The Sainsbury Centre Young Associtates
put out a call for artists to propose work for
an alternative audio guide and selected 18
artists to take part in the project.
The artists created a sound work in response to
an object, or group of objects in the collection
or an aspect of the Sainsbury Centre.
To download the guide, please visit:
scva.ac.uk/education-research/projects
1. BARNABY ANDREWS & CHRIS ASTWOOD
Play the Player
6 minutes
Our first piece uses an augmented 3d model (constructed
from photos) of Ossip Zadkine’s the accordion player into
an instrument. By rotating the model and shining a light
at it I was able to extract values representing the height
of the model as it rotates around a central cross heir this
values were then converted to midi notes and sent to one
of two synthesisers. The piece was then recorded live
as I tweaked the parameters of the newly augmented
instrument. The pure data patch used to convert the
model into midi notes is shown below as well as a snap of
it all in action during some testing.
The Egotistic Wood Block
4 minutes 18 seconds
The second piece we made is inspired and attributable
to the carved wooden head, we​ began by using a 3D
model as an aid in imagining and representing sonically
the object not as an inherently rounded head but as a tree
becoming a square or square-like block of wood that then
becomes round and realized, before being left in its glass
case ad infinitum. We told this story using music production
software to craft an instrumental track using mostly found
sounds collected with a field recorder combined with a
software samplers and a single synthesiser. After work
on the track was completed, we discussed possible vocal
additions that could be made and agreed on a general
theme and progression that a related poetry piece could
take. Vocals were laid the next day over the course of
three takes, and the track was then mastered.
2. DARA ARAD & JACK RICE
Untitled
2 minutes 24 seconds
Appropriated environments. The breath of an experience
is transposed to a new context, illuminating hidden
personal perspectives whilst commenting on the visible,
problematic aspects of the Sainsbury collection. We walk
in tandem with a dual consciousness: anxious present
and obfuscated memory.
3. KIRSTIN BICKER
150
1 minute 50 seconds
Georgie will do it
1 minute 50 seconds
Teaboy
1 minute 16 seconds
Taking inspiration from the feminist artist Mierle Laderman
Ukeles and her Maintenance Art works, Bicker has
explored the activities of the cleaning and maintenance
staff of the Sainsbury’s centre. Her intention is to challenge
the otherwise overlooked aspects of social production,
and questions the hierarchies of different forms of work,
especially housework and everyday labour. Bicker aims to
make the private public. The permanent collection started
in the home, a domestic space. The work brings to light
these otherwise unnoticed aspects.
4. JIM CUTLER & NICOLE HUDSON
In Conversation
3 minutes 55 seconds
Playfully adapting the traditional format of an audio guide,
the piece subjectively looks at the life of the artifacts from
a personal perspective, recounting their most present
histories whilst light heartedly referencing their (sometimes
lurid) past. With origins spread across the globe, and some
figurines having their histories linked to rituals such as
human sacrifice, the figurines recount through the audio
guide, their placid retirement at the Sainsbury’s Centre.
Created using live recorded interviews with the general
public, the piece is a nod towards the animated Aardman
series, Creature Comforts.
5. JAMES HASSALL & HENRY JACKSON NEWCOMB
Memory, The Monument
15 minutes 28 seconds
Memory, The Monument is an aural interpretation of
Thomas Houseago’s Helmet/Mask II. It takes the form of
a monologue, delivered ostensibly by the sculpted head
itself, ruminating on themes of death, history and identity.
The audio piece is to be considered a translation of
Houseago’s sculpture into sound. It does not merely use
the artwork as a springboard to construct an independent
narrative, but seeks to closely map the sculpture’s aesthetic
qualities, aspects of Houseago’s working method, and the
web of references and influences that are evident in the
artwork’s surface, into sound.
6. MICHAEL JAMES LEWIS & MATTHEW PARKER
Reflections on Collection
8 minutes 16 seconds
Our audio guide is a response to the spatial and temporal
conditions of the collection. We approached the objects as
a group rather than as individual items in order to consider
their collective value and general relationships. The guide
attempts to focus the participant on discrete elements of
experience as well as the broader cultural context of this
grouping of items and the conditions of their presentation.
7. ISABELLA MARTIN
Firsthand
14 minutes 45 seconds
11. CICELY RYDER-BELSON
Collecting Conversations
1 minute 43 seconds
Firsthand is a walk through the Collection, momentarily
disregarding the glass cases, to take the objects in mind
- and thereby in hand. Together we can navigate this
space, using echoes cast by the objects, to offer up the
references, metaphors and connections of this moment.
Although the SCVA is a very familiar environment, when
I visited the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection with
an intention to respond to it, I realised how easily it is to
overlook the reality of what it is. Foremost it’s two people’s
collection collated over a lifetime. I wanted my piece to
identify with the collectors behind the objects through
engaging in conversations with people who host their
own collections, creating a dialogue not about the objects
themselves but about the significance of them together.
