The A Word

Ellen Moffat’s installation – or more exactly, her latest experiment in interactivity – at PAVED arts indicates why artists who work with audio here in Saskatchewan are getting national attention (Jeff Morton or Erin Gee, both involved with Holophon, out of Regina, to offer further examples).

PAVED has offered a number of shows over the past year or so that explore just what audio art is, or can be, and sometimes these have worked brilliantly, and there have also been some brilliant (if very enjoyable) failures. Thomas Bégin’s almost low tech “Larsen Surf Model Mixing Plan” (with enough electric guitars to please any teenage wanna be rockstar boy, and with the decidedly un “artist” assertion by Begin that he wouldn’t really sell the installation, just the list of components so you can build your own version) and Annie Martin’s bare, stark gallery that, if you closed your eyes, would make you think you were standing in the midst of 20^th street are two examples. Moffat’s PickUpPutDown opened with performances by herself and Jeff Morton and David Grosse, at the three “stations” in the gallery, with various tools and instruments that push what is – and what can be – a musical instrument. Or, to paraphrase Moffat from a previous conversation, objects are often extraneous to her practice, or more exactly, are a means to an end.

Ellen’s words on it are as follows:

“PickUpPutDown is an interaction in and with an architectural space as a base form for an experimental sound project. Saskatoon media artist Ellen Moffat will attach instrument wire and sound materials directly onto surfaces and features of the PAVED Arts gallery space using the walls as ad hoc soundboards. Sound within this environment is amplified with contact microphones. Visitors are invited to engage with various objects and materials through direct actions and improvisation as an intuitive exploration of sound making and listening. The subtlety, repetition and distribution of the sounds will draw attention to their character and relate to the space of the gallery as a sound chamber. This project includes in situ production, installation and performance.”

One of the instruments is a saw that has it’s blade replaced with wire, another is a knitting needle where you can use either the point or the padded end  – there are a number of other tools that are also padded or sponged, to be used on the wall or on the wood elements, or other industrial components, such as the metal bar that comprises most of one of the instruments (a sign in the space asks for gentleness from the “players”). A personal favourite of mine is a segment of another station with a contact mic attached to the wall, partly because the evening of the performance Moffat tapped on the wall with her fingers, and that repeated at irregular intervals from different sites in the room. Speakers sit higher up in the gallery, so that the audio seems to permeate you – the work is less about objects than about creating an environment, and the performance with Morton and Grosse was about each exploring aspects of their “instruments” and “tools” but also about interacting with each other – a necessity as the sounds generated did not stay in a specific site, but moved about the space, with the aforementioned contact mics and speakers and how the sound takes on a nearly physical quality as it moves around, in and through you. Some of the audio is reminiscent of that which you would hear in any movie, with its sharpness or almost tactile nature that may make you tense, or alert – a kind of “ghost in the machine”, but also suggesting that the space is alive. This is similar to how Martin brought the outside inside, or how Bégin’s work may have seemed to be done, or quiet, and then would suddenly give you more “feedback” or further permutations on the original sounds made by the gallery goer.

I’m somewhat enamoured of this work: and I’ve stated before that one of the strong streams of contemporary art is the exploration of pure aesthetics, without a specific social aspect (Ad Reinhardt’s black on black works of the last century are fine examples of this, seduction through technique and beauty). And I like to go to PAVED at intervals and “play” with the work at any opportunity, and encourage the same in the brief window that Ellen Moffat has turned PAVED’s gallery space into a “concert hall” as well as a “jam space”.