references a hegemonic obsession with religion combined with the continual need for artists to have critical engagement with their work. This interactive performance, where the interaction can be simply a listening act or a full confession with penance given. Readings are taken from a wide range of texts including100 Artists’ Manifestosto De Certeau’sThe Mystic Fable. Psychologically, admitting and coming to terms with the less successful aspect of one’s work may be seen as cathartic. Mental well-being is an important current trend to which this work aligns.

https://youtu.be/TDa2FiS8kug

Using the action of humming to explore the intersection of sound, time/space  and body, Tenuto was a staged performance opening up the resonances of the foyer of the Birmingham School of Art with invited participants. The participants placed an intention to hold the sound within and without with relation to the audience who are enclosed by the sound and who may wish to add their voice. This collaborative work is presented with Ed McKeon (who presents the work Tacet) to explore the intersections of time, space and body through humming, an unworded vocalisation that can be seen as a direct response to the moment in time, the spatial surroundings, their emotional affect and the people around them.

https://soundcloud.com/chris-a-wright-917928995/tacet-and-tenuto-by-ed-mckeon-and-chris-a-wright

Dialogues 2017/8

Performed Harrington Mill, Nottingham and Grenier a sel, Honfleur with Contre-Courant

 Louise Garland and Chris Wright

 ‘In front of a window seen from inside a room, I placed a painting representing exactly that portion of the landscape covered by the painting. Thus,, the tree in the picture hid the tree behind it, outside the room. For the spectator, it was both inside the room within the painting and outside in the real landscape’  René Magritte, 1933.

Dialogues explored the juncture of painting and photography, the interaction between painting and its physicality as opposed to photography (the projection) and its mechanistic nature, through performance. Over the course of three days, Louise Garland and Chris A. Wright attempted the obliteration of Magritte’sThe Human Condition1933 which was projected onto canvas using a tonal palette of grey and applied with a roller. The choice of Magritte’s paintingThe Human Conditionfurther opened up the juxtaposition between the perceived borders of inside/outside,objectivity and subjectivity and reality and imagination.

Image: Michael Hobson

Taking off and Landing 2008

  4.32m looped sequence. 

Camera: Rob Cartlidge Sound and Additional images: Michael Hobson

 This work explores the in-between space, the moment between taking off and landing during the act of jumping on a mound of bubble wrap. Whilst the action is seemingly random and futile, performing the action on a stage of a large music venue (Victoria Hall, Stoke-on-Trent) both aggrandizesand gives authority to the performance but, at the same time, reduces it to the minute emphasizing the place of body in society. There is often a delay between the landing on a bubble and its popping, this creates an ambiguity that belies the action, which jump causes the popping, which action the landing or the taking off (which releases the air within) causes the sound? The sound of the piece is echoed due to the large empty space but this also relates to the rapid motion of gunfire which is so prevalent in cities today. It is basically the sound of mini explosions caused by violent action although made in a purely passivist and joyful way.

https://youtu.be/PbgQv60QkCU

Cafe Culture

Auditour is a maquette that explores and tries to make sense of sound that references borders, territories and global identity. This series uses sound research undertaken in four cities, Leicester, Saskatoon, Athens and Cagliari. Recordings were taken in seven different everyday sites that had similarities in each city. The sites were market, cafe, transport hub, public transport, church, high street and shopping centre. The first of the series shown here explores cafe culture. Each of the four recordings are played both separately and together in different combinations to explore how language is perceived by non-speakers of that language and by its native speakers. It looks at similarities and differences within the site itself through language and culture and through the listening experience shown here.

Further series will explore the other locations to draw conclusions on how sound, language and culture articulate space, how space influences the sound and how this impacts on how we think about global identities through this use of the commonplace.

https://soundcloud.com/chris-a-wright-917928995/auditor-series-cafe-culture

Standing on the bare bones of a stage, which alludes to the exhibition plinth, the pink

aquarium with plastic weeds and neon castle represents contemporary kitsch and alludes to the contemporary mode of gender specification. A microphone wrapped in condoms transmits the sound from underwater to a guitar amp creating a concert from the inside. of the bubbles.

 https://youtu.be/pm0P77OEajM

Found aquarium, ornaments, guitar amp, microphone, 
condoms, staging.