8. JAMES MIDGLEY
Baby Carrier Adorned with Eyes
1 minute 53 seconds
My piece is a poem based on the Dayak Baby Carrier,
entitled ‘Baby Carrier Adorned with Eyes’. The poem’s
themes centre around ideas of social encounter, of the
body as shell, of transitions between interior and exterior
dimensions and accompanying world views. Birth is
also a prominent theme – here subverted into that of
consciousness birthed into the body. There is also an
undercurrent of the apotropaic – features, such as the
eyes on the object itself, used to “avert the evil eye”.
9. MIKE PAGE
Still here right now
2 minutes 8 seconds
An attempted reading that ignores the vessels history
and focuses on its physicality in the present moment.
A feedback loop (tempered by physical interaction and
filtering) generates the natural resonant frequency of an
analogous vessel.
10. CHARLOTTE REEVE
Materiality
18 minutes 33 seconds
Materiality is an audio walk of the entirety of the Sainsbury
Centre permanent collection. It explores the sounds
created by interacting with typical materials from key
geographical locations in the collection. The piece is a
continuous stream and it is not dictated to the listener
which order these locations are presented. It is up to the
listener to think about the physicality of the objects: what
they are made from and what they would be like to touch
in order for them to follow the route accurately.
In a museum setting, objects displayed are traditionally
sealed off from the audience, as a result the audience’s
understanding of the object displayed can be lost as they
have no sense of the physicality of it. It is possible to
grasp the context of the object and it’s cultural importance
from a description or a recognisible aesthetic signature,
however, to feel a connection to the piece as a once
functional, touchable object is something which can be
missing.
Visitors to the collection will hopefully be able to gain a
more rounded understanding of the object as a physical
piece which once had a practical application through
listening to what these materials sound like when being
interacted with.
12. LUKE SANGER
Gallery Acoustics
5 minutes 4 seconds
This piece explores the inner mechanics and hidden
corridors of The Sainsburys Centre building.
When entering a gallery, one adapts to the silent
space. Quiet becomes deafening, insignificant appears
monumental.
All sound sources used in the piece are captured from
the building itself (and the lake outside), using a variety
of microphones including contact mics, shotguns,
hydrophones and omni-directional condensers.
Various digital signal processing techniques were applied
in post-production, to warp and change the sonic footprint
of each sound as it manifests in time, resulting in a
spectromorphological analysis of the futuristic building.
Some sounds to look out for include: Loading bay, extractor
fan, metal shutter door, air conditioning, whistling room,
corridors, gallery ambience, passenger lift.
13. AURORA WADIWATI
Step
3 minutes 12 seconds
Step, inspired by the painting Walking Man No.3 by Charles
Maussion, is based on the thoughts of a morning walk from
the bustle of city life into the calm of one’s own imagination.
The prose is centred on the fact that everything depends
on perspective, and one only has to find light in order to
find themselves. Surrounded by atmospheric noises that
mimic those of everyday life such as footsteps, the track is
designed to be soothing and evoke thought.
This project was devised and delivered by the
Sainsbury Centre Young Associates:
Katerina Artemiou
Izzy Emberson
Ruth Law
Jade Jamean Lees
Tom Little
Hester McLean
Issy Mitchell
AUDIO TOUR KEY
SAINSBURY CENTRE
Sound pieces responding to aspects of the Sainsbury Centre:
2. Dara Arad & Jack Rice
3. Kirstin Bicker
6. Michael James Lewis & Matthew Parker
10. Charlotte Reeve
12. Luke Sanger
LIVING AREA
Sound pieces responding to objects in the Living Area are marked on the map on the front page:
1. Barnaby Andrews & Chris Astwood
5. Jim Cutler & Nicole Hudson
8. James Midgley
11. Cicely Ryder-Belson
13. Aurora Widawati
EAST END GALLERY
Sound pieces responding to objects in the East End Gallery are marked on the map on this page:
4. James Hassall & Henry Jackson Newcomb
7. Isabella Martin
9. Mike Page
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SCVA
RESONANCE
YOUNG ASSOCIATES AUDIO PROJECT GUIDE
ARTISTS INCLUDE:
BARNABY ANDREWS & CHRIS ASTWOOD / DARA ARAD & JACK RICE / KIRSTIN
BICKER / JIM CUTLER & NICOLE HUDSON / JAMES HASSALL & HENRY JACKSON
NEWCOMB / MICHEAL JAMES LEWIS & MATTHEW PARKER / ISABELLA MARTIN
JAMES MIDGLEY / MIKE PAGE / CHARLOTTE REEVE / CICELY RYDER-BELSON
LUKE SANGER / AURORA WADIWATI