WATCHING YOU WHILE
YOU SLEEP... An
Interview with Lawrence English
by Simon Sellars
Lawrence English is Liquid Architecture's
Brisbane director. He's also a principal
in the Brisbane-based ::ROOM 40:: organisation,
which is releasing some very innovative
sound-arts work, including English's own
Ghost Towns realisation, a three-screen
video and audio installation piece exploring
Queensland's forgotten settlements. At Melbourne's
recent Next Wave festival, English curated
the Melatonin installation (and accompanying
CD release featuring Oren Ambarchi, DJ Olive,
Timeblind, Scanner, Zane Trow, David Toop,
and others), a superbly executed piece of
conceptual art that explored the body's
use of the chemical melatonin during sleep.
English and ::ROOM 40:: were also responsible
for the recent visit to Australia by Terre
Thaemlitz. So, he's a busy man then!
Simon Sellars gets to the heart of it all...
How long have you been involved
with LA?
About two years now in a number of
ways: performing, co-producing and curating.
Tell me about ::ROOM40::.
::ROOM40:: is an imprint and multi-arts
organisation that produces festivals such
as Liquid Architecture and What Is Music?
in Brisbane. We also curate a range of events
and exhibitions such as Fabrique, which
is an ongoing concert series at Brisbane
Powerhouse; Syncretism (a focused improvisation
and experimental music night) at the Judith
Wright Centre; and exhibitions such as ECHO/recall,
which is a photographic exhibition exploring
ideas of 'sound activated memory' at LA5
this year.
How did you and ::ROOM40::
come to be involved in LA?
I'm always very keen to see festivals
such as LA5 presented here in Brisbane,
as in the past many such events have simple
been looked over here. I'm interested in
challenging and activating people here -
making them think about what comprises sound
culture and how the activities in Australia
factor into a global and historical context.
Hence events such as LA really capture and
inspire these ideas, so I contacted Nat
and Bruce about having it appear up here
on a regular basis. Looks like everything
is working out too, which is great to see!
What do you see as the strengths
and unique features of LA?
Obviously the curatorial focus of
the event makes it stand out both here in
Oz and internationally. It's exciting to
see a festival so focused and directed in
its aesthetics, as it allows for a proper
investigation of the ideas espoused by the
festival.
Tell me about the sound-arts
scene in Brisbane.
Over the past five years there's
been a serious swelling of sound arts and
experimental practice here in Brisbane and
that's been very exciting to see. Regular
spots such as Small Black Box have been
central to this, offering a port of call
for all new and emerging artists experimenting
with these ideas. Likewise, having festivals
and international artists coming through
has been important for inspiration and education
in some respects. It's good to have this
mix of emerging and experienced artists
being presented throughout the year. I think
we're yet to see the fruits of all this
work, though, and hopefully the swelling
in interest and contributions we've seen
in recent years can amount to some long
term development and sustenance of the sonic
arts community here in Brisbane and more
largely in Australia.
What are some strengths and
weaknesses of doing what you do in Brisbane?
Obviously, population is both a pro
and a con. Brisbane is a small city, so
some things are made easier and others are
made harder. I think culturally there are
still some hurdles to be leapt over, but
that's the same for most Australian cities.
We don't have some of the traditions and
historical happenings to call on that cities
in America and Europe do. That said, this
is often a great strength as there's a clean
slate here.
What other cities would you
like to see LA expand to?
Obviously there's scope for the festival
to go national over the next decade. The
currency of this work and the perspective
of the festival (historical/contemporary)
clearly establishes links and through lines
that are important and relevant to the sound
culture of this country.
What's been the highlight
in your time with LA so far?
Bernard Parmegiani was a great person
to spend time with. If I can get to that
age, and still be so clearly inspired by
my work and passionate about it and be such
a gentleman, I'll be very happy. Likewise
my performance last year with Philip Samartzis
was a great highlight – one of my
most enjoyable performances to date. It's
always a pleasure to perform with Philip.
