Etched X-Rays; Salvaged CDs & Slow Swells - An Instantaneous Sound Writing Event: Pt 2+3

Event information

Residency/Performance
Etched X-Rays; Salvaged CDs and Slow Swells - An Instantaneous Sound Writing Event in Three Parts:
Aleks Kolkowski + Richard Thomas + Richard Crow + Dawn Scarfe
SUNDAY 08 July | noon-4pm and 6-8pm

Throughout the day, Aleks Kolkowski - with a cohort of artist/musician collaborators - will concentrate on the creation of three very special releases, each a limited edition of one-of-a-kind records, and each on repurposed and/or unusual media:

One of repurposed CDs transformed, together with Richard Thomas, into 45rpm records playable on a turntable; another being recordings cut directly onto x-ray film with Richard Crow. A further collaboration sees Aleks and Dawn Scarfe etching grooves onto glass discs.

CD-45rpm releases are £10 each (limited edition of 100)* while x-ray and glass records are priced individually. All will be available in store throughout the duration of the SOUND//SPACE Record Store. *CD-45rpm releases will be sold at a special reduced price of £7 to those with tickets.

Residency
Salvaged CDs
SUNDAY 08 July | 12:00-4pm (drop-in) | SOUND//SPACE Project Space
Part I: £3 (£5 door)
Tickets: wegottickets.com/event/168332 and at door

Part I: noon-4pm (drop-in):
Aleks Kolkowski and Richard Thomas will in essence turn our Project Space into a 'live' recording and duplication studio by making a series of one-of-a-kind recordings cut directly onto unwanted CDs whilst in situ at the space. The public is very welcome to watch the progress of this transmogrification in real time.
For a meagre entrance fee, watch a record magic up from the aether and onto old and unwanted CDs. If you wish to purchase the record you saw come to into being, you may redeem your entrance fee as a discount on its cost. The remaining releases made during this residency (limited release of 100) will be available for purchase in-store for £10.
There will follow a break for refreshment. You are cordially invited to return by 6pm for the concluding part of the project (another ticket is needed).

Performance
Etched X-Rays
SUNDAY 08 July | 6-8pm (three sets at: 6pm; 6:45pm; 7:30pm) | SOUND//SPACE Project Space
Part II: £7 per set (£9 door)
Tickets: wegottickets.com/event/168334 and at door

Part II: 6pm:
'Slow Swells' documents the ethereal sound of the
armonica: an antiquated acoustic instrument that consists of a series
of tuned glass bowls attached to a spindle. It was invented by
Benjamin Franklin in 1761, and is played by touching the rims of the
rotating glasses with moistened fingers.

Reflecting on the character of sound produced by the instrument,
Franklin remarked that its "plaintive" tones could be "swelled or
softened at pleasure by stronger or weaker pressures of the finger,
and continued to any length" (Franklin, 1819, 147). His wife Deborah
Read Franklin apparently mistook the sound of the armonica for the
music of angels (Sargent, 1857, 30).

'Slow Swells' results from a series of improvisations Dawn played on
the armonica in February 2012. The recording was made at Benjamin
Franklin House in Craven Street, London where the instrument was
originally invented and recorded by Aleks Kolkowski onto wax cylinders.

For this event, Aleks and Dawn will transfer the wax recordings by etching the sounds as a spiral grooves on 10" glass discs and played back on an antique wind-up gramophone.

Part III: 6:45pm; and 7:30pm:
Together with Richard Crow, Aleks invites you to the second part of today's residency - a performance inspired by the "bone records" of the Soviet Union and Eastern Block in the 1950s (N.B. underground music was cut directly onto x-ray film during times of censorship, and when other materials were scarce.)

In the intimate confines of the SOUND//SPACE project space, you will be party to the surreal experience of records being cut directly from x-ray film with myriad internal, microscopic and hidden sounds derived from the performers' bodies, pre-recorded sounds and the environment in which they are situated.

NOTA BENE Due to the nature of this performance, audience numbers will be limited, hence we are splitting the session into three. Book early to avoid disappointment. Please email: listening[at]sound-space-store.co.uk with your preferred time after you have booked your ticket.

Artists Biographies: Aleks Kolkowski is currently the Supersonix sound artist-in-residence at the Science Museum, London, where he is creating performances and installations based on his research of the collections and recordings made within the museum.
In recent years Aleks has explored the potential of historical sound recording and reproduction technology to make contemporary mechanical-acoustic music. His works for singers, instrumentalists and even singing canaries often feature live-made sound inscriptions onto wax cylinders and lacquer discs using Edison phonographs and old disc recording lathes. Other activities include repurposing discarded digital CDs as 45rpm analogue records and both sound installations and performances where historic sound reproducing machines, mechanical musical instruments and archival recordings are combined with state-of-the-art electronics. Such practice-led research using antiquated audio technologies and investigations into little-known forms of mechanical amplification led to the award of a PhD from Brunel University. His major project to date has been an archive of contemporary musicians, artists and writers recorded exclusively on wax cylinders. Begun in 2006 and continuing,!
the entire Phonographies collection may be listened to online.

Richard Thomas is an artist/producer working within community radio. Thomas is the News Editor and Content Manager for Resonance 104.4fm. Between 1995 and 2002 Thomas worked ostensibly within sound and music as a producer, composer, performer for various record labels and other media. Thomas collaborates with the architectural practise Nicky Kirk Architects (formerly Amenity Space) and many other artists and musicians. Thomas has taught at The School of Oriental and African Studies , Leeds Metropolitan University, London Metropolitan University, Guildhall School of Music & Drama and Middlesex University. He has presented broadcasts, talks, and papers at the BBC, Russia Today, KBS (Korea), The Guardian, Tate Modern, London International Documentary Festival,Transmediale 2010 (Berlin), Pallazzo delle arti Napoli/PAN, Zurich University of the Arts, WUK Vienna. In 2010 Thomas hosted two live daily TV chat shows at Frieze Art Fair for ResoVision (Resonance FM's experime!
ntal television channel). Thomas occasionally writes film and art criticism (Art Monthly, Electric Sheep Magazine). He has presented/performed/exhibited in various spaces including Tate Britain, Flat Time House, The Anti-Design Festival 2010, The 291 Gallery, Transmission Gallery, the Royal College of Art, Paul Smith, Raven Row."
Resonance 104.4FM http://www.resonancefm.com

Dawn Scarfe uses site-specific installation, performance and field recording to ask us to re-think our impressions of our surroundings. She works with delicate materials such as resonating glass sculptures and small loudspeakers. Individual parts of her works are encouraged to respond to each other or enter into a dialogue with their environment.

Recent exhibitions include Klinkende Stad Kortrijk, ZKM Karlsruhe, Q-O2 Brussels, ARTe SONoro Madrid, TONSPUR Museumsquartier Vienna, Bios Athens and 176 Zabludowicz Collection London.
www.dawnscarfe.co.uk

Richard Crow is an inter-disciplinary artist working in the field of experimental audio research and live performance. He utilises sound and noise in a performative way, for its disruptive and subjective qualities and above all for its psycho-physical implications for the listener and viewer. Over the past two decades his solo and collaborative site-specific installations and performances have consisted of highly conceptualized interventions into base materiality, investigations of alternative systems of organisation and research into a certain material decadence, most notably with the project The Institution of Rot which he co-founded with the writer Nick Couldry in 1992.
phonographies.org
soundthreshold.org/season2_session3.htm

NOTA BENE Releases made on site by the performers will be available in-store!