clog: The Sound Playground

Friday, 28 January 2011

The Sound Playground

Video footage of performances from The Sound Playground, a BUS Projects x Craft Victoria exhibition in 2010.

Featuring commissioned work by Rowan McNaught, Ros Bandt & Albert Mishriki, Rod Cooper and Emma Lashmar and performances by Sam Szoke-Burke, Nicholas Jones (artist / sculptor) and Adam Sherry (A Dead Forest Index).

Curated by Amelia Douglas and Nella Themelios.

Tuesday, 20 July 2010

The Sound Playground

The Sound Playground was an exhibition and performance series co-curated by Amelia Douglas (Bus Projects) and Nella Themelios (Craft Victoria) as part of Liquid Architecture Festival of Sound Arts 2010. Taking place at fortyfivedownstairs between 6-17 July, The Sound Playground explored the unique relationship between craft and sound.

The Sound Playground featured newly commissioned experimental instruments, sound sculptures and sonic installations by Ros Bandt & Albert Mishriki, Rod Cooper, Emma Lashmar and Rowan McNaught. Many of the works were interactive and available for visitors to play during the exhibition, and the entire show was also performed live in a series special concerts in the gallery by the artists and special guests Nicholas Jones, Adam Sherry (A Dead Forest Index) and Sam Szoke-Burke.

Rod Cooper presented a new series of ‘sonic portraits’ in which donated items of clothing cast in plaster became the armature for the aural conjuring of well-known personalities in the Australian sound scene. Emma Lashmar's room-sized string instrument with hand-blown glass components was designed to be bowed and plucked. Ros Bandt and Albert Mishriki's original music box grotto placed the focus on disguise and gesture in the construction of sound, whilst Rowan McNaught’s interactive Manifon offered a new take on an ancient instrument.

The Sound Playground was co-presented by Craft Victoria and Bus Projects, and generously supported by the City of Melbourne.

To read the accompanying exhibition essay, click here.