Stuart Gurden
03 Mar - 07 Apr 2012
STUART GURDEN
Early Reflections with Reverse Gate
3 March - 7 April, 2012
Transmission is delighted to present early reflections with reverse gate – a solo exhibition by Glasgow based artist Stuart Gurden. Taking its title from a mistaken description of an obscure reverberation sound effect, the exhibition presents a series of diverse and, at points, tentatively connected sources.
Installed in the main gallery space, bespoke acoustic panels cover the walls, while scripted dialogues, interrupted by altered field recordings, emit from two speaker cabinets suspended in the space – one based on the design of the Fylingdales radar station in Yorkshire, the other a cannibalized ‘Leslie’ rotating speaker cabinet.
The dialogues re-enact three edited and re-scripted textual sources – a mutual interview, of tetchily camp musings on creative ambiguity by New York School Poets John Ashbery and Kenneth Koch; an online discussion forum devoted to uncovering the specific effects and techniques used by guitarist Kevin Shields to shape and blur My Bloody Valentine’s two albums of the late ‘80s/early ‘90s; and finally a series of ‘Unwritten Rules’ plagiarised by the CEO of Raytheon, the US radar and defence company. The voices are interrupted by natural and domestic audio sources that have been altered using some of the techniques guessed at by the forum posters, creating a dense and at times low-fi soundscape that threatens to overwhelm, or undermine, the deliberations of the speakers.
The panelling is another approximation, its form largely dictated by Kurt Vonnegut’s description of a sound absorbing alien creature from his 1961 novel Sirens of Titan.
The exhibition continues downstairs with a related HD video film. Shot at the Fylingdales radar station, the imagery is filtered through a reference to the Greenham Common ‘mirror’ protest of December 1983 and an approximation of earlier experimental film techniques, while acknowledging the development of electronic sound/ image production as a byproduct of post-war military research.
Stuart Gurden (1969) lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland. Recent exhibitions include; Location: you are here Merchant City Festival, Glasgow and DCA, Dundee (2011); Sweat Lodge, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow (2010); RunningTime: Artist Films in Scotland, 1960 to now, Dean Gallery, Edinburgh (2009); The Approach Glasgow Sculpture Studios Gallery, two person show (2007); Awl-love, Peacock Visual Arts, Aberdeen, solo show (2006); Ripples On You
Early Reflections with Reverse Gate
3 March - 7 April, 2012
Transmission is delighted to present early reflections with reverse gate – a solo exhibition by Glasgow based artist Stuart Gurden. Taking its title from a mistaken description of an obscure reverberation sound effect, the exhibition presents a series of diverse and, at points, tentatively connected sources.
Installed in the main gallery space, bespoke acoustic panels cover the walls, while scripted dialogues, interrupted by altered field recordings, emit from two speaker cabinets suspended in the space – one based on the design of the Fylingdales radar station in Yorkshire, the other a cannibalized ‘Leslie’ rotating speaker cabinet.
The dialogues re-enact three edited and re-scripted textual sources – a mutual interview, of tetchily camp musings on creative ambiguity by New York School Poets John Ashbery and Kenneth Koch; an online discussion forum devoted to uncovering the specific effects and techniques used by guitarist Kevin Shields to shape and blur My Bloody Valentine’s two albums of the late ‘80s/early ‘90s; and finally a series of ‘Unwritten Rules’ plagiarised by the CEO of Raytheon, the US radar and defence company. The voices are interrupted by natural and domestic audio sources that have been altered using some of the techniques guessed at by the forum posters, creating a dense and at times low-fi soundscape that threatens to overwhelm, or undermine, the deliberations of the speakers.
The panelling is another approximation, its form largely dictated by Kurt Vonnegut’s description of a sound absorbing alien creature from his 1961 novel Sirens of Titan.
The exhibition continues downstairs with a related HD video film. Shot at the Fylingdales radar station, the imagery is filtered through a reference to the Greenham Common ‘mirror’ protest of December 1983 and an approximation of earlier experimental film techniques, while acknowledging the development of electronic sound/ image production as a byproduct of post-war military research.
Stuart Gurden (1969) lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland. Recent exhibitions include; Location: you are here Merchant City Festival, Glasgow and DCA, Dundee (2011); Sweat Lodge, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow (2010); RunningTime: Artist Films in Scotland, 1960 to now, Dean Gallery, Edinburgh (2009); The Approach Glasgow Sculpture Studios Gallery, two person show (2007); Awl-love, Peacock Visual Arts, Aberdeen, solo show (2006); Ripples On You