See Hear

Exploring the audio that is my practice, this blog delves into the thinking behind the works to encourage dialogue whilst helping me unravel my thoughts. 

See Hear

It is right to start the New Year, and a new decade, with a new blog. Having reached number 26 with my earlier one, Art Etc. it feels that this is the time. Here, I want to concentrate on art practice which includes my research as they are inherent to one other. Primarily a sound artist, I do not exclude other media but develop creativity across disciplines.

 It has been a good year for me culminating in the Artcore Winter Narratives Arts Council supported residency in Vadodara, India (blog – artcoregallery.org.uk > artist residency > Winter Narratives > Dr Wright). I arrived home on the 21st of December so it is still very fresh. It was perfect timing and the progress I made points to an excellent beginning to 2020. 

Making an exhibition from new work in just 10 days meant little time for procrastination. I went with ideas and a proposal that was, essentially, a methodology but I wanted to have a very open mind and create something that could only be created there. My thoughts are that to make something on a residency that could be done elsewhere means that you might as well stay at home. The work I made was borne out of the experience and pertains to the location but it is not necessarily site-specific, although certain drawings were. This will be tested when it is shown at Artcore in Derby in April. I rediscovered my pleasure in using drawing as a means of experiencing site although sound was my main medium. 

My intention is that knowledge and understanding of what I have achieved this year will unfold with time and impact on my thoughts and ideas.  

Exhibition, Vadodara, India

Art etc. no. 25

Threads of making, writing and play have become knotted into my practice which is very apt considering my collection of lost knots which subsequently all became woven into a rope of a tentative and ambiguous nature. I have become obsessed with the idea of sound as time and return over an dover again with the question ‘can you hear a stalagmite forming?’. It is the notion of time slowed down to thousands of years both in the process of formation from the raindrop percolating through the rocks to the permanence of the stalagmite. It informs my practice of humming with its ambiguity, its initial tenuousness to its longevity, its changing of state allied to its location, environment and its relationship to time. These things can be applied to any sonic environment (as they can to any environment) especially in relation to the listening process. This direction was explored during my Summer Lodge residency at NTU and I seem to be moving into sound performances. Hopefully, these directions will be fruitful but at least they will be fun.

I now have a digital studio at NearNow in Broadway, Nottingham which is arts-council funded. It is a lovely place to work though it is not open every day at the moment.

Over the past few months, I have seen and heard some interesting things. Bruno Latour at the University of Leicester, Lis Rhodes at Nottingham Contemporary, Alchemies of Research conference at Birmingham School of Art to name a few.

No images with this post - my computer was restored to factory settings and working from my hard drive and I haven’t yet worked out how to download the photos. But hope they are still there!

Art etc. No. 16

Art etc. No 16

I am working hard to build my website at www.chriswright.co.uk. A bit a day will keep the temper at bay! However, it is getting there though probably will never really finish it. In the meantime, just found out that In Cammino Verso Il Silenziowas published three days ago which is a really nice feeling. It includes my essaySound, time and self, moving through the aural landscape. This explores the interactions of perceptions of sound to the notion of silence, the heard and not-heard, as dynamic relations that influence the space of sound. My argument is that the construct of time, closely linked to the routines of our daily life, becomes an anomaly when experienced in the space of underground and constructed silent spaces. Thus indicating that the intricate layering of sound, human experience and space is directly related to the moment and creates a sonic landscape governed by natural and unnatural events.

 Scritti di: Michele Ammirata, Silvia Badon, Michele Bartolucci, Michele De Gregorio, Agostina Giuliani, Andrea Laquidara, Mario Mariani, Caterina Marrone, Andrea Taroppi, Chris Wright.

Art etc. No. 15

I have become a nomadic artist in the sense that I am now studio-less, it feels very strange. I am sure I will miss the community of artists as well as that space to work in. It is going to require extra efforts to keep up a network. I see artists’ communities as mutually beneficial, being able to support, commiserate and rejoice without rancour. I do see the change as an opportunity however, and that is helping me. The future is unknown, not tied to a particular space but perhaps finding a project space if I need one. I am already part of a three person crit. group who meet every month or so to discuss our work and think about what opportunities we can create. In fact, it is all quite exciting and have begun applying again after a month’s break as well as building a website which is endlessly traumatic.  

The future is going to be fun, productive and challenging.