VISUAL RECORDINGS @ All The Shapes 11 August - 11 October

Solo exhibition on now

11th August - 11th October 2017

All The Shapes

Prestwich, Manchester

Selected prints, drawings and graphic scores with a new site-specific collage.

2015 Update: Manchester, Todmorden, Venice

A short report of what I've been doing during the last few months including a specially recorded new track, a residency and performances at Noise Above Noise and an exhibition in Venice. I have also been recording, mixing and editing a new release of experimental recordings to be released soon I will write about in a separate post.

Hoor de Vogels / Listen The Birds new recording for the opening of Fundevogel space

In April the Fundevogel space opened in Todmorden, West Yorkshire as a new DIY venue for arts and sound events. At the opening celebration there was an exhibition and concert by specially invited artists. I recorded a new piece of bird-themed sound work for the exhibition.

"A collage of sounds from a series of 18 vinyl records of various European bird sounds. Originally released in Holland and the UK for bird enthusiasts, here the records, found in a   record stall in Manchester some years ago, become a curiosity, a discovery from a time passed and a found material to inspire new compositions."

http://fundevogel.co.uk/

Noise Above Noise residency at The Penthouse, Manchester

During April 2015 I was artist in residence for the Noise Above Noise program at The Penthouse, a residency of working on new live sound works for performance. I was staying in Italy during the first few months of 2015 with a now ex-partner and flew to Manchester with a very limited set of materials from which to develop new work. These included a vibration speaker, an old pocket transistor radio and some guitar pegs.

Arrangement of objects in the studio, Noise Above Noise 2015

With my limited budget I bought a 10 metre long roll of paper and experimented with interacting with it and the kinds of sounds I could make, both with contact microphones and purely acoustic. This formed the basis of one of the live performances. I made a series of videos of experimenting with materials found around the space and on the street in Manchester including: a metal file drawer, broken digital radio and a jug full of screws.

Noise Above Noise 2015 Youtube videos playlist

Also during the residency a new series of prints were made by taking thoughts and ideas about sound that were not necessarily fully formed and then printing them letter by letter with black ink onto A3 graph paper. The process of printing them rather than just writing them down meant they became more permanent works and tangible artworks based on not particularly precious ideas.

Birdcall Print and hand-made birdcall instrument 2015

Noise Above Noise performances with Matt Dalby and Helmut Lemke


24/04 + 25/04, 2015

http://noiseabovenoise.tumblr.com/GaryFisher

"PERFORMANCE SERIES NOISE ABOVE NOISE ELEVATES MANCHESTER’S UNDERGROUND SCENE TO THE FIFTH FLOOR OF A TOWER BLOCK."- THE WIRE

NAN Residency Special flyer

Towards the end of the residency two performance events took place with myself and friends and fellow artists Helmut Lemke and Matt Dalby as Tear Fet each performing experimental solo sound works. Tear Fet made an uncompromising vocal improvisation and Helmut set up an apparently complicated contraption for listening to the sounds of the environment through the vibrations in the glass of the windows and made a visual representation of the sounds.

The first of my performances took place in The Penthouse corridor and involved the large paper roll with two contact microphones and two amplifiers. The paper was unrolled along the corridor with the audience sitting and standing along one side, it was then pulled, dragged, scratched, screwed up folded and thrown around in the corridor causing a range of small and loud, amplified and acoustic sounds. Later I made a second improvised performance using a 'scrap guitar' made from found wood, the guitar pegs, a tuna can and some strings from toy guitar bough from a charity shop. Found objects were played against the strings in a succession of sound making actions.

The second event was held at the Fundevogel space in Todmorden, West Yorkshire and was another improvisation with the scrap guitar and some electronics. A last minute decision was made to time the performance based on a recording I found in my mobile phone of a field recording made while walking in London from Elephant and Castle to the South Bank. The phone was included in the set up and parts of the recording were mixed with the rest of the improvisation as it played in real time.

EVERYTHING'S GREAT! group exhibition

Named after a ridiculously upbeat and unintentionally ironic shopping bag design this is an excellent group exhibition at The Hive- a gallery based in a commercial unit in a Rochdale shopping centre. A strangely attractive, slightly unsettling and somewhat tasteless affair (tongue firmly in cheek, of course) with a fittingly shambolic and camp opening ceremony and some excellent work from all the artists involved. I could go on and on about this exhibition. Just read this great review by Matt Dalby: santiago's dead wasp: everything's great! reviewsantiagosdeadwasp.blogspot.com 

and check out the facebook group: EVERYTHING'S GREAT!

photos from ...menu for murmur. Salford, June 2010

^Vibrating cymbal exhibit at ...menu for murmur. Sharing a suspended plinth with work by Chopshop. Chapman Gallery, Salford, June 2010. Photographed on out-of-date 35m film.

