London: A Sonic Fragment

The Auricle Sonic Arts Gallery
Showing: 12-5pm, 5-28 February, 2015
Opening: 5 February, 6-8pm
A survey of contemporary British Sound Art
Facebook event

Sonic Fragment is an ambitious group show that brings together contemporary sound artists congregating in London, England. Despite tough living conditions, for artists especially, the capital still attracts and fosters a rich sound art scene. Their sonic concerns are varied as they are broad, travelling across spaces: galleries, nightclubs, squat parties, academic institutions and site specific work. Sonic Fragment aims to provide a glimpse of the cross disciplinary activities and shifting terrain of sound art emanating from the capital. London’s vibrant scene is installed into and pouring out of the Auricle.

  • Shelley Parker’s Wall to Wall is constructed from a recording of maintenance work carried out onto the external wall of the artist’s flat, the piece attached to The Auricle’s external wall pounds out into the Auricle Wine and Sound Garden. www.shelleyparker.co.uk/
  • Disinformation’s National Grid offers live physical evidence of environmental electromagnetic pollution, it throbs out of the safe in the wine bar. www.youtube.com/C4eye & www.rorschachaudio.wordpress.com/
  • GPUD’s Fragmental Machine greets you at the top of the gallery stairs, a standalone instrument using sampled field recordings with interactivity via light sensors and distance sensors. http://mubasesteve.co.uk/ & http://mubase1.tumblr.com/
  • In the gallery Graham Dunning’s Untitled (Translation 1) uses multiple layers of audio and video to create a hypnotic, spiralling montage, made to evoke a dystopian dream sequence or meditative state. www.grahamdunning.com/
  • Greta Pistaceci’s confrontational Screamer offers video and sound shot in one uninterrupted take, in which a close-up of a mouth goes through an imperfect “perfecting routine”. www.gretapistaceci.com/
  • Brown Sierra present the book Recordings Fragmented, a collection of recordings of sound made through maps, drawings and texts as a document of living in London demonstrating that sound art need not physically resonate. A selection of the sound art journal Noisegate, has also been provided. Set up to discuss and disseminate ideas around the evolving field of sound art this self published journal ran from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. www.brownsierra.org.uk/
  • Sound Art curator Helen Frossi lends Keeping the Shoes Clean, a selection of smartphone images recording her walks through London. www.soundfjord.org www.visiblenearmidnight.org

The exhibition is curated by London based artist Justyna Burzynska.