This year I'm exciting to be curate the
photographic exhibition – the contributions
have been fantastic thus far.
In my interview
with Nat, he posited the notion of AC/DC
as sonically innovative. Can you envisage
a time when LA might host a death-metal
act?
I think there's some incredible death-metal
acts out there, exploring a range of sonic
approaches that very much reflect the ideas
of sound art. Especially when you get into
the Nordic Black Metal – those guys
are interested in creating sound that masks
the actual 'qualities' of the source instruments,
like a wall of sound. I think we see these
ideas reflected in the work of many sound
artists. The rhetoric may be different but
the effect can be the same. I think this
kind of lateral thinking is important to
keep sound diverse and relevant –
it's too easy to chase your tail sometimes.
Your own work seems to focus
on internal and external environmental states:
the body asleep; ghost towns. Is your philosophy
as a sound artist that easy to pin down,
though?
I think I have a number of philosophies
I'm keen to interact with over my lifetime
and some of those are still to be properly
formulated. At present the ideas of environment
(both external and internal) and mapping
of those spaces is something I've very interested
in - I plan to refine and explore that for
the next two or three years at least. Certainly
my 'training' is hardly virtuosic (although
over the years I have undertaking training
in different ways) – but this is just
a reflection of the way I wish to create
at present. I do feel my work is quite strongly
conceptual in a number of ways; naturally,
notions of concept and context are central
to framing the work I'm looking to undertake
at present. I find that I'm in a constant
state of expansion and contraction...and
from this process, much of my work takes
its form.
How does sound theory and
art inform your life?
I suppose in a number of ways. It
certainly shapes consciousness of the world
around me in very practical ways, sometimes.
For instance, the ghost towns project really
effected me in a physical and psychological
way and made me consider my existence in
contrast to those living outside our urban
centres. It's difficult to summarize something
as broad as this, but certainly there are
connections between art and life.
Although sound art as practiced
by LA performers is still a resolutely non-commercial
discipline, its popularity is on the rise.
In Melbourne, I suspect this might be because
of the absolute saturation of bland, crap
electronic music on radios and in clubs.
What ‘s the case in Brisbane?
Agreed, there is a growing interest,
and as much as it's to do with the increasing
disposability of 'pop music' and the commercially
driven market place, I think it also just
has to do with an awareness that, in fact,
sound is art. It's a fundamental concept
for those involved in this field, but for
most people on the street or living in the
suburbs around this country, music is for
dancing, chilling out to, perhaps, or simply
as an atmospheric canvas for them as they
drive back and forth to work each day. Art
is about pretty pictures and maybe some
sculpture, but largely sound is not viewed
as art. This goes higher, too, to most major
galleries around the country where sound
is rare at best in exhibition programs.
This is slowly changing and as awareness
grows, so will interest. Like any form of
new media, once awareness grows, so does
use and interest in that format.
What was the impetus for
the Melatonin project?
Originally
the ideas came from a few different places.
I'd always been curious about this idea
of how we hear in sleep, partly to do with
research I'd done on the idea of reading
and character recognition in sleep, which
is totally different in our sleeping state
because of the parts of the brain that are
in use while in that state. I'd also had
a series of discussions with some artists
over the years, including Scanner, who introduced
me to the chemical melatonin when he visited
Australia some years back. He was using
it to regulate his sleep pattern between
time zones and this interested me –
how you could manipulate this state of sleep
– so I started to think more about
these connections between the sleep state
and ways that sound might complement, interfere
or interact with that state of being.
What was your brief when
contracting the various sound artists involved?
I basically asked each of the artists
to call on their personal experiences with
sleep and sound – there was a short
paragraph outlining the ideas of melatonin
chemically and its role as an agent of sleep.