Encountering/It is as it wasexplores ideas of diverse rhythms through the patterns of movement of the listener and the rhythm of language from the story tellers. Different tongues and dialects create a textural work that relates intimately to the trajectory of the listener through the space. The stories are women’s stories, recorded to create a varied archive of experience when a change or momentous event occurred and where the re-telling of the tale creates a different remembering. Playing simultaneously through multiple speakers, the stories become fragmented and provide a space for listeners’ own stories to become part of the work. The aim has been to create a platform of oral narratives, to achieve a present-day and continuing record, as well as a long-lasting archive of women's voices that spans continents and highlights intergenerational differences, similarities and experiences.

https://soundcloud.com/chris-a-wright-917928995/encounteringit-is-as-it-was-clip-copywav

Mixed media. Solo exhibition commissioned by TAD Gallery, Denton, Texas

 
Anywhere is Everywhere is a Circular Tale  is the narrative of a journey linking the eleven places called Denton in England. It presents the 1,026 mile, 21 hours and 57 minute circular journey negotiated via internet-based maps, which provide the 301 steps of detailed instructions. Postcards, photographs and other ephemera from the journey are presented to form a comprehensive retelling of the tale. However, the places have only been visited virtually, the sights are seen through others’ eyes, the descriptions are second-hand and the impressions gained only through what is  seen on my computer screen at home. It is a tourist guide that, by way of its virtuality, creates a false reality, destroying, perhaps, a desire to visit but presenting a new sense of community.

Some Other Place is a performance that looks at the female position where vital roles are often carried out away from the public eye including the role of peacemaker. The work explores the way that women often have a very physical knowledge of domestic space, the hidden landscape of the home environment. The continuous monotony of the tasks is often relieved by an element of escape and it is here that the crevices of the mind become a fantasy space.

The Icknield Way was thought once to be nearly a mile wide in some places

This drawingwas conceived to try and understand how the Roman road, the Icknield Way, become so wide. A single line was repeatedly drawn in charcoal, trying to stay on the first line. Over time and hundreds of repetitions, that single line became as it is now. The title of this work comes from Joe Moran’s book On Roads (2009:31 Profile Books Ltd) which explores the history of roads in the UK.

Flaskepost (Calling) 2010 (Image: Agnes Btffn)

This work was part of the Top Scene residency, Stavanger, Norway. The glass bottle was found lying in a mossy nest in Flørli , Norway where it had been dropped. It was carried to the top of the mountain and down again. The bottle held its message within itself, that of journeys, of carelessness, of time. From Flørli it was carried to Stavanger and, on Sunday at dusk, was taken to the Fiskepiren, the start of many journeys. There a breath was blown across its neck, the sound reaching out across the waves, the bottle calling for its home, for longing, for return.  Its message will be heard by others, those who want to be heard, who want to be found. This work was created as part of a themed performance by invitation of an international group of live artists.

https://soundcloud.com/chris-a-wright-917928995/flaskepost

Passage for Bees 2015

Commissioned by Salt Road. Exhibited Winterbourne House, Birmingham and The Atrium, Hereford

 Passage for Bees explores the heightened sensations caused by the sound of over 400,000 bees flying in and out of their hives with the gentler sound of birds singing and geese flying overhead at Winterbourne. The ‘domesticity’ of the hive is synonymous with the home, a place of security and protection whilst bird song, to human ears, is the epitome of a summer day adding to the pleasure of the time outdoors. Creating a rhythmical and looped cycle of sounds, Passage for Beesplays on the emotions, alternating between terror (a personal response to the sound of bees) and calmness.

 https://soundcloud.com/chris-a-wright-917928995/passage-for-bees-clip

ergh mmm is a layered composition initially made during an art/sailing residency exploring the dichotomies of place from the transient space of the water. I tried to describe the sounds I heard during a gale using informal words commonly used for such purposes, ergh, mmm, err, tick, ting etc. and then translating them back to sound. Sound track 19 sec. looped.

https://soundcloud.com/chris-a-wright-917928995/ergh-mmm

Estuary English

Estuary English (Permanent marker, traces of charcoal, mud, salt water 349 x 13 cms.) and its accompanying sound work ergh mmm were exhibited Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, 2018.

Estuary English This drawing was completed during a sailing/art residency, East Coast Stories, investigating the nature of place from the transient environment of the sea. However, due to gale force winds, we had to spend a day moored up in harbour.Estuary English shows the skyline, the horizon drawn during a circular walk and shows 320 degrees from a point on the East coast. It was subsequently immersed in the salt marsh so the ink bled and transferred itself to other parts of the image.