^The small cymbal on top of the speaker with the amp built into a plastic box.
Photographed by Ben Gwilliam.

More on ... menu for murmur: http://thosesoundsbetween.co.uk/projects/-menu-for-murmur/

...menu for murmur at Chapman Gallery, Salford

…menu for murmur

Curators: Ben Gwilliam,  Helmut Lemke

Tuesday 1 June – Friday 25 June

Performance: Saturday 5 June, 5.00 – 7.00pm


A menu, tables but no food… instead tables laid with objects producing sound.

…menu for murmur is an experiment that will show new and exciting Sound Work, which acknowledges the subtle interactions of different sound work and highlights trust between artists.

As many regulars of sound art will attest, the presentation of such work in group exhibitions can be problematic due to the very nature of noise itself; its ever-penetrating, omni-directional nature resulting in unintentionally overlapping sounds. Rather than viewing the overlapping of noises as a disturbance, …menu for murmur takes such sound bleed as its central concern.

Curators Ben Gwilliam and Helmut Lemke have invited international sound artists to contribute individual pieces that will stand on their own but will also create a new collaborative piece …menu for murmur. The sound objects, which include electorinic devices, rulers and even a desk fan, will consciously be arranged in one space far and near.

Sounds will be heard simultaneously, individually and in collaboration; close listening events as well as more cacophonous ones will emerge throughout the duration of the exhibition, considered by Gwilliam and Lemke to be one continuous performance.


Helmut said: “We have 26 artists from all over the world who are contributing to this exhibition. They’ve had to put a lot of trust in us to create a meaningful piece using their individual creations, but we’ve come up with a truly diverse and interactive piece of work which combines visual and audio art.

Recording of Amplified Floorboard.

Amplified Floorboard by Gary Fisher


A recording of the Amplified Floorboard installation -direct from the contact mic- on the last day of the exhibition.

April 23, 2010.

Amplified Floorboard exhibit at Kraak Gallery, Manchester.


"A site-specific installation that explores sound through the amplification of surfaces, textures and surroundings in the gallery space. Part of the gallery floor is amplified to draw attention to the vibrations and sounds created when visitors walk across a specific part of the space. The sound is relayed to a speaker placed away from the source meaning the result is dislocated from it's origin." (from statement in exhibition catalogue)



In appearance this is my most minimal exhibition work to date: an amplifier at one side of the room and a speaker on the other. Underneath a contact mic attached to the underside of the wooden floor with the wire going underneath to an amplifier sat on the floor with avery long wire going along the gaps in the floorboards to the other side of the room. The hand-built contact mic was quite sensitive and picked up sound from other floorboards around the one with the mic attached meaning more quiet sounds could be heard by not stepping directly onto that specific floorboard. It was not obvious to most visitors which was the amplified floorboard and some didn't realise where the sound from the speaker originated or what it was. Some fun was had on the opening night watching people interact with the work noticing that when they stepped on a certain part of the floor it made a noise, some people started dancing to create rhythmic sounds while others traced the wire back from the speaker to the amplifier to try to discover the source of the sound.

Upcoming group show in Manchester.

From kraak.co.uk

Lost Language juxtaposes themes of loss, fear and disgust with visions of beauty, transcendence and spirituality. Cutting edge media and practice is juxtaposed with time old concepts and concerns. Lost Language raises questions about femininity and masculinity through material and concept: outmoded machines with crocheted acrylic, organic matter with video, digitalism with spirituality.

The inspiration for the Lost Language came from Julia Kristeva’s bookPowers of Horror which investigates the roots of our sense of the ‘abject’, our fascination with it and what it means to us. The key theme in the book is around the concept of ambiguity. Ambiguity frightens us: when we think we know something or someone and we find we have been deceived or misguided we doubt our senses. If we become too afraid of ambiguity it can be stifling to creativity and to our fascination with the unknown in general. The rediscovery of horror and therefore ambiguity, according to Kristeva, brings us closer to our pre-historic selves who were not so bound to oppressive patriarchal systems.

Workshops and performances will be held on 17th and 18th April with artists including Matt Dalby, Graham Dunning and Gary Fisher.

Contact Louise 07958 050 730, louwoodcock@hotmail.co.uk to book workshop places or for more details