It was interesting, too, because I found
many of the people I contacted about the
project, including some artists that in
the end didn't have a chance to contribute,
had all experienced sound in their sleep
in some way. They relayed stories to me
about long trips on planes using melatonin
and how their dreams were effected by the
infiltration of the droning sounds of the
engines and other similar recollections.
How long was the project
in the making?
It took about two-and- a-half years from
the first ideas and discussions for it to
come to fruition. It was quite a long process,
but having the time to develop it properly
really worked out for the best in the end.
Listening to the installation, you get a
real journey through a whole series of personal
sound portraits – people just investigating
their own sleeping environment, and the
other factors that contribute to that.
Was the entire the 2-CD collection
heard at the Next Wave installation?
Yes, each time the installation was
shown the full audio was presented. The
CD to accompany the installation and document
it is just one of the ways in which it can
be heard. I spent a lot of time creating
a rich series of movements on each disc
– for instance, the first 6 or so
tracks on Melatonin. One is very much about
the ideas of texture and how the ears can
be trained to use this as an audio blanket
of sorts, so the pieces I placed together
explore that idea and others in a way which
is related. Then, on the second disc, I
created sections that were more to do with
this idea of field recordings and natural
sounds, or more musical interpretations
of the concepts. Because the CD is a listening
experience that will be occurring in a whole
range of spaces (car stereos, lounge rooms,
bed rooms, headphones, galleries), I wanted
to create these clusters of related sound
and have movements of sorts, so if people
were to come into the piece and stay for
the entire duration, there'd be a journey
for them – they'd be able to start
at one point and move throughout the sound
pieces in a connected and meaningful way.
Can you describe the setup
at the Next Wave installation?
It seems that each time the piece
is shown, it will be in a different setting.
The gallery format for the installation
was the use of beds, with very minimal lighting
and headphones on each bed. Because sleep
is such a personal activity in so many ways,
I wanted to create this situation where
people would enter the gallery space for
a sound installation and find a space completely
quiet, with only minimal visual stimuli
– so for them to engage with the work,
they have to take that step from being passive
to being activated. They need to be willing
to take that chance, lie down on the bed
and put the headphones on, and in doing
that, disconnect themselves from the other
people around them. They have to be willing
to be isolated and engage with the sound
purely on their own terms, as we do when
we go to sleep – there's a disconnection
from the outside world, where we are drawn
into that inner state of being and I wanted
to reflect that in the way the work is in
a gallery setting.
The
next time the piece will be displayed is
as part of MAAP in Singapore (Oct–Nov),
which will be radically different as it's
being installed in an 80-metre-long tunnel
as part of a series of sound installations
I'm curating there for the festival. So
then, the focus will be on creating an overall
environment, a 'sleep tunnel' of sorts.
Not all the pieces will play at once, but
I'll be programming them along the physical
space of the tunnel to create certain environments
within the tunnel. Likewise, the tunnel
won't always be full of audio – I'm
hoping that at times there'll just be one
piece playing about 40 metres into the tunnel,
for example, so taht people approach this
sound environment (anticipate it); pass
through it (experience it); and then have
a chance to contemplate it as they pass
through the rest of the tunnel. There'll
also be a spoken introduction (and written
texts) to the installation at one side of
the tunnel, so people will have some form
of context either as they enter or leave
the tunnel.
Were you able to gauge the
reaction from the Next Wave public towards
the installation?
From the comments I received back about
the piece, I think people did engage with
it in a strong way. There was nothing like
watching people come into an art space,
tuck themselves into a bed and nod off for
an hour (sometimes unintentionally, I'm
sure), to wake up and be refreshed from
not only the sleep, but the type of sleep
that you get from having sound enveloping
you. It's like that idea that if you live
on a busy road, the traffic sometimes sounds
like the ocean, this wash of noise –
that is, until a truck uses compression
braking and ruins the illusion. But I'm
sure you get what I mean: the sound environment
that surrounds us when we sleep impacts
strongly on the sleep we